Creation Engine Blog

Coloring with Adobe Kuler

Link via Macworld

Kuler is a Web-based application that allows users to browse, create, and share color themes through the Kuler Web site, the Kuler desktop application (direct download link; requires Adobe AIR), or a Kuler widget for Mac OS X’s Dashboard (available for download from the Links page on the Kuler site). Of course, Kuler is also available inside your favorite Adobe CS4 desktop applications including: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, and Fireworks. Kuler is available online for free, and you don’t have to be a CS4 user to take advantage of it.

By far the most popular way to use Kuler is through the Creative Suite applications you use all day. The Kuler panel (accessed via Window ->Extensions ->Kuler in your CS4 apps) offers you the ability to create a single color, then build a list of complementary colors based on it. This is the perfect tool when you’re working on a design where the only color you have is in a logo and you’re coming up short when trying to think of a great set of complementary colors to use on a Web page or brochure.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Collections are available at an education discount price through Creation Engine.

Pretty Space Pictures with the free Photoshop FITS plug-in

Link via Slate.com

Once the images are on the ground, scientists can look at them in the FITS (“Flexible Image Transport System”) file format, a standard protocol used among astronomers. For analysis, most scientists use the data in this form—as grey-scale images representing light at different wavelengths.

To create an image suitable for public viewing, the scientists send the FITS files over to a public outreach team. Specialists on the team—who tend to be astronomers with graduate degrees and a passion for graphics and photography—begin the process of converting the information into the images sent out in press releases.

Finally, the colorized images are cropped, rotated to the most dramatic orientation, and cleaned of instrument errors and other unsightly blemishes. Most of this work is done in Photoshop, using a freely downloaded plug-in that allows users to convert from the FITS format. (The original telescope images are also available, so you can create your own color gas cloud picture at home.)

Download the free ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator v.2.2 Photoshop Plug-in.

Photoshop CS4 Extended is available at an academic discount price of $299.

Photoshop CS4 Extended College Student Edition is available at a student discount price of $195.

How to Use Adobe Acrobat for Online Document Reviews

Link via Web Worker Daily

Online document reviews have become a part of life for web workers creating technical documentation because they because are more economical and faster than having to fax, scan, or ship review documents around by FedEx. PDFs offer a bandwidth-friendly format for sending large documents back and forth amongst a geographically dispersed project team.

Adobe Acrobat includes a number of electronic review tools. In this post, I’m going to show how you can use them to make online editorial comments. While this post was based on Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, many of these review tools can also be found in Adobe Acrobat going back a couple of versions. Note that these tools are only available in the full version of Adobe Acrobat, not Acrobat Reader.

Acrobat 9 Professional is available at an education discount price of only $95.

Creating 3-D Characters and Images in Pixologic’s ZBrush

Link via The Epoch Times

I’ve always perceived 3-D graphics and animation as the art form most difficult to learn and create. Past experiences dabbling with such programs rarely lasted more than a few minutes—I would open the program, feel intimidated, and quickly close it down.

This perception has been changed by ZBrush.

The software, created by Pixologic, is a digital sculpting and painting tool made for the 3-D art community. It is often used in the film and video game industries and has big names under its belt, including the surface details of Davy Jones and his crew in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” and the upcoming sequel to the hit game, “Assassin’s Creed.”

ZBrush essentially allows you to sculpt digital clay. You can build, mold, push, and stretch it as you please. The end product can be photorealistic 3-D models of whatever your imagination can conjure.

ZBrush is available at an education discount price of $390.

Free upgrade to version 7 for all purchases of Stop Motion Pro 6.5 made after 9/1/2009!

On November 1st, 2009 Stop Motion Pro will release Stop Motion Pro V7.

Any purchases made from the 1st of September, 2009 will be offered a free upgrade to the appropriate edition of SMP V7.

Purchase Stop Motion Pro at an education discount price.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Solutions and Mac OS X Snow Leopard FAQ

Snow Leopard Adobe CS4 Adobe Creative Suite 4 Solutions and Mac OS X Snow Leopard FAQ PDF

FAQ on Adobe Creative Suite 4 products and components compatibility with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6). Also information regarding Adobe Creative Suite 3 and Macromedia Studio 8.

Creative Suite 4 products are available at an education discount price from Creation Engine.

Free FileMaker Graphics Pack with purchase of FileMaker Pro 10 or FileMaker Pro 10 Advanced

Free FileMaker Graphics Pack when you purchase and register FileMaker Pro 10 or FileMaker Pro 10 Advanced between 7/1/2009 and 9/18/2009 and register by 9/24/2009.

FileMaker Pro 10 is available at an education discount price of $179.

FileMaker Pro 10 Advanced is available at an education discount price of $299.

My new software favorite: Personal Brain – James Fallows

Link via the Atlantic

But for the moment: Personal Brain, from TheBrain software in Marina del Rey, California. I’m in that familiar and always-enjoyable phase of feeling: this program is really interesting, and let’s see how it fits the way I think and work.

The idea of the program is to connect any item — a call you want to make, a web site you want to quote, a PDF file you want to read, or even an entire project you’re beginning — with any other, in a flexible variety of relationships. FWIW, the program calls its items “thoughts.” Here’s an idea of how some of the connections look, in a view that shows many projects for which I’m collecting info or am working on.

PersonalBrain 5 Pro Mac/Windows/Linux (download version) is available at an education discount price of $179.

PersonalBrain 5 Core (download version) is available at an education discount price of $89.

Free PaintStop plugin for ZBrush

Link via Pixologic

PaintStop is a powerful addition to ZBrush’s extensive plugin library which configures your user interface and settings to give you the true to life feel of using real world art tools. In addition to the many brushes, pencils, and paints that are available in PaintStop, you can choose from a variety of different canvas types to change the look and feel of your final piece. Download PaintStop today from the ZBrush plugin library.

ZBrush is available at an education discount price of $390

Sonar 8 $25 to $100 mail-in rebates

	SONAR 8 Studio Only $99 after $100 mail-in rebate! Offer good through 8/31/2009.
	SONAR 8 Producer Only $299 after $100 mail-in rebate! Offer good through 8/31/2009.
	SONAR Home Studio 7 Only $54 after $25 mail-in rebate! Offer good through 8/31/2009.
	SONAR Home Studio 7 XL Only $104 after $25 mail-in rebate! Offer good through 8/31/2009.

Coloring with Adobe Kuler

Pretty Space Pictures with the free Photoshop FITS plug-in

How to Use Adobe Acrobat for Online Document Reviews

Creating 3-D Characters and Images in Pixologic’s ZBrush

Free upgrade to version 7 for all purchases of Stop Motion Pro 6.5 made after 9/1/2009!

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Solutions and Mac OS X Snow Leopard FAQ

Free FileMaker Graphics Pack with purchase of FileMaker Pro 10 or FileMaker Pro 10 Advanced

My new software favorite: Personal Brain – James Fallows

Free PaintStop plugin for ZBrush

Sonar 8 $25 to $100 mail-in rebates

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