[fertilepress]

from twilight to breaking dawn...

The countdown is almost over. The dawn will break very soon. Where will you be at Midnight on Friday?

Get this widget!

I know where I'll be!

later...

more CHA highlights

The most exciting booth for digital scrapbookers at the show was the Scrapblog booth. Here's a short video I took with my new Flip camera. I hope you find it interesting. And remember, I'm new at this videography business!

Are you using Scrapblog today? If so, let me know what you think of it!

later...

a dollar short?

What's that old saying? A day late and a dollar short.

Well, I'm more than a week late with my CHA photos. The reason? Because I've been trying to figure out iMovie. I didn't just want to throw up a handful of OK pictures. I wanted to give you a show!

So let's just call this a look back at CHA...beginning with our arrrival last Thursday. If the video doesn't start automatically, click the play arrow.

As usual, Kent is much better at posting than I am. So go to his blog to see even more pics!

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what goes on at my house...

Here's something I bet you didn't know. We have a complete music studio in our basement. We built it out for our son when he was still at home. Matt's a music producer and on his own now, but when he's not working on an album with a name artist, he uses his studio in our home to work on his own projects.

Lately, he's hooked up with some very talented guys and they're all on a major creative roll. Here's a peek at what's been going on in my basement every night for about two weeks now. My son (Matty P.) is the guy at the console making all the music happen. The guest artist is Lloyd.

*Warning: Just a head's up that some of the lyrics are slightly raw. But the overall message is very, very cool.

   

And there ya have it...what goes on at my house. Oh! And to hear more of Right Side of the Tree, check out their YouTube page.

later...

font playing card deck

A long time ago I contributed to a couple of artist's collaborative card decks...one of which included work by Nick Bantock. I still love those decks and fondly remember the fun I had designing my cards.

Today I received an email from one of my favorite font foundries, P22, letting me know they were selling a limited edition collaborative deck based on their fonts. Of course I immediately checked it out and it's very cool.

   

 

The deck is free with a $100 font purchase or sells for $10 plus shipping and handling. You can view the entire deck in their interactive window.

later...

goodbye tim russert. i'll miss you.

Being the political junkie I am, I was shocked and dismayed by Tim Russert's sudden death last Friday. His voice was the one I always relied on to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in Washington. For me, "If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press." Sunday mornings won't be same without him.

 

sadly...

just when you think there's nothing new

Take that classic typeface Bookman...

Bookman or Bookman Old Style is a serif typeface derived from Old Style Antique designed by Alexander Phemister in 1858 for Miller and Richard foundry. Several American foundries copied the design, including the Bruce Type Foundry, and issued it under various names. In 1901, Bruce refitted their design, made a few other improvements, and rechristened it Bartlett Oldstyle. When Bruce was taken over by ATF shortly thereafter, they changed the name to Bookman Oldstyle.⁽¹⁾

Then, in 1976, along came Ed Benguiat who designed a revival of Bookman for the ITC foundry.

Benguiat developed a full family of four weights plus complementary cursive designs. Benguiat also drew a suite of swash and alternate characters for each of the members of the family. This version adds a large x-height and moderate stroke contrast to improve legibility.⁽¹⁾

ITC Bookman was a lovely rendition, but when digital replaced photo typesetting, the special characters and swashes Benguiat had designed were omitted due to the limitations of early font technologies. But designers had learned to live without them and ITC Bookman still remained a staple in their collections. In 1976, ITC relaunched Bookman. This new release included all of Benguat's original swash and alternate characters. And if that wasn't enough, they totally refurbished the typeface family.

 

Why is Bookman on my mind this morning? Because I received an email from FontShop this morning announcing the availability of Bookman font in OpenType. Hmmm... I think it's time for me to take another look at Bookman.

later...

p.s. We just returned from Las Vegas last night. Check out Kent's blog to read about our trip.

⁽¹⁾ From Wikipedia

caring with color

Ever heard of careware? Not shareware or freeware. Careware. At the Koloroo site you can download free color scheme softwa. But there's one small thing you need to do.

Careware is free Koloroo software … with one tiny catch — before you download it, you must agree to do something nice for someone. And it doesn’t matter how big or small your act of kindness is.

I love it!

Unfortunately, the software only runs on Windows right now. But a Mac OS version is in the works.

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for mac users only...

Apologies to all my PC friends, but this post is about two great (and affordable) applications I've discovered for the Mac.

First up is Pixelmator, which bills itself as "Image editing for the rest of us."

This could be a great image editing and digital scrapbooking tool for Mac users. And the price is totally reasonable at $59. There's a free trial available at the Pixelmator website. I'll post my impressions once I've had a chance to play with this tool. For now, it looks comprehensive with layers, brushes, filters and even Curves. One thing's for sure...it's gorgeous!

The other cool tool I've discovered is Picturesque. Picturesque describes itself as "a simple app with a simple goal: to make images more beautiful."

Another image editor, this tool's focus is cool effects for your photos. Think 3D perspective and reflections and a lot of other effects...all for $34.95. I'll let you know what I think about this one, too! There's a demo download for Picturesque, too.

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a couple of simple thoughts on color...

Marc Chagall wrote,

"All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites."

I found this quote especially engaging because it communicates, in very simple terms, two basic color relationship concepts...analogous (neighbors) and complementary (opposites).

                  

Above diagrams from All Web Design Resources.

One last thought from Joseph Albers, who literally wrote the book on color...

"If one says 'red' and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that these reds will be different."

later...

i think this is so cool!

Have you ever seen anything like this? It's rare when you find something totally original. I was blown away when I saw it for the first time yesterday.

Unlike many other music animations, the music drives the animation. Other animations animate figures or characters to the music, while the animations here are created first, then will follow and play what the music tells them to play. 'Solo cams' in the Animusic DVD shows how each instrument actually plays through a piece of music from the beginning to end.

While we're on the subject of interesting music...

Remember this plea from a couple of months ago for help identifying the music in the Mercedes-Benz commercial? Well, the good news is that I tracked down the source of the music. The bad news is that it's only a 60-second music clip created exclusively for the commercial. That means it's not available for download or purchase. Too bad. I really like that music.

later...

easy black and white conversion...really!

Okay, here's a tip I learned at Photoshop World a couple of weeks ago. It was part of a workshop taught by Scott Kelby...the grand poobah of all things Photoshop Down & Dirty. I couldn't wait to get home and try it for myself. Here's the tip along with my results. (The steps and screenshots below were captured in Photoshop CS3, but they work just as well for Photoshop Elements 6.0.)

Converting Color Photos to Black & White

• Open a color photo and make sure the Foreground and Background color boxes are set to black and white.

• Click the Create new fill or adjustment layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette. (It's at the top of the palette in PSE 6.) Select Gradient Map.

• The Gradient Map dialog will open. Check the Dither option to avoid banding. Then, click anywhere inside the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor.

 

• Now you need to choose a shade of gray for the midtones in your photo. In the Gradient Editor, click once in the center just below the gradient bar to establish a color stop.

 

• It defaults to the black that was located at that stop in the gradient. Here's what your photo will look like at this point because Photoshop thinks you want to use this color for your midtones.

 

• All you need to do is adjust the color of the stop to a shade of gray to correct the midtones in your photo. To do that, double-click the color stop you added to open the Color Picker. Now, just choose an appropriate shade of gray. You can see the effects of different shades of gray as you choose them. Just watch the image.

 

• When you're satisfied, close all the dialogs by clicking OK in each one.

• If you want to adjust the image, just double-click the Gradient Map icon in the Layers palette.

And that's it! Here's my converted photo!

Cool, huh? Thanks, Scott, for sharing your tips!

later...

today's thought and other stuff...

Thought for the day...

One must desire to be free of desire to be free.
                             ~ Sister Louisa

Listening to now...

Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson

Discovered this amazing guitarist thanks to Guitar Hero III.

Next posts...pics from Donna Downey's Inspired Event last weekend. What a blast! Also, some tips I picked up at Photoshop World.

later...

what i learned at photoshop world!

I'm back from one of the most exhilirating, educational and inspiring conferences I've ever attended! Photoshop World was a blast.

In keeping with the title of this post, here are the top five things I learned at Photoshop World:

1. A few quick and easy techniques for selecting hair in photographs.
2. A better way to use (and also explain) that fear-inducing feature called Curves in Photoshop.
3. The fastest way to convert a color image to black and white without losing contrast.
4. How to create a realistic duct tape image.
5. A quick and easy way to create that reflection technique that's all the rage in advertising.

I'm sure these techniques and more will show up in my designs, classes and this blog in the near future. But the biggest lesson I learned wasn't a lesson but a reminder. Even after over 10 years of being a Photoshop user, there's always something new to learn about creative ways to use this amazing tool. And that's why I love it so much!

I think the best part of the conference, though, was catching up with old friends Lesa Snider-King, Ben Willmore and Terry White. Scott Kelby, who not only teaches but hosts the event, even had a few seconds to say hi! Yeah, I'm dropping names. But there's no shame in my game when it comes to these luminaries! Not only are they Photoshop wizards...they're really nice people, too! 

All-in-all, I'd have to say last week was a great week!

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photoshop world...wheeeee!

I'm learnin' from the masters this week at Photoshop World..."The World's Largest Photoshop Convention." Three days of Photoshop immersion. Am I a lucky girl or what?

There are so many classes and not enough time to take them all, of course. So you really have to pick and choose. (Today I took "How'd They Do That?" with Felix Nelson and "Get Smart with Photoshop" from Dave Cross.) But not to despair. I received a phone book sized workbook with the handouts for every single class, including screenshots. Now that's a great deal.

Plus, there's a very busy exhibitor area where you can purchase tons of Photoshop related products...books, DVDs, plugins, accessories!

Can you tell I'm having a blast?

later...

p.s. - Thanks to everyone who wrote to offer get well wishes. I really appreciate it. I'm not completely over the nasty bug, but definitely on the mend. Thanks!