Creating a neon sign in Cinema 4D and Photoshop

Neon Type Effects

Ever wanted to have your very own neon sign, but don’t fancy paying £800 for it? Imaging guru Chris Weston shows you how to recreate neon effects using Cinema 4D’s powerful 3D toolset and a little help from Photoshop

Ulead Digital World Cup Guide

World Cup fever is back! During June and July, thirty-two teams from around the world will battle it out for the world’s most coveted trophy. As you live through the highs and lows of the premier sporting event of 2006, you want to preserve and relive those impossible shots, the magic moments of glory, and the agony of defeat. Ulead has just the tools you need to make this the most memorable World Cup ever, whether you are cheering in the stands, having a night at the sportsbar with your buddies, or parked in front of your brand new widescreen HDTV.

And to make it easier for you to figure out what you would like to do and what tools would do it best, Ulead is offering you this handy Ulead Digital World Cup Guide.

Cars: Hitting the Mother Road – Part 2

In part two of AWN’s in-depth Cars coverage, Bill Desowitz discovers the roots of Route 66 in creating the highly detailed, luscious and complex world.

Cars: Hitting the Mother Road – Part 2

No Flash In The Pan

No Flash In The Pan – Forbes.com

When Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen picked up Flash developer Macromedia (nasdaq: MACR – news – people ) for $3.4 billion in stock last year, its latest version–Flash 8–was just launching. The update pledged much-higher-quality video than previous editions, thanks to a new movie-compression method from a small company called On2. What followed was a deluge of interest, pushing Flash ahead of video-streaming pioneers RealNetworks (nasdaq: RNWK – news – people ) and QuickTime-developer Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL – news – people ).

Flash 8 can also be purchased as part of the Adobe Web Bundle 2.0 or Studio 8.

The On2 codec is included as a Sorenson Squeeze plug-in Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite or Sorenson Squeeze for Flash.

Photoshop Elements users: Enter The 2006 Scrappy Awards

“The 2006 Scrappy Awards” is your chance to show off your best digital scrapbook pages and win some cool prizes! Just send us digital scrapbook pages you’ve designed using Adobe Photoshop Elements software. Winning entries will be featured in the Photoshop Elements Techniques Newsletter and Website.

For complete rules, entry, and submission information visit: http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/scrappyawards/.

QuarkXPress 7 review from creativepro.com

The first thing to get straight when evaluating QuarkXPress 7 is that with three million registered users worldwide, Quark is more focused on keeping existing customers happy than on converting Adobe InDesign users to QuarkXPress. While many people have switched to InDesign, many more have stayed with QuarkXPress, just biding their time. The newly released QuarkXPress 7 is what they’ve been waiting for.

QuarkXPress 7 review from creativepro.com

Visit the Studio that Created Cars

Visit the Studio that Created “Cars”

It doesn’t look like any other film studio — it looks like fun. The Disney Insider recently got a chance to see for ourselves, as we went behind the scenes at Pixar. We met John Lasseter, and animators Bobby Podesta and Scott Clark, and came back to share secrets of the movie wizards who have given us groundbreaking films like “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” and now “Cars” – opening June 9. John, Bobby, and Scott explained the creative process to us, and gave us a look at the place where it all happens.

SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 4 review from Creative Mac

A good piece of music can make or break a video production. But sometimes that’s not enough. The music has to be perfectly synchronized with the video, becoming less complicated when there are voiceover sequences. Until SmartSound Sonicfire Pro came along a few years ago, to accomplish this kind of customization you would have needed to hire a composer at great expense. Not any more. And now with version 4, Sonicfire has added an even more human element to the mix which it calls Mood Mapping. It’s remarkable.

Read the complete review

Tips to make Photoshop faster

Tips to make Photoshop faster

Increase the speed of your Photoshop CS2 with tips relating to your hard drives, cpu, gpu, and memory.

Virtual Hip Surgery with Swift 3D

Virtual Hip Surgery with Swift 3D

Eric Bort created the “Virtual Knee Surgery” back in 2004 and now he has followed up with “Virtual Hip Surgery”. His latest exhibit created with Swift 3D features newly stylized characters and an array of 3D surgical instruments for your learning pleasure.