iOpeners…. eye openers..get it?

Welcome!  (^.^)  Joan

Great site for web designers and bloggers – Hongkiat.com

Ross Rasmussen gave a great workshop for HMAUS on Lion last Saturday. One of the articles he liked was this one about 10 great but not so well known features of Lion. The host site hongkiat.com turned out be one full of great tips and posts.

Check out it’s tools page here http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/category/tools/

App alert

Right now Costco has Photoshop Elements 10 for $50 – about as cheap as you’re going to find it – with some photo printing and some other bennies.

When some apps are released they’re really cheap for a while to build exposure and buzz. This is one of them. It’s a synthesizer reputed to be really good and fun.

Popplet for iPad $4.99 Like a bulletin board with linked objects for brainstorming http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/popplet/id374151636?mt=8

Animoog synthesizer $.99 now, soon to be $30 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/animoog/id471638724?mt=8&s=143455
About http://www.macworld.com/article/163086/2011/10/moog_musics_animoog_turns_your_ipad_into_a_synthesizer.html

Screen Captures

It’s often useful to capture a portion of the screen to paste into a document or for later use.  Mac OS X lets you do that with Cmd-Shift-3 for the entire screen (useless IMHO)  or a portion of the screen with Cmd-Shift-4 (very useful!).  This latter option creates a .png or a .jpg, depending on which one you choose.

To learn how to change your default screen capture keyboard shortcut to a more convenient key combination, or to use Grab (free on your Mac), or better yet SnapNDrag, a free app, help yourself to the HMAUS handouts at http://public.me.com/hmauscloud.  Click the MacLearn link, then the Screen Capture folder.  Click any handout then the Download buttons when they appear.

 

Batteries that don’t want to die

Friend Paul Kodama shared a find you may want to know about if you have a battery consuming device. ….

The Sanyo battery (AA & AAA) is called Eneloop and sold at Costco.  You’ll need an Ni-MH charger as none is included with the batteries.  The battery comes precharged and claims it’ll run for 3 years before needing recharging.  I use ‘em in my Trackpad and Magic Mice.

This charger and battery 8-pack is $36.49 at Amazon now and an 8-pack alone is $21.11.  Worth trying for my Flip video camera that devours batteries.  Mahalo Paul.

Out of Bounds Photoshop/Photoshop Elements tutorial – awesome!

Came across a post on making part of your image pop out of the picture. Itʻs done with a photoshop action. The link was from a graphics newsletter that I trust and the video tutorial is excellent. You have to register at the site but itʻs free.

Even if you use Photoshop Elements, watch the Photoshop tutorial as well because itʻs more complete.

http://www.panosfx.com/free-photoshop-actions/oob

Good Morning

Animoto.com is an online, award winning slideshow making site.  You get a free “Lite” account for making 30 second videos – which honesty, is often as long as you WANT to make them.  If you pay $5/month or $30 per year, you can have full-length slideshows and for $3 you can download it as a 420p mp4 video, $6 for 1020.

Check out this drag and drop example I made – literally drag and drop!  Good Morning.

Free Photoshop Brushes

How about free Photoshop brushes?   Thanx to friend Cassie Nii for the tip!

Step 1: Download the brushes you want from noupe.com. http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/80-all-you-need-photoshop-brushes.html

Step 2: Drop them into your Photoshop/preset/brushes folder by following this path to get to the brushes folder:

• Mac: /Users/{your username}/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Presets/Brushes (on mac OS X) or
• PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop\Presets\Brushes (on Windows).

Step 3: Add them to your brushes palette.  Here’s how:  http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/install_brushes These instructions are from myphotoshopbrushes.com which has a ton other stuff too -  free layer styles, brushes, shapes.

Free Stock Footage

Want free video clips?  Here’s an article by Topher Welsh with links to 14 sources to get them from. The green screen plate samples at the bottom of the page are interesting and you’re welcome to try them out.    I got some from FreeFootage and they’re nice.  Not sure how I’ll use them but I got ‘em when I do i 8-).

http://ae.tutsplus.com/articles/roundup/14-free-stock-footage-and-green-screen-plate-resources/

Sapporo Biru – AWESOME commercial!!

Can’t watch it just once..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Rs6YEZAt8

 

Adobe Acrobat X can do it

Here are 10 things you may not know Acrobat can do… plus one more not in this video. Did you know that if you have a free Adobe ID account you can click a link to the right of Adobe tutorials like this and save the video your online library? Just login and click My Library to view it again.

Acrobat costs $119 academic and twice as much or more full price, but if you buy a Creative Suite it’s usually included. The best part is fillable, saveable forms, oh yea, and the collaboration featured oh yea, and being able to include not only photos, but also videos, Flash and links to websites and other parts of the document.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/i-didnt-know-acrobat-could-do-that-loris-top-10-for-acrobat-x/loris-top-10-/