Creative Tip: Preview Color Separations in Acrobat.

Adobe Acrobat has many built in features to view, fix, and control prepress issues — including spot and process colors, printer marks, preflighting, and fonts. These various tools can take much of the guesswork out of files when preparing PDFs for commercial printing.

The Output Preview dialog box for example is a terrific tool that allows you to inspect individual color plates in a process or spot color print job, as well as simulating how your PDF will look in different printing conditions.

Full Tip: Preview Color Separations in Acrobat.

Source: This tip inspired by Jason Hoppe's June 18th workshop Acrobat: Prepress With PDFs. If you are a designer in the Seattle area, join us this Wednesday morning or afternoon for an in-depth look at how to use PDFs in today's modern graphic design prepress workflow. (See workshop list below)

Tech Tip: Grow your Studio with Google Webmaster Tools.

If you want to attract visitors to your studio's website (or if you design websites for clients) you really must understand and use Google's collection of Webmaster Tools. This free service from Google provides you with detailed reports about your website's visibility on Google, as well as giving you valuable ways to control how your website appears in search results.

Link: Google Webmaster Tools

In the full version of this tip we'll dig into this powerful resource that is key to harnessing Google as a marketing vehicle for your creative studio. As part of that discussion, we'll show how you can answer the following questions:

#1: When was the last time Google indexed your website?

#2: Are there any bad links or missing pages on your site?

#3: Does your website's content reflect your brand and target market?

#4: Who is linking to your website?

#5: How can you make your Flash-based site more findable?

#6: Can you stop Google from indexing photos in your portfolio?

#7: How do you remove something from Google's search results?

Full Tip: Grow your Studio with Google Webmaster Tools.

Source: This tip inspired by Craig Swanson's upcoming June 25th workshop Google for Graphic Designers. In this 90-minute workshop we'll dig into how you can build your websites for maximum exposure in today's search engines. With a special look into Google's Webmaster and Analytics tools for understanding and improving how potential customers can find your website when they need it. This is the 2nd of our 3-part workshop series on online marketing techniques. (See workshop list below)

Seattle Training: Upcoming Workshops - 9:30am or 4pm.

We help busy creative professionals by breaking our topics into short bite-sized workshops. As a test, this month we're adding a late afternoon session to our normal schedule options. Pick an interesting topic and sign up for a 90-minute morning or late-day workshop.

Wed, June 18 - Acrobat: Prepress with PDFs.
Thu, June 19 - Photoshop: Color Adjustment Layers.
Wed, June 25 - Google for Graphic Designers.
Thu, June 26 - Using 3D in Photoshop CS3 Extended.
Tue, July 1 - Font Management in Mac OS X.

You'll find our updated list of workshops by visiting creativetechs.com/miniworkshops

Personal Note: Farewell to Tim Russert.

For years, Tim Russert of Meet the Press has been my weekly Sunday companion as I write, finish, and proof this weekly tips newsletter. I was deeply saddened to learn of his death last Friday.

Tim, I will miss you. Sundays won't be the same without you.

Your referrals wanted! Referrals from our clients and readers are what keeps CreativeTechs healthy and in business. As a small thank-you, every week we send a Free Mini-Workshop Pass to new Seattle-area subscribers, plus the friend or colleague who referred them:

CreativeTechs QuickTips is a free weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experience supporting hundreds of creative teams in the greater Seattle area. For a complete archive of previous tips, visit www.creativetechs.com/tips

For IT Professionals supporting Mac users, visit Make Mac Work. This weekly technical blog focuses on IT issues facing Macs in Enterprise environments. It is written by CreativeTechs' lead enterprise engineer, Jordan Bojar. For an archive of previous topics, visit www.makemacwork.com

Your referrals wanted! CreativeTechs relies on word-of-mouth introductions. If you know a Seattle-area creative team who might benefit from our unique expertise providing computer support for creative professionals, please introduce us. We are never too busy for your referrals. Email help@creativetechs.com, or call us at 206-682-4315.

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