CreativeTechs Tips

If you have iMovie HD 6 installed (part of iLife '06), you have the ability to create time-lapse movies on your Mac. The next time you have a camera attached (or if your Mac includes a built-in iSight) take a few minutes to play around with this somewhat hidden feature. Watch out, it can become addictive.

The movie above is from the CreativeTechs office window last week. We pointed a video camera at the Seattle Space Needle, and captured a time-lapse video using iMove HD on one of our loaner iMac G5's. The result is 24-hours of Seattle weather condensed into only a few minutes. We did trim some of the tedious night parts.

Read on for the details on how to create your own time-lapse masterpieces.

Capturing Time-Lapse Movies in iMovie HD.

You can create a time-lapse effect when you import video from your camcorder or ISight camera. This can work with either prerecorded video, or a live feed. Obviously for capturing events that take longer than a typical video tape you'll need to capture from a live feed.

1. In iMovie HD, press the camera icon and choose Time Lapse from the pop-up menu.

2. Check the Capture Frame checkbox and specify how long to wait between each frame captured.

Fill in the number of frames that should be allowed to “pass” before you capture one image. Since the digital video frame rate is 30 frames per second, if you choose 30, you’ll be capturing one frame for every second of real time. If you let the camera run for 30 minutes, it will record roughly thirty seconds of video.

In the next section we've provided a chart with a few example frame settings. In our Space Needle movie for example, we used a frame capture rate of 600.

3. Import your video in iMovie as you normally do.

You can now start importing video at the time compressing rate you've selected. Don't jiggle the camera. If you are recording for long periods of time, walk away and let the import run.

Possible Frame Capture Settings

Here are some rough figures when playing with what frame capture settings to use:

• 30: 30 minutes play back in 1 minute.
• 60: 1 hour plays back in 1 minute.
• 240: 4 hours play back in 1 minute.
• 480: 8 hours play back in 1 minute.
• 720: 12 hours play back in 1 minute.
• 1440: 24 hours play back in 1 minute.

Enjoy!

Posted by Craig Swanson at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Around this time of year, many freelancers and other small creative businesses in the United States start receiving requests for a lot of W-9's and other tax-related forms from their clients.

Tax advice is well beyond the scope of this tips newsletter. However if you are getting a lot of requests for W-9's this month, you can streamline things by using the editable PDF Form provided by the IRS:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf

Pre-fill all your company's details and keep a copy of the form handy for when clients request it. Other tax forms can be found as PDFs on the IRS's Forms and Publications site.

Source: This tip originally started as a tip on using Digital Signatures in PDFs. Designer Darlin Gray was emailing her yearly W-9 Forms to all her clients and asked about adding digital signatures to those PDFs. After some research it appears that the function of the W-9 is fulfilled for most freelancers whether it is signed or not — so this isn't a good example for using digital signatures.

Any good digital signature examples? We'd like to open this topic up to our readers. We get occasional calls from clients interested in using digital signatures for various business purposes. So far, we have not seen many real-world examples of them in use. We are looking for some solid examples that might provide the basis for a future tip. Anyone got something good?

Posted by Craig Swanson at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This is just fun. Enter your own details and this little app builds an animated opening sequence, including animated logos for your own film company, distributor, and the characteristic crawling yellow text that opens each Star Wars episode.

http://alienryderflex.com/crawl/

Warning: The current version of this application generates over 2,000 individual BMP files that need to be stitched together with a tool like QuickTime Pro. Make sure to save all those images into a new folder. Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of saving all those files to your desktop!

Converting 2,000+ BMP files to a Movie.

The Star Wars TSG application will create roughly 2,000 BMP files on your computer. Here are the steps to convert those files into a single animated movie.

1. If you've purchased and activated the Pro features, open the QuickTime Player.

The full version of QuickTime Pro ($29) is required to combine a collection of files like this.

2. In QuickTime Player Choose File > Open Image Sequence...

Find the folder containing your images, and open one. You'll be asked to pick a Frame rate. Different rates affect the playback speed of your animation.

3. Save the movie.

When you are done, save the movie as a self-contained movie. Enjoy.

Source: We discovered this little gem on TUAW.com. We used a portion of our own opening sequence on our Time Lapse iMovie video.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PDFs have become a prevalent way to provide proofs for clients. But switching to PDFs disrupts the tradition of adding studio-branded "proof" stickers or checklists to a client's hard copy proofs.

Worse, some some creative teams have reported problems with restless clients jumping the gun and using those PDFs as printer-ready digital art.

Here is one technique to improve your studio's proofing process: Add a special proofing watermark to all the PDF proofs you send your clients.

Adding a watermark takes about a minute in Adobe Acrobat and as we'll see in this tip, the process is flexible enough for a variety of approaches.

Adding a Proofing Watermark with Acrobat.

Once you've created a proof PDF for your client, use the following steps to add a special watermark in Adobe Acrobat. (You'll need the full version, not just Adobe Reader.)

1. Choose Document > Add Watermark & Background.

2. Under the Type section, select "Add a Watermark."

You can choose when you want the watermark to be visible. We'll usually check both "on screen" and "when printing", but you can decide what would work best for your studio.

3. Under Source, select your proofing image file.

While Acrobat allows you to type text, most designers are going to want to create their own crafted proofing message. In our example, we created a simple PDF in Illustrator CS2 to use as our proofing message. You can download that file as an example:

Proof-Watermark.pdf

4. Adjust the position, size and opacity of your watermark.

Set the vertical and horizontal position of your watermark. In our example, we've centered the mark horizontally, and aligned it .5 inches from the bottom of the page vertically.

You can size or rotate your watermark image as needed. Although we did not in our example.

And finally, you can choose to fade the opacity of your watermark to make it less obtrusive.

Play with these settings to achieve the look you are going for.

5. Set the page range.

Finally you get to pick whether to apply your proofing watermark to every page of the PDF, or just to specific pages.

6. Save your PDF and send it off to the client.

After you've applied your watermark, save the results. Use a save-as with a different name if you want to keep the original untouched.

Bonus Idea #1: Create a Job Ticket PDF Form.

Here is an interesting twist that takes this idea a little further. Create an editable PDF Form for key project information. Fill that form our with the details for your project before you apply it as a watermark.

Proof-JobTicket.pdf

When you use a PDF Form like this, you'll lose the ability to edit the information once it is applied as a watermark. But you can easily keep an updated version of your project ticket PDF in each project folder on your server.

Got another Idea? Leave a comment.

We'd love to hear about other ideas for using Acrobat watermarks. Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below. Because of the increasing volume of comment spam, it may take us a day to read and okay your thoughts. But rest assured, we do read every comment.

Source: This tip inspired by a recent workflow consulting session with an in-house creative team at Costco. Special thanks also to Image Ink Studios who helped our research by providing us some examples of their own job ticket stickers.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 02:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

• Open all your .pdf files in Acrobat instead of Preview.
• Pick a different default mail client or web browser.
• Control what opens when digital cameras or webcams are plugged in.
• Close security holes with how certain weblinks are handled.

Of course you can change these settings other ways. But RCDefaultApp makes it much easier by putting the most requested controls into one location — a new "Default Apps" option at the bottom of your Mac OS X System Preferences.

With this plethora of options it can be a little overwhelming for the casual user. We outline a few of the most common examples below.

Open the Default App preference pane.

Once RCDefaultApp is installed, simply go to Mac OS X's system preferences (found under the Apple menu) and click on the "Default App" at the bottom.

Control which applications open certain files.

Want all your PDF files opened in Acrobat Reader instead of Preview? Want all PDF, JPG, or TIF files to open in Photoshop?

Choose the Extensions tab and scroll down through the list of file extensions to the ones you are interested in. Choose your default application from the pop-up menu.

Tip: Look for similarly named file extensions — especially uppercase vs lowercase. To change your PDF setting for example, you may have to set "PDF" and "pdf" separately.

Pick a different default mail client or web browser.

Do you want to use Entourage as your default email program? Maybe you prefer Firefox over Safari. These settings are grouped together under the Internet tab.

Close security holes with how certain weblinks are handled.

Warning: overly technical content below. Feel free to skip.

Certain of Mac OS X's default handlers for custom URI protocols (weblinks) expose exploitable security holes. One such vulnerability is detailed far too thoroughly at the special Month of Apple Bugs website.

These types of vulnerabilities can be addressed by choosing the URI tab and setting any vulnerable URI entries to "disabled."

For best security, we'd recommend disabling the following URI:

• rtsp (vulnerability described here)

For additional details we'd refer readers to the article Disabling Unsafe URI Handlers With RCDefaultApp at Daring Fireball.

As our security-conscious consultant Jordan Bojar said when lobbying for the addition of these security details, "Mostly, it's just cool to set all your PDFs to open in Acrobat."

Source: This tip inspired by research and testing by CreativeTechs consultant Jordan Bojar.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week we reprised our annual Fonts & Mac OS X talk at Seattle's School of Visual Concepts. This year included some significant updates for designers managing their fonts in 2007.

Here is a link to the PDF of the presentation, which includes specifics on some of the details covered:

SVC Font Class 2007.pdf

In addition to this PDF, we have a variety of links and resources that were mentioned during the presentation.

Resource Links: Simplify your System Fonts

Ebook: Take Control Fonts in Mac OS X (Tiger)
Excellent $20 downloadable book!

MacWorld: Take Control of Fonts in Mac OS X
Free article based on the ebook.

Kurt Lang: Font Management in OS X Tiger and Panther

Resource Links: Use a Font Management Tool

Ars Technica: Font Manager Reviews
Excellent review of the three top font managers.

CreativeTechs: Font Manager Shoot-Out
Our own review last year. Includes lots of video clips and demos.

Resource Links: Organize your Creative Fonts

Survey: How many of your fonts did you pay for?

Source: CreativeTechs's Craig Swanson speaks regularly at the School of Visual Concepts, and at other Seattle-area design focused associations. This year we had a pretty strong turn-out, and that was despite another bout of Seattle Snow. (In Seattle, when one snowflake falls, four people will slip on it.)

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in Issue #57 of our tips email, we demonstrated a fun technique for creating realistic water droplets using layer styles in Adobe Photoshop. The effect was created using a combination of four different layer style settings.

The effect looks good with droplets. But when we apply that same set of layer styles to type, we found we needed to reduce the size of the effect by about 50% to make it look right. We could go into each setting individually and reduce the effect sizes by 50% — or we could use Photoshop's "Scale Effect" option to make the adjustment quickly and easily across all layer styles at once.

To scale your layer effects, highlight a layer in Photoshop that has a Layer Style applied.

Then in Photoshop's menu, select:

Layer > Layer Style > Scale Effects.

Which brings up the Scale Layer Effects dialog.

You can reduce the scale down as low as 1% to make the effects smaller, or increase the scale up to 1000% to make the effects larger.

Source: This tip inspired by a write-up by Sue Chastain in the About: Graphic Software website.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the years we've collected a variety of papercraft Macintosh templates. So when we found this foldable iPhone template at iPhoneCountdown.com we knew it must be added to the list!

iPhone Readymech.pdf.

Find yourself waiting impatiently for the June release of Apple's revolutionary iPhone? This project might buy you an hour or two of release.

Source: Found by consultant Kyle Pauley via the popular TUAW.com blog.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As part of a special week of font tips I'd like to mention an upcoming feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Titled simply: Helvetica.

Helvetica will begin screening at film festivals worldwide in early 2007, followed by limited cinema screenings and a DVD release. For now you can watch four short QuickTime clips featuring interviews with Wim Crouwel, Neville Brody, Erik Spiekermann and others.

Source: Helvetica celebrates it's 50th birthday in 2007. We know it is odd to be looking forward to a 2-hour movie about typography. You can also check out the book Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface by Lars Muller.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many of our tips come directly from the annoyances Seattle designers call us about. This is one of those issues. We hear from many frustrated designers who complain that Extensis Suitcase is constantly deactivating fonts in Adobe InDesign while they work. Seemingly at random.

The short answer is to turn off the "On document close" option in the Suitcase Auto-Activation plug-in preferences. Read on for full details.

Suitcase's Auto-Activation Plug-in.

The culprit for these annoying font deactivations is the Suitcase Auto-Activation plug-in. This plug-in contains an option that automatically turns off auto-activated fonts when you close an InDesign document.

Let's walk through how this feature works against many multi-tasking designers.

Say you open an InDesign file (call it Document-A) which automatically activates a collection of your commonly used fonts. You work on that file, and then open a second document (call it Document-B) that also uses several of those fonts.

If you later close out of Document-A, the Suitcase plug-in deactivates all the fonts that were auto-activated when you first opened that file. Then when you switch back to Document-B (which is still open) you'll get a collection of error messages from InDesign saying your needed fonts are no longer available.

How frustrating!

The Fix: Turn off the "On document close" option.

To prevent Suitcase from closing needed fonts while you are working, bring up the Suitcase Auto-Activation Preferences in InDesign:

InDesign > Preferences > Suitcase Auto-Activation...

In Suitcase Fusion you should uncheck "On document close" in the Close opened fonts section.

In Suitcase X1 (shown below) uncheck the option labeled "Deactivate fonts after closing a document."

Source: This tip originally inspired by a troubleshooting session with the Seattle Opera. More recently, designer Mike Styskal at Utility Inc. had the same problem and said this would be a great tip for us to put out. Thanks Styk!

Posted by Craig Swanson at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever need to track down exactly which font was used in a client's old logo?

You can make that task much easier, using the great WhatTheFont tool on the MyFonts website. Upload a scanned image of the typography in question and this website will automatically generate a list of the closest matches in their huge database of known fonts.

Plus, if you find the font you are looking for, you can buy it directly from MyFonts.com.

This is a pretty handy trick!

Source: We featured this tip over two years ago way back in QuickTips #02. We're rerunning it this week as part of our special all-fonts issue of QuickTips.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)