RainbowPhoenix

Greetings All, This tutorial is designed to help Photoshop users understand the sometimes cryptic, often misunderstood Color Settings. It assumes you have a basic understanding of Photoshop and requires Photoshop 7 or later on either PC or Mac. Let's Get Started! First, begin by firing up Photoshop and choosing Edit - Color Settings. This will bring up the standard Color Settings window. For this tutorial, please click the "Advanced Mode" box in the upper left corner of the window. Working Spaces. The first (and most important) section of this window is the Working Spaces area. This is the nuts and bolts of color management in Photoshop. Here you make workflow critical decisions about how Photoshop displays color. Not only that, you are literally defining just how much color you get to play with. This may not seem important to the average user, but choosing carefully here makes the difference between good color management and nasty surprises down the road. Nasty surprises ALWAYS include your work looking different than what you designed. First, let's examine the RGB space. You probably already know that RGB means Red, Green, Blue and essentially corresponds to the colors your monitor can reproduce. That's not really the end of the story though. RGB color spaces can vary greatly from one profile to another. Why choose one over the other? The answer is gamut. Gamut is the range (latitude) of colors available in a given profile. RGB gamuts tend to be much larger than CMYK gamuts, but some RGB gamuts are larger than others. HEY! Let's just rush out and pick the biggest damn gamut we can find!!! The more the merrier, right? Wrong. Ask yourself a very important question... what is the final purpose of my design? Is it for print? For video? For the Internet? For my own personal entertainment? Each of these questions requires a different color space to achieve the best results. I'll detail a few for you here. sRGB - This is the most common gamut available. It closely represents the colors reproducible on most CRT monitors. Use this one if you are producing graphics for the Internet. Apple RGB - Simulates the color gamut of most Apple monitors. Not used as much any more as many Mac monitors are no longer produced directly by Apple. Adobe RGB - This is a custom RGB profile for Adobe programs. It is widely accepted in the print and digital graphics industry and represents a larger gamut than sRGB. Working in Adobe RGB but outputting for Internet may result in unwanted color shifts. WideGamut RGB - Exactly like it sounds... a RGB color space that allows a wider gamut than Adobe RGB. Carefull, young Jedi... you'll end up making something with colors only YOU can see. Not advised for Internet work. NTSC (1953) - This is the gamut you want to use for video production. It is a smaller gamut than most but represents accurately the color space of NTSC broadcast standards. CMYK - C what I Mean? Y, because I said oK! Why use CMYK at all? It's a smaller gamut and half my darn filters are suddenly grayed out!!! AUGGHHH!!! Ok, relax, there's a reason for CMYK that goes beyond what meets the eye. It helps if you understand that Photoshop has been an industry leader in print production design for ages. Originally Mac-based, it is now exactly the same on a PC and offers the same horsepower that Mac users have enjoyed for many years. What is CMYK? CMYK is the standard four-color printing inks used in print production. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Why did they name Black K? Maybe because B already stood for Blue? I dunno, go ask your mother. Anyhoo, the CMYK color space is tricky indeed. It is important to understand that when using CMYK, your monitor has to "simulate" in RGB what your printer is going to produce in CMYK. That means that Photoshop has to secretly do a ton of work, instantly and behind the scenes on every single pixel on the screen to map it in and out of a CMYK workspace so what you see is (hopefully) what you get. Now, if you NEVER intend to have your work printed, then you can almost ignore this. Almost... I strongly recommend using US Web Coated (SWOP) as your default. That way, you're at least going to be in the same ballpark as a printshop. Incidently, Web Coated has NOTHING to do with the Internet... it's a term used for offset press equipment (SWOP=Standard Web Offset Press) and should not be confused with what your browser can display. A good gamut (imho) to use for CMYK is the Photoshop 5 Default CMYK. It's bigger than the SWOP profile and produces more brilliant colors. It's Not Easy Being Gray. Actually, it is. Gray gamut profiles are largely dependant on the gamma of your monitor. Gamma is closely related to the luminance (brightness) of your monitor and how RGB is blended to produce Gray. In theory, equal parts of RGB should produce shades ranging from pure white (255,255,255) to pure black (0,0,0) but this is not always the case. You should use a tool appropriate for checking the gamma of your monitor and select the appropriate gray profile to match. After that, forget all about it... chances are you'll never have to work in Grayscale again unless you're a professional printer type person. Color Management Policies. Moving down the window, you will now find yourself at the Management Policies area. This part is where you tell Photoshop what to do if a document comes in with a profile embedded in it already. More often than not, you'll want to convert RGB docs to your working space and preserve the embedded profiles of other color space documents. Photoshop can alert you to various situations it encounters if you check the available boxes. I'd rather know more than not know at all so I keep all three checked all the time. Conversion Options. Captain! The matter to antimatter converters can't take much more!!! Ok Scotty, relax and have a Scotch. This part isn't really a big deal and you shouldn't panic. It can be deceptively easy to screw yourself royally here though, so I strongly recommend at least a passing knowledge of the decisions you make. Engine: First, the conversion engine. That's the bit of code in the background that does the pixel crunching when converting documents from one color space to another. If you're a diehard Microsoft fan, by all means choose Microsoft ICM (Internal Color Management) otherwise come play with the big boys and choose Adobe ACE (Adobe Color Engine). Mac users may have more options here... depending on your system-wide color management policies, you might want to set this to whatever you use for the rest of your Mac. Intent: Now a bit of science, and we can go back to drinking Scotch with Scotty. Your intent is what determines how colors are actually mapped from one space to another. Generally, I use Relative Colorimetric. It tends to provide the most stable results. Perceptual color tries to keep the relationships between colors the same while not necessarily keeping the values identical. Basically, your document will look the same, but may not output what you had in mind. Saturation color is an intent I never use. It sacrifices the accuracy of your colors for making them "pretty". Screw that... if I want pretty I'll dang well make them pretty myself. Finally, Absolute color. This is a tricky one... you'll use it if color is mission critical and you spend a great deal of time working with Pantones and such. I recommend it if you have a Photoshop/Illustrator/Digital RIP workflow and do lots of mission critical color work. This one is about the hardest to set up properly, but the most rewarding in the end if accuracy is your goal. Advanced Controls. Desaturate Monitor Colors: This is a tough one to explain, which is probably why they call it "advanced". Essentially, when you start working in REALLY BIG gamuts (often provided by OEM manufacturers for their devices) you actually exceed the gamut of your monitor in a big way. Use this setting to "tone down" the saturation of your images. Like the warning says though... your output might not match. For standard Internet graphics, you don't EVER need to check this. No touchie, got it? Blend RGB Colors: Depends again on what your final destination of your output is. For Internet, you can ignore this. For print production etc, you might consider trying this both ways and seeing which setting provides the most accurate monitor to output accuracy. The Last Word. Well congratulations... if you made it this far you probably are either twirling your finger beside your head or enjoying a slowly spreading grin as the lights go on in your head. Hopefully the latter... color management doesn't need to be difficult, but you can certainly make it so by making poor decisions with this panel. Once you have made a few settings to your satisfaction, I recommend saving them for recall later. You can try different "sets" and see what works for you! In the end, remember that although color is a pretty subjective medium, by taking an objective stance towards management you ensure accuracy and portability across your workflow! Good luck and thanks for reading!!! Cheers, Phoenix

Hi there!You should consider visiting Macromedia Exchange and look for an extension for Flash. If there is none available and you're feeling confident in your code warrior powers, I believe you can obtain the developer's package which will allow you to create your own extension. Of course, if you did this on your own time, I forsee a lucrative opportunity for you!!!Good luck!!!Cheers,Phoenix

Hmmm... I think it's interesting that whatever tool you used to scan your PC was able to report you had some sort of spyware but didn't bother to actually name it. As well, it said "spyware virus". Those terms are mutually exclusive. I question the legitimacy of the scanner you used... sounds like a marketing ploy to me. Please consider running the software other members mentioned above (HJT, SpyBotS&D etc.) to validate the scan results. If you genuinely have something on your system, these proggies will find it, name it and get rid of it. Pronto!Cheers,Phoenix

Egad... First, I honestly do NOT wish to engage in a debate over this. Second, Wicca most certainly is a religion, as recognized by the US Constitution and the Canadian Government (among others) My wife and I were married in a bona fide Wiccan Handfasting Ceremony, 100% legal and binding. It was a deeply religious experience for both of us and extremely serious for everyone involved.As far as slowing time or generating money, that's back to the nonsense stuff. Please, before you begin bashing other people's viewpoints and religion, ensure you have something to swing with. As I said earlier, I could honestly care less what people think of me as a Pagan, but you're just involving yourself in the outlandish hype and BS that gives REAL Witches a bad name. Give it a rest, please?Blessings,Phoenix

WHEW!!! On one hand, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you... on the other, I kinda figured the only person seeing that particular information was me... especially since I couldn't see that on ANYBODY else, LMAO!!!Thanks for your prompt replies!!!Cheers,Phoenix

Hi All!I just noticed that now that I am hosted, for some reason my CPanel account ID is showing up in my user profile. Is there a way to make that invisible? Or... am I seeing information about myself that isn't available to anyone else in the first place, lol! Hopefully, the latter is the case... I was up and down the settings for my options and I see nothing that would control the visibility of that information.As well... hopefully this is the right forum for this question... I apologize in advance if I posted this question in the wrong spot.Cheers,Phoenix

I like MJF's reply, lol! We "Type 2's" have a special term for the "Type 1's" They're called "Fluff Bunnies". That's the kind of person that watches The Craft, or Buffy or whatever else such nonsense and suddenly decides they can burn a pink candle and get their boyfriend back. Serious Witches (All Wiccans are Witches but not all Witches are Wiccans - my wife and I are Witches) know better. We also know that all the bad PR out there is really making the real ones look bad, lol.Something that makes me laugh about Fluffies though is that once they decide they're a Witch (thus directly decended from King Arthur, Cleopatra, some 17 year old in Salem who was burned at the stake or any combination of the above) they're suddenly all about being persecuted by Christians or any other religion that looks at them sideways.Personally, I could care less, lol! There's enough persecution in the world (especially on a religious basis) without me adding to the hype. I go about my business, I look like a normal dude (just as my wife looks like a normal, pretty young woman), I don't feel the need to run around being all militant about my religion and I certainly don't think that everyone else must now believe as I do.If you find what I believe to be interesting, then do your homework. Wicca is the "Craft of the Wise" and wisdom comes from the ability to apply knowledge. That means you're going to need some knowledge to start with. "Mindless" isn't a term I'd use to describe my genuinely Witchy buddies. In fact, they're amoungst the higher IQ percentage of the population.In closing, I'd like to thank my wife, the Academy and all the fluffies out there helping me realize that life shouldn't be so darned serious. Just remember, when the lights go out in America and your pharmacy and supermarket is closed forever... it's the real Witches that will know enough to treat your wounds and fill your stomach with goodies they already have growing in their back yard :oBlessings,Phoenix

Hi Avalon!Not sure I understand your question fully... are you trying to make a PDF file or are you trying to get an image from a PDF file? As well, I'm not exactly sure about the server part of your question... do you mean without having to upload the image to the server?A PDF file (Portable Document Format) contains all the data required to view the document on any operating system running Adobe Acrobat Reader. The only way to create PDF files is either Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader), Adobe Illustrator (1 page documents only) or Adobe Photoshop (rasterized images only).If you want to make a PDF from Photoshop, I'd question why? Simply saving your image as a JPG ensures compatibility on everything without the need for a plugin to view your work.Hope this helps! If I'm way off base in answering your questions, perhaps you could re-phrase them for me and I'll do my level best :PCheers,Phoenix

Greetings Ploforia!Given my understanding of the nature of Flash, plus the nature of PDF I would say no, there is no way and no addon. The problem lies (in my humble opinion) in the fact that a PDF file is really a special type of PostScript. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and essentially contains the page information, the content and the fonts required to view the document as published on any operating system running Acrobat Viewer. The beauty of it is its cross-platform compatibility.Flash on the other hand is vector-based animation. You create objects, then use a combination of layers and frames with transitions to achieve animation. The two formats are mutually exclusive. Even with Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop you can only open (or render) one page of a PDF at a time, and that itself is impossible if the document is protected.So... the long and short of it is don't hold your breath. You could check out Macromedia Exchange for plugins for Flash, but again I highly doubt it.Cheers,Phoenix

SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP!!! I HAVE THE SOLUTION!!! ROFLMAO!!!Guess what? The reason it wouldn't let me do the dew on secondary attempts after the first server timeout is because my approval actually went through!!! I fired up Dreamweaver, changed the FTP settings (Dreamweaver quick tutorial coming soon) and voila! Connection made!!!So, I thank those who gave this some thought and humbly apologize for creating any undue stress on management!Cheers,Phoenix

Hi all, I have been trying all morning since I received my email stating that I am eligible... for some reason, I can't get past the following message: The first time I attempted to create the account, it gave me a bad gateway, the second time I must have forgotten to fill in my password again so it gave me an invalid username/password error. Since then, I only get the error quoted above. Drat!!! I'm pretty excited about getting my site up and running as well as creating an email account for myself that I can use to gain employment. Hopefully, someone will be able to offer some assistance. Cheers, Phoenix

Back in the good old days (when we wore onions on our belts) I did a practicum for a company that did professional 3D animation for film, video and television. The system they used was called Alias Power Animator and ran on Silicone Graphics Workstations. At the time, the Silicone Graphics Crimson Iris Elan was the cream of the crop and I watched a buddy design animations for Q-Sound (remember that one?) and Taco Time. In fact, Taco Time still uses the animated cactus he designed!!! Strangely enough, if you know the guy that designed it and look carefully at the cactus mascot, you'll notice some hilarious similarities between the two faces!!!Anyhoo, I believe now that Alias isn't around any more, but they did use that exact software for the movie "The Abyss" for designing and animating the "water weinie" as it was known as. Bottom line though... for truly professional throughput, you need to consider dedicated workstations that run Unix and can render frame by frame to a video capture device or HD unit. Otherwise, your animation will a: take forever and b: be substandard to the industry. Remember, Dolby 70mm takes no prisoners... every single detail shows up!!!Cheers,Phoenix

Well, without bashing your work, I'd have to say that a logo like that isn't terribly functional. Certainly it's stylish, colorful and shows technical prowess, but ask yourself what a logo is for.The answer is a logo is your corporate identification. It communicates who you are and what you are about. It should be able to stand alone on any background (portability), be scaleable (compatibility) and work well alone or with a combination of other graphic elements.Your logo should NOT be the most powerful image in a page. It should stand on it's own, but at the same time work with everything else around it to convey a strong sense of identity. Your logo would be difficult if not impossible to turn into a monochrome vector graphic. Let's say that down the road you want it on a vehicle. Impossible with what you've designed.A good process for logo design that I have found is to start simple. Begin with black and white then add color as necessary. Solid shapes and colors translate well on any surface or background. They are easy to manipulate, and can be output in any number of formats for portability. Adding all the glows and backgrounds and whizzy drop shadows and blur effects etc. should be the LAST part of your design (after you have a solid logo), not your goal.Given the tendency of users of modern image programs to "try out" all the bells and whistles, I caution strongly against invoking too many different effects. The end result does not justify the means and you risk subtracting from your image rather than enhancing it.Certainly, it's good work you've done. Again though... I ask you... what is it you're trying to say? And... have you managed to say that with what you've produced?Food for thought....Cheers,Phoenix

Hi there!Yep, Photoshop 7.0.1 does indeed address the issue! If you render TGA files from a 3D package like I do (3D Studio MAX) those alpha channels are critical indeed!Seems to me I have a sign around here somewhere I designed that utilized a 3D object rendered independently and then inserted into a comp for a client... Hmmm... nope. Must be at work, lol!Anyhoo, thanks for the tip! I just realized my Photoshop at home was behind so I updated it accordingly!Cheers,Phoenix

Well... I gave this the old college try. Honest... I did! My analysis is ummm... wow. Is this proggie EVER HARD!!! Now, I've been around since Hector was a pup and I have never seen an interface so confusing. Perhaps it's just me, it would appear as if Blender certainly has a die-hard user base, but frankly I had a LOT of trouble running scripts (yes, I installed the newest build of Python and configured my paths)There seemed to be script error after error and I found the learning curve to be almost impossibly steep for somebody who wants to dive in and start building.Before every Blender fan on the planet jumps all over me though, let me say that I am very much used to an Adobe type workflow and for my 3D work I use 3D Studio Max 3. It's easy enough for me and invariably does what I need. I'm sure that given the care and attention this package requires I could become proficient at it, but that's really my point... this package seems to require a LOT of care and attention.Either that or I just need more coffee...Cheers,Phoenix

Wow! I just found this thread... I'm a 3D Max v3 kinda guy from way back but I will definitely give this a try!One question... does it do ray-tracing? I'm not much of an animator but I love to model stuff!Cheers,Phoenix

hmmm... It seems to me I had that around here somewhere... maybe... heh... if you contact me privately perhaps I can help you?Cheers,Phoenix

Color is totally subjective. What you need to consider is what mood/message you are trying to convey. Strong colors create strong impressions. Subdued colors create milder impressions. Always ensure though that your color scheme follows some simple rules...1: Your colors should be complimentary. Most everything goes with black or white. Other colors can cause visual conflicts. There's lots of goodies out there for generating color schemes.2: Ensure you have enough contrast in your website!!!! This is REALLY important!!! Studies show that websites with lots of color but no real contrast can be difficult to read, especially for the segement of the population that suffers from color-blindness to one degree or another. Black on white is boring, but you can't go wrong, lol. Red on green is VERY visible, but to someone with a certain type of color-blindness, they will see all one shade. Make your values far enough apart to create good contrast!!!3: If you want your site to appear in certain search engines, MAKE DOUBLE SURE none of your foreground text is EVER the same color as the background. Examples of this may include tables where you reverse the color scheme. Innocent enough mistake, I've done it myself. What happens is that some "spiders" will crawl the code on your site and see identical text and background colors, regardless of the position on the page. Some illigitimate designers will pump their pages full of keywords that appear invisible with this trick to generate traffic. That's a serious no-no and should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully this helps you a bit more!!!Cheers,Phoenix

Dreamweaver MX is MUCH better at generating cross browser compatible code. It yanks out the crap for you automatically if you want, lol! As far as WYSIWYG, I tend to use that a LOT in my line of work as a large-format digital printing tech. Customers will come in with a fax of a photocopy of a drawing they did on a napkin at McDonald's on their lunch hour and expect me to scale it to the size of a house. Not gonna happen, I'm afraid. They balk at paying for me to turn their crappy sketch into a vector graphic, so I have to pull out the whole WYSIWYG routine so they understand it.Occupational hazard, I guess. They like to give me tiny little gif's or jpegs off their company website too... "here, make me a 16 foot banner with this... and do it for $75" Egad.Cheers,Phoenix

One other thing... the contacts you have deleted will ALWAYS show up in your blocked list. The only reason you'd need to look at that though is if you choose Tools - Options - Privacy. Then you can see who you've blocked. There is nothing you can do about that one.Cheers,Phoenix

Well... Photoshop is pretty darn powerful for creating abstract stuff. Things to remember are work in RGB!!! That allows you to use the "Render" filters. You can use the Render Clouds effect for some cool stuff, just remember your foreground and background colors determine the cloud and sky values.Another way to achieve some nice abstract sort of effects is with the Satin effect tool. By using layer blending options and placing the satin over an already abstract background, you can get some pretty funky stuff!Now as far as animation, ImageReady can be a bit difficult for a beginner. I'd almost recommend PaintShop's GifAnimator thing for you, since it is so easy. ImageReady users have the advantage of not only frames, but layers too. Understanding the powerful differences between these two functions is critical to developing good animation in ImageReady.Cheers,Phoenix

Easy as pie... right click on the contact and choose delete. It will give you the option of blocking them at the same time. Now the only thing you cannot control is whether they have added you on their side, but at least they're gone.Cheers,Phoenix

Ok hon, here... as promised... is your surefire, never-fail, Mr. Phoenix solution to a superfast PC for doing what YOU want!!! YAYYY!!!First of all, get the fastest darn processor you can afford. Second, get a gig of RAM. No less. The dual channel stuff is faster, but if it means doubling the price you're not necessarily doubling the speed. Third, your video card is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!! You don't want some flash-boom-bah game card, you want a production workhorse. For apps that draw a TON of pixels on the screen, why worry if the card can render 3-D graphics and halo effects for games? What you want is raw, pixel crunching power. NVidia makes a good one for that.Now, something you may not have expected... your hard drive. What I recommend (and have done this successfully in the past with large-format RIP workstations) is two SCSI hard-drives. Why? Because first of all, you can put your swap file and data files on one and your proggies on the other. Second, because SCSI drives can read/write simultaneously to each other, you don't have the wait times like IDE drives. Believe me, with apps like Photoshop generating large swap files, you want to keep your drives humming!!!Finally, I know CRT gives you a headache, but if you spend a few bucks more on a 19" monitor (NEC is mighty fine) then crank up the refresh rate (80Hz or higher) you won't get that blasted 60 cycle flicker that gives you the headache. PLUS... the colour fidelity and brightness of a CRT is unparalleled. Plasma and LCD screens just don't cut it (yet) for professional graphics production.Well, that's all I can think of now. Let me know if you've got any more questions!!Blessings,Phoenix

I use Dreamweaver MX to build the site, but do all the graphics using Illustrator CS and Photoshop 7. Illustrator can make really cool Flash graphics just by building your frames as layers. I did a banner graphic for a company I used to work for in Illustrator and it came out just fine!http://www.crestsign.com/ is where it is and if you scroll down about half-way, you can see the changing banner!Cheers,Phoenix :Dps... I will say one thing for Fireworks... it does build much more optimized GIF's. They come out looking the same as Photoshop or ImageReady, but are smaller thus making them more web-friendly!

Hi All, This is my first post but a favourite topic of mine. I think Photoshop is far superior to PaintShop or even PhotoPaint (Corel). My reasoning is both personal and factual. Personally, I found the "mode" of PaintShop to be rather illogical. In other words, the actual interface of the software wasn't very intuitive, with commands and controls in places that didn't lend themselves to being found easily. Photoshop is far more intuitive with everything in a logical place and lending itself towards ease of use. You can attribute it to the fact that Adobe was there first and they got it right. For Jasc to copy Photoshop's interface (PaintShop too) would have become copywrite infringement. The software designers were forced to come up with different ways of achieving the same end. The second reason that Photoshop is better than PaintShop in my opinion is because of PostScript. Adobe invented it and continues to expand this powerful file format's capabilities. Everyone else is simply licensing Adobe's code and having to "export" as .eps rather than Photoshop, which can save .eps files as a native format. I've found time and time again that PostScript coming from other programs can contain all kinds of garbage code forcing render times that are far longer than Adobe generated files. In the end, I'd far rather use Adobe products. They're stable, they're powerful and they're easy to use. Cheers, Phoenix