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CreativeTechs

Press ESC for a Pop-up Autocomplete List.

It’s always fun to stumble across a little-known feature that’s been around for years. When you’re typing text in many OS X applications (Safari, TextEdit, Mail, etc), you can press ESC (F5 also works) for an pop-up list with words from the built in OS X dictionary. Note: This trick only works in Cocoa apps. […]
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August 18, 2008
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Visualize Your Website Using a Word Cloud.

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Wordle is a fun website that generates word clouds from any text you provide. Word clouds are a visual way of looking at the words used on a website. The image above is a visualization of the words on the front page of the Creativetechs website. The size and color of each word reflects how frequently it appears in the overall page.

Wordle – Beautiful Word Clouds

If you design websites for a living Wordle is more than a toy. The words you use on your client’s sites form the online brand as far as Google is concerned. So you really have to pay attention to the words you use. Do they reflect the brand that you’re working to create?

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August 11, 2008
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Eliminate shadows in Leopard screen grabs.

Three months ago we published two Photoshop actions we developed to clean up shadows in Leopard screenshots when using the command-shift-4 plus spacebar screen capture technique. We received a number of thank-you emails, so those tips must have touched a nerve for some people out there. This week’s tip covers a different way to remove […]
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August 11, 2008
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Isolate a Logo on a Transparent Background.

You’ve been provided an image file with your client’s logo sitting on top of a flat background color. You want to quickly remove the background so the logo is isolated on a transparent layer in Photoshop. This is a classic production challenge, and we’ve seen production artists tackle this issue dozens of different ways. In […]
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August 4, 2008
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Easily Remove an OSX System Preference Pane.

Here is the easiest ways to remove System Preference Panes you’ve added over time and no longer need. Simply control-click, or right-click, on a preference icon in the Others section of your System Preferences (the Other section contains the custom preferences installed by users). A pop-up menu lets you remove the selected preference pane. This […]
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August 4, 2008
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Free eBooks to Help Grow Your Studio.

For this week’s tip we’re breaking away from our normal weekly format. We’ve compiled links to over a dozen free eBooks, PDFs, and Manifestos, containing a plethora of sales, marketing, and management strategies to help you run and grow a successful creative studio. We’ve linked directly to the PDFs for several of these books: The […]
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July 27, 2008
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Discover Copy Merged in Photoshop.

There is something immensely satisfying about discovering a Photoshop feature that’s been sitting in front of you for years. The Copy Merged command has been waiting patiently in Photoshop’s edit menu for well over a decade. Yet I’ve missed it all that time. A quick poll of savvy Seattle Photoshop production artists tells me I’m not […]
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July 21, 2008
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Instantly Darken your Mac’s Monitor.

Here is a nice, quick one. If you’re working on an (ahem!) important confidential document and someone walks into the room who shouldn’t see your screen, you can instantly darken you Mac’s screen by pressing ctrl-shift-eject. To turn the brightness back to where it was, press any key or move the mouse.
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July 21, 2008
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Prototype Packaging using Photoshop Smart Objects.

Are you working on a product packaging job? Here’s a way to combine digital product photography with Adobe Photoshop Smart Objects in CS2 or CS3 to create quick virtual prototypes. The process is fairly easy once you understand the technique, and can be used for some pretty remarkable results.
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July 14, 2008
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2008 Annual Designer Salary Survey.

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The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2008 is now available.

This survey is widely recognized as the most comprehensive look into how creative professionals are compensated. The results are drawn from responses from more than 6,200 design professionals across the United States.

Link: Design Salaries 2008

Curious how you stack up with your peers? The website has a location-based salary calculator that lets you compare average salaries using a wide range of variables.

Link: AIGA|Aquent Salary Calculator

Play with this handy tool and you can uncover a wealth of details:

  • What’s the average salary for a Creative Director in Seattle?
  • How do salaries compare between design studios and in-house design departments?
  • How do different cities compare in creative salaries?
  • What is the trend for designer salaries over the last several years?

Enjoy the research.

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July 14, 2008
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