With YORGOO becoming a limited company and soon celebrating a renaissance in a completely new shape – adapted to modern… meaning mobile times – a whole new branding has to be developed. As we work in collaboration – not competition – on this topic together as a team, here are a few of my own first YORGOO Logo Design Ideas with an emphasis on the name itself with an elegant touch and a lying 8, the sign of infinity.

A simple little favicon in 16 x 16 px could look like this, both developed directly from the logo:

YORGOO Logo Design Ideas

Strict rules in terms of the colour scheme – black, white, greys and red only – have been observed in these first YORGOO Logo Design Ideas, whereas the choice of fonts was entirely free. Obviously, this is very much a matter of personal taste, but we have to ensure that these fonts display perfectly both online and in printed matter.

In the above variant I chose a combination of black and very dark grey, perhaps not easily distinguishable here, or perhaps I’m going blind :). The same below, with a tick of red… but not necessary.

…and a totally different feel – I just had to do this and I could go wilder:

How to create a Logo

There are many ways to learn how to create a logo… and it shows if you’re ‘in the zone’ and having fun when doing so! It’s just the beginning that’s hard, when an idea wants to be born and projected into our physical plane!

So just get started with an idea and play and experiment around it!

That’s how I got to the cute little elephant above… right from the word “YORGOO”… in a different font and shape, also playing with RGB colours (as YORGOO stands for “Media Marketing Publishing”) :

…and also integrating our slogan “Together We Are Unbeatable” – which will appear as a fine red line, depending on the size of the logo:

You see: I got started and experimented… and this is how this totally ‘out-of-the-box’ logo developed. A really original and interesting idea… but we won’t stop there, but just continue to improve!

Although everything needs definition and detail work, this logo appears well as a little favicon:

Well, elephants always make their mark; I’ve grown up with them in Namibia, they truly blow you away :)

There are tons of informative articles on the web teaching you what to observe when creating a logo. It is essentially a process where you start with first sketches as I did here (although I do idea scribbles by hand first esp. if not working with a focus on fonts directly), and you add, change, adapt, and produce massively for your dustbin (or delete button) until you just know you’ve got it!

Show it around, ask others what they like or don’t like, and keep going until you are happy – or your client is! Logo development is a highly paid profession – just think of Apple, Coca Cola and IBM for example. And if you look where Apple started and into what the famous logo evolved this process can even take decades!

We won’t have that long, but at least this is a beginning! Hang in there for more to come…

A Noordhoek Sunset with Agapanthus that could well go into my series “Good Evening from Noordhoek”!

Noordhoek Sunset with Agapanthus

On this digital photo “Noordhoek Sunset with Agapanthus” we clearly see the setting sun moving back behind the mountain – Chapman’s Peak – to the right. As from mid February until mid November we don’t see the sun setting directly in the Atlantic Ocean anymore; hence we really cherish the special time when it honours us with its spectacular daily drama!

This picture was taken from my garden a few days ago, and I tested a new filter in Adobe Photoshop…

With the absolute ‘apps mania’ driving, overrolling and haunting today’s digital world, there is no way around the application software that will sooner or later have us say good-bye to Internet browsers. Accordingly, the first YCADEMY Seminar January 2013 focuses on “How to create Apps” and future seminars and workshops for the first half of the year are clearly lined out.  I call it the “Power of Apps” – and it needs our power of the mind. And not only that!

How to create Apps

“How to create Apps” is crucial and essential knowledge to be and stay on top of website development and website design.

Today, we are looking at so many different formats -  iphones, ipads, tablets, smartphones, phablets, laptops and I don’t know what besides the usual desktops -, that responsive web design is the answer, but that’s easier said than done! Preparing and adapting websites for different browsers – Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari etc to name just a few – was already quite a task and often pretty frustrating, but what we are facing now is worse! It may well mean that instead of developing one website for a customer we actually have to develop three or four or even more, depending on where the customer wants his message or shop to be seen!  It could well explode costs!

Thank heavens for YCADEMY Seminars to steer us safely through this labyrinth of new technological developments at such breathtaking pace!

Ycademy Seminar January 2013

The first day at the Ycademy Seminar (yesterday) took us through an in-depth introduction of apps, their value, features, the dangers, the security issues, the cost, native apps versus hybrid (HTML 5) apps and more issues. We also looked into WP-Touch again, that had already established our author blogs and websites firmly on the mobile web since a while. We simply have to be visible on the mobile web – period!

What is the best and most cost-effective solution for our loyal customers and clients in terms of web development and website design?

That’s the main question for “Web Design with Passion” ; I will know more after today !

Testflipping for English Comprehension (Grades 5 and 6) for South Africa is on the way, spearheaded by Cape Town teacher and educationalist Mrs. Esme Solomon!

Testflipping South Africa

There’s much more to follow on Testflipping South Africa – but now first for a good rest after the first day of the YCADEMY Seminar January 2013!

]]> http://biancagubalke.com/south-africa/testflipping-south-africa/feed/ 0 http://biancagubalke.com/web-graphics-tutorials/how-to-remove-fine-white-transparency-lines-on-a-pdf/ http://biancagubalke.com/web-graphics-tutorials/how-to-remove-fine-white-transparency-lines-on-a-pdf/#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:10:52 +0000 Bianca Gubalke http://biancagubalke.com/?p=8634 How to remove fine white transparency lines on a PDF

In the preparation of my Wedding Album in ADOBE InDesign I included many small picture details that I had created on transparent layers in ADOBE Photoshop. When checking these pages and spreads in PDF format before handing the project over to the printers, I discovered some fine transparency lines – on just a few pages of many – and my long and painful odyssey into how to remove fine white transparency lines on a PDF (…or in InDesign or wherever…) started!

Of course, I checked all my pages and layers in ADOBE InDesign first – and there were absolutely no errors.

The joke was, that whenever I moved a picture frame to a different position, and all showed 100% in the Preview or Presentation mode, all was perfect! But when I checked it in the PDF (Acrobat Pro) – here were the fine lines again! And – the weirdest of all: they had not moved! Then they no longer showed on one PDF – hallelujah! – but came back on another! And then various PDFs did not show the same results either plus, some of the pictures looked like sliced up into pieces of a mosaic!  It was something to go crazy and I only give you the short version here!

I consulted the online FAQ’s of the printer, and while it put me on the correct path by directing me to change the settings in Acrobat Pro (recommendation: untick “Smooth Line Art” as per picture here, found under > Edit > Preferences > Page Display on your PDF), this did not help then as I could not untick this in my version! On top of it, their fine text said that IF these fine lines showed in the submitted PDF, they would print! That was just not acceptable for me; everything was to be as precise and perfect as prepared – no errors, no warnings!

However, Blurb has a brilliant customer service and responded promptly to my request (with attached screenshots), saying those lines should not show and asking me to send them the entire PDF to look into …

How to remove fine white transparency lines on a PDF

Once I had gone to all those lengths to find an answer as to how to remove fine white transparency lines on a PDF, I discussed the distressing issue with Yorgo. We looked into basically everything once again: there had to be a way!

And – finally – there was!

Here’s the short solution to help you save hours of research and tons of hairs turning grey and falling out: the corrected settings in my PDF for printed matter as per above:

The big EUREKA was: under rendering, untick “Use page cache”.

Unticking “Smooth line art” had no influence on the above problem at all, although I managed to untick it by first unticking “Use 2D graphics acceleration”.

So I had smelled the rat – the cache – all the time, but I did not know where to find it! It’s all about basics… and we never stop learning! Thank heavens – problem solved!

I could upload the book (PDF) for print and am looking forward to receive a stunning Wedding Book around the 19th February, 2013!

Holly enjoys a Noordhoek sunset from my garden, while the sun has started moving back on its course until it will disappear behind Chapman’s Peak until around 15 November 2013.

Holly enjoys a Noordhoek Sunset

Well, it’s not only Holly who enjoys the Noordhoek sunsets South of Cape Town, South Africa – we all do! We won’t find this year’s fashionable emerald green in the sky, but the finest hues of pinks, purples and blues and often a symphony of liquid gold!

Time to sit on the verandah or right on the rocks or in the soft sand on the beach and watch it sink into the Atlantic Ocean – sipping something cool and delicious and just… Being! Perfect to let go and connect with Nature’s flow – it’s the best we can do anyway!

Good Evening from Noordhoek

Good Evening from Noordhoek and have a Happy Sunday!

Announcing the new arrival on the South African market: Testflipping Comprehension !

New: Testflipping Comprehension

Creating a flyer (or flier) – meaning a simple printed paper pamphlet or ad to be distributed by hand  – was part of our daily Ycademy Workshop yesterday, where we are currently working on how to use ADOBE InDesign.

The new schoolbook “Testflipping Comprehension” to improve the reading ability and understanding of the English language for Grade 5 and Grade 6 kids, was a good reason for me to get cracking with my first example.

The English website to follow soon…

Based on its huge success over the past years in Germany, “Testflipping Comprehension” is a first attempt to assist South African parents and their children in Grades 5 and 6 to improve their reading ability and understanding of the English language.

This is not only important for performance in school but it is becoming a matter of survival in an increasingly competitive world where education is the decisive factor for a future career.

Testflipping Comprehension

Testflipping Comprehension includes a special address for parents of a dyslexic child.

This tastefully illustrated compilation consists of 15 stories with interesting, entertaining and educational content in the form of Standard Comprehension Tests with language comprehension questions and clearly defined solutions.

A realistic point system makes it very easy for a stressed mom – or the child herself/himself – to learn, to understand, and to keep track of progress in a methodologically sound and joyful way.

Testflipping Comprehension Feedback

‘Testflipping Comprehension’ was just published by the brand-new South African publishing company, Cajus Publishing, however, the well-known German Bookshop Hugendubel gave the following feedback regarding the German edition for children in Germany who are learning English: “Your comprehension tests are becoming a true blockbuster!”

Simon, 9 years old, sees it like this: “I think the book is very good and I love to exercise with it.”

Finally, here’s from Andrea L., a stressed mom : “Thank you from an extremely relieved mom and two relaxed kids!”

How to pass your English Comprehension Tests

At the end of the day, this is about how to pass your English Comprehension Tests. As such the goal is to help children to approach exams with confidence and ease – and to have relaxed parents. Brief: a happy family!

As mentioned, the books just arrived and a website is under construction.

Meanwhile, BUY BOOK HERE (limited items left at the moment) or contact me via the contact form if you are interested in acquiring a book. It’s ideal for ages 11 – 13 years old.

Alternatively, you may want to get “Testflipping Comprehension” for older kids (14 to 16 years) directly on Amazon – CLICK HERE.

Meanwhile, I am preparing the website, patience please!

Gold metallic fonts are certainly a classic! Who has not seen those precious leather-bound books with elegant letters printed on them in gold?

Gold metallic fonts

On our screens, we paint with light (not with colour as in the printing industry) – and the effects we can achieve with programs like ADOBE Photoshop (to name one) are astonishing – if one knows how!

Glassy Fonts

To start off another busy year, last night’s Ycademy Workshop focused on creating beautiful effects, starting off with glassy fonts…

…and then applying the golden rims to any word or name – here my quick example:

And a symphony in grey, using a very different font:

For a more elegant font, I personally prefer to reduce the golden rim to a minimum, especially when applying a more handwritten style. It’s not easy to see the fine nuances in such a reduced format, but it may motivate me to get the plugin again that helps to see pictures in a larger format.

Working with graphic programs is no different from playing the piano: one’s got to exercise on a daily basis! Following tutorials or a good teacher is a fantastic way to widen one’s horizon and ‘learn by doing’. Although having an Internet connection helps – which was not my case! But following up with the bits that were sound-recorded I did my version of the exercise and enjoyed it!

This is just the beginning… of 2013 !

Not surprisingly and in tune with the change of vibrations and the shifting of energies after the spectacular planetary alignment experienced just recently at the end of 2012, the colours chosen for the year 2013 have changed from a predominently warm to a predominantly cool palette, i.e. from shades of red (eg. tangerine) to shades of green: emerald is the color of the year 2013. Pantone 17-5641 to be precise in online, marketing and fashion terms. As all colors – it’s beautiful – especially if combined with taste and harmony!

Emerald Color of the year 2013

The choice of Emerald as Color of the year 2013 may reflect our deep hope for peace, unity and renewal – all of which are so desperately needed.

Emerald Green aligns the Heart Chakra

While everyone looks for the world to change, this won’t happen unless we change ourselves from inside. In that sense, Emerald Green is the color used to align the heart chakra, allowing it to open to an abundance of love flowing out to everyone it touches, seeing the ‘you’ in ‘me’.  That’s what “UBUNTU” in South Africa stands for: “I am because you are”.

Go Nature

Certainly, no colour is more related to Nature than green, hence the saying “Go Green!” While more elephants and rhino have been slaughtered this year than ever before to find that elusive ‘magic’ from outside, it only is the fatal road to ‘more’ and ‘more’ and ‘more’ – karma that is. True magic resides within. It starts with being environmentally conscious and caring deeply about Nature – we are all part of it!

As the most calming colour of the color wheel, green stands for healing and hope – and both will be dramatically needed for the tasks at hand in 2013! With challenges being opportunities in disguise, let’s look at the wealth it may bring us this year; you define what that exactly means to YOU!

Time for some gardening in hot, summerly Noordhoek, South Africa, where the above photo of tiny Egyptian goslings was taken!

We have so many varieties of birds in our garden in Noordhoek, South Africa, but it is the Cape Sugarbird  (Promerops cafer) that always accompanies us when the years end – and when a new year starts: so, Happy New Year 2013!

Cape Sugarbird

While I capture the graceful Cape Sugarbird just outside my studio high up on the red flowering gum, sucking nectar, and twittering with other family members all around, I am grateful that – at last – we had at least some rains! Just in time to let the colours  appear fresher and more inviting for the extended family to arrive from Europe, and this with the clear intent to stay!

May the Cape Sugarbird see many happy thrills waiting for us at the horizon and… the promise of a most fulfilling year ahead!

Merry Christmas 2013 from Noordhoek (Cape Town), South Africa!

Merry Christmas 2013

The above photo for my “Merry Christmas 2013″ Greeting to all of you features Chapman’s Peak in Noordhoek, South Africa, as seen through the strelitzias in my garden.

May you all have a blessed Festive Season together with your family and loved ones!

With so many things happening in terms of website development and design, it’s time to monitor the top performance of Semiomantics.

Top Performance for Semiomantics

A few hours earlier, I published a little article on “How to create an A5 folded Postcard” and just remembered to quickly check whether the Top Performance of Semiomantics Scripts are still spoton – and lo and behold and see it yourself on the screenshot below: Google Number 1 – what else! WOW! And due to so many committments and a lot of writing for print this year – and this continues – I could take less time to publish online.

But WordPress based Semiomantics Scripts keep their promise, are continuously checked and updated – soooo good to know!

How to create a Landscape Format Folded Postcard

Just to complete the Postcard creation exercises at this year’s final Ycademy Seminar December 2012, I herewith also publish my horizontally oriented folded postcard! So from my previous article you can very easily deduct and copy how to create a Landscape Format folded Postcard and surprise your family and friends with a beautiful close and personal Christmas Postcard – how about that?

I’m not yet in that kind of mood… so I took a picture from one of our guineafowl families with some of their youngsters here in my garden, in the golden evening light. The lady scratched me nicely today when she thought she’d move into my studio but couldn’t cope with glass. So I had to catch her and bring her back out, where her partner was running frantically up and down. Once released, she was so clever as to not follow him but shoot off into the drainage, where it wasn’t really easy to get her out. After that they were finally reunited and have an adventure to tell when they sit high up in the pine tree under the soft light of a hardly visible moon.

Following yesterday’s brief article on “How to create a Postcard“, let me add an excerpt from our next exercises: “How to create an A5 folded Postcard” using ADOBE InDesign – basically the next postcard version we looked into at our final Ycademy Seminar 2012!

How to create an A5 folded Postcard

Again, before trying to figure out how to create an A5 folded Postcard the idea of what you want to achieve – basically the picture inside your mind of what you want to see on this postcard, the Artwork – is what comes first. The rest is technique and can be learned.

In our example, we prepared a photo in portrait format and designated for A5.  In my case a digital photo of a young emerald sunbird on a budding thorny acacia that I had taken just outside my studio in Noordhoek, South Africa, a few days ago. Yes – blue skies… what a lovely summer we a blessed with!  The image size: 6 x 4.5 inches x 300 dpi.

Again, I opened ADOBE InDesign and created a new document, selecting an A5, portrait format and 4 pages. One click of the mouse and my layout opens, bleed en all.

A little bit of thought before we start doesn’t harm: we have 4 pages, meaning page 1 is the front and page 4 is the back – these two will be probably printed together to save cost. Note: as they are folded on the left side (seen from the front), we don’t want a bleed here – so when we draw our placing rectangle, bear this in mind (exclude that part). Then pull in your prepared photo or other Artwork and voila! Perhaps you want to add some text? So draw a textbox and write whatever you wish to put there. Choose fonts, size of fonts and perhaps some effects, like a shadow? Make sure the text can be read well and do leave some ‘space’ for the picture to breathe.

You may want to put a text legend on the inside, meaning page 2, bottom – leaving room for the message someone wants to write on pages 2 and 3 (meaning the two inside pages). Note: if you print anything on the inside of Page 2 it means an increase in cost – so you may prefer to place a legend on the back on page 4. However, if you have a nice picture taken in a museum for instance, it looks professional and elegant to see the legend on page 2 – some people just pull off pages 3 and 4 to keep the picture and not the rest – so the legend at the back makes a lot of sense. But if you have a limited budget, rather leave the inner pages 2 and 3 blanc and add your legend or other text on the back page 4.

Page 4 should have a discreet copyright and perhaps some additional text, some promotion or even another picture that corresponds to the photo on page 1 in one or another way. As I do a lot of bird photography, I had created an Apple Touch Icon long ago with the photo of one of the owls I had photographed in the area – so it’s in line with my ‘bird theme’. As I am in the beginning phase of preparing printed matter on the PC, I am still stunned how small objects appear in print as compared with online publishing! The above icon design is 506 x 506 px x 300 dpi – and this is as big as it gets when preparing for print! This will change with a high-quality camera – the more data are available, the higher the output. We are working on it, watch this space… :)

Above is an indication of how the pages in my test example look, excluding page 3 which is blanc. Try to have clean, sober lines that lead the eye, even with that perspective.

ADOBE InDesign

ADOBE InDesign is really THE professional program for preparing print work – and again: talk to your printer well in advance to see which colour settings he prefers on his specific printing machine.

As 2012 is drawing to an end, we held our final Ycademy Seminar 2012 this past weekend where, amongst others, all seminar participants learned how to create a postcard in Adobe InDesign.

How to create a Postcard

When thinking about how to create a postcard the most important first step is to know what we want to put on the front – be it a photo, a graphic, a quote or some form of advertising. In fact, postcards are an excellent tool to promote our products and services and always have an impact, especially as we are all used to the Internet these days – so something sent by normal maid and possibly even handwritten always stands out and has its little effect!

For the exercise, I prepared my photo – a golden sunset I had just photographed from my terrace here in Noordhoek, South Africa – in Adobe Photoshop. As I only have a very simple digital camera, I always need a few tweaks – otherwise the photo was fine and just needed to be resized from 13.333 inches x 10 inches (4000 x 3000) to 6 x 4.5 inches. My resolution comes at 300 dpi right away, so nothing needed to be changed. Remember: while we publish our photos online in 72 pix/inch resolution, printed matter always needs 300 dpi ideally.

Next, we downloaded a little postcard template into Adobe InDesign, which featured a frontside and a backside. After some decisions as to how to present the picture, the prepared photo was simply placed and has a little shadow. And the name was added underneath. The backside had the usual space for some personal notes, the address field, a space for the stamp and, at the bottom, a little discreet Copyright. That’s it!

Here would also be some space for say a hotel or restaurant to insert a website link – a perfect and very cost-efficient way of advertising.

Find a good Printer

As the printing of postcards has become very affordable, the idea is now to find a good printer in your area and coordinate the printing with him or her! The choice of the paper is important and discuss colour settings in advance so you prepare the correct artwork and he can deliver a postcard as close as possible to your image in terms of colours.

This was the first and simplest exercise; time-permitting I will give you more :)

When designing a logo for a customer, we often receive psd files as a basis, but what we need has to be developed in Adobe Illustrator so that – in this case the logo – can be produced in different sizes, say for business cards as well as posters – and this always in perfect quality, sharp and crisp. It was my case as described earlier HERE.
In this exercise the question is: How to turn a word into a shape?

For this exercise, I will simply use my name ‘Bianca’ … :)

How to turn a word into a shape

1. Open Photoshop > FILE NEW
2. Image size 800 x 600 px, 72 res, RGB colour, transparent, name it.
3. Type the text – Bianca -  (250px big) , center it and fit to screen. Select SMOOTH Font at the top.
4. Add a layer underneath for a white background.
5. Now you have a white layer background plus a T-layer with the word Bianca.
6. To get these fonts the way we want them to look in Photoshop, we can select between sharp, crisp, smooth etc.  Often we choose SMOOTH. In order to have a bigger contrast, we may rather choose CRISP.  The problem is that if we have received this text as a logo, we need to TRACE it, to make a SHAPE out of it or to extrude it in 3D.

So how do we do that?

7. The first thing to do is to make this image bigger. How? Here’s the way:

Go > Image size > and at the top where we have the pixels I select %. Punch in 400 %. Resample and Constrain Proportions at the bottom should be ticked, and click OK.

8. Blow up the image with your ZOOM TOOL to make it really big so you will see the edges and some of the weaknesses of the font you are using – it may be scales, steps and even holes.

The question now is – esp. if I go for ACTUAL PIXELS : How can I make the font sharper? In fact, it’s pretty similar to photography.

9. First, I will merge these two layers..

10. Then I will use a BLUR FILTER in order to get smooth edges choosing > GAUSSIAN BLUR. It will ask you to RASTERIZE the type and you click OK.
Now move the radius so that things look equally smooth, meaning the lines are black and then a uniform gray zone around. Note that the harder we are the less uniformity we have.

11. Imagine that when you trace all this the tracer will follow all these corners and steps and that’s possibly not what you want, so you try to get something smooth and then bring it back and resharpen it with the levels.
Try a radius of  between 3.0 and 3.5. It must really look smooth. Meaning smooth edges. When we blur we have full black colour and then we have zones with the blur where we are drifting down into grayscale. That means that we could work on this with the select tool. Make sure you merge all layers you have!

12. Here now is the secret that only works if you have a white background that enables you to see the levels at the bottom; also, you won’t see the histogram if you just work on transparent.
From the Adjustment Layers Button ADD A LEVELS LAYER and narrow in the white stop (say to about 170) and narrow in the black stop (say to about 100) and then finetune. See what happens when you move the mid tones. It changes the behaviour of the edges. Now go to ACTUAL PIXELS and narrow the white and black stops further. Make them look sharp… do the finetuning from the center. Play with it and put your glasses on as your eyes might object at some point. The result will be a CRISP FONT. Similar to what we do in photography esp. if we have monochromatic pictures, which looks very nice.

13. You can exaggerate, blow it up a bit. The more space we have between the black stop and the white stop the more it is blurred. Push them closer until we have what we want, and the center tab we can move for hardness or softness. Try it out to get something smooth and sexy.

What is interesting here is the technique: we blur first to get a smooth edge. Then we try to sharpen this by burning black and white. We are moving the white stops and the black stops narrower together – this is like when we are doing a colour selection when you limit the tolerance. We just need to watch that we don’t limit too much and get corners back into our fonts.

14. MERGE the 2 layers and go FIT SCREEN.

15. Now we need to SELECT this – for which we use our MAGIC WAND TOOL. On top, in the Control Panel, untick “contiguous” (this means that everything that is hooked together will be selected).
Click somewhere on the black colour and this should select everything. Check if a letter is not linked to the rest; i.e. that if I select CONTIGUOUS on the MAGIC WAND and I select an unattached “R” for example, it selects only the “R” and I would have to use the SHIFT TOOL to select the other elements. In bigger texts it’s very easy to miss out on an element.

If you untick “CONTIGUOUS” then it will find, on the picture, whatever elements correspond to that selection. In our case black.

Note: We could refine the edges more using the REFINE EDGES tool in the Control Panel; esp. if we have some fuzzy design to trace, but in this exercise it’s not necessary now.

16. So with the blacks all selected we are going to make our PATH. On the layer stack on top we click on PATH and there is a dropdown menu where we select MAKE WORK PATH.

17. A popup comes up that lets us choose the TOLERANCE LEVEL. 2px comes up as default and we use it and give it a name, eg. Tolerance 2px. Click OK.

NOTE: On top on the Control panel we have a Tolerance level that we might want to play with (set to default now). If we get a logo from a customer then we might have to go into much more detail.

18. SAVE it.

19. We will repeat the process to do another tolerance level (MAGIC WAND > CLICK ON BLACK > PATH > MAKE WORK PATH > TOLERANCE LEVEL 1 PX > NAME Tolerance 1px > OK ). So we have two tolerance levels that we can test.

NOTE: The assumption of 1 or 2 px is usually not bad.

20. To see the layer stack we add a WHITE LAYER and compare the word Bianca in ACTUAL PIXEL SIZE to see where the critical issues are and which one is better. Just switch inbetween the two layers. Here tolerance 1 px looks better so I deleted the other version.

21. Now I FIT TO SCREEN and now I will select the PATH (keeping the Path Layer open).

22. In the toolbox underneath the TYPE-TOOL we select the PATH SELECTION TOOL to select the path. We could have stroke colors (on top in the control panel) but you now simply select the elements by clicking into the various fields that are of concern. If you have an O you need to click on the shape, but also in the ‘hole’ where it’s supposed to be white. Make sure everything is selected – to the minidot!

23. So now we have a path designed that we can SAVE AS A CUSTOM SHAPE. So I go EDIT and click DEFINE CUSTOM SHAPE – give it a name, eg. ‘Bianca’ and click OK.

24. So if I do a new design I just start from scratch again: FILE > NEW > 800×600 etc > make all FIT TO SCREEN – then I go to my CUSTOM SHAPES > dropdown… and my last custom shape is my ‘Bianca’ that I just designed. I just pull it in. I can give it a gradient or another colour and I can do as many as I want I any shapes and sizes. I just placed a Noordhoek sunset behind it, duplicated the shape and played with it to get somethig interesting. And voila!

25. Now you can SAVE as a PSD or anything else. The PSD can be opened in ADOBE Illustrator to be worked on. Or even here in Photoshop if you need to do a 3D extrusion.

Important: once we have the path, we can manipulate the letters by intervening on those points and changing details on the fonts to adjust them. Even in this well designed font I used I found curves that could be improved – perhaps hardly noticeable without being blown up, but a good font is like architecture: you feel if something is out of synch!

Now it’s your turn – enjoy!

Following my articles earlier regarding the downloading and installation of the brand-new Windows 8 Pro version, we are looking forward to the Windows 8 Pro Seminar with Ycademy this weekend!

Windows 8 Pro Seminar with Ycademy

The question is whether or not a Windows 8 Pro Seminar with Ycademy is needed and if so, why?

At the end of the day it’s basically Windows 7… so what’s better and what’s the difference?

We all know that as website designers and website developers we need to remain at the top of developments and as the virtual world is mad about apps, you will have at least one big question answered the moment you open your new Windows 8 Start screen and say WOW! But there’s more and we will go into it.

ADOBE Illustrator

Additionally, we will get a first grip on ADOBE Illustrator and learn how to create vector graphics. These become the more important as we focus increasingly also on print media.

OnOne Tools

Last but not least and time-depending, we will look into OnOneTools – which I personally really like and have been working with extensively. But the latest version is quite something else and I’ve created both pictures on this page using some of its features.

It seems winter is back in Noordhoek: it’s stormy, cold and raining… the rains obviously are graciously and thankfully accepted, the rest is totally out of synch! Nevertheless, our two guineafowl families frolick in the garden, one couple has tiny chicks, the other one’s are already able to fly. A joy to see wild life passing by … and capturing such moments on the digital camera!

Here is how to complete your Windows 8 Pro installation after doing the steps we discussed in my article “How to get your Windows 8 Pro and Save Money“.

Windows 8 Pro installation

For my Windows 8 Pro installation I started my computer (still on Windows 7) and inserted the DVD we created with Windows 8 and let it run, following instructions like inserting the Product key.It ran through pretty smoothly, rebooting many times as it seems – and I went out to do some errands.

Once back, it seemed to be hanging on a black screen but the harddrive kept flashing – so something was happening. As this didn’t change for a while, I got nervous and consulted quite some forums on the “Win 8 black screen issue” – which is very real in some specific cases. But we also don’t know how long the installation should take. For someone it may be 3 hours, for someone else it may take much longer. Noone had done a Windows 8 Pro upgrade in my area down here yet, so noone knew the answer either.

I kept checking and trying – and suddenly all just seemed to be ready! I did my settings – skipping my email address for maximum privacy – and finally I ended up on the Start screen with all its colourful Windows apps – and from here the journey was pretty easy and enjoyable!

It is important to see to it that all drivers are updated and if there are errors – like here my graphics card cannot be found and it’s a pretty new one I bought not long ago – these things should be addressed as soon as possible.

The next big lot will be the media center… but at least here you have the next step, so take heart and do your setup now, especially if you attend this month’s Ycademy Seminar November 2012 as then this part has to be done so we can move into the more interesting ‘inside story’.

Enjoy!

And the sunset above was just yesterday, as seen from my terrace down here in Noordhoek, South Africa!

Windows 8 Pro has been released and for a limited time, you can upgrade your PC running a previous version of Windows to Windows 8 Pro for a special price. Here’s how to get your Windows 8 and Save Money!

How to get your Windows 8 Pro and Save Money

YCADEMY Seminar November 2012

Creating one’s own Wedding Website is the smart solution for anyone with a large family spread all over the world and wanting to stay in control of their name, content and – in this case – wedding photography – which is not the case with Social Media websites as everyone knows by now. However, besides the virtual world of the Internet there is the very physical, material world we live in and a Wedding Photo Book is something that can be looked at and passed along from generation to generation as was and is the case in our family and most probably in your’s as well.

Wedding Photo Book

Many wedding photographers offer a “Wedding Photo Book” or “Wedding Album” as part of their major package – and it makes sense! They usually work with templates into which the photos taken at the wedding are placed chronologically.

While my focus over the past years has been strictly online, it now shifts back to include print media as well. Having created many catalogues, books and posters (especially for Art, Culture and Architecture, Culinary and Kids),  well before digital times, this meant diving into new programs, especially ADOBE InDesign, and learning the basics. This lead to the first Wedding Photo Book version – under extreme time pressure that left no room for much experimenting – but that forced me to learn and act fast and that allowed me to fulfill a task in a very attractive way.

When comparing the online and offline methodology for publications there are fundamental differences. When we edit a picture for the online environment, i.e. for the web – we want it to be as light as possible while keeping as much quality as possible, so we save it at resolution 72; for print it has to be 300 dpi, no matter what! While online we work with a .jpg or a .png  in RGB, for print it’s in CMYK … and the big lesson here is also that while your low-end digital camera is perfect for the screen, you need a quality photo camera to take quality pictures for print, fullstop!

The pictures here show screenshots of the spread in ADOBE InDesign (above) and the very good PDF proofs at the top and below (single pages) that show how the page in the printed book should look, although that then depends again on the choice of paper and the inks used.

Print at affordable prices

An interesting journey! With the incredible possibilities to print at affordable prices today – unthought of in the ‘old days’ – we all can write, edit and publish our own book today!

That’s a kind of freedom I like!