Computer Arts (May 2005)

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CONCEPT ART Mix tradition with technology to create slick conceptual designs

It’s back!

Printed in the UK MAY 2005 COVER ILLUSTRATION: EBOY

C$19.95 £6

EDITORIAL

WELCOME Creative Suite 2 is here at last! The software that’s been over a year in the making is finally launched and ready for action. This improved Creative Suite release is a monster of a package that brings with it new versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat. Even GoLive gets a much-needed lick of paint. There’s also a brand new application called Bridge, which serves to unify the products and will be a boon to all collaborative artists. But that’s not all. The box designs have had an upgrade, too, and we’ve secured an interview with the artist to find out how he freshened up his old designs. One person who will definitely be upgrading is our very own Jason Arber – columnist, designer and self-confessed software box collector. He investigates the phenomena that is the perpetual need to upgrade software and asks the question: do you really need to install all those extra features on your ailing computer, or will life go on without those ten extra filters? So before you jump on the upgrade band-wagon, read what Jason has to say on page 20 and our in-depth guide to the new Creative Suite, free with this issue, to find out what CS2 can do for you.

EDITORIAL 01225 442 244 GILLIAN CARSON SENIOR EDITOR [email protected] DOM HALL DEPUTY EDITOR [email protected] RODDY LLEWELLYN SENIOR ART EDITOR [email protected] TINA GLENCROSS DESIGNER SOPHIE EMBLEY PRODUCTION EDITOR [email protected] DAN GOODLEFF PRODUCTION ASSISTANT [email protected] JOSEPH RUSS NEW MEDIA CONTENT EDITOR [email protected] MATT GALLIMORE SENIOR CD EDITOR [email protected] SIMON HOLLAND CD EDITOR [email protected] CD PROBLEMS 01225 822 743 [email protected]

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM Hussein Al-Attar, Jason Arber, Matt Broomfield, Ryan Carson, Christian Darkin, Mauro Gatti, Karl Hodge, Christopher Kenworthy, Derek Lea, Vicky Mitchard, Mark Penfold, Ed Ricketts, Chris Schmidt, Kev Speck, Tim Spencer, Denise Wilton

GILLIAN CARSON SENIOR EDITOR [email protected]

PHOTOGRAPHY James Wilson PRINT William Gibbons REPRO Radstock Reproductions Ltd

SUBSCRIPTIONS Computer Arts Subscriptions, Future Publishing, FREEPOST RLSC-SXSE-SKKT, Unit 4 Tower House, Sovereign Park, Market Harborough, Leicester LE16 9EF SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES 0870 837 4722 OVERSEAS SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 1858 438794 EMAIL [email protected]

ILLUSTRATION IN THE MAG

ADVERTISING 01225 442 244

EBOY

ROSA SMITH advertising manager [email protected] GEORGE LUCAS senior sales executive [email protected] REBECCA BELL-ROBINSON classified sales executive [email protected]

The Berlin pixel powerhouse devised this colossal figure for our cover illustration, which showcases the German boys’ signature graphic style to brilliant effect. The rigid isometric perspective forms a striking framework for the entire piece. INFO: www.eboy.com

MANAGEMENT KELLEY CORTEN publisher DOM BEAVEN publishing director FIONA TULLY marketing manager CLARE TOVEY production manager PAUL MCINTYRE group art editor SARAH WILLIAMS software copyright co-ordinator

DENISE WILTON

PRODUCTION NOLA COKELY ad production co-ordinator KATTY PIGOTT production co-ordinator MIKE THORNE commercial print buyer

CIRCULATION & LICENSING JASON COMBER circulation manager PETE STOTHARD head of international licensing SIMON WEAR overseas licensing director Computer Arts has licences in China, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain

UK DISTRIBUTION FUTURE ROGER PARRY non-executive chairman GREG INGHAM chief executive ROB PRICE managing director UK JOHN BOWMAN group finance director T: +44 (0)1225 442 244 URL: www.futureplc.com

Computer Arts is the registered trademark of Future Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks and copyrights in this issue are recognised, and are acknowledged where possible. If we have failed to credit your copyright please contact us – we’re happy to correct any oversight. Material submitted is accepted on the basis of a worldwide right to publish in printed or electronic form. All contents © Future Publishing 2005.

Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR).

KEV SPECK

TWELVE:TEN

ILOVEDUST

SCOTT HANSEN

TIM SPENCER

DEREK LEA

The Southsea crew sketch e-commerce heaven with a conveyor of stylish T-shirts. INFO: www.ilovedust.com

Computer Arts is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations Jan-Dec 2004: 20,904

Future Publishing Ltd is part of Future plc. Future produces carefully targeted special-interest magazines for people who share a passion. We aim to satisfy that passion by creating titles offering value for money, reliable information, smart buying advice and which are a pleasure to read. Today we publish more than 100 magazines in the UK, US, France and Italy. Over 100 international editions of our magazines are also published in 30 other countries across the world.

Andy illustrates our CD tutorial with this becalming number – playing it cool with KoolMoves. INFO: www.andy-potts.com

Kev’s collage technique turns a drab photo into a dynamic illustration. INFO: www.kevspeck.com

Marketforce Ltd 020 7633 3300 Kings Reach Tower, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LS

Luminous neon and collage collide in Tim’s sparkling Scissor Sisters DVD cover. INFO: www.studiospooky.tv

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ANDY POTTS

Denise’s pixel art cityscape invites you to explore its streets in minute detail. INFO: www.styledeficit.com

Altruistic open source software developers versus the corporate machine. INFO: www.twelveten.com Successful calibrating requires men in suits, hotair balloons – and a plane… INFO: www.iso50.com

Photoshop’s Magic Wand casts a mystical light on Derek’s exotic design. INFO: www.dereklea.com

CONTACT Computer Arts, Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW PHONE: 01225 442 244 EMAIL: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS: 0870 837 4722 OVERSEAS: +44 1858 438 794

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REVIEWS

TUTORIALS

WHAT’S HOT AND WHAT’S NOT?

LEARN THESE GREAT TECHNIQUES

P80 DELL PRECISION M70

P54 CREATE NEON EFFECTS

Power, elegance and portability – are you ready for the most powerful nVidia-based mobile workstation on the market?

P82 WACOM CINTIQ 21UX

Wacom does it again with this incredible monitor-come-tablet hybrid. Just check out the 21-inch 1,600x1,200 display

P83 SITEGRINDER

Create websites from within Photoshop using this simple layers-based plug-in

P84 COREL DESIGNER TECHNICAL SUITE 12

A powerful set of tools built around Corel’s CAD-meets-Photoshop/Illustrator app

P85 FINAL CUT EXPRESS HD

Own an HDV camera? Then this HD variant of Apple’s software editor will suit

Capture the vibrant glow of urban neon with our Photoshop how-to

P60 PHOTOS TRANSFORMED Even the most unprepossessing snap can benefit from a collage makeover

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P66 TOOL TIPS

Prepare to think outside the box with Photoshop’s versatile Magic Wand tool

P68 CD TUTORIAL

Create an animated banner for your website using KoolMoves Lite

FEATURES WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR INDUSTRY?

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P86 SONY HDR-FX1

Marvel at this superb high-definition video camera that records to MiniDV in 16:9 HD

P87 FINEPIX E550 ZOOM

Superb image quality and powerful features help Fujifilm’s camera to shine

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P89 BOOKS

This Ain’t No Disco tops our reviews list

GROUP TEST FIVE TITANS BATTLE FOR THE TOP SPOT

P34 CA INTERVIEW

“The way people use Photoshop nowadays,” laments the self-styled iconographers Never Stop Movement. “It’s not so… nice.”

P48 ICON

Saul Bass: From Carmen Jones to Casino, Bass’ work continues to influence designers the world over

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P72 GET STARTED WITH… P90 MONITOR CALIBRATORS Is your monitor faithful? On the colour front, that is. We screentest five tools to find out – the ColorPlus, blue eye pro, OPTIXXR, Spyder2 and Eye-One Display 2.

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May 2005

Selling your work online: Set up your own e-commerce facility to better promote your work and your wares

P114 CURRICULUM VITAE

Spencer Wilson: Basquiat and Dubuffet inspire Spencer’s quick-fire work ethic

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE P112

Three teams of students respond to a challenging creative brief set by their tutors, and we get an expert in to assess the results…

MAY ISSUE 109

ÁPAGE 60

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TRANSFORM YOUR PHOTOS Use Photoshop to revitalise your dull images

ON THE CD THIS ISSUE’S SOFTWARE & RESOURCES KOOLMOVES LITE (PC) Create superb animation with this streamlined web tool – see page 68

SKETSA 2.1 (MAC+PC) Explore vector heaven with this powerful open source SVG graphics creator

SWIFT 3D PLUG-INS (MAC+PC) Render your favourite Flash files from within LightWave or 3ds max

DESKTOP FLASH SITE BUILDER (PC) Great-looking websites in minutes? Not a problem with Trendy Flash’s top trial

DIGITAL-TUTORS VIDEO (MAC+PC) How to make a draggable image mask in Flash

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PIXEL PERFECT

Create this isometric suburban landscape in Photoshop using our tried-and-tested techniques. Build a block of flats, then style up some tiny people to live there

See page 102 for more details...

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Turn to page 46 for full details of great savings May 2005

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EXPOSURE

EXPOSURE Send your work to Computer Arts and be seen by thousands!

2 RORY MITCHELL LOCATION Lincoln, UK JOB Freelance illustrator CONTACT [email protected] SOFTWARE Corel Draw, Photoshop and old Acorn art packages Rory Mitchell studied Visualisation at the University of Teesside before completing a graphics degree at the University of Lincoln, specialising in interactive and screen-based graphics. “It was good to be able to experiment with illustration and animation,” he says, “but, most importantly, this training gave me an opportunity to develop a visual style.” Having left university, Mitchell first worked for video games publisher Digital Jesters, where he created Flash banners and wallpapers for games, but has since worked freelance for companies such as Mampro and Elate. “When I create something, I generally try to leave visual flaws or scratches so that the image looks distressed,” says Mitchell. “That way, the image doesn’t look as if it has been created on a computer. It looks more like it has come from real life.” Mitchell likes to add to his work using the native drawing tools of an old Acorn RISC PC. “The software has its own inbuilt imperfections, something that modern software doesn’t have,” he says. “The limitations lend subtle imperfections and visual noise to my imagery, rather like using a favourite old paintbrush with loose bristles. I prefer to plan my images on paper first, rather than just randomly hacking at the image until I’m happy with it.” Much of Mitchell’s recent work – Radio Boy and Munchausen, for example – has been inspired by the silent films he watched during his final year at Lincoln: “One of my tutors, Phil Eastwood, got us to watch films such as Das Kabinet des Doktor Caligari, Metropolis, Voyage to the Moon and the early Flash Gordon cinema series,” he says. “But my longer term inspiration comes from comic book artwork from the early thirties through to modern comic artists such as Doug TenNapel.”

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EXPOSURE

To find out more about this section, please go to www.computerarts.co.uk/gallery/

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1. Radio Boy 1 “This is a mood board for the Radio Boy graphic novel. The style of the bulk of the Radio Boy artwork is based on this, but far more simplified. I wanted to place the story in a thirties/forties Americana meets Metropolis setting.” 2 Radio Boy 2 “The Radio Boy images were first sketched out on paper. I then applied layer after layer of paint in Photoshop, leaving gaps, so that underlying layers would show through.”

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3. Radio Boy 3 “This image introduced one of the comic’s main villains. Many of the Radio Boy spreads are influenced by retro movie posters, and I tried to tie-in a few of these components in the artwork.” 4. Radio Boy 4 “Here I tried to restrict myself to using a small colour palette, like the comic book artists from the era the comic was set in: red, cyan, cream, and black.” 5. Trick in Time 1 “This is the cover for a children’s book that I’m working on. Since the story is about time being stopped, I wanted to make it appear as if it were trapped in amber. It makes the book feel as if it’s set in a sleepy afternoon.” 6. Trick in Time 2 “This is an image from mid-way through the book as the hero, Barry, is about to enter the factory lair of the evil clockmaker, Krank. This image was created in CorelDraw and then coloured in Photoshop.” 7. Munchausen DVD “This formed part of a DVD menu system for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The paper theatre scene aesthetic was inspired by the 18th-century theatre scenery used in the film and Terry Gilliam’s animation style.”

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EXPOSURE

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DAVE DRAPER LOCATION London, UK JOB Architectural assistant CONTACT [email protected] SOFTWARE AutoCAD, 3ds max and Photoshop 1. External “I wanted to create the feeling of light and space, both in the building’s form and the image’s style. Rendering in AutoCAD takes time compared to 3ds max, but with multiple spotlights and opacity maps I was able to create crisp textures.” 2. Ramp “To increase the open feeling of this image, I took multiple renders in AutoCAD with different texture maps and coloured spotlights. I then composed them in Photoshop. This stacked effect has created a vibrant appearance and another level of complexity.”

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3. Swimming Pool “The ribbons and surfaces featured here were generated by drawing 2D polylines in AutoCAD, rotating them in the Z-axis and creating a ruled surface between them. I then increased the number of faces to produce a thin smooth surface.” 4. Long Elevation “I love to explore the preconceptions of different software; the background is rendered as a solid with angled planes, but the stadium uses transparencies and curved surfaces. You’d expect the background to be rendered in AutoCAD and the stadium in 3ds max, but in fact it’s the reverse.”

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EXPOSURE

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CHARLES HOUSER LOCATION Texas, USA JOB Freelance graphic designer CONTACT www.clanbe.com SOFTWARE 3ds max, Poser 4, Bryce 5 and Photoshop 1. A.I. “I spend a lot of time thinking about how computers will one day take over the world. This image, which shows the creation of artificial intelligence, is my version of what it will look like when humans finally turn into computers.” 2. NewAge “I used 3ds max and Bryce to render this image of a human transforming into a newage cyborg. I try to combine a flowing, artistic style with computer effects. I look at a lot of Art Nouveau stuff, compositions that flow into each other really smoothly, and then try to create my own version with the new technology.”

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GET EXPOSED Send your work to us, along with an explanation of your techniques and software, the titles of each piece, your website details and email address. Images should be sent as PC or Mac TIFF or JPEG files, on CD or DVD. A hard copy is also a great help. We will endeavour to return all entries that provide an SAE. All contributions are submitted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish, both in print and electronically. Post hi-res files for print to: Exposure, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW.

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STAR LETTER: ANAGLYPH IMAGES MADE EASY

r © Jason Arbe

Did you know that there’s a quicker way of doing your 3D anaglyph tutorial (issue 104) using just Photoshop? Well here it is... Open your saved left and right images and do the following: 1. With the left picture, select Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation – “Master” saturation 60>OK. Repeat for the right picture. 2. Now with the right picture, via Image>Adjust>Levels (Ctrl+L), select red channel>second output to zero>OK. 3. With the left picture, via Image>Adjust>Levels (Ctrl+L), select green channel>second output to zero>OK. 4. With the left picture, select blue channel>second output to zero>OK. 5. With the left picture, select all (Ctrl+A)>Edit>Copy (Ctrl+C). 6. File>New (Ctrl+N). Add 100 pixels to Size>OK. This gives you room to line up the pictures. Now Edit>Paste (Ctrl+V). 7. With right picture, Select>All>Copy. New, Edit>Paste (in the Layers palette, choose Screen in the drop-down list.) Now Move the image around while wearing anaglyph glasses, and once you’re ready, Crop and Save as a Photoshop file. Peter Hughes, via email

+ Thanks for that, Peter. It’s great to see our tutorials inspiring readers to think laterally and come up with their own solutions. PRIZE: Rookledge’s Classic International Typefinder As the Star Letter winner this month, Peter Hughes has won a copy of Rookledge’s Classic International Typefinder, by Christopher Perfect and Gordon Rookledge. Highlighting the essential characteristics of over 700 typefaces, this book helps designers to identify many of the most popular fonts currently in use across the globe. Rookledge’s Classic International Typefinder is published by Laurence King and costs £24.95.

WHICH SLR? Although many of my gadgets are now digital, I’ve yet to upgrade my faithful Nikon F90. So what holds me back? Well, the cost mainly – and the fact that I’ve been waiting for Nikon to release a digital SLR that I can afford. I hoped to be brand loyal, as I already use lenses worth about £1,000. The thing is, while I very much like Fuji’s FinePix S3, which is compatible with my set of lenses, it’s over my budget. So I’ve decided to switch over to Canon and opt for either the EOS 20D or the replacement to the EOS 300D, the EOS 350D. What’s the difference between these two cameras? Richard Hart, via email

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Geoff Harris, editor of our sister magazine Digital Camera Shopper, replies: “If you can afford it, buy the Canon EOS 20D. It’s got a higher specification than the 300 or 350D, and just about every camera magazine is raving about it. It’s now available for just over £1,000, which makes it a great buy. If you want to save money by sticking with a budget SLR, the new 350D has more megapixels than the 300D, along with a more advanced Digic II image processor, faster rapid shoot mode, the ability to shoot JPEG and RAW images simultaneously, and more. It’ll be available after Easter for £749 (body only).”

© 2004 Brad J. Guigar. All rights reserved

IT’S A DESIGNER’S LIFE…

You can buy Brad Guigar’s new book, The Everything Cartooning Book, at www.everythingcartooning.com

NEXT ISSUE IN BEST WEB DESIGN AGENCIES

PHOTOSHOP • SOFTWARE • TUTORIALS • NEWS • REVIEWS

Where can I find a list of the best web design agencies in England/ London? I’m a recent MA graduate and I’m looking for work experience, but I have no idea who does what. Also, what are the biggest web design awards? Thanks for your help! Arthur Roper-Newman, via email

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We don’t have a list of the “best” web design companies, Arthur. We suggest that you think about what experience you want to gain from your work placement, and then look for a studio that will provide that necessary experience. Choose three or four studios (large or small) and put all your effort into getting a placement with them. That way, you won’t waste time. A large-scale, award-winning design house in the centre of London may sound glamorous, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll learn what you need there. As for the web design awards, calendar highlights include the interactive part of the D&AD site (www.dandad.co.uk), the Webby Awards (www.webbyawards.com) and the BAFTA Interactive Awards (www.bafta.org/interactive/).

QUALITY SCANS

...THE FASHION ISSUE

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES

I recently upgraded to an HP Scanjet 4670, being very pleased with HP’s kit that I’d bought to date. Sadly, output compared so badly to that of my old unit (a Linotype Saphir) that I immediately wrote to HP to establish whether there was a fault with the device. They didn’t respond. Eventually, through the reseller, I spoke to their customer relations, who agreed that the quality of the scans was poor. Then, after further delay, a member of their technical team came back to me to say that this was as good as I could expect. I’ve used professional SCSI units in the past, so I don’t know where to set my expectations with the present range of consumer products. Still, as the scanner and transparency adaptor cost roughly £170, I expected much better results. Steve Jubb, via email

Photoshop has infiltrated magazine fashion pages over the last few years and is now set to be the savvy fashion photographers’ best friend

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We passed your complaint on to HP, Steve, and this is what a spokeswoman had to say: “We’re sorry to hear that your reader has had such a poor experience. Be assured that HP will be checking with customer support to investigate how such complaints are being handled… We pride ourselves on customer retention as a result of consistently high quality products and we’re disappointed that a loyal customer has been let down. “The HP Scanjet 4600 series scanners undergo thorough testing and the results show a good level of image quality. An online survey of the installed base for the product also showed a 90 per cent positive response. There are other scanners available from both HP and other manufacturers that offer professional levels of image resolution, but they do not offer the unique qualities of this particular product, including see-through, vertical and oversized scanning capabilities. “The Linotype Saphir is targeted at a very different market from the 4670, so it’s difficult to make direct comparisons.”

PLUS... NEWS ALL THE TOP STORIES AND RELEASES REVIEWS TOP PRODUCTS TESTED IN OUR LAB TUTORIALS 30 PAGES OF THE BEST EXPERT ADVICE FREE CD JAM-PACKED WITH RESOURCES AND SOFTWARE PROFILES EXPERT DESIGNERS REVEAL THEIR SECRETS EXPOSURE BE INSPIRED BY OTHER READERS All contents are subject to change

ON SALE THURSDAY 12 MAY May 2005

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ONLINE HEAVEN THIS MONTH’S ROUND-UP OF THE GREAT AND GOOD ONLINE GIANT STEPS

http://michalevy.com/gs_ download.html This stunning animation from Michal Levy combines simple flat-shaded 3D with a John Coltrane track. The name Giant Steps is derived from the title of a John Coltrane album, composed using mathematical structures. EFLAT

www.eflatonline.com EflatOnline is the portfolio site for Eflat, based in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, which follows the current vogue for minimal designs using small pixel fonts. The result is a highly effective navigation structure that, like any good portfolio, lets the work speak for itself. ROBOTS

www.robotsmovie.com This is a prime example of how a great website can be a successful part of a cross-media promotion. As with many of the best film sites, this is an entertainment experience in itself – taking the form of an interactive adventure as you navigate the site. ZED ONLINE

www.zedonline.com.br Vector illustration is becoming rather passé these days – the world and his wife are scanning photos and tracing them in Illustrator or Flash – but Brazilian designer Zed’s use of line work and colouring makes these illustrations stand out from the rest. KUSTAA SAKSI

www.kustaasaksi.com Finnish illustrator Kustaa Saksi has produced illustrations for a wide range of cool clients, including Diesel, MTV and Playboy. Take a look at his images, which combine “colourful, funny shapes” with glossy art photography to create eye-catching advertising work. JON BURGERMAN

www.jonburgerman.com Busy scribbler Jon Burgerman has launched a new version of his website, which he claims includes 68 per cent new work. Check out his most recent magazine illustrations and even buy Burgermeister merchandise. The other 32 per cent is worth checking out, too!

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May 2005

Creative Suite 2

SOFTWARE Eighteen months in development and packed with a host of new features, Adobe’s latest Creative Suite package has just been unleashed on an expectant public. But what can we expect?

When Adobe launched the original version of its Creative Suite bundle in October 2003, the package literally took the design world by storm and caused a serious rethink at some of the company’s main competitors. Eighteen months down the line, Adobe has finished a serious overhaul of the product set and unveiled a significant number of changes and additions. Combining full new versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, Acrobat 7.0 Professional and Version Cue, and adding new applications called Adobe Bridge and Adobe Stock Photos, the collection promises to provide creative professionals with a truly unified package. While the original Creative Suite release made moves towards crossapplication integration through workgroup server Version Cue, CS2 introduces a new feature in the form of Bridge – a dashboard application and visual file browser that sits at the centre of the suite of applications, ties the whole thing together and promises easier access to your digital assets. Speaking at the London launch of Creative Suite 2, Mark Hilton, Adobe’s senior director of creative professional

products, said the new products contained some “incredible innovations”. “There are features here that will wow and excite you,” he said. “Needless to say, we’ve raised the bar not only on the innovations within the applications, but on innovation within the suite itself.” Hilton added that Adobe’s mission with Creative Suite 2 was to “create a platform for the future of design and publishing” and sought to distance the company from rivals by highlighting the importance of the suite’s impressive unified design. “It used to be about comparing InDesign to QuarkXPress, FreeHand to Illustrator or GoLive to Dreamweaver. It’s no longer about those individual applications. It’s about the suite and the integration of applications within it. There truly is no product in the marketplace as powerful as this.” Scheduled for an April release, Creative Suite 2 will cost £899 for the Premium Edition and £699 for the Standard Edition. An upgrade from Adobe Photoshop will cost £569 or £429 from the original Creative Suite. For a more in-depth look at what’s in the new package, check out our free mini-guide, supplied with this issue of Computer Arts. INFO www.adobe.com

NEWS

Photoshop fans converge SOFTWARE Las Vegas plays host to the NAPP’s annual Photoshop festival Up to 3,000 Photoshop users headed to America’s Sin City recently to attend the National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ annual training and networking event. Kicked off in fine style by NAPP president Scott Kelby, who rode a motorbike into a boxing ring, the mainly US-based delegates were treated to three days of sessions on topics as diverse as “Ten Reasons to Love Adjustment Layers” and “CMYK for Cowards”. Notable at this year’s show was the increased prominence of digital photographers and digital camera manufacturers. At one time, according to Dave Mosser, NAPP’s chief operating officer, the event comprised entirely of “graphic artists”. This shift in the show’s demographic reflects just how influential Adobe’s application has become. At the same event, the NAPP dished out ten Guru awards to designers and artists recognised for achievements with Photoshop. INFO www.photoshopworld.com

Panic on the streets of London COMPETITION Poster company launches Drop the Debt design challenge As well as giving their website an overhaul and creating, distributing and selling artwork for the likes of Jamie Reid, Banksy, Rinzen and John Burgerman, the team at London-based design, print and distribution house Don’t Panic are celebrating their fifth birthday this month by opening an office in New York. Established in 2000, Don’t Panic distributes limited edition posters with social-issue based designs to bars, colleges, shops and offices in the UK. The company sees the poster as a “democratic platform for artistic expression” and a way to provide young artists with their first commission and older hands a new channel of exposure.

Don’t Panic is giving one Computer Arts reader the chance to have a design printed, produced and unleashed on the world. To enter, design a poster around the theme of Drop the Debt, to tie in with this summer’s G8 summit, and upload it to our website at www.computerarts.co.uk. Good luck! INFO www.dontpanicmedia.com

SMALL CREATIVE COMPANIES TOP SOFTWARE THEFT LEAGUE PIRACY Start paying for your software, or else, warns the Business Software Alliance Small companies in the creative industry have topped EMEA (Europe, Middle East, America) league tables for the use of pirated software, claims anti-piracy group the Business Software Alliance. During 2004 alone, the group carried out 1,372 raids on companies suspected of unlawful software use, resulting in

12,034 legal actions and hefty fines ranging from 10,000 to 300,000 euros. Topping the offenders list, alongside IT and professional services groups, were small creative firms, a discovery that Beth Scott, the BSA’s EMEA vice president, describes as “disappointing”. “Ironically, these businesses are themselves reliant on creativity and the

protection of their copyright to drive innovation and be successful,” said Scott. The BSA warns offenders that it has its eyes peeled, and that if caught and prosecuted companies will face the same whopping 300,000 euro fines paid out recently by an architecture practice for extensive illegal software use. INFO www.bsa.org

LETTER FROM…

Italy

GLOBAL UPDATE Mauro Gatti of design house Brainbox says the first quarter of 2005 is bristling with opportunity The Italian design industry has made remarkable progress this year, finally moving out of crisis thanks to bigger investments and a renewed vision of the web. Slowly, clients are starting to believe in the real advantages of online projects. Even if they’re getting more for their money than they deserve – and this is sometimes a big problem – at least they’re pushing for new projects, taking a chance and experimenting. The big agencies over here, Red Cell and Inferentia, for example, are still running things – even as they suffer the fallout of the dot.com crash – but there are also a lot of small, expanding companies, such as Flyer and AdvGroup, who invest in quality, efficiency and competitive budgets. There has been much speculation over the last year of design company failures; now, at long last, there’s some optimism in the air. Italy’s main business centres, Rome and Milan, also offer a good cultural scene. Milan, for example, boasts two very important contemporary art museums (Triennale and PAC) that often host interesting and stimulating exhibitions, and sometimes even competitions organised with various design firms. Designers here have plenty of energy, but Italy still needs more design and new media schools if its up-and-coming creatives are to reach international standards. More projects of international interest would help us to grab the attention of other countries. INFO Visit www.thebrainbox.com or www.mutado.com to find out more

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NEWS

New York library unveils vast online arts archive

SOFTWARE PLUG-IN

Action painting Kodak has updated its image correction and enhancement plug-ins for Photoshop by adding new Actions and upgrading its Digital SHO Professional filter to support 16-bit colour images. With the new support for 16-bit, digital camera and film scanner users can now take advantage of the extra colour information from their high-bit-depth captures. You can download the new Actions free of charge from www.asf.com./products/plugins/actions/ pluginactions.asp 3D

MotionBuilder for free Alias has released a free, non-commercial Personal Learning Edition version of its MotionBuilder 6 character animation software. Alias hopes this will encourage newcomers, as well as students and non-professional enthusiasts, to get to grips with its acclaimed animation package. To download, visit www.alias.com/ motionbuilderple MOTION

Plug-in to Premiere Adobe has released a free HDV plug-in for its Premiere Pro 1.5 professional video editing package. The new release will expand FireWire (IEEE-1394) support in Adobe Premiere Pro and enable the software to work with the HDV format. For the download, visit www.adobe.com/premierepro EFFECTS

Lost and Foundry Visual effects developer The Foundry has just released Tinder 5.0, the latest addition to its impressive series of tools for digital artists. The plug-in is designed to extend the use of Discreet’s Flame, Flint, Fire, Inferno, Smoke and Burn packages, and includes tools for turning digital images into cartoons. Tinder 5.0 is available now for £550. www.thefoundry.co.uk 3D

Goodbye Discreet, hello Autodesk 3ds max developer Discreet will from now on be known by the name Autodesk Media and Entertainment (snappy, huh?). The move, designed to create “closer alignment” between the 3D developer and its new parent company, will see all product names adopt the new Autodesk branding. www.autodesk.com

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RESOURCES Almost 300,000 inspirational items available online

Making babies TV MillTV’s cutting-edge CG work offers amazing insight into pre-birth development These stunning images of developing four- and seven-month old foetuses come courtesy of special effects group MillTV and were developed for a fascinating two-part series, called Life Before Birth, due to be shown on Channel 4 later this spring. Created using 3D, motion and graphics software including Maya, Mental Ray, After Effects and Shake, the models were animated to reproduce movements such as yawning, thumbsucking and hiccupping. The models were generated following a period of intense research using 4D ultrasound scans and medical textbooks and in total, it took MillTV six months to generate between 110 and 120 shots. INFO www.mill.co.uk

A vast treasure of little-seen material is being made available online by the New York Public Library, providing a rich resource for graphics designers, illustrators and arts researchers across the globe. Promising goodies such as 19th and 20th century fashion illustrations, Russian civil war posters, 18th-century Japanese prints and illuminated medieval manuscripts, the NYPL Digital Gallery will be available to browsers across the world. “Whether you’re an historian studying the Revolutionary War, a scenic designer researching old New York neighbourhoods, or a fashion designer looking for inspiration in vintage clothing, the gallery will provide unparalleled resources and access,” said David S. Ferriero, CEO of the project. INFO www.nypl.org/digital

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

Creative winners and losers, plus English Heritage tries to stop the world’s corporate makeover

› GOOD MONTH Moroccan Blue beats other Pantones as designers’ favourite colour tipple According to a recent survey by colour management group Pantone, the clothes adorning the superstar models at the recent New York Fashion Week Fall 2005 collections favoured Moroccan Blue (C=100, M=50, Y=20, K=40 if you must know) above all others. And there’s us thinking 2005’s colour du jour was black. Or was that last season’s new red? INFO www.pantone.com

Þ BAD MONTH

At least for pop-up ads… Free plug-ins could spell the end for annoying browser nightmares Could the massive popularity of free software such as Pop-Up Stopper, Pop This and Pop Zapper, alongside the news that global interactive media group Agency. com has cut spending on pop-ups by 80 per cent during the last 12 months, mean it’s finally time to say adios to those annoying ads? We hope so... INFO www.agency.com

‹ AND FINALLY Can we agree on a new corporate design language? Better known for keeping crusties away from Stonehenge, dusty-old English Heritage has steamed straight into the debate currently raging in design circles over corporate branding, urging retailers to tone down their designs to prevent their brands from dominating the high street and making every town in the UK – nay, the world – look exactly the same. Too late, we think. INFO www.english-heritage.org.uk

NEWS

Work in progress

HARDWARE

DESIGN Next volume of popular T-shirt graphics book is well underway – and it could feature your work... “I’m not going to feature anyone who was in either of the first two books to keep it fresh and give young designers a chance. For now, people just need to email me with low-resolution files of T-shirts they’ve designed and details about their company,” she says.

Helen Walters, author of last year’s well received 200% Cotton – a collection of cutting-edge T-shirt graphics – has thrown the doors open for another sequel, which she hopes to release next year. The third instalment in the series is in the early stages of development, but Walters says she is “definitely looking for contributors”.

INFO Email Helen Walters at [email protected]

NewTek slashes LightWave prices 3D SOFTWARE Industry legend sheds £600 as competition hots up The scramble for dedicated users in the 3D space has stepped up a gear following LightWave developer NewTek’s decision to cut around £600 from the price of LightWave 3D 8. The deal is specifically targeting users of other rival packages such as Maya, XSI, 3ds max, Cinema 4D and AutoCad and will require potential migratees to send NewTek original proof of purchase for the 3D package they are currently using.

NewTek’s move is the latest offensive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, which has seen similar moves by Softimage and Carrara over the past few months. For more information, check out NewTek’s website before the deal expires on 30 April. INFO www.newtek-europe.com/uk/shop/index.html

GLOBAL EVENTS

Our round-up of design events across the world AVITUK05 The Custard Factory Birmingham, UK 25 April-1 May This international video-jockey gettogether, promises a week-long festival of live audio visual art, live video performances, audio visual experiments lectures, seminars and up-to-the-minute software demonstrations. www.avit.org.uk RUSHES SOHO SHORTS FESTIVAL London, UK 30 July– 5 August The eighth annual outing for this UKbased short-film festival is billing itself as the cool and relaxed event where the work of both established filmmakers and newcomers will be judged on a level platform. Free daily screenings and star-

studded seminars are promised. www.sohoshorts.com

PRINTERS

A2+ printing gets upgrade HP had introduced the new Designjet 90, which boasts improved printing speeds, colour technology and cost-effective supplies. The printer uses a six-ink writing system and can print in large format on a wide variety of media types. The basic model is available now for £750. http://welcome.hp.com/country/uk/en/ welcome.html MONITORS

Business and consumer screens NEC has taken the wraps off two new monitors – the 20-inch 2070NX and the high-resolution 1970GX. Both feature NEC’s usual high design and build standards. The 2070NX is aimed at small businesses requiring good graphics capability, while the 1970GX is targeted more at gamers and home users. The 2070 is available now for £586, and the 1970 for £428. www.nec-mitsubishi.com IMAGING

Photos on display Peripheral and imaging specialist Pacific Digital has released a 5.6-inch digital viewer, designed to replace the traditional picture frame. The small TFT LCD display, which can also be used to view video and listen to music, uploads media via a flash card, CSF/SD/MMC and Memory Stick inputs. Buy it now for around £200. www.pacificdigital.com NOTEBOOKS

New VAIO OFFF FESTIVAL OF DIGITAL ART AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC Barcelona, Spain 12-14 May This year’s digital arts festival will showcase multi-disciplinary work by artists from around the world, and feature talks from the likes of Japanese web guru Yugo Nakamura, motion graphics specialists Tronic and UK design group Tomato. www.offf.ws ADOBE LIVE Design Centre London, UK 26-27 May Following last year’s successful event, Adobe is setting up camp once again in

Islington’s Business Design Centre for two days of training, speakers and break-out sessions for the creative professional. www.adobe.co.uk SIGGRAPH Los Angeles, USA 31 July-4 August Incredibly, this event has now reached its 32nd year and Siggraph 2005 promises to be the usual can’t-miss three days of informative seminars, showcases and events. Plus, there will be a keynote speech from the legendary George Lucas. www.siggraph.org/s2005/

Sony has refreshed its line of popular VAIO notebooks with the release of the VGNS3XP – a higher spec model featuring an Intel Pentium M760 2.0GHz processor, Centrino technology, 1GB DDR RAM and 80GG hard drive, plus duallayer DVD±R/RW and CDRW drive. All for £1,599. www.sony.com GRAPHICS CARDS

ATI updates ATI is now shipping its high-performance integrated chipset for Intel desktops: the Radeon XPRESS 200. The new chipset is designed to support Intel’s Socket 775 class of processors and promises to massively boost graphics reproduction. www.ati.com

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NEWS

DESIGNER TALK CASEY REAS

Processing

Artists and designers Casey Reas and Ben Fry are justifiably proud of Processing, their innovative visual design programming language. Reas tells us how their exciting open project is transforming the way we view the world

Computer Arts: What exactly is Processing and why should it interest designers? Casey Reas: Processing is a programming language and environment built for the media arts and design communities. It’s created to teach the fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, and to serve as a software sketchbook. It’s not aimed at all designers, only those who are interested in learning more about computers as a unique tool and medium.

results within minutes, but it scales elegantly so people can continue to write more complex programs as their ideas become more ambitious and their skills improve.

CA: Who’s using Processing and what kind of work are they creating? CR: Students, artists, designers, architects and researchers... It’s been used for creating academic exercises, online information visualisation, art installations, posters, videogames, animation –

CA: Wouldn’t we be better off learning to use Flash or Director, or even Visual Basic? CR: It depends on the goals of the individual. Processing is different from these software tools. Some people may prefer the Macromedia and Microsoft approach, but we’re presenting an

CA: Is the system just about esoteric visual art or does it have more practical uses? CR: Processing can be used for many different reasons – for research and commercial projects, as well as formal explorations.

“Processing has been used for creating academic exercises, art installations, posters, videogames… even music videos for bands such as R.E.M.” even music videos for bands such as R.E.M. Processing has a myriad of uses. CA: What does Processing offer designers who have little or no programming experience? CR: A way to learn more about programming in an environment designed for teaching. Processing is simple enough for people to begin seeing 18

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alternative. Processing is more like programming in Java or C++, but makes things easier to learn without giving up control. Each tool is better for certain types of projects and Processing is good for learning how to program, for writing computationally intense simulations and for sketching with code. The programming skills acquired using Processing easily transfer to

ABOVE (LEFT TO RIGHT): Processing in action – Acoustic Cartography by Daniel Rothaug, D5LV by Frederik Vanhoutte, and Space Ryder by Seltar.

learning tools such as Flash and PHP. From a practical point of view, Processing is distributed without cost – an advantage for many people. CA: What can we expect from the next iteration of Processing? CR: Many improvements! We’ve integrated OpenGL, a 3D graphics library, into the environment, so it’s now possible to create faster and larger projects. The core libraries have been improved to make it easier to send data over the internet and communicate with external hardware. We’ve also extended the language to make it easier to execute many tasks – using arrays and parsing data, for example. In addition, the programming environment now allows for multiple files in one project, which makes it easier to manage complex projects. CA: Do you have any useful tips for people who want to learn to use Processing? CR: The materials available online at Processing.org are the best way to learn at the moment. There are examples, a complete reference in nine languages and a discussion board, where people can post questions. We’re currently writing tutorials to make it easier for people to learn how to program step by step. These tutorials will form the basis of a forthcoming Processing book.

INFO For more information on Processing and its potential, visit http://processing.org/, www.reas.com or www.benfry.com.

OPINION

OPINION

Upgrade addiction

Is it really necessary to install the latest versions of everything onto our poor, struggling workstations? Jason Arber thinks not...

Upgrades are a necessary evil, the bane of a digital life where progress marches inexorably on, leaving older iterations flailing in the dust. Cast your mind back to the earliest versions of your beloved software and compare them to the sophisticated, feature-packed creatures we know and love today. Apps that once fitted comfortably on a floppy disk now occupy a raft of CDs, or a whole DVD. Now pause for a moment. Ask yourself, “Is this upgrade really necessary?” As someone who loves technology in all its forms, I have to admit that I often throw caution to the wind and upgrade operating systems and applications without first seeing if it’s safe to do so. More than once, in the rush to be “up-to-date”, I’ve been besieged by upgrade gremlins – by system freezes, illconceived new features and countless bugs. Indeed, sometimes you even come across software that takes a step backwards. With a virtual monopoly on the DTP world, Quark grew somewhat complacent and slightly cavalier with the quality control on XPress. Adobe took full advantage of its increasingly dissatisfied user-base and breezed through the back door with InDesign, which by version 2 was giving QuarkXPress a welldeserved kicking. 20

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When Adobe upgraded its range of design tools to Creative Suite status, improvements it made to the type-rendering engine subsequently broke many users’ designs. Although the problem was fairly simple to circumnavigate, Adobe found itself on the receiving end of many irate emails unleashed by disgruntled early adopters.

“As we’ve seen, not every upgrade is a bold, creative step in the direction of perfection” DON’T LIKE CHANGE? At the other end of the spectrum are the people who never seem to upgrade. They get their system just right and then sit tight. A friend of mine recently found that his internet had mysteriously stopped working and asked me for assistance. I was startled to see that he was running OS 8.6, launched back in 1999! Computer time is rather like dog years, so this actually translates into decades. I found myself struggling with arcane control panels, grown unfamiliar with time, praying for the stable, easy-tounderstand System Preferences of OS X.

FORUMS What do you think of

As we’ve seen, not every upgrade is a bold, creative step in the direction of perfection. Microsoft Word, for example, is another application that has flipped back and forth in the affections of its users (although Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac finds the company on an upswing). It would seem that companies are upgrading their software, whether we need it upgrading or not. I’m not talking about the incremental bug fix upgrades, which hopefully solve more problems than they create, but the big feature-added upgrades that cost us hardearned money to buy. An upgrade cycle has been established, with major applications scrabbling for new features with which to tempt us. This feature-creep can lead to bloated apps – no longer lean and mean – full of capabilities none of us will ever really need. But what does a company do when their flagship product does what it’s supposed to and does it well? The code is optimised and a major operating system change that might break it is years away. Add new stuff, of course. Who cares if no-one wants the new features? It’s an upgrade and that’s what gets idiots like me salivating, adopting early and then cursing their keen bones. It’s doubtful I’ll change my ways, though. People like me are a software company’s wet dream. I can only pass on to you the mantra I always seem to chant after it’s too late: Is this upgrade really necessary?

the latest Creative Suite upgrade? Tell us on our forum at http://forum.

Jason Arber is a designer and co-founder of

computerarts.co.uk.

www.pixelsurgeon.com. He can be emailed at [email protected]

ILLUSTRATION: twelve:ten

NEWS ANALYSIS

IN DEPTH

Back to the source The days of web designers paying huge sums for commercially available development software are fading fast. But can the open source alternatives be trusted? And where does that leave the software developers? WORDS BY DOM HALL Two or three years ago, web designers developing projects for clients who wanted such niceties as shopping baskets, e-commerce or content management functionality on their sites had to effectively “pay” a specialist to do the work for them. This meant relying on costly off-the-shelf software developed by one of many e-commerce groups vying for business during the post dot.com boom period. Companies such as Actinic, Macromedia, Volusion and others quickly identified the need among companies of all sizes to add effective yet simple merchant and shopping services to their websites, and responded accordingly, providing web designers with a plethora of potential options. But as the technology to build websites became easier to work with – and develop – the e-commerce and web development software vendors found themselves being edged into a corner… by open source tools. These could do the same job as commercial products, but cost nothing to use and were 22

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being created in greater numbers by a network of passionate developers. Open source comes of age That trend continues today. Open source communities such as Zope.org and Plone, which offer basic building blocks for web development, e-commerce functionality and more, are being used by more businesses than ever. Zope, for example, helped develop various sites and services for media group Viacom and hardware group SGI. The situation is a little different on the creative side of the web industry, with packages such as Flash, Dreamweaver and Photoshop still ruling the roost. But the industry moves quickly. Web groups are already abuzz with information about development projects based on open source versions of Flash and the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (Gimp), an open source version of Photoshop. In terms of development, Ané-Mari Peter, managing director of pan-European web

FORUMS Visit http://forum. computerarts.co.uk to share your views on this topic and more with other CA readers.

design and development agency On-IDLE, which has developed sites for Air New Zealand and Swiss retailer Migos, believes open source development tools have come of age: “The growth of good open source development tools has made a big difference to projects, mainly in terms of cost,” she says. Peter estimates the level of savings over the life of a project at between 30 and 50 per cent of average annual maintenance costs, adding that using open source tools is “drastically cheaper” than using off-the-shelf software. “In my clients’ interest, if they’re using commercially available software, I have to buy upgrades, and there are potentially large maintenance budgets to deal with. There’s also the cost of staff – dotnet developers cost a lot of money.” As well as benefiting clients, building sites in open source can also help web designers and developers in terms of growing demand for skills and services. At web and digital design agency Mook, director Milan Hawkins says the growth of open source

NEWS ANALYSIS

“can only serve to benefit developers”, because it is an increasingly sought-after skill. “The demand for their services will inevitably rise, when sites that use these applications require the development of bespoke e-commerce facilities, either to work in tandem with open source solutions or to replace them,” he says. At London-based web design agency Base One, web development director Paul Hatcher

“The growth of good open source development tools has made a big difference, mainly in terms of cost” goes further, claiming open source tools have revolutionised the way sites are developed. “In the past, content management or ecommerce meant six-figure sums and lengthy – and often painful – implementation,” he explains. “The equivalent functionality can now be attained using open source or lowcost equivalents, which are fast to set up and deploy, and which suit most sites’ needs. The only people who should have a problem with this are the enterprise software vendors, whose solutions can’t differentiate themselves enough to justify their price-tag.” The effect the growth of open source software will have on those involved with the

more creative side of the web development industry is a reduction in overheads and the knowledge that expensive e-commerce software will no longer have to be factored into the cost of a project. Not just what’s in the box While the software companies themselves acknowledge the rise in popularity of open source applications, they’re quick to highlight the flip-side of the debate. They argue that issues such as support, stability and security often cast a shadow over open source apps. Chris Barling, CEO at Actinic, which makes shopping and e-commerce software for small to medium-sized businesses, agrees that open source applications are becoming more popular, but adds that they’re really only a force at the low end of the market, where the likes of shopping cart applications are already very cheap. He also raises concerns about the longevity of open source applications, pointing out that they’re entirely reliant on what can sometimes amount to a handful of volunteers. “Apart from very high-profile open source projects, such as Linux and Apache, these developments tend to be dependent on a single person. If you build your business on the application and the main guy goes and does something else, how does the land lie then? This isn’t theoretical; there are many defunct open source projects out there,” he says.

For Ian Turner, Northern European managing director of Macromedia, the problems connected to open source software revolve around wider issues connected to the expectations created by “free” software. “There is a danger that people’s views will be skewed, and that’s why we have to highlight that our software is not just about what’s in the box,” says Turner. “What goes into a product like Dreamweaver is the intellectual capital – the training materials, the support, and so forth – the thing is holistic,” he says. While Turner doesn’t believe open source apps will present any real challenge to the likes of Dreamweaver, he does acknowledge that it “makes sense” for a piece of simple web functionality like a shopping cart to be developed as open source, because “it’s not rocket science – it’s logical.” But, as Turner points out, the threat for mid-sized e-commerce applications and, logically, as things progress, platforms as widely used as Dreamweaver, is the expectation among developers that software should be, if not entirely free, still a little less restricted in the way it’s currently sold.

INFO www.zope.org www.plone.org www.gimp.org May 2005

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FONT SHOWCASE

INFO Web: P22 Durer, alongside a range of other fonts, is available exclusively from the P22 website. Price: P22 Durer is four fonts in one and costs just $19.95. Info: For more information on this and other top fonts, visit www.p22.com.

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FONT DESIGNER

Terry Wüdenbachs The acclaimed typographer celebrates the genius of Dürer with a font based on his meticulous design principles In 1525, Renaissance genius Albrecht Dürer set forth a system of rules for the geometric construction of Roman capitals. 480 years on, the master artist’s classic design has been recreated for the digital age by award-winning typographer Terry Wüdenbachs. This digitised version of Dürer’s Roman capital-only font (A to Z) consists of four

fonts in all, with three striking variations: filled, unfilled and letters only. The last two come with a unique two-colour overlay option, for added versatility. (For details, download the free PDF, available from www.p22.com/ihof/durercaps.html.) During the nineties, Wüdenbachs split his time between native Liechtenstein (where he designed and rode snowboards

for Team Liechtenstein) and New York, freelancing for P22’s International House of Fonts Division. Currently, he oversees foundry P22’s font development projects from Buffalo, USA. Wüdenbachs won the coveted Prince’s Medal for Typography while working for Puterschein & Chalet in his hometown of Vaduz, Liechtenstein.

COVER FEATURE COVER ILLUSTRATION DESIGNER NAME: EBOY LOCATION: BERLIN, GERMANY URL: WWW.EBOY.COM

HOW WAS IT DONE? The explosive re-emergence of pixel art in recent years can largely be attributed to the inventive work of famed design collective eBoy, founded by Steffen Sauerteig, Kai Vermehr and Svend Smital in 1998 (new boy Peter Stimmler, based in New York, joined a year later). Lovingly inspired by eighties 8-bit computer games, LEGO, toy commercials, and a rack of pop culture references, co-founder Steffen Sauerteig here goes to town with an idea originally sketched by Computer Arts senior art editor, Roddy Llewellyn. “First of all, we look for inspiration by doing some research; we do this every time we work on a project,” Sauerteig explains. The mighty World Wide Web is a key component in that research drive… “We Google a lot,” he adds, “and in this case struck gold – with a nice sixties book about New York skyscrapers.” Turns out the Berlin-based trio enjoy working together on a single project. “That’s typical of us,” says Sauerteig: “We three eBoys always share the work, even on a single commission like this.” TURN OVER TO GET STARTED WITH THE COVER TUTORIAL...

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COVER

COVER FEATURE DOWNLOAD

Download files from ftp:// ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/ arts/zinio/art109_cover. zip

TIME LENGTH

1 hour INFO

Denise Wilton is a Londonbased designer and illustrator. Founder of the creative studio Kaius Design, Denise is also responsible for the City Creator I & II sites and is co-founder of www.b3ta.com. She has produced pixel images for clients as diverse as Subway, The Face, Greenpeace, The Financial Times and Nokia. Visit www. kaiusdesign.com or www.styledeficit.com to find out more.

PIXEL PERFECT

By creating on-screen graphics in pixel form, you can retain full control over your final image. Denise Wilton explores the basics of pixel art and provides the foundations for a pixel-based city

Ë

Pixel฀illustrations฀have฀seized฀ our฀collective฀imaginations฀since฀ Space฀Invaders฀first฀landed฀way฀back฀ in฀1978.฀But฀as฀games฀and฀on-screen฀ environments฀have฀become฀more฀ sophisticated,฀our฀passion฀for฀old-style฀ “blocky”฀pixel฀graphics฀hasn’t฀ diminished.฀Moving฀from฀screen฀to฀ print,฀recent฀trends฀have฀seen฀a฀variety฀ of฀books฀published฀about฀pixel฀artists,฀ and฀even฀Paul฀Smith฀has฀jumped฀on฀ the฀bandwagon,฀working฀with฀ renowned฀illustrators฀Eboy฀to฀create฀a฀ range฀of฀clothes฀and฀accessories. A฀pixel฀is฀the฀smallest฀element฀of฀ image฀displayable฀on฀your฀computer฀ screen฀–฀literally฀“pix”฀(meaning฀ picture)฀and฀“el”฀(an฀abbreviation฀of฀ element).฀Creating฀a฀pixel฀illustration฀ is฀to฀fashion฀an฀image฀from฀your฀ monitor’s฀very฀own฀building฀blocks. As฀more฀designers฀turn฀their฀hand฀ to฀web฀design,฀more฀people฀are฀ recognising฀the฀benefits฀of฀creating฀ images฀in฀a฀pure฀pixel฀form.฀Unlike฀

vector-based฀images,฀pixel฀graphics฀ are฀created฀at฀the฀same฀size฀and฀ resolution฀they’re฀seen฀on-screen.฀If฀a฀ tiny฀envelope฀is฀needed฀to฀sit฀next฀to฀a฀ “contact”฀button,฀for฀example,฀ creating฀it฀at฀actual฀size,฀pixel฀by฀ pixel,฀means฀it’ll฀remain฀pin-sharp. There฀are฀many฀styles฀of฀pixel฀art,฀ from฀isometric฀landscapes฀such฀as฀that฀ featured฀here,฀to฀the฀more฀heavily฀ textured฀environments฀of฀handheld฀ gaming฀apps.฀Isometric฀landscapes฀are฀ the฀best฀place฀to฀start฀learning,฀as฀the฀ rules฀are฀easy฀to฀pick฀up฀and฀can฀be฀ applied฀to฀other฀styles,฀too. This฀tutorial฀will฀walk฀you฀through฀ the฀basic฀principles,฀and฀then฀explain฀ how฀to฀create฀a฀sturdy฀block฀of฀flats฀ (main฀image,฀top-left)฀in฀Photoshop. Illustration and tutorial by Denise Wilton www.styledeficit.com

COVER

PHOTOSHOP

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1

Creating an “isometric” pixel scene means there is no vanishing point; a building 50 pixels high will remain 50 pixels high, even if it’s moved forward. This image shows a grid from the top and the same grid in isometric view. Each square is 11 pixels wide, but you’ll see that the isometric view is the same width, but 50 per cent of the height of the top-down view. See how a circle would work within the same isometric grid.

ANTI- ALIASING As computers become more powerful and levels of on-screen displays improve, we’re able to create smooth lines and graduated tints in much more sophisticated ways. Anti-aliased lines are smooth, with no hard, defined pixel edges. If you create a circular selection and keep the Anti-aliasing option on, you’ll find the edges of your circle when you “stroke” it are very smooth, or slightly blurred. The computer will calculate a tone between the one you’re using and the background colour to create a softer edge. This is useful for many things, but it’s not the correct effect for pixel art. For this reason, you should switch Anti-aliasing off for selections and fills.

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2

The example above shows the “perfect” isometric pixel lines, drawn with a onepixel pencil. With pixel art, this is as smooth as it gets. The enlarged view to the left and right shows the individual pixels more clearly. It is possible, and often necessary, to use lines that break this rule, but for basic shapes and structures these lines are the safest bet.

These two circular shapes do not use perfect pixel lines, but the cylinder still fits within the original isometric grid. The quickest way to create circular shapes is with the Circular Selection tool, un-checking the Anti-alias box. Once your selection is correct, stroke it with a one-pixel line and choose Center as the location option from the drop-down menu.

5

These shapes have been shaded using a light source from top right. When filling an area with the Paint Bucket, ensure you have Anti-aliasing turned off and select the Contiguous option. For the dividing lines, use a pale version of the overall colour. This adds depth and sophistication. Keeping all the lines black creates a more cartoony feel.

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Here, the harsh tonal changes have been smoothed off by manually “dithering” the colours. Dithering is the simulation of shading — and the way halftones are created in a monochrome image. By creating halftones manually, you can ease from one colour to the next and create a much smoother effect.

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3

Using these “perfect” pixel lines, it’s easy to create basic isometric shapes. These shapes will form the basis of the city featured in this tutorial. Notice the edges flat to the ground all use the same repeated style of line – two pixels long and one pixel deep.

As pixel illustrations don’t scale easily, it’s essential to create your work at the exact size it will be seen. The image provided on the CD is 150mmx150mm, so use that as your document size if you’re recreating this image yourself. Set Resolution to 72dpi and Color Mode to RGB.

COVER

CONTIGUOUS vs NON-CONTIGUOUS

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Using the “perfect” pixel lines discussed in step 2, create your first block on a new layer and shade it. In this example, all the lines coming towards the viewer are the same, so once you’ve drawn the base of the roof, use the same lines to form the base of the whole building. Decide the direction of your light source and shade the building accordingly. You can find an un-shaded version of this block on the CD.

Rather than drawing a selection and then filling it, which would take extra time, you can rely on the Paint Bucket tool to work out the area you want to colour. The Contiguous option will fill any area within a boundary. As you are creating pixel shapes in outline, the boundaries are the edges of your drawn shapes. If you have a number of unrelated areas all the same colour and wish to change them in one go, uncheck the Contiguous box.

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Create the second block on a new layer in the same way as the first. Place it next to the first block, but recess it slightly, removing the dividing line on the top of the roof to create a continuous colour. You’ll only need to add details to the front aspect, because the side of the building will be covered by the next block. You’ll find an un-coloured version of this block on the CD.

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Copy your first block and paste it onto a new layer. Move this layer to the top and position the block over the second, but keep it in line with the first. It might help to create a guideline on a new layer to ensure that your blocks line up accurately. Again, remove the dividing line on the roof to create one continuous colour.

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Copy the first and second blocks once again, pasting onto new layers each time. You should now have three large blocks and two smaller connecting blocks. Again, remove any dividing lines on the roof to create one continuous tone. You should now have created this basic block of flats.

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Now to add a few details to your block. Try to space windows evenly apart — the floors in a building are usually the same height, so the illustration should be no different. Give the windows a frame and some depth. Creating elements such as window shades now will save time when you re-use the block later. Again, duplicate the sections you can. You can create variation at the end, when the basics are complete.

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TUTORIAL COVER

PHOTOSHOP

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On a new layer, create a small shaded step to stretch the gap between the first and middle block. Next, duplicate this small step a further five times to create a flight of steps and then fill in the near side of the flight to create a solid block. A single step has been provided as a layer on the cover CD.

On a new layer create a flat, vertical shape stretching from the top step to the base of the new roof. Fill this shape with pale blue and draw one white and one black vertical line halfway across to create a left and right door. Change the layer opacity to 80 per cent to create the illusion of glass. Duplicate your doors and panels, so each set of steps has a door.

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On a new layer, use more “perfect” pixel lines to create the first banister. Copy and Paste this onto another new layer and move it to create another banister on the near side. Once you’re happy with your stairs and banisters, merge these layers to make one single step/banister element. You’ll find a single banister as a layer on the CD.

PIXEL SHADING Pixel shading can take a lot of practice, depending on the style of illustration you’re aiming for. Isometric pixel graphics such as these rarely involve anything too complex, as many of the shapes have hard edges. Graphics created for hand-held gaming devices have extremely sophisticated pixel shading, often using a very limited colour palette. Look online for screenshots of recent games to get a better idea of different pixel styles.

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Move the step/banister element into position, as shown. On the step layer, extend the top step back to reach the recessed block and fill it with grey. Cover the back window and the side window that overlooks the lobby, with an appropriate colour and create a small rectangular block in the same style to act as the roof for this section of the building. Duplicate this layer and use it to fill the second recessed area.

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Now, on a new layer, use the same “perfect” pixel lines and basic shapes to create a balcony. Shade this using the same techniques and shades you used for the rest of the building. Once you’re happy, position it over the middle block and duplicate for each floor above ground level. A single balcony can be found as a layer on the cover CD.

BREAK OUT

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To create some variation, move back to the layer containing the central block. Remove the horizontal line on the right-hand side of each window to create two large windows, or double-doors, which would give inhabitants access to their balconies… Such small details add visual interest.

Isometric pixel art is all about parallel lines. Try and include some different elements in your illustration to break up the lines and add extra interest. Change the heights of buildings, or introduce plants, people or trees. More varied shapes will bring your illustration to life.

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A second, more dramatic shadow can be created in a similar way. But this time, give the shadow a much more dramatic stretch across the wall, using the Edit>Transform>Distort facility.

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Return to the layers containing your original blocks. Alter the colour and height of the shades to create some variation and add more life. As you already have the shades in place, this should be a simple matter of moving selections up or down, and using the Paint Bucket (still Anti-aliased and with the Contiguous box checked).

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Your block is now complete. To add even more detail, you could add patterns to the shades, change the colour inside the windows or add plants to the balconies or around the steps, as shown here. The basic steps used to create this block can now be used to create any type of isometric building. Time to start creating the rest of your city!

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On a new layer, create a pyramid with a square base that’s the same size as the roof of the recessed blocks. Fill with a pale blue colour, again paying attention to the light source. As this will be a glass skylight, keep the internal lines and colour them a slightly darker version of your fill colour. Duplicate the skylight and position both on the roofs of the recessed blocks.

CREATING PIXEL PEOPLE Remember, it’s the people living in your city who give it such vitality. They may look more organic than the buildings, but you can use the same techniques to create them:

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Many of the shapes you created for your city were based on a simple isometric rectangle. To create people, use the same style of isometric block – making sure that it’s of the right proportions to fit through the doors of your buildings. Your people will look better if they’re drawn to scale.

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Create an oval, for the head, and bring the top of the box down to where the shoulders would be. See? Your figure is already starting to take shape.

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Like a sculptor working with a block of stone, you can now adapt this block to create legs, feet, arms and hands. Just remember the isometric angle of your block, and keep the arms and legs the exactly same.

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Finally, colour and shade your figure. Shading is as important on small elements such as these as it is on much larger buildings. Now you can duplicate and recolour your figure for use elsewhere in the city.

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CA INTERVIEW

‚ BELOW: René (right) shoots the images on a digital camera while Jannis (left) loads them on to the laptop. ‡ RIGHT: Scenes from Never Stop Movement headquarters.

INTERVIEW NEVER STOP MOVEMENT 34

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CA INTERVIEW

ED RICKETTS TALKS TO THE FOUNDERS OF NEVER STOP MOVEMENT ABOUT AESTHETICS, BLURRING BOUNDARIES, AND WHY THEY NEVER HAVE ANY FREE TIME

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CA INTERVIEW

NEVER STOP MOVEMENT “René worked on paper with Japanese ink, in a very classical way,” Tsipoulanis explains. “We would scan that and retouch it slightly to use for magazines or other printed stuff. That’s how we first learned how to use Photoshop. We learned the technique on our own – there was no special education or training.” Through the notoriously peculiar process of artistic development, the pair discovered that their illustrations were becoming ever more realistic. “So we needed photographs to work with. We began taking photos on which to base our illustrations, and found we were using them all the time.” At the beginning, he says, photography was simply a base to work from, so they didn’t pay much attention to the mechanics of shooting – lighting, poses, make-up. “We just had a small camera to take the pictures. But in the last two years, it’s become more important that the photographs look good, too. So we started experimenting with lighting. We began to do real shoots, just like other photographers. Now there are people who work on the hair and make-up, so they bring their own vision of how it should look.”

The cover of Vogue Hellas sports a typically pouty, beautiful model who is posing against an ocean background. It’s elegant, it’s very Vogue, and yet the more you look, the more you realise there’s something different about it. The image isn’t quite a photograph; it’s not even a standard airbrush massacre to cover minuscule imperfections, real or imagined. It’s something in between. Some have called it post-photography, but creators

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René Habermacher and Jannis Tsipoulanis call it iconography. The pair form the core of Never Stop Movement, a German team whose ultra-stylised illustrations have graced the likes of Vogue, Elle and Numero. Habermacher and Tsipoulanis met seven years ago and have since morphed from pure illustrators to “post-photographers” to, well, that remains to be seen. But it seems that the leap from paper to pixels wasn’t really intentional.

· ABOVE: Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova as interpreted for the cover of Numero magazine (issue 43).

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So how’s it done? Unsurprisingly, Tsipoulanis is reluctant to talk about the specific process they employ for their trademark style – and it’s difficult to explain without demonstrating. “What we do is not simply retouching, which everybody does these days. We destroy the picture and then we build it back up. It ends up as not the picture itself, but something very new. It’s not just a case of taking a tool and flattening areas. “That’s why you have to see our pictures big,” he continues. “We did an exhibition in Japan where the images were two metres wide, and you could still see the detail, the structure of the skin, and everything. That’s the quality of our work – nobody can do it like that.”

CA INTERVIEW

Artistic differences Although Never Stop Movement has recently taken on another employee to aid with “the process”, Habermacher and Tsipoulanis still oversee both the photography and the image manipulation. “The only difference is that René is a little more involved at the end, when it comes to finishing off the pictures,” Tsipoulanis explains. “But yes, we photograph together. So if one sees something the other doesn’t, we’ll just take the camera and do it. Sometimes it depends on how well you’re connected to the model – some models like me better, some like René. It’s a connection thing.” Does that ever lead to artistic differences? Or, in less euphemistic terms, arguments? “Oh yes! A lot. Every time,” Tsipoulanis admits. “We try to have a concept every time, and that’s where we don’t always agree. So we have to decide what we’re going to do. But we always agree before starting on the work itself. We don’t have arguments when the model is there, for instance...” he laughs, before adding, “although that can happen!” Indeed, the concept behind a particular image or series is more important to Tsipoulanis than the illustration itself, and he becomes much less secretive when discussing their overall approach. You could almost assume that the illustration is just a mechanical process that needs to be completed, much like developing a photo – and after three or four years of using this technique, it’s easy to see why. “I don’t know how other photographers work, but we work very conceptually,” says Tsipoulanis. “On an illustration for a fashion story, for example, we have to find out who the stylist will be, what style it is, and so on. Then we build a vision of the story we’d like to tell around that. It’s always about storytelling, more and more now with our new work. We don’t just go somewhere and photograph, it’s very important to find out which model is working with us. There’s

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING YOURSELF BLUR YOUR OWN BOUNDARIES AND YOU’LL FEEL MUCH BETTER FOR IT Developing a distinctive style is extremely important to Never Stop Movement. After all, the studio’s celebrated images came about as a reaction to the culture of the last few years – and now that everyone else is catching on, they’re heading off. “Fashion and advertising photography has become more and more hi-res/hi-fi oriented with extravagant hardware,” says Jannis Tsipoulanis. “This has resulted in a proliferation of highly technical yet anonymous photographs with not much more than high resolution to their credit. “On the other hand, we’re in the age of contemporary “snapshot realism” photographers, from Juergen Teller to Terry Richardson. That is to say, photographic expression, which should be diverse in style, is now stuck between just two choices: technical

perfectionism or rough realism.” Their work, says Tsipoulanis, blurs the lines between the two. Creating your own particular style is, he believes, the most important aspect for any budding artist. “When everything is looking the same regarding style, I get the feeling that everyone is empty and they don’t think a lot,” says Tsipoulanis. “Maybe they’re afraid. It’s also very difficult nowadays to develop your own style, because things have to be set in their own way. “But it’s more how you view things than a technical approach. Okay, you have to know about the techniques, but it’s also all about where you want to go. The way people use Photoshop nowadays, it’s not so... nice. Everything looks the same, and if you don’t have a vision of how you want something to look, you don’t go forward.”

· ABOVE: Another illustration for Numero magazine, this time featuring the ever-puffing supermodel Kate Moss. “There’s a certain type of woman that we like, and also a certain type of model,” says Tsipoulanis.

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CA INTERVIEW

NEVER STOP MOVEMENT

a certain type of woman that we like, and also a certain type of model.” Of course it also depends on the magazine. “If we do something for Numero, we know exactly what kind of style they like, and it’s different to doing something for English Vogue, for instance.

But we’re flexible. We don’t have a fixed opinion about what our style is, we’ll always do different things, depending on what people want. That’s very important, for me in particular,” says Tsipoulanis. “I can’t sit down and think of stories out of the blue – I have to have a problem to solve.” The bulk of Never Stop’s portfolio is the sort of haute couture, high-glamour shot favoured by Vogue and Elle. But neither Habermacher or Tsipoulanis are especially interested in fashion per se; in fact, says Tsipoulanis, “I think sometimes it’s very empty, and it doesn’t give you the possibility to expand. Our work is not explicitly fashion photography. It includes fashion, but there are other aspects, too. “Fashion gives you a good opportunity to express yourself because it’s the only contemporary thing that exists nowadays. It changes every six months, it’s new, there are always new ideas coming from other people. It’s more contemporary than art can be nowadays.”

A new phase And then there are the portraits: Tim Burton, Woody Allen, Deborah Harry, Charlotte Rampling. If anything, these are even more hyper-real than the fashion shots, though much more naturalistic in terms of poses and setting. So are these done simply for fun? Tsipoulanis falters, misunderstanding: “No no, we don’t do anything for free.” Perish the thought. Once we clarify, he explains that no, they are all commissioned work, just like the rest. “We don’t have any spare time for that,” he laughs. “Sometimes we wish we could take out six months just for that sort of thing.” Their work, he says, is very timeconsuming. Each double-page spread can take five or six days to produce. “So in a story that needs four pages, you need 24 days and we can’t do anything in between. Time is one of the big problems for us.” Partly because of this, but mostly because their interests are slowly changing, Never Stop Movement is embarking on a new phase. “Since we started to do more photography, we’ve found more ways to express ourselves in other directions,” says Tsipoulanis. “Before, you’d have a picture of a beautiful girl, and it was all about detail, but not so many ways for expression. Now, there’s a new quality to our work. The new work is not so glossy and so “wow” as it was, but now you can see more of our soul.” In short, the new work is more traditional and involves elements of “high art” rather than straightforward fashion illustration. Over-familiarity, Tsipoulanis admits, is a contributing factor. “The problem is, we’ve been doing this for two and a half years now, and everyone seems to be doing a similar style,” he says. “But we have moved a little bit away from that. Of course we like our older style, but we’ve moved more towards photography. “I guess that the fashion industry nowadays is a little bit burnt out because

· THIS PAGE (TOP TO BOTTOM): Model Natasha Vojnovic as featured in an extensive fashion piece for Vogue Nippon and a portrait of Blondie, aka Deborah Harry – just one of the many commissioned portraits Never Stop Movement has produced.

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CA INTERVIEW ON THE CD

NEVER STOP MOVEMENT Q&A NAMES: René Habermacher and Jannis Tsipoulanis ROLE: Artists FROM: Athens, Hamburg and Zurich INSPIRED BY: All and everything FAVOURITE DESIGNER/ILLUSTRATOR: Adolf Loos (architect), Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator), Bernhard Rudofsky (architect) & Eiko Ishioka (illustrator/designer/artist) FAVOURITE WEBSITE: Changing constantly

COMPANY INFO You can find out more about Never Stop Movement by calling +49 (0) 40 46 88 1488, sending an email to [email protected] or visiting the company’s slick website showcase at www.never-stop-movement.de.

they use all the same photographers and everything looks the same. A lot of these campaigns, they’re not so well done – especially the retouching. It’s all become so detailed. We’re getting bored of it and they’re getting more interested in it.” From fashion to art This month, Never Stop Movement will exhibit in Berlin for the fifth time, and then move onto Paris for yet another. Beyond that, Never Stop’s style will presumably continue to evolve in the same organic way it always has. Tsipoulanis certainly isn’t sure what might happen next. “When we began, we didn’t really like the illustration style of the time, so we just carried on with our own style,” he says. “Then that became successful, and we moved on to photography. First we were fashion photographers, and now we’re artists, and maybe next year we’ll move on to film... I don’t know.”

· THIS PAGE (TOP TO BOTTOM): This series of beauty and fashion portraits, each featuring the same model, were created by Never Stop Movement and used for various editorial features in Numero magazine.

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FEATURE

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FEATURE

PRODUCT DESIGN As 3D visualisation and advanced concept design take hold, product design is shifting up a gear, says Mark Penfold. But in this increasingly technical field, is the pen still mightier than the mouse? Only just…

Product design requires an interesting mix of traditional skill and futuristic technology and as such it demands more from the designer than perhaps any other discipline. To succeed, not only must he or she be a competent draftsman, but also a skilled technician with a deep understanding of manufacturing processes and, increasingly, an affinity with essential 3D software. Then there’s the concept itself, the crucial requirement to be “on the money”. The products you design must find a market. As Dick Powell, one half of the inimitable Seymour Powell partnership,

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explains: “You need a sympathy with modern consumers, a wide social radar”. This is a rapidly developing field – one that rewards those with the flexibility to take up its challenges. Currently in the process of developing an entirely new approach, one more focused on the early stages of a product’s lifecycle, firms such as Seymour Powell and IDEO are bringing product design into the 21st century. Essential skills According to Ingelise Nielsen of leading design firm IDEO, for her the ideal product designer is T-shaped:

Illustration by Hussein Al-Attar

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FEATURE

This implement, designed by IDEO, is a surgical tool intended for use in the alleviation of sinusitus. It’s enough to make your eyes water!

Alias has developed its product design solution to enable designers to move fluidly between 2D and 3D.

Filling a two-storey wall at the O2 Flagship store, this display by IDEO’s Durrell Bishop consists of 5,300 LED’s that display information in fluid motion.

“People who have a deep expertise particular to them, and a broad understanding and willingness to collaborate.” This obviously takes a while to perfect: “We think of a graduate as embryonic,” says Powell. It may not be traumatic enough to induce a foetal reaction from new arrivals, but this is a very technically demanding line of work. A three-year BA, a two-year MA, and then you arrive at work and, says Powell, “Spend the first couple of years learning the ropes.”

Though there is an increasingly concerted move towards the use of 3D design packages such as Alias Studio, the traditional skill of drawing retains its premium. “If I had to pick one skill it would be drawing,” says Powell. “The people who can draw are the originators of the concept.” This highlights an increasingly clear trend for the profession to split into distinct disciplines. The increasing sophistication of visualisation software used by product designers means that this side of the job is

DIGITAL RENDERING: HOW’S IT DONE? INFO

Hussein AlAttar is a car design enthusiast who has already taken part in several international design competitions, including MotorTrend – Peugeot’s International Design contest – where he gained a finalist position. Visit http:// husseindesign.deviantart. com for more information.

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2 1

First, create a pencil sketch. Your initial sketch can be pretty rough, but do make sure that you pay attention to size and perspective. Scan your sketch into Photoshop. Turn the background into a layer by doubleclicking on it and set the Layer Blending Mode to Multiply. This will allow you to colour the sketch without losing your outlines.

Create a new Layer set to Normal and place it under your original sketch layer. Add a colour of your choice to the background layer using the Paint Bucket tool.

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Select the areas that you wish to reflect the environment’s light using the Polygon Lasso tool and paint the bottom of your selection with a large, soft brush. You don’t have to use white – you could instead use a brighter hue of your chosen background colour or, even easier, use the Dodge tool.

FEATURE

THE DESIGN PROCESS

From concept to engineering: the lifestyle of a developing product

Alias StudioTools enables artists to freeze areas of an image while developing others.

becoming a specialised discipline in its own right. It has to. After all, mastering a package such as Alias Studio takes 100 per cent effort, and if you do that, says Powell, “We can’t afford to have you diddling around doing anything else.” The surfacer Kerry Kingston worked for Alias before leaving to set up the Bluesmith consultancy with her partner Lee Irvine. The firm’s design services centre on in-house expertise with Alias’ industry standard suite of design tools. “Usually,” says Kingston, “our clients have done the early concept work, creating a set of options to choose from.” Bluesmith realises the visuals: “We build the 3D, then produce realistic renderings.”

down the field. Next, says Powell, “we move to design development on a single chosen concept, which means fleshing out how it’s made – its operational and functional detail.” Finally, the team outputs a final foam model along with CAD details for the engineers. It’s only at this point that a “hard” model is produced, which is around 80 per cent of the way to being fully engineered. “If this gets the okay it’s on to detailed development,” says Powell. It’s at this stage that the emotional ergonomics finally get added and the object starts to resemble its finished self.

The consequences of an ill-conceived product reaching the shelves go way beyond those associated with most areas of design. “To get it right you have to be hyper aware of your world,” says Craig Bunyan, who is currently studying for a Masters in Advanced 3D Visualisation. It’s not a role for the faint hearted: “There’s more pressure on you because a product has a certain life span and there’s so much more you can mess up.” “We have a ten man team called Foresight who do trend research ahead of the project to help us write a better brief,” says Dick Powell, one half of Seymour Powell.

Once a selection of concepts has been hammered out, “the team then moves into concept development, during which phase engineers will make observations on the difficulty of the idea,” Powell continues. Then it’s over to 3D CAD where a loosely defined set of block models are developed and produced on Stereo Lithography machines, the magic 3D printers of the product design world. “Quick and dirties” are mocked up before this, which, according to Powell, “stop you from fooling yourself”. But the SLA models, generated directly from the CAD data, are the props used to whittle

Bioform is just one example of Seymour Powell’s broad design remit.

This bike, conceived to explore a marriage between mountain bike and motorcycle technology, has a composite frame with a 35cc 2-stroke engine that runs on butane.

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Now that you have roughly marked out the most important areas of shadow and light within your image, reduce the opacity of the original sketch so that the line work fades a little into the background.

Now give the car more depth by using the Burn tool on the upper part of the profile. Again, select the areas you wish to paint so that you add colour outside of your guidelines. Create a new layer and start painting the air intakes by selecting the areas you wish to paint using the Paint Bucket tool with a dark grey colour. Use the Burn Tool to add shadows.

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You can now move away from your original sketch. First, on a new layer, mark out the fender holes using the Elliptical Marquee tool and partly fill them with black using a large, soft-edged brush. On another new layer, start to remove your sketch lines by drawing over them using the Line or Pen tools, to give your image a digital outline.

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FEATURE

Recent Bluesmith projects have included the development of a 74-metre motor yacht that would not look out of place on the quayside in Monte Carlo, “The only way to communicate the kind of subtle swooping surfaces that project involved was with reliable CAD data,” says Kingston. The machine world has rapidly made itself indispensable. Another upshot is that designers have been freed of the constraints imposed by less precise means of communication, “In the past, people were less ambitious,” says Kingston. “Designers used to do sketches, throw them to the engineer and then six months later some abomination would roll off the production line”. The arrival of 3D packages that are capable of exporting manufacturing specifications has forced designers to have a much deeper role in the product’s life cycle: “It’s forced them to become what they always should have been,” says Kingston. It also brings imagination and reality much closer together. The designer Powell zeros-in on the skill sitting at the centre of the whole project: “Concept design hasn’t really changed,” he says, and drawing is essential to this process – a way to filter information. The simple but rare ability to capture intent with a pen is still the most efficient way to design. “It gives

INSET: This Roddy MacIntyre creation shows an exploded view of a wall or floor mounted fan heater.

MAIN IMAGE: Designed by Roddy MacIntyre at the Glasgow School of Art, the Porange is a pill dispenser designed to help patients regulate their pill taking over the course of a month.

you the chance to fix the envelope without having to detail everything,” says Powell. “The fastest way to explore possibilities is still drawing, and the emphasis on this in education has been greatly reduced,” he continues. This is a cause for concern at Seymour Powell: “People try to compensate for this with complex software skills.” While packages such as Alias Studio give you the ability to quickly produce realistic visualisations that fit directly into the production pipeline, the attraction of rapid prototyping on paper is as strong as ever: “[On paper] you can communicate 95 per cent of your intent even if you only

know about five per cent of the actual product”. This, says Powell, provides you with the kind of flexibility you need when trying new concepts. The educator Carlos Peralta heads up the Product Design course at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). “Product design is about responding to people’s needs, problems and desires using products,” he says. For him, product designers must be closely integrated with the world they seek to create for: “The most appealing thing about product design is that it relates to

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On the fender holes layer, use the Elliptical Marquee tool to create the solid wheels. Fill the selection with black and place a large dot on the upper right corner using a large, white, soft-edged brush. Now go to Select>ModifySelection>Contract and enter a value. Fill the selection with black to create a highlight.

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Select the glass roof outline from your original sketch and delete the sketch from your composition. You can now paint the roof. Choose any colour you want and, being careful to maintain the balance between realism and coolness, shade using the Burn tool to darken and the Dodge tool to lighten.

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You can now add a shadow of the side mirror (using the Burn Tool) and a place for the three-pointed star on the front. To add light, create a new layer and draw a thick white line using a soft brush. Go to Layer> LayerStyle>OuterGlow and choose either turquoise or bright blue as a glow colour.

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You can now add the finishing touches. Hunt down some good photos of wheel rims and the three-pointed star emblem and use them to add detailed touches to your image. Add some shiny sparkles at the edges of the car’s body using a small soft brush to add depth, and change the colour until you are happy using Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation.

FEATURE

almost every single human activity and area of knowledge.” “The type of product designers we are educating at GSA should be creative, culturally and socially aware and responsible, curious and open minded,” says Peralta. And the list doesn’t end there: “They must be able to work across different disciplines and contexts, and have the ability to deal with complexity.” How you teach this is an evolving process: “There are as many ways to teach design as there are schools or designers,” he says. But one trend is very clear. “The emphasis of our course has shifted towards equipping our students with new working and intellectual skills,” says Peralta. There is a marked tendency for product designers to be more involved with the underlying development process, to be the ideas generators rather than the ideas developers. The student Following a BA in Product Design at the Glasgow School of Art, Craig Bunyan is currently completing a Masters degree in Advanced 3D Visualisation. Coincidentally, this is a vehicle design project for Seymour Powell, and you can park those images of dull family saloons because, “It’s an airship.” And not just any old airship. “It’s a 200m-high airship based around single membrane Hydrogen fuel cells,” Bunyan explains. Product design is changing, and Bunyan wants to be part of an emerging school of designers, “…like the Philips Futures and Tactics group or Seymour Powell’s own Foresight team. It’s not that one is better than the other,” says Bunyan, “but the new school gets involved earlier than the old school.” The new school wants to work from a blank canvas. Though the tools are improving, producing a winning visualisation is much tougher. In an attempt to win the affections of these practiced assayers the work must be ever more polished, pushing designers and students to extend their skill set. “Increasingly, it’s marketing people that you have to deal with,” says Bunyan. These are challenging times for the product designer. On one hand, the frame of reference is narrowing as production switches its base to Asia, and on the other

PRODUCT OF THE TIMES Dick Powell talks about the current state of the industry, the challenges and the rewards As one half of the hugely successful product development consultants Seymour Powell, Dick Powell is as close to a household name as you’re likely to get in the design business. Over the last decade the business has changed rapidly, he says, “and it continues to do so under our feet.”

There’s one major factor behind this change. Manufacturing has disappeared off to Asia, taking with it a large percentage of what the product designer traditionally saw as his patch. As a result, a new school of designers is emerging – Seymour Powell’s own Foresight group, for example – which focuses on the conceptual space. Despite these worries, design is entering an interesting phase. When packages such as Alias Studio took a hold, they had a marked effect on style. “Form went wild because that’s what you could do,” says Powell.

“To many that seemed a little meretricious. It was skin deep rather than founded on any real need,” he says. That wave seems to have been exhausted and the modernist ethic is making a come back. “The major criticism of modernism is that it’s soulless,” says Powell. “The new thing is emotional modernism.” Citing Apple as a perfect example of this new wave, Powell deploys the phrase “emotional ergonomics” to describe the little hardware flourishes that set Mac lovers twitching. “They really tug at your heart strings,” he says.

FURTHER READING

An exhibition in a book

ABOVE: Masters student Craig Bunyan’s hydrogen-powered vision of sustainable mobility was developed in co-operation with Politechico de Milan and Bertone.

it’s deepening as firms develop ideas in advance of a solid brief aided by the kind of visualisation software comparable to that used in Hollywood. The product designer must be plugged into his culture at ground level, an ideas man able to give you a photorealistic picture of what’s on his mind. “In the end,” Bunyan concludes, “it’s a simple question of bandwidth.” The firms that can deliver an end-to-end service will be the ones that get the work.

Billed by Phaidon as “a global, up to the minute overview of contemporary product design”, Spoon brings together 100 of today’s essential product designs. Chosen by members of an influential cabal of design insiders, each product designer is given two double page spreads where recent products are accompanied by sketches, drawings, CG renders and prototype models. There’s a brief text explaining what makes each designer ground-breaking and forward looking, too. Previously published with a solid metal cover, the paperback was released in October 2004, at a more reasonable price of £24.95. The best way to learn is by example, and this book has a huge number of the best from around the world. PUBLISHER: Phaidon Press PRICE: £24.95 ISBN: 0-71484-455-1

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LLECTION IMAGES: KOBAL CO

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ICON

SAUL BASS

From Carmen Jones to Casino, countless films were graced by Saul Bass’s ground-breaking title designs. But it was The Man with the Golden Arm that really got him noticed Few artists or designers can honestly claim to have defined an entire cultural style, but Saul Bass is certainly one of them. Starting in the fifties, he revolutionised the art of film poster and title sequence design, creating a technique that is still loved by audiences and fellow designers alike. Much of Bass’s early life was spent working in various graphic design jobs, including apprenticeships with the likes of Warner Brothers. But he found New York’s creative world overly constraining, and in 1950 set up his own design studio in Los Angeles, working largely in advertising. His first foray into film poster and title design came in 1954, with Otto Preminger’s film Carmen Jones. Bass was initially hired to design just the poster and visual identity, and he came up with a stark black and red rose, which set the tone for later work. Impressed, Preminger commissioned a title sequence, too. Work on other films soon followed – The Seven Year Itch and The Big Knife, for example. In 1955, Preminger invited Bass onto The Man with the Golden

Arm, his controversial (at the time) tale of a heroin addict. It was made even more contentious when Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, took on the lead role while first choice Marlon Brando dithered. Cinematic revolution Bass broke several moulds with his work for the film. First, the original poster design was totally devoid of star faces, even Sinatra, featuring just a jagged, almost primitive image of an arm. This bleak, unusual style was intended to convey the dismal life of a struggling addict. The title sequence that developed was also unusual in that it became an integral part of the film. Legend has it that when it was sent to cinemas, a note was attached to reels of film saying, “Projectionists – pull curtain before titles”. Until that point, it was common for the curtains to remain closed while the normally tedious opening credits rolled. But Bass changed all that, animating a sequence with a series of falling horizontal and vertical lines that incorporated the text

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ICON

credits, eventually ending with the iconic arm itself. The bold lines, combined with Elmer Bernstein’s jazzy musical score, perfectly set the tone for the rest of the film. Ground-breaking style Flash designer Brendan Dawes is a huge admirer of Bass and maintains a tribute site at www.saulbass.net. “Bass was able to distil the theme of a film into one defining image,” he says. “By doing this the audience didn’t have to work as hard to understand what they were looking at, and that whole process works well for posters, too, reducing an image as much as you can without losing what you’re trying to say.” Posters, he says, are usually seen only fleetingly, and so need to make an impact – fast. “Look at how people draw a simple face: eyes, mouth and a big circle for the head. Three elements, yet you still understand that it’s a face even without the actual detail. That’s because the rest is just ancillary noise. What Bass did was filter out that noise.” Over the next couple of decades, Bass went on to create many more distinctive poster and title sequence designs, each incorporating one iconic

image to represent the whole film. Alfred Hitchcock was especially impressed and Bass’s sequences for Vertigo, North by Northwest and, of course, Psycho, have now become classics. Some sources (including Bass himself) insist that he even directed the infamous shower scene in Psycho, surely the forerunner to every slasher flick that’s followed. Although he certainly storyboarded the scene, as well as another sequence that ultimately went unused, shower “victim” Janet Leigh has denied that he ever directed her. Nevertheless, the ground-breaking style of The Man with the Golden Arm, and Bass’s subsequent work, still inspires. The graphics seen in the recent Renault Cleo ads featuring Thierry Henry, for example, can be traced squarely back to Bass, as can the title sequence for Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. In between there are numerous other examples: Jean-Luc Godard’s Á Bout de Soufflé, Alfie (both the original and recent remake), and arguably the seminal credits for Se7en, designed by Kyle Cooper. “If you take a look at Russian Constructivist styles you can see how those posters from the former Soviet Union have a similar style to Saul

Bass,” says Dawes. “Strong block graphics, simple lines, strong bold typography. That together with the Bauhaus style probably influenced his work greatly. But Bass’s influence continues even today. Look at the logo for Apple’s iWork – the hand and light bulb switch are a direct take on the poster for Love in the Afternoon.” Design inspiration Evan Hecox is a graphic designer famed for both his print and hand-painted skateboard work. “I’m influenced by a whole generation of designers and artists ranging from the fifties through to the seventies. I’m attracted to things that are bold and graphic, but still feel hand-crafted and warm. I think the work of Saul Bass represents this idea perhaps better than any other single designer.” Although he died in 1996, Saul Bass’s influence resonates throughout many areas of film and popular culture, and his legacy continues at Bass Yager Associates. As the New York Times obituary put it, he was “the minimalist auteur who put a jagged arm in motion in 1955 and created an entire film genre... and elevated it into an art.”

A LASTING LEGACY FROM ACTION MOVIES TO CHILDREN’S FILMS, BASS CONTINUES TO INFLUENCE MODERN TITLE DESIGN

FIGHT CLUB CREDITS Although very different stylistically to Bass’s work, the title sequence for Fight Club (a complex fly-through of a human brain) engages the audience immediately and segues effortlessly into the film.

MONSTERS INC CREDITS The credits featured in the hugely successful Monsters, Inc. feature a fifties graphic design style reminiscent of Bass’s work, while the repeated motif of a door quickly becomes an icon for the film’s story.

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SE7EN CREDITS Some see designer Kyle Cooper as the spiritual successor to Bass. His work, these striking credits for Se7en, for example, always reveals something of the film to follow, as well as being “interactive” in a way pioneered by Bass. Cooper also says he paid homage to Bass’s design for Walk on the Wild Side in the credits for Spider-Man 2.

TUTORIALS Top tips and tricks from the experts ILLUSTRATOR P54 Brighton-based designer Tim Spencer, the bright-spark behind the sensational Scissor Sisters DVD cover, reveals the Photoshop and Illustrator tricks you’ll need to recreate it. TUTORIAL FILES ON THE CD

PHOTOSHOP P60 Turn even the least inspiring photograph into an intriguing design piece using Kev Speck’s duotone-specific collage technique. You’ll find full texture files and test images on the CD. TUTORIAL FILES ON THE CD

TOOL TIPS P66 Selections are pretty difficult to get the hang of, but this month Photoshop expert Derek Lea flourishes his Magic Wand and shows you just how diverse this simple tool can be. TUTORIAL FILES ON THE CD

CD TUTORIAL KOOLMOVES P68 Adding visual impact to your site is now easier than ever, thanks to powerful Flash authoring tool KoolMoves. Ryan Carson shows you how. TUTORIAL FILES & SOFTWARE ON THE CD

TUTORIALS ONLINE Did you know you that there are more tutorials available on our website? Premium tutorials are now free to all Computer Arts subscribers or you can buy them online from just 99p. Just visit www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials

SCISSOR SISTERS Studio Spooky’s Tim Spencer originally used the techniques outlined throughout this tutorial for the cover of the hugely successful Scissor Sisters DVD – We Are Scissor Sisters And So Are You. Read on to find out more...

TUTORIAL

NEON TYPE EFFECTS Tim Spencer, the talented Brighton-based designer behind the brilliant Scissor Sisters DVD cover, details a quick and easy way to work vector designs into pixel-based artwork and create realistic neon signs

ON THE CD

Download the tutorial files from ftp:// ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/ arts/zinio/art109_neon zip TIME LENGTH

3 hours INFO

Tim Spencer, AKA Studio Spooky, has been creating professional display typography and images since 1993. Combining traditional dry and wet, photographic, vector and pixel art to exploit the textures and qualities of each, he has worked extensively in fashion, music, marketing, corporate and publishing. Tim is represented by Debut Art (www.debutart.com).

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It฀is฀effortlessly฀easy฀to฀create฀a฀piece฀of฀ realistic฀looking฀neon฀using฀only฀the฀ traditional฀Photoshop฀tools฀and฀layers.฀But฀ you฀do฀need฀to฀know฀how฀to฀build-in฀random฀ elements฀of฀imperfection฀to฀avoid฀your฀ images฀appearing฀too฀computer฀generated.฀฀ I฀hope฀to฀take฀you฀step฀by฀step฀through฀the฀ process฀of฀creating฀such฀an฀image,฀although฀ if฀I’m฀honest,฀I฀tend฀to฀stab฀randomly฀at฀my฀ artwork฀whenever฀I฀feel฀it฀needs฀it! For฀the฀Scissor฀Sisters฀campaign฀artwork,฀ the฀DVD฀cover฀shown฀to฀the฀left฀of฀this฀page,฀฀ it฀became฀increasingly฀important฀to฀remove฀ any฀hint฀of฀computer฀rendering฀in฀order฀to฀ give฀the฀impression฀that฀the฀artwork฀was฀ utterly฀pre-digital.฀The฀final฀image฀was฀ output฀at฀200฀per฀cent฀to฀Lightjet฀and฀then฀ scanned฀by฀a฀repro฀house฀for฀litho. Lightjets฀work฀in฀the฀same฀way฀as฀ bubble-jets฀but฀instead฀of฀ink฀they฀have฀ lasers,฀which฀expose฀photographic฀paper฀to฀ the฀colours฀in฀your฀file.฀Although฀sharp฀and฀ accurate,฀this฀process฀removes฀any฀evidence฀ of฀pixel฀or฀jagging฀on฀diagonal฀lines฀and฀ adds฀a฀photographic฀softness฀as฀though฀you฀ have฀enlarged฀a฀35mm฀negative. The฀Ana฀artwork฀you฀see฀in฀the฀main฀ image฀here฀is฀a฀pre-Lightjet฀digital฀file,฀so฀ you฀can฀see฀the฀level฀of฀detail฀and฀image฀ quality฀required฀for฀the฀Lightjet฀stage.฀The฀ DVD฀cover฀is฀a฀high-end฀scan฀of฀a฀Lightjet.฀ It฀has฀a฀soft,฀analogue฀quality฀reminiscent฀ of฀old฀rental฀VHS฀boxes฀from฀the฀eighties. I฀rely฀on฀the฀ability฀of฀the฀viewer’s฀brain฀ to฀make฀assumptions฀about฀what฀it฀is฀ looking฀at.฀That฀way,฀it฀is฀possible฀to฀allow฀ a฀degree฀of฀creative฀interpretation฀by฀the฀ viewer,฀which฀enhances฀their฀enjoyment.฀To฀ that฀end,฀I฀don’t฀think฀it’s฀important฀to฀make฀ an฀accurate฀depiction฀of฀the฀subject,฀but฀an฀ impression฀of฀it฀instead.

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To start this project, create a rectangular document in Illustrator at the required size of the finished piece, in this case 275x295mm, and then add a bleed if necessary by creating another box around the first at the required bleed size. For this image, a 3mm bleed is required, so the outer box will measure 281x301mm.

Now start to colour your image in bright, contrasting colours on a black background. Select different lines and pick colours from the RGB palette, experimenting as you go until it feels right. The best colours for neon are the harsh, vivid fluorescent tones. For neon effects to work well, your background should be as dark as possible. Black is best.

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As neon signs are made of thin tubes of luminous glass, it makes sense to create your design out of line work only. The glass tubes are bent when hot to form the design, which is a slightly imperfect process, so avoid using any sharp corners and be less accurate with parallel lines or straight sections. Size it and position it within your template.

Behind every neon sign is a holding structure. I tend to go for more theatrical stage rigging, which allows the holding frame to have some prominence within the final design. On a new layer, create this framework by making a random grid structure out of black lines, boxes and freestyle lines, which will suggest electrical wiring.

Illustration and tutorial by Tim Spencer www.debutart.com

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Now, in Illustrator, create more simple lines and squares and place them over the top of your neon sign line work, which should be locked in the background as Guides (Object>Guides>MakeGuides).

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Next, open and import the image you wish to use as your background into Photoshop. Here, I used an image of the main entrance doors of Brighton Dome’s concert venue. This file has been provided on the cover CD.

Duplicate the arch and fill it with black. Select the duplicated layer, and with black as the foreground colour, hit Command+ Apple+Delete. Now tick Preserve Transparency. Set the layer to Multiply and apply a Gaussian Blur to enhance the shadow. Offset the shadow layer from its original position by dragging it to create a realistic shadow position, reduce the Opacity to 40 per cent, duplicate the layer and offset the second shadow a little more.

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You’ll now need to transfer your vector work into Photoshop. Start by copying the template keylines and creating a new Photoshop file measuring 28.3x30.3cm while the template is held on the clipboard.

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Create a negative by selecting Invert, or Command+Apple+I. Duplicate the negative by dragging and dropping it onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Flip the duplicate 180 degrees (Edit> Transform>FlipVertical) and straighten up the angles using the Free Transform tool. Flatten the two layers and make adjustments to the Hue, Contrast, Levels and Sharpness.

ACCURACY When generating artwork that needs to look photo-realistic, find ways to override the computer’s ability to do everything perfectly. Credibility lies in the subtle imperfections that mirror real life, so a few dirty spots or some imperfect lines will add to the realism. Add colour shifts to flat areas of work to create the effect of ambient shadows and light variation, and add random areas of subtle blurring to create a sense of focal depth.

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Next create a new empty layer over the brickwork and fill it with a dark colour. This will be used like a lighting gel over a theatre light to project colour and change the mood. Try different colours and vignettes and set the layer to Multiply or Overlay to dull the brickwork down to a dramatic background of shadowy shapes.

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By holding the template on the clipboard in this way, before pasting into a new document, you can be sure that each time you Copy and Paste something with that template border, it will end up exactly where you want it.

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You can now add the digital shot of a brick wall, provided on the cover CD, into the aperture. This is a tiny image taken on a two mega-pixel camera, so you’ll need to use it twice, one on top of the other.

Drop in your lighting rig, select it along with your perimeter rectangle (to ensure correct registration each time you copy from Illustrator and Paste into Photoshop), blur it with the Gaussian Blur filter and offset it in the same way as the arch shadows. Play around with a few shadows on different layers at different opacities.

TUTORIAL

INVISIBLE BORDER

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Now return to your vector artwork. Create a thinner-lined version of your design. Select the neon line work, and using the Line and Fill palette, make the lines about 50 per cent of their original thickness. Copy the new thinner design, including the template rectangle, and go back to Photoshop.

When transferring vector work into pixelbased applications, I find it makes things much easier to create an invisible keyline at the boundary of the artwork around the composite vector design. That way it’s possible to Copy and Paste the vector work piece by piece, and as long as you copy the invisible keyline each time, it will Paste in Place perfectly when back in Photoshop.

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By selecting the lighting rig and offsetting the selection, you will create a top-right highlight that will make your image appear more realistic. The rig won’t be photographically perfect, but that’s okay as most of it will be obscured in the finished piece.

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Paste the thinner line work over the top of the original coloured neon design, blur it slightly and fill it with white, ensuring the layer transparency is protected as before. Now offset the line work slightly from the original position so that you create a top-right highlight on the neon. It should start to look quite shiny and bright.

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Now Copy and Paste the neon design and the outer rectangle into Photoshop again so that they appear on a new layer of their own. Add a slight Gaussian Blur to the neon to soften it. It’s worth making a duplicate layer at this point so that the softened version sits behind the original hard-edged version. This can be kept in place to make further selections and duplicates from.

Working on the blurred layer, adjust the Hue and Saturation so that it is not accurate to the neon sign. For this image, one layer was set to Screen and another behind it to Overlay in the Layers palette as before. Keep making duplicates and testing them in different positions and intensities with different layer natures. In this case, the layer is set to Pin Light.

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Enter Quickmask by clicking on the right-hand icon beneath the foreground/background colour selectors in the Toolbox. You can now paint complex selections using the Brush tool as though painting rubber solution over an airbrush artwork. Convert the paint into a selection by clicking the left-hand icon to leave Quickmask. Make subtle adjustments to the depth, tone and blur of the selected image areas. May 2005

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Applying Noise to your final piece will help to diffuse the computergenerated edges and any colour stepping that may occur. Add Noise can be found in the Filters menu. Don’t go overboard with the Noise, just add enough to cloud any obvious colour stepping or overperfect attributes.

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Back in Illustrator, create a sparkle by repeat-rotating a short keyline. Once you are happy with its shape, Copy and Paste it back into your Photoshop artwork, reduce its size, soften it slightly with a Gaussian Blur and place it in a prominent position on its own layer. Finally, in the Layers palette, set the layer to Screen.

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EXPLORE WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED Once you’ve finished a piece of work and flattened it to a single layer, its always worth spending an extra hour seeing what additional qualities can be bought to it by duplicating layers and overlaying them with different transparency settings. Setting a duplicate layer to Overlay, for example, and then masking off the centre part with a circular gradient fill, will quickly create a subtle variation in quality around the edges of a piece as though photographed with a small-lens camera.

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Nik Colour Effects Pro filters are a great package of finishing textures that add a huge amount to your work. By adding a Classical Soft Focus you can further diffuse the digital nature of any artwork you create. You’ll find demo and full versions at http://www. nikmultimedia.com/. Your final image should now be ready to be output to Lightjet and scanned back in.

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Using the Clone tool set to Nonaligned with a soft tip and a smaller diameter than the size of the original sparkle, touch your image in various places to create a non-perfect copy of the sparkle on different parts of the neon. Each time you touch the artwork with the Clone tool, you will create a new centre sparkle.

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Go back and make adjustments to your layers. Darken the background to increase the neon’s intensity and add a subtle blurring to a few of the neon layers. Once you are happy with the composition, flatten the image (keeping a layered original on file) and adjust the Levels, the Hue and Saturation and the Sharpness using the Unsharp Mask filter.

NEXT ISSUE IN BE INSPIRED

Ten ways find inspiration and beat those freelance blues

COMPETITION

WIN XARA GRAPHICS SOFTWARE

Xara is giving five readers the chance to nab top apps XaraX1, Webstyle 4 and Xara3D 6 – a prize worth over £1,000!

Xara, Britain’s leading graphics software developer, is offering readers of Computer Arts the opportunity to win a fantastic creative bundle featuring three of the leading graphics creation tools. Leading the field is XaraX1, the powerful vector and bitmap graphics editor that earned 4.5 stars in our Computer Arts review (Dec 2004). XaraX1 manages to pack in almost every productivity tool you’re ever likely to need, yet remains easy to use and unbelievably fast. Webstyle 4 is the Swiss Army knife of web graphics. Imagine being able to create every graphic you’ll ever need for your website in one easy-to-use program – including buttons, banners, headings, menus, NavBars and albums. It’ll even lay out the page and insert all the code required to make it work, and it’s fully integrated with Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage, too, so you can insert your graphics without leaving your HTML editor. Creating 3D graphics has just got a whole lot easier with the introduction of Xara3D 6. With powerful 3D rendering of TrueType fonts and 2D shapes, this simple-to-use package enables you to create stunning still or animated 3D headings in just seconds. Version 6 extends the range of graphics types you can create by adding various styles of boards and borders to its repertoire. Each great value bundle would normally retail for over £200, and we’ve got five to give away to readers who can answer our tricky tie-breaker...

TEXT YOU

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ANSWR R TO 846E 00 HOW TO ENTER

To be in with a chance of winning onr of these five Xara software bundles, simply answer the following question: Xara is a British company, but where is its headquarters? a. Canary Wharf b. Enterprise House c. Gaddesden Place

Then choose one of three ways to enter: 1. Visit www.computerarts.co.uk/ competition 2. Send a postcard with your answer, full name, address and phone number to: Xara Competition, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

The rules: The closing date for this competition is 12 May 2005. Employees of Xara and Future, their agents and families are not permitted to enter. Multiple entries are not accepted. The editor’s decision is final and there are no cash alternatives. No other correspondence will be entered into. If you are entering by post and do not wish any of the companies involved in this competition to contact you with further offers, please indicate on your entry. We will not pass your details on to third parties.

3. Or send us a text. Simply send us a message that says “CA XARA” plus your answer – for example, “CA XARA B” – to 84600. (Each entry costs 50p. If you’re not the bill payer, please seek permission before entering.)

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TUTORIAL

TUTORIAL

TRANSFORM PHOTOS

Photoshop is perfect for adding extra detail to images, says Kev Speck. Whether you’re importing unwanted doodles or last year’s holiday snaps, with the right elements you can easily create great, dramatic illustrations

DOWNLOAD

Download the tutorial files from ftp://ftp. futurenet.co.uk/pub/ arts/zinio/.art109_photo. zip TIME LENGTH

2 hours INFO

After appearing in the Computer Arts Graduate Showcase, Kev Speck is enjoying life – working with Beards with Beef and as a freelance illustrator. His clients include The Financial Times, Two Agent See, The NME and WGSN. For more information about his work, visit www. beardswithbeef.co.uk or www.kevspeck.com.

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Whether฀you฀go฀abroad฀or฀just฀look฀ out฀of฀your฀back฀window,฀there’s฀ inspiration฀to฀be฀found฀everywhere฀–฀and฀ no฀better฀way฀of฀capturing฀it฀than฀with฀a฀ photograph.฀Cameras฀have฀always฀enabled฀ us฀to฀snap฀such฀moments,฀but฀not฀always฀ the฀unique฀atmosphere฀that฀goes฀with฀them.฀ In฀this฀tutorial,฀we’ll฀be฀reworking฀an฀ ordinary฀image฀so฀it฀does฀just฀that,฀adding฀ depth฀and฀composition฀to฀make฀it฀look฀ much฀more฀exciting฀and฀dramatic. Most฀creatives฀swear฀by฀their฀digital฀ camera฀as฀way฀of฀capturing฀images฀to฀work฀ with฀later฀on.฀The฀photograph฀you’ll฀work฀ with฀for฀this฀tutorial฀was฀taken฀in฀New฀York,฀ and฀is฀simply฀a฀shot฀of฀a฀road฀with฀moving฀ vehicles.฀Not฀very฀interesting,฀admittedly,฀but฀ with฀the฀confidence฀to฀work฀into฀and฀around฀ the฀image,฀you฀can฀create฀something฀quite฀ stunning,฀and฀develop฀the฀skills฀you฀need฀to฀ rework฀some฀of฀your฀own฀digital฀images.฀ This฀tutorial฀uses฀relatively฀simple฀tools.฀ You’ll฀keep฀your฀work฀in฀duotone฀and฀rarely฀ move฀beyond฀cutting฀and฀pasting,฀but฀ sometimes฀that’s฀more฀than฀enough.฀ Building฀with฀layers฀you฀have฀already฀made฀ away฀from฀the฀computer฀is฀an฀effective฀way฀ of฀creating฀interesting,฀detailed฀images.฀฀ So฀get฀scribbling,฀painting,฀photocopying,฀ screening฀and฀scanning,฀so฀you฀have฀plenty฀ of฀resources฀to฀throw฀into฀your฀image. On฀this฀month’s฀cover฀CD,฀you’ll฀find฀ the฀original฀photo฀used฀in฀this฀illustration,฀ along฀with฀a฀few฀others฀which฀you฀can฀use฀ to฀practice฀what฀you’ve฀learned.฀You’ll฀also฀ find฀a฀range฀of฀textures฀and฀scribbles฀for฀ adding฀depth฀and฀style฀to฀your฀work.฀

Illustration and tutorial by Kevin Speck www.kevspeck.com

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First create a new document that measures 275mm by 295mm. Open the photo.jpg file from the cover CD and place the scanned photo onto your document. Notice how the file is rescaled to fit your workspace. All you have to do is position it accordingly.

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Label this layer “photo” and convert it to black and white. Adjust Brightness and Contrast by clicking Image>Adjustments> Brightness(20)/Contrast(10). Then click on Image>Adjustments>ChannelMixer and choose Monochrome. Now you can alter the Contrast and Black scale as shown.

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Duplicate your original layer and rename it “illustrate”. Now with the Polygonal Lasso tool, trace the edge of the buildings to create a selection of the sky you wish to remove. Finally, Delete the sky and excess buildings by choosing Edit>Cut.

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Create a new layer and place it under the “illustrate” layer. Pick the Gradient tool from the toolbar and fade it from top to bottom, making sure that your gradient fades to transparent. Now choose your colour by selecting Image>Adjustments> Hue/Saturation and ticking Colorize in the pop-up menu that appears.

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Now to give your image some perspective and depth. If not already visible, give your document rulers by choosing View>Rulers. Create two guidelines by clicking and dragging them from the top and side rulers (axis number 5). This is the point from which your ray beams will shine. Create a set of beams using the Polygonal Lasso tool.

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Open the skylines.psd CD file and drag the layers onto your image (these were originally drawn in Adobe Illustrator). Alter the Hue/Saturation as in step 4, but this time only change the lightness – dragging all the way to white. Duplicate this layer and place it in between previous lines. Change to Soft Light and, in the Layers palette, set the Opacity to 77 per cent.

GET DRAWING If, like me, you spend a lot of time working on a computer, make sure you take some time out to put pencil to paper. Whether you draw in a sketchbook or scribble on a newspaper while commuting, adding these elements will ensure that you maintain an original style throughout your work. Anyone can use a filter, but we all interpret the world differently when we try to draw it.

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On a new layer, give each beam a gradient from top to bottom. The beams will look rather flat at this stage, so open your Styles menu, duplicate the beams layer and give it an Outer Glow. Once this has taken effect, double-click the layer to bring up the Layer Style window and change the settings, as shown here.

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Now open the splatter.psd file from the cover CD. As in step 5, place the textured file above the gradient layer in the top lefthand side of your composition. Play around with the settings once more until you are happy with the appearance of the texture – it can be as obvious or as subtle as you like.

Duplicate the original beam layer once again and go to Layer> LayerStyle>Stroke. In the Layer Style window that appears, change the Colour to purple, the Stroke Size to 8, the Position to Inside and the Opacity to 26 per cent.

TUTORIAL

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A great way to add character and movement to the van is to place some rough, handdrawn lines on top. You could either draw and scan these yourself, or use the template provided in the drawndetail.jpg file on the cover CD. Alter the colour as you wish and then set all layers to Multiply.

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Now, to trace the buildings. Start with the one on the right, using the Polygonal Lasso tool. Copy and Paste the result into a new layer and change the Hue/ Saturation to a light brown. In the Layers palette, choose Multiply to add depth. Repeat for the building on the left and the one peering over the top of the centre building.

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Now to rework the road. Here, I’ve used a grey marker to draw the sort of lines that you’d regularly find left on the tarmac. This adds depth to the image. Open the felt.jpg file from the CD (or simply draw and scan your own). Drag the file onto your document, alter the Brightness and Contrast and again set the layer to Multiply.

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Repeat the same process (step 11) with the van using the felt tip marks included in the felt.jpg document. Drag the file onto your image and then change the colour once again by selecting Image> Adjustments>Hue/Saturation.

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You can now highlight the areas of the photograph that you wish to erase – the building sign and the advertisement on the back of the lorry, for example. This is simple. Just cover the areas you wish to remove with a new layer filled with white.

THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN’T USE Whether it’s badly exposed photos or your flatmate’s late-night phone-call doodles, everything has a use in design. Whether you opt to play with such elements first or scan them straight into your composition, remember to store them in a library afterwards. When deadlines are pressing, they’re handy to have, helping you to form a style of your own.

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Open the floor.psd – a photograph of floorboards I put through Adobe Streamline, which you can now use as a texture. Magic Wand it with a Tolerance of 32. Drag your selection over to your workspace and apply a gradient from brown to transparent. Set to Overlay over the building and cut away what’s not needed. Repeat for the building further back.

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PHOTOSHOP

19

Use scribble.jpg, the texture you used in step 15, or even some old dirt, to give the buildings a little more depth. You should now also add texture to the two lorries or anything else in the composition you feel is too important to leave blank.

16

Create greater perspective by adding more buildings. Start by opening the photo2.jpg file and altering the Brightness and Contrast levels. Choose one building, carefully trace around it and then drag the cut-out onto the illustration under the “illustrate” layer.

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Now to create a background collage; the Empire State Building is ideal. Once your buildings are in place, change the colour to a light brown, dull orange or pale purple. Apply to as many buildings as you wish. Finish on the Empire State Building and highlight it in purple.

SAVE AND SAVE I can’t repeat this enough: always save your work every 15 minutes to half an hour. There’s nothing more soul-destroying than working on something and then losing it because your computer crashes for no good reason. Of course, you won’t know how annoying this is until it happens, but I’m guessing it already has to most of you.

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Add subtle doodles to draw attention to the Empire State Building. Open spiragraph.jpg, pull it over to your workspace and position as desired. Change the contrast by choosing Image> Adjustments>Auto Contrast, select Invert from the Adjustments menu and change Layer Property to Screen.

At this point in the design, you can bring some of the elements forward – lift the cab and the posts at the front left, for instance. Choose areas that could do with a dash of colour – simply select and fill them before hitting Multiply.

The water tank that sits on top of the building looks heavily under-worked. Zoom in and trace around it. Create two new layers, one for the lid and one for the actual tank, and fill them at different shades. Now again add texture from a previous layer – the drawndetail.jpg, for example.

22

Look back at the original photo. Is there anything you’ve missed or want to put back into your new illustration? As a final touch, drag over the felt-tipped drawings of branches and leaves from the drawndetail. jpg on the cover CD and insert them on the left-hand side of your image.

TOOL TIPS

TOOL TIPS DOWNLOAD

Download the tutorial files from here ftp://ftp. futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/ zinio/art109_tools.zip INFO

Derek Lea is an awardwinning illustrator and published author based in Toronto, Canada. He is an expert in traditional illustration, photography, vector art, 3D modelling and Photoshop. To view more of his work, visit www.dereklea.com.

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MAGIC WAND TECHNIQUES To use Photoshop’s Magic Wand tool to its full potential, you’ll need to think outside the box, especially when it comes to image preparation and finding the ideal selection target areas, as Derek Lea explains…

Ë

฀

Clicking฀on฀an฀image฀with฀the฀ Magic฀Wand฀tool฀allows฀you฀to฀ generate฀a฀selection฀from฀that฀area฀based฀ upon฀its฀range฀of฀colour.฀The฀Magic฀ Wand฀itself฀has฀a฀tolerance฀setting฀in฀the฀ Tool฀Options฀bar฀that฀allows฀you฀to฀ specify฀just฀how฀selective฀the฀tool฀will฀฀ be฀when฀deciding฀where฀that฀range฀of฀ colour฀starts฀and฀finishes. Most฀Photoshop฀users,฀me฀included,฀ spend฀a฀lot฀of฀their฀time฀working฀within฀ the฀CMYK฀or฀RGB฀composite฀channel฀in฀ the฀image฀window.฀But฀by฀looking฀within฀ individual฀colour฀channels฀you฀can฀reveal฀ differences฀in฀greyscale฀tonal฀range฀that฀ aren’t฀visible฀in฀the฀composite฀channel.฀

Generating฀your฀Magic฀Wand฀ selections฀within฀individual฀colour฀ channels฀or฀your฀own฀custom฀alpha฀ channels฀will฀allow฀you฀to฀create฀Wand฀ selections฀that฀would฀have฀been฀ impossible฀using฀the฀Composite฀channel฀ alone.฀Don’t฀be฀afraid฀to฀temporarily฀ adjust฀your฀images฀to฀make฀areas฀of฀ colour฀more฀defined.฀Tools฀such฀as฀ adjustment฀layers฀are฀ideal฀for฀this฀ because฀once฀you฀have฀used฀them฀to฀ adjust฀the฀image,฀and฀made฀a฀selection,฀ you฀can฀trash฀them฀and฀the฀selection฀will฀ remain฀active. Illustration and tutorial by Derek Lea

1

If you take a look at the red area of this image, you’ll see that generating a selection of just highlight areas would be tricky. Even altering the tolerance wouldn’t be perfect. If the tolerance is set too low, the highlights will only be partially selected. Too high, and the red areas will be selected, too.

TOOL TIPS

2

Take a look at the individual CMYK colour channels and you’ll notice that the Magenta channel provides the greatest contrast in this area. Duplicate the Magenta channel so that you can increase the contrast even further without affecting the actual colour channel, and you’ll preserve the colour within the image.

4

If you now return to the Composite channel you will notice that a section of the grey mouse has been included within your selection. To remove this from your selection, go to the Composite channel, hold down the Alt/Option key and at the same time click on the grey areas that you wish to remove. Remember, you can easily bounce back and forth between channels while you’re editing selections.

This image has little differentiation between the subtle blue and purple colours within the statue’s face. Generating a Magic Wand selection of specific facial components can be difficult in this situation. For example, if you click on the cheek, you’ll see that a number of unwanted cyan areas are included within your selection.

5

In an image such as this it will be tricky to isolate the slightly darker gold colour from the lighter cream colour using a Magic Wand-based selection. You’re bound to encounter the same problems with high and low Tolerance settings. Hit Select All and then copy the image.

3

With the Contiguous option enabled, start with a Tolerance setting of 25 and click on one of the highlight areas to select it. Next, while holding down the Shift key, click on similar areas and add them to your selection. Reduce the tolerance while selecting areas that could potentially stray from the desired area.

8

6

Now, in the Channels palette, create a new alpha channel and paste your image into it. The image will be converted to greyscale and pasted into the same position within your alpha channel. Again, you’ll need to perform a tonal adjustment to increase the contrast between light and dark areas.

7

Deselect the Contiguous option and then set the Tolerance for the Magic Wand to 32 – the default setting. Click on a dark area within the alpha channel and generate a selection from all of the dark areas. This image shows how, in the Composite channel, we used the new selection as the basis for a hue/saturation adjustment.

TOOL OPTIONS When you select the Magic Wand tool, you’ll notice that some unique options appear in the Tool Options bar, alongside the Tolerance and Anti-alias options. The first is the Contiguous option. When this option is enabled only adjacent pixels will be selected. So, even if you click on a coloured area that has numerous, similarly coloured pixels elsewhere in the image, only pixels of a similar colour range that touch the pixels you clicked on will be selected. The Use All Layers option allows the Magic Wand to generate its selections based upon ranges of colour using all of the visible layers. When Use All Layers is disabled, the Wand will only draw from ranges of colour within the currently selected layer.

9

Lowering the Tolerance will help to an extent, but there will be a trade off – the selected area will also contain less of the slightly different areas that you wish to include. In a case like this, some temporary adjustments will be very helpful. Create a Levels adjustment layer to increase contrast.

10

A selective colour adjustment layer will allow you to drastically alter individual colour components and make them different. Don’t worry about how your image appears now – once you have generated a selection you’ll be able to delete the layers while it is active. Enable the Use All Layers option and click in the same area. This time the blue areas will be excluded.

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Illustration by Andy Potts

CD TUTORIAL

ON THE CD

You’ll find one finished animation and a supporting file to help you complete this tutorial in the folder named Tutorial\Kool on the cover CD. TIME LENGTH

2 hours

Ryan Carson is the founder of the global creative collective, By Designers For Designers. He also runs Carson Workshops, which provides training for the web design and development industry. Visit www.bd4d.com and www.carsonworkshops. com to find out more.

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ANIMATE WEB BANNERS

Creating a simple animated banner for your website is easy using Flash alternative KoolMoves’ simple tweening and vector tools. With the help of this month’s CD software, Ryan Carson shows you how... If you are interested in creating animated banners or websites, but just can’t stump up the £419 you’d need to buy Macromedia Flash MX 2004, KoolMoves is a great alternative. You won’t get anywhere near the power and ease of use that comes as standard with Flash MX 2004, but at $39 you can’t beat KoolMoves if you only need to create a range of simple animated banners. And if $39 still breaks the bank, KoolMoves’ cousin, KoolMoves Lite, is free – and included on this month’s cover CD. This tutorial will show you how to create a simple animated banner for your website, using KoolMoves Lite. This free,

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INFO

68

KOOLMOVES LITE

May 2005

SOFTW A ON THERE COVER CD

streamlined version of KoolMoves is essentially the same as the full version, but boasts fewer features and widgets. But for the basic banner you’ll be creating here, it’ll work just fine. KoolMoves comes packaged with several useful pre-programmed animations that you can apply to your text quickly and easily with minimum fuss. Simply select your text, choose the animation, and away you go. There are some seriously cheesy pre-made animations that should be avoided, however, so don’t be tempted to get too carried away. You’re bound to produce better results if you stick to the basics.

In addition, KoolMoves also provides the expected Timeline animation model. Anyone who is familiar with animation or Flash will expect this functionality, and although it’s a little less intuitive than Flash MX 2004, it’s still pretty easy to use. The ability to create Flash banner animations is a great skill to have, after all there are plenty of clients who need this kind of work but don’t have the required skills in-house. Once you’ve completed this tutorial, you’ll have all the skills you need to create your own basic animated banners. So let’s get to it! Tutorial by Ryan Carson

CD TUTORIAL

1

To start, launch KoolMoves Lite and then choose File>New from the main menu. Now choose Movie> MovieWidth/Height from the main menu and enter the Movie Size dimensions you require. For this banner enter 468 pixels for width and 60 pixels for height and hit OK. This is a typical website banner size.

4

To grab the attention of your site visitor, you’ll need to include some animated shapes. To do this, choose Shapes>Draw> PointByPoint. You could choose any of the drawing options under Shapes>Draw, but it’s best to use Point by Point as it makes drawing custom squares so much easier.

2

You’ll need to use an image for your banner background. Choose an eye-catching image that will work well in this format and import it into KoolMoves Lite by choosing File> ImportImage from the main menu. Browse for your file and click Open.

5

Click the Effects tab in on the timeline panel by selecting Views> Score/ Timeline, hit the “+” button and then choose Fade/Size. Next select Initial Fade In and enter the number of frames you’d like your animation to last. This animation was set to 2.

KEEP IT SMALL

3

If you wish to pan around the canvas you have just created, right-click and choose Pan from the pop-up menu that appears. Right-click once again and reselect Pan to turn it back off when it is no longer needed.

When you export your KoolMoves movie to SWF format, make sure to check the file size of the exported file. It’s very important that banner ads are extremely small – limited to less than 5KB if possible. By keeping the file size small, you’ll ensure that the banner ad appears first on the page, rather than after the other ads on the page.

6

To view your animation at this stage, just hit Ctrl+Enter and KoolMoves will play it back straight away in its local player. Alternatively, you can view it in your browser by instead hitting Ctrl+Spacebar. You should now see the square fade in from transparent to white.

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CD TUTORIAL

KOOLMOVES LITE

7

Now that you’ve completed one square, feel free to continue drawing the rest of the shapes. Here I have created vector shapes over the chevron-like spaces on the right-hand side of the banner and faded them in, too. Take a look at the image you have chosen and decide which areas would most benefit from extra movement.

10

Now drag the text you have created into place and change the colour within the Properties panel. Choose the Effects tab on the Timeline once again, click the “+” button, and then choose Motion Script.

8

To change the attributes of a shape – its fill colour and outline, for example – select View>ShowProperties from the main menu. Now simply select the shape you’d like to change and then modify the values within the Properties panel until you are happy with the results. IN THEIR SHOES It’s very important to think from the visitor’s perspective when designing and building banner ads. What would interest them or catch their attention enough tempt them into clicking on the banner? The most common mistake when creating banner ads is to try to annoy the site’s visitors enough to force them to look at a banner! Instead, think carefully about how can you educate or inform them.

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11

Once you have chosen your desired text effect, you can click OK. Make sure to choose an animation that helps communicate your banner’s message rather than just distracting people (see “In their shoes”, left).

12 9

You can now start to add a small amount of text. Select the text tool from the Toolbar and click where you’d like the text to be placed. Now type in your text and choose a font, size and weight that you think works within the banner. Finally, select All Frames.

Finally, you’ll need to export the SWF to use on your chosen website. Choose File> ExportMovie>AsSWF (Flash movie). Add this SWF to your HTML and that’s it! You should now have created a simple but attractive banner ad.

Illustration by Mark Graham

FEATURE

GET STARTED WITH…

SELLING YOUR WORK ONLINE You can earn cash and kudos by building your own e-shop, explains Karl Hodge 72

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FEATURE

Your portfolio’s online and you’re getting a steady stream of hits, but could that traffic be turned into profit? Is it possible that people might want to buy prints of your designs, posters of your pictures or DVDs of your popular animated work? If this hasn’t crossed your mind before, it should have. The essentials you need to get started are easily identified. You’ll need a catalogue of your wares that customers can browse, a checkout system that enables them to select

Ë

items and a system for processing payments. But for absolute control over features and appearance, you need to build all this yourself, and that’s a particularly daunting prospect, even for developers familiar with databases and dynamic data. Fortunately, the commercial web is a mature medium and there are plenty of options available – from simple scripts to full-blown remote solutions. So why reinvent the wheel? If you have the skills to build your own site, chances are you already know that a

dynamic shopping site requires a web account that supports a server-side scripting language such as PHP or ASP for the front-end. Shopping systems are just a userfriendly way to manage and access a database, so your host will need to offer database connectivity, too – possibly through MySQL or Microsoft SQL. These basics hold true whether you build from scratch or get a little help from other sources. While you may baulk at the old adage that says the best things in life

are free, it’s true on the web. Thanks to a thriving open source community, there are plenty of free aids to help you create your own e-commerce site, ranging from Dreamweaver plug-ins that help you build an online catalogue to full-blown, richly featured shopping-cart systems. Using Dreamweaver extensions to craft your own sales site is the closest thing there is to coding it yourself. A browse through the Dreamweaver Exchange (exchange. macromedia.com/macromedia/), Ë May 2005

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FEATURE

COMMERCIAL SOLUTIONS Product: Actinic Catalog Pricing: £379 (+ VAT) Web: www.actinic.co.uk What does it do? Described as the “best value, entry level shopping cart software”, Actinic Catalog isn’t far from that. While you may struggle to customise and install an open source script, Actinic is a desktop application, so it maintains your database locally, publishing CGI pages that you can customise extensively.

Product: WebAssist eCart 2.1 Pricing: £103 Web: www.webassist.com What does it do? Another Dreamweaver extensionbased shopping cart builder. WebAssist renders code using PHP, which is a more popular choice than ASP for many hosting packages. At $199, it’s a cheaper but no less well-featured package than CartWeaver. The scripting language you’d prefer to use will make your choice for you.

LEFT: PhotoBox (www.photobox.co.uk) – pictured here, showing work by Peter Adams – is an ideal solution for selling prints online. Customers can buy your work in many custom sizes, from standard photo dimensions to A2 size and beyond.

for example, reveals several

Ë options. None is more complete than Charon Cart. Available in free and commercial versions, it transforms Dreamweaver into an ASP-powered online shop builder. The beauty of this approach is that there are no templates to tweak or graphics to change. You design the layout exactly as you would any other site, dragging the dynamic elements into place. Of course, this can still be a time-consuming and daunting task, but Charon Cart helps you through by providing a full example site. You’ll find the extension at www.charon. co.uk – along with documentation and tutorial links. ONE WE PREPARED EARLIER Ready-made scripts may lack flexibility and control, but they do make up for it in functionality. Take the PHP-based Zen Cart (www.zencart.com) as an example. Although this open source shopping cart system is fairly typical in terms of the customisation capabilities it offers, it’s very well featured. Once installed on your web hosting account, you can immediately start adding items to your database, building a catalogue complete with example images, categories, etc., and enable payment using a system of your choice. 74

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tools should be more robust and less prone to errors – but this isn’t the case when buying ASP and PHP scripts. They’re not cheap, either. With the e-commerce market as it is, scripts that should really be made available as open source products are put on the market at exorbitant prices.

On the surface, you may feel stuck within the parameters of the basic three-column design. But you can edit all the graphics within the site, switch off features you don’t need and control most formatting elements through CSS. This gives you lots of design choices – from changing font faces to adding background images. The Dreamweaver extension approach and the off-the-shelf shopping script have their commercial equivalents. If you need more reliable documentation and support from the developer, then this might be a better option. Be wary, though. Commercial

OUT OF THE BOX If you’re a designer looking for the best way to sell work online, you have the luxury of taking some time when making your choice. CartWeaver 2, for example, (www.cartweaver.com) comes with a recommendation from Macromedia. Like Charon Cart, this is a series of extensions that plug into Dreamweaver, adding shop-building tools. Again, ASP is used to render code, but there’s a ColdFusion version available, too. At $250 (£130), it’s not a light investment – but it’s less expensive than many far less attractive script-based solutions, and it does give you the flexibility of building a site the way you want to, or plugging shopping cart functions into your existing site.

DESIGNER TIPS “Keep your site simple and fresh at all times. Too much interface design can take away the excitement of the real work. Create your own personal impression. It should reflect who you are. “I try to push the idea of being a kind of emergency, 24-hour illustrator service. It works; people now call me 24 hours a day. Maybe I should take the phone number off the site again.” Ron Jonzo, computer-based illustrator www.ronjonzo.com

There are a range of full-script based commercial solutions to the shopping cart problem, but there are some common hotspots you should look out for when shopping. Make sure that the software’s website lets you take a good look at the administrative tools in the script, as well as example sites. Check the documentation to see how easy it is to

“Treat your site like the shop it is. Too often illustrators let a little too much of their personality come out in a website. If you want to sell, make the site all about the illustrations. “The most important part of marketing is research. Don’t just guess prices for your work. Find out how much your competition charges and exactly how they sell. Use other websites, such as artwanted.com, to link to your work.” Liton Ali, designer www.shelfstackerltd.com

If even the thought of installing and customising an off-the-shelf solution seems like too much hard work, there are some online alternatives such as the undisputed leader in this field – CaféPress (www.cafepress.com). The site’s already built; the payment processing is handled for you. Heck, CaféPress even produces the merchandise. You supply the design,

“Thanks to a thriving open source community, there are now plenty of free aids to help you create your own e-commerce site” customise the look of the site you build. They may offer editable HTML templates, divided into headers and footers for example, and these should be documented. Preferably, you should be able to control the basic layout of a site within the administrative section of the script. Some hosting solutions come with shopping cart scripts built in and ready installed. These “e-commerce” hosting accounts should be optimised in bandwidth terms for sales. If you find a solution like this, make sure you check that it can be easily customised before pressing ahead.

they turn it into a print, or T-shirt, or mug, or mouse-mat... And there’s the rub. You don’t take all the money – a fat proportion of the dosh goes to CaféPress for doing all this for you. That means you have to sell a lot to make it worth your while. Of course, the real disadvantage is that you have very little control over the look of the finished site. But you can work around this by building a static catalogue in your own web space, using HTML and a design of your choice. Place hard links to the products in your online shop to enable people to buy the goods.

ONLINE SOLUTIONS Creating your own e-commerce site can be a hassle if you’re not up on how the systems work and interact with each other. So why not try an all-in-one solution? SHOPPINGCARTSPLUS A remotely hosted shopping cart that takes all the stress out of setting up online. You pay a monthly fixed fee, starting at $21.95 (£11.44), for a full online solution that includes customisable shopping cart, hosting and editable templates. URL: www.shoppingcartsplus.com EBAY Yes, we said eBay! Everyone knows that it’s the web’s biggest auction site, but with the Buy It Now facility, it’s also the web’s biggest online shopping cart vendor. Whether you auction or sell your work for a fixed price, you can link to listings direct from your own site. URL: www.ebay.co.uk CAFÉPRESS If you want to put your designs on T-shirts, mugs, pens or mousemats, you could end up spending a lot of money upfront to get bits and pieces produced. With CaféPress, you pay by the piece as and when people order your designs. Your profit margin may be small, but the system is virtually hassle free. URL: www.cafepress.com FOTOPIC In a similar vein to CaféPress, FotoPic lets you sell merchandise featuring your designs. Crucially, the company enables you to set your own prices above the “base price” of the items it makes for you, taking ten per cent of your mark-up. The work of artist Judy Clemson is shown here. URL: www.fotopic.com

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FEATURE

TIPS AND TRICKS

1

If you opt for an “out of the box” solution, make sure that your hosting package fully supports all the listed requirements before you hand over the money. That includes making sure your chosen payment system is supported.

2

The easiest solution of all would be to create a static catalogue site, and place a PayPal “Buy Now” button on your pages for each item. For full and easy-tofollow instructions on how to do this, visit the Merchant Tools section of www.paypal.com.

3

Specialist merchant systems that deal with software and downloads are also available. Check out www.kagi.com for software distribution or www. bitpass.com if you’re interested in selling content online.

WAYS TO PAY You don’t have to go to set up a costly merchant bank account to accept payments these days. PayPal, the payment system owned and favoured by eBay, and famous for facilitating individual payments, is also scalable to more serious business uses. PayPal’s documentation is comprehensive, and gives you advice on everything from setting up subscription services to integrating transactions with your site. For full details, visit the Merchant Tools section of www.paypal.com. A more direct option is to sign up for an online merchant account via a third party. This enables you to accept most credit cards and deal with oneoff payments or subscriptions. Users don’t have to set up an account in order to do business with you – they can pay direct with their credit card. WorldPay is the most high-profile company in this arena, but remember that the shopping cart system you choose may be pre-configured to use 76

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ABOVE: Artweaver 2 is an ideal ASP-based commercial tool that plugs into your existing copy of Dreamweaver MX or MX 2004. It’s possible that you could recoup your outlay by using it to design shopping carts for others.

a certain payment gateway. It’s well worth checking that out before making a commitment. Head to the Small Business section of www. worldpay.com for more details. Many people starting out in e-commerce are unsure whether they should charge VAT on the goods they sell. The bottom line is that you’re only supposed to charge VAT if you’re registered with Customs and Excise, and then you only need to register if your total sales exceed £58,000. Go to www.hmce.gov.uk to find out more. Whichever option you choose, test the system before you link to it live from your site or publicise it. A broken website is an inconvenience, but an e-commerce site that doesn’t work properly is a liability.

Micropayment services such as Peppercoin.com are certainly a great idea, but haven’t really caught on. They’re ideal for selling content such as animation, clipart and comic strips.

FURTHER READING Title: Usable Shopping Carts Authors: Clifton Evans, Jody Kerr and Jon Stephens Publisher: Glasshaus ISBN: 1-90415-114-0 An overview of planning and building your own online shopping cart from scratch. Includes tips and full instructions on building an e-commerce site with either ASP or PHP.

REVIEWS All the latest kit, put to the test SOFTWARE SITEGRINDER P83 COREL DESIGNER TECHNICAL SUITE 12 P84 FINAL CUT EXPRESS HD P85

HARDWARE DELL PRECISION M70 P80 WACOM CINTIQ 21UX P82 SONY HDR-FX1 P86 FUJIFILM FINEPIX E550 ZOOM P86

BOOKS THIS AIN’T NO DISCO P89 GETTING IT RIGHT IN PRINT P89 ALL ACCESS: THE MAKING OF 30 EXTRAORDINARY DESIGNERS P89 VISUAL CREATIVITY P89

GROUP TEST COLOUR CALIBRATION TOOLS COLORVISION COLORPLUS P92 LACIE BLUE EYE PRO P92 MONACO OPTIX XR P93 COLORVISION SPYDER 2 P93 EYE-ONE DISPLAY 2 P94

REVIEWS

All our products go through rigorous testing and only truly outstanding and essential pieces of kit receive the coveted five-star rating.

+++++

RECOMMENDED

REVIEW

MAC No

PC Yes

LEFT: Slick, stylish and with a price tag of at over three grand, Dell’s Precision M70 really packs a punch.

PRICE

£3,130 CONTACT

Dell 0870 907 5818 www.dell.co.uk FEATURES

• Pentium M 2.13GHz processor with Centrino technology • nVidia Quadro FX Go1400 GPU 256MB • 2GB RAM DDR2/533 • 60GB hard disk • 15.4-inch WUXGA widescreen • 1,920x1,200 screen resolution • Touchpad and control stick • 8x DVD-R/W • Bluetooth WiFi • XP Pro sp2 FOR

• Powerful • Attractive • High-resolution display

LEFT: form•Z was one of the first professional 3D applications created for the Macintosh, but now comes in almost identical versions for both Mac and PC.

Dell Precision M70 MOBILE WORKSTATIONS ARE BECOMING EVER MORE IMPRESSIVE – AS THE M70 CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES

AGAINST

• No FireWire • Limited battery life • Small hard drive

VERDICT The Precision M70 is the most powerful nVidia-based mobile workstation on the market. It’s elegant, robust enough to take the rigours of life on the road, and offers mighty processing clout and excellent graphics capabilities. Plenty of editing space with the big screen, too.

+++++ 80

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T

he same components that make desktops so powerful also tend to give laptop designers the biggest headaches – namely, the CPU (central processing unit), the GPU (graphics processing unit) and, of course, memory. Take fast processors, for instance. They generate a lot of heat and demand a lot of power; look inside any Pentium 4 or Xeon desktop system and you’ll find heat-sinks and fans the size of half a housebrick. Desktop systems frequently require special power supplies that offer 500 or 600 watts of sustained current. Similarly, serious graphics cards require extra power connectors, because the AGP bus is simply incapable of delivering enough for their needs. Now imagine recreating that kind of performance in a laptop where the heat-sink and fan is less than half a centimetre deep and the entire system runs on battery power… Traditionally, laptops used lowpower versions of leading edge CPUs six months to a year after the desktop versions were released, and relied on lower power, games-

targeted GPUs. But more recently, Intel has developed a new technology called Pentium M, which it’s incorporated into the M70. This laptop uses a 2.13GHz Pentium M processor, sporting 2MB

still than an 2GHz Athlon XP 2400. Both are desktop processors aimed at the consumer market. The key feature that identifies the M70 as a workstation, rather than a fast office machine, is its graphics

THIS LAPTOP USES A 2.13GHZ PENTIUM M PROCESSOR, THE MOST POWERFUL OF INTEL’S MOBILE PROCESSORS RESOURCE Intel’s Centrino technology is altering the way mobile users work, increasing performance while improving battery life. For details, visit www.intel. com/products/ notebook/ centrino/ index.htm

of Level 2 cache and a 533MHz frontside bus. This is the most powerful of Intel’s mobile processors – when it comes to rendering, editing photos or manipulating scenes with multiple polygons, you won’t find a faster piece of kit. A key feature is an adaptive power management system called Centrino. This enables the Dell to optimise power usage when you’re operating on batteries (by dimming the display, etc). In terms of processing power, our benchmark tests showed the M70 performing just a touch better than a 3GHz Pentium 4, and slightly better

processor. The new nVidia Quadro FX Go1400 chip is the most powerful nVidia mobile processor currently available. Just like the CPU, it offers its own power economy technology, this time called PowerMizer, which enables you to better balance performance and battery life. If you’re working in Photoshop, for example, you could reduce performance levels to a bare minimum to ensure maximum time away from a mains power supply. Conversely, if you’re demonstrating 3ds max animations to an important client, you may be willing to sacrifice battery life for processor-intensive

fireworks that really get your work noticed. It’s up to you. The FX range of GPUs is usually targeted at the workstation market. But while ATI’s workstation GPUs offer balanced performance between DirectX and OpenGL, the nVidia FX GPU drivers tend to favour OpenGL optimisations. Looking at the SpecViewPerf numbers in our benchmark tests, the M70’s Go1400 offers variable but consistently inferior performance to the desktop version of the same chip, although it performs better than the ATI Mobility FireGL T2e. Still, there are a host of technical benefits offered by the Go1400, which aims to generate high-quality images using anti-aliasing, highprecision colour calculations, multipass filtering and advanced shaders. All-important issues, for sure, but we can’t help but wonder whether they’re wasted on a mobile system. You buy a laptop because you need portability. There are all sorts of other factors that will prevent you from seeing the benefits of such high image quality, especially on a laptop screen. Still, the M70 does come with a docking station, so you could always hook it up to a decent monitor, where said benefits would factor into the equation. With a native resolution of 1,920x1,200 pixels, the M70’s own LCD panel has an extra widescreen

BATTERY LIFE

We haven’t quoted battery life here, because this depends on many factors. The nature of the work processed, the power-saving settings, the type of screen resolution selected… All will have a significant impact. As with most powerful portables nowadays, the M70 is meant to be regarded as a portable desktop replacement rather than a laptop. This isn’t a system that you’d want to use on the train each morning. Dell quotes 3.5 hours, which, frankly, sounds too good to be true. Realistically, you’re likely to get considerably less than that.

aspect ratio. There are three screen models to choose from in the range – we reviewed the most expensive WUXGA model, which supports the full 1,920x1,200 resolution. That means you can edit widescreen video in a maximised window, and there’s still room for toolbars at the side of the screen. In addition to its integrated panel, the M70 sports an analogue output (for connecting the laptop to another monitor). The nVidia drivers enable you to operate both screens simultaneously, running separate

applications on each display. Useful if you need that extra real estate. Connections-wise, four USB 2 ports ensure that you can attach a variety of external peripherals to the M70 – video capture devices, additional storage, DVD burners, etc. However, the lack of a FireWire port (IEEE1394) is a serious omission on a workstation-targeted system like this, because it’s a prime interface for transferring video from cameras. When it comes to storage, the M70 boasts a 60GB 7200rpm drive, and when you need to make backups, the Precision’s 8x speed, dual-format DVD writer is ideal. As you’d expect, it can also write CDs and rewritable media, too. Although PCMCIA or PC card devices have largely been made obsolete by the introduction of USB 2 in recent years, the M70 does include a single Type I/II interface for die-hard fans. A Smart Card slot is also provided. Like all Dell systems, the Precision M70 is bespoke from the ground up – every part, from the case to the screen, is custom-made to the company’s specifications. This is something of a liability, though, because it makes repairs and upgrades limited and expensive. A laptop such as this, which isn’t designed for upgrading, may look elegant, but you sure pay for the privilege.

FROM TOP-LEFT (CLOCKWISE): The three faces of the Dell Precision M70: Headphone and microphone in-jacks, plus two USB 2.0 ports (right view); a responsive keyboard (front), and the usual collection of connectors (rear).

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REVIEW

MAC Yes

PC Yes

RECOMMENDED

PRICE

£2,231 CONTACT

Wacom www.wacom-europe.com Available through Computers Unlimited 020 8200 8282

ABOVE: The flexible stand enables you to rotate the display by 180 degrees, as well as tilt it up to 60 degrees.

FEATURES

• 21.3-inch specially coated, glare-free flat screen • UXGA resolution of 1,600x1,200 • Full Intuos3 functionality • Programmable ExpressKeys • Stylish design • Fully adjustable and easily removable stand • Cordless and battery-less Grip Pen with tilt functionality • Changeable pen nibs • Bundled with Corel Painter Essentials 2

Wacom Cintiq 21UX

ABOVE: Setting up display parameters is easy with the built-in controls.

A STUNNING 21-INCH FLAT-SCREEN MONITOR WITH ALL THE FUNCTIONALITY OF A FULLY EQUIPPED GRAPHICS TABLET

SYSTEM

Any PC running Windows 2000 and XP or any Mac running Mac OS X 10.2.6 or later FOR

• Combines top-scale monitor with Intuos3 functionality • Easy to position and move • Great design AGAINST

• Expensive • Heavy

VERDICT The Cintiq 21UX isn’t exactly wallet-friendly, but it does offer stunning performance as both a top-of-the-range monitor and ergonomically designed and easy-to-use graphics tablet. You may baulk at the price, but look at what you get for your cash. Nothing else comes close.

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acom has been the undisputed heavyweight champion of the graphics tablet market for so long now that it seems other challengers have either abandoned the field – or chosen to concentrate on other peripherals instead. Last year saw the German company please both long-term users and newcomers alike by releasing the sleek and solid Intuos3 tablet, with its built-in convenient ExpressKeys and updated and remodelled grip pen. Now for an encore, Wacom has updated the group’s Cintiq interactive pen display/monitor with the 21UX, which takes some pointers from the acclaimed Intuos redesign and adds a stand that seems to break the laws of physics… The result? A product that already has designers drooling with delight. Replacing the already wellreceived Cintiq 18SX, the 21UX cleverly incorporates the same updates that made the Intuos3 so superior to its predecessor. Of course, the first noticeable difference is the size of the display. The 21.3-inch flat-screen LCD with high UXGA resolution offers a massive space for designers –

the extra three inches really do make a difference. In terms of display quality, the screen resolves to 1,600x1,200 pixels with 24-bit colour depth, ensuring colours are bright

SKETCHING ON THE 21UX IS A JOY. IT’S LIKE DRAWING ON PAPER RESOURCE Thinking of buying one? Unfamiliar with graphics tablets? Then visit www.wacomeurope.com/uk/ use-it/tipstechniques/index. asp. Here you’ll find advice on how to make the transition from paper to screen as easy as possible.

and the screen a joy to work with. Even as a humble monitor, the 21UX is up there with the best the industry has to offer. But the Cintiq is more than just a monitor – and it’s this extra functionality that makes the device so special (and, of course, pricey). In terms of tablet use, the Cintiq 21UX boasts all the functionality of the Intuos3, including the newly added ExpressKeys and Touch Strips, which you can individually program and configure for specific apps. These help enormously with workflow, and reduce the likelihood of serious wrist strain after an intense work session. Sketching on the screen itself is a joy. The bezel of the Cintiq is entirely

flat and rounded off at the corners, so working with the pen and resting your hand on the screen is like drawing on paper rather than leaning into a monitor screen. The tablet’s excellent dual functionality is helped enormously by the device’s innovative, highly adjustable stand. It rotates through 180 degrees and can be tilted firmly in place from 10 to 60 degrees vertically (in other words, upright to almost horizontal). The stand is also easily removable, so shifting the Cintiq around, or even resting it on your lap, is a doddle. The grip pen has also been updated in a similar way to the Intuos pen. It now offers interchangeable nibs and over 1,000 levels of pressure-sensitivity – something that makes a real difference when using a package such as the bundled Painter Essentials 2. Wacom hasn’t raised its prices with this Cintiq upgrade, releasing it at the same price point as the older 18SX. That may be steep for some, admittedly, but considering the impressive technology purring under the pristine bonnet, it’s surely justified.

REVIEW

MAC Yes

PC Yes

PRICE

£51 CONTACT

Media Lab 001 (800) 282 5361 www.medialab.com FEATURES

• Compile web pages using Photoshop layers • Create simple buttons, rollovers, text menus and pop-ups •Provides links to external pages • Download time reports SYSTEM

Any OS X Mac or PC capable of running Photoshop 6 or later. Works best with Photoshop CS FOR

• Create your entire website in Photoshop • No coding experience needed, so great for novices • Easy to learn AGAINST

• Limited functions • No interactive testing • Layer structures become overly complex

VERDICT Experienced Dreamweaver users won’t get that much use out of SiteGrinder. It creates basic websites via an interface that isn’t really designed for the job. However, Photoshop experts who need to design the odd website will find it well integrated and easy to master.

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SiteGrinder YOUR CHANCE TO DESIGN A COMPLETE WEBSITE – FROM INSIDE PHOTOSHOP

S

iteGrinder is a website design tool for people who don’t design websites. It’s a Photoshop plug-in that enables you to build your entire site from scratch via the familiar Adobe interface. You treat the website as a single picture, and use the visibility of layers to indicate how the site is navigated. So how does it work? You create each graphic, button or piece of text as a separate Photoshop layer, using the layer names to designate the appropriate buttons, rollovers, pop-ups and text. The plug-in then compiles your site, generating HTML to make the links work. As well as rollovers and pop-ups, you can create drop-down menus and sub-menus by adding the suffix “-menu” to a text layer. Sadly, what you can’t do is insert all the really fun stuff – such as eye-catching Flash files, video or 3D. Still, the advantage of SiteGrinder is that it enables you to produce your website entirely from within the one package. You create the buttons, write the text, do the layout, set up the sub-menus and the relevant links, all within Photoshop, then

RESOURCE Web designers looking for specialised buttons should check out www. buttongenerator. com. Simply type in a word and a button is automatically built for you, based on a range of templates.

simply run the plug-in to jolt your creation into life. The disadvantage is that you can’t work interactively – you can’t play with your website as you’re developing it. The fact a finished site, even a very simple one, can take minutes to compile, doesn’t compare well to traditional web design packages, where you can test your work as you go along. In addition, the more complex your site, the more cumbersome the layer structure of your Photoshop document will become (although Photoshop CS, with its more versatile Layer Comp tools, helps a little). Furthermore, if you want pages of different lengths, you’ll need to create several Photoshop documents and link them together. That said, if you do manage to squeeze your whole site on one Photoshop page, making overall design decisions is much easier. You can shape your buttons so that they fit in with the rest of the design, alter the colours in your graphics while seeing them in context, or change the layering so that objects appear over, under or through each

ABOVE: Prepare yourself for an awful lot of Photoshop layers… Plan carefully if you want to keep it all under control. MAIN IMAGE: With SiteGrinder, you can build websites in Photoshop – but you can’t use Flash files, video or 3D.

other without re-designing, or swapping back and forth between packages. A considerable advantage. SiteGrinder’s design tools are easy to grasp and easy to use, too. If you’ve got a good grounding in Photoshop, you’ll be up and running in minutes. However, it is limited in scope – and some will come up pretty quickly against the limitations of web design within Adobe’s app (the inability to incorporate Flash or video to name but two). Still, it is liberating for designers to be able to think of a website in terms of a single package, rather than as a selection of disparate elements that need to be crowbarred together before they begin to make any sense.

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REVIEW

MAC No

PC Yes

PRICE

£540.26 Upgrade £230.86 CONTACT

Corel 0800 376 9271 www.corel.co.uk ABOVE: The clean main interface includes features found in all leading graphics apps and introduces PHOTO-PAINT 12 (LEFT) – a really useful addition.

FEATURES

• Corel PHOTO-PAINT and CAPTURE included • Projected drawing mode emulates 3D structures • Dynamic guides and enhanced gravity snapping • New B-Spline tool • Scallops, fillets and chamfers complement enhanced fill options • Dynamic language switching and improved Unicode support • Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) support SYSTEM

PC: Pentium III 600MHz, 256MB RAM, Windows 2000/ XP with latest Service Packs FOR

• Comprehensive suite • Accurate illustration from concept to blueprint • Clean and easily identifiable interface AGAINST

• No central hub to associate suite applications • Requires a different creative approach

VERDICT Corel DESIGNER is a niche app that provides the kind of control over technical illustration that the likes of Illustrator cannot match without time and effort. The addition of bitmap and screen capture titles makes the bundle ideal for illustrators eager to retain creative control.

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May 2005

Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12

ABOVE: The new B-Spline tool makes it possible to create smooth organic shapes using a series of key points rather than resorting to Bézier handles.

GET THE PRECISION OF A CAD PACKAGE WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE CREATIVITY OF YOUR ILLUSTRATION SOFTWARE

T

here is much more to graphic design than perfecting paths in Illustrator or pushing pixels in Photoshop. Although Corel may have been in Adobe’s shadow for some time, especially in the UK, there are alternatives – Painter IX and CorelDRAW, for example Corel DESIGNER is another. Sure, you can create precision artwork using Adobe software, but for more complex work, DESIGNER’s ability to create technically accurate designs that pull on the strengths of AutoCAD without losing the creativity of Illustrator are a key advantage. So what can Corel’s core users expect to see in version 12? As the name suggests, the suite is a group of apps based around a central title. Previously, Corel TRACE – a bitmap-to-vector conversion package – was included, although the new version now boasts screen capture capabilities through Corel CAPTURE and powerful bitmap features through PHOTO-PAINT (which has been borrowed straight from CorelDRAW). An inevitable raft of templates and industry-standard symbols are

included, but technically confident users can draw on the inclusion of Microsoft Visual Basic to automate repetitive tasks or modify the

CREATE PRECISION ARTWORK WITHOUT LOSING CREATIVITY RESOURCE You can download a trial version of this well-featured package via Corel’s website at: www.corel.co.uk/ servlet/Satellite? pagename=Corel 2Uk/Products/ Content&pid=1047 024512114&cid=10 47024512317. So why not try it out?

environment of both the Designer and PHOTO-PAINT applications. On a more practical level, a new B-Spline tool provides a simplified approach to creating more organic curved content. It’s complemented by enhancements to the gravitysnapping feature, which helps to position objects accurately against each other, and the dynamic guides, which provide visual clues as to the availability of object centres, nodes, quadrants and text baselines. Applications of this nature aren’t employed for bitmap or texture fills, but with the addition of PHOTOPAINT such elements have certainly been improved. Traditional hatch fills have also been added, which use

vector principals to reflect different types of materials. Language packs provide dynamic language switching, enhanced Unicode support ensures copy is displayed correctly, regardless of the language or operating system in which it was created, and doublebyte formatting enables you to apply Asian fonts directly from the Property Bar. Graphic support is extensive – all the leading industry standard vector and bitmap formats, including PDF, AI and PSD, in addition to the more common generic variants such as EPS and TIFF, are available. You can also work with AutoCAD DXF, DWG, SVG and CGM v4. Corel DESIGNER isn’t going to tempt you away from your existing software, but it does a good job of creating accurate, technical illustrations that are reliable and usable within various industries. The suite’s powerful bitmap editing tools and functional screen capture options mean you’ll be hard pressed to find a more creative package that offers accurate results without compromising on creativity.

REVIEW

MAC Yes

PC No

PRICE

£199 Upgrade £65 CONTACT

Apple 0800 0391010 www.apple.com/uk FEATURES

• Capture DV and HDV via FireWire • Animate text with LiveType • Custom-make music with Soundtrack • Import iMovie projects • Edit using professional tools • Real-time previewing • Play back HDV and DV video at full-screen resolution • Import layered Photoshop files and other graphic formats • Export to DVD SYSTEM

1GHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5, 1GB RAM, AGP graphics card compatible with Quartz Extreme, Mac OS X 10.3.7 or later, QuickTime 6.5.2 or later, 384MB RAM (512MB required for RT Extreme and Soundtrack) FOR

• Superb HDV solution • Pro editing tools/interface • Exceptional value for money AGAINST

• HDV capture is clumsy • HDV transcoding is time-consuming • Few improvements for DV users

VERDICT If you own an HDV camera, Final Cut Express HD gives you access to HD editing, without having to wait for updates to Premiere or Final Cut Pro. For DV editors, Final Cut Express HD remains a stable, low-cost, near-pro editing solution, but the HDV capture needs work.

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ABOVE: Once your HDV footage has been loaded into Final Cut Express, it’s as easy to work with as standard DV.

LEFT: Colour correction is basic, but acceptable. Footage plays cleanly at full resolution, even in full screen mode.

Final Cut Express HD EDIT FOOTAGE IN AN EASY-TO-USE, NEAR-PRO EDITING ENVIRONMENT

F

inal Cut Express HD caused a stir when it was first announced, mainly because it boasts the ability to edit HDV – the consumer-priced version of High Definition Video The HDV development came as a surprise to some, because it enables you to edit HDV in iMovieHD and Final Cut Express, whereas Apple’s flagship video app – Final Cut Pro HD – cannot cope with HDV (but you can use third-party software, such as Lumiere, to edit HDV). This curious situation perhaps reflects Apple’s desire to get in on the HDV market as quickly as possible. The truth is that low-cost HDV editing solutions are almost non-existent, and HDV users want to get working now. The familiar editing tools, motion controls and filters remain powerful, simple and are almost effortless to use. But you can’t capture HDV footage in the familiar way. When capturing DV, you can roll through your tape, marking and capturing clips as you go. With HDV, you set the tape rolling and it captures everything on tape until you stop it, making it difficult to capture one clip

at a time. The process is excellent if you do want to capture a whole tape, because it splits everything into named clips, but video workflow is rarely so predictable. HDV is a heavy-

THE BEST NEW ADDITION IS THE FULL SCREEN PREVIEW RESOURCE HDV is a new format that’s as revolutionary today as miniDV was a few years ago. The FAQ at www.vasst.com/ HDV/hdv-FAQ. htm answers the questions you’re bound to ask, and helps you to see the benefits, too.

duty format, and a ten-second clip weighs in at 100MB. Capture a whole tape every time you work, and you’re going to need plenty of storage. Thankfully, once it’s been loaded working with HDV is very simple. When you’re finished, you need to transcode the footage before printing it to tape. This is as time-consuming as a long render, but has more to do with HDV than Final Cut Express. Sadly, transcoding only kicks in once you select Print to Tape, so if there’s a connection problem with your camera, you have to transcode all over again once the problem’s been rectified. Regular users will

develop workarounds, but they really shouldn’t have to. For current Express users still working with DV, we can’t see much incentive to upgrade, although the latest release does add some interesting features. The best of these is the Full Screen Preview, which works without hesitation or dropped frames. There are also a few free extras with this release – LiveType, for example – which has potential as a text creation tool for film and video, but feels sluggish. Animating text is easy, but the complex animated Live Fonts are limited. And while Soundtrack lets you create music by arranging pre-recorded loops in a movie timeline, it’s not a patch on GarageBand, which many would rather use with a QuickTime window. It’s easy to criticise Final Cut Express HD, but note that this is an ultra-low cost HD package – something we wouldn’t have even dreamed of a few years back. It’s complete stable, works flawlessly – and it’s affordable, which makes it hard to beat. But capture will need cleaning up by the next release.

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REVIEW

MAC Yes

PC Yes

PRICE

£2,600 CONTACT

Sony 08705 111999 www.sony.co.uk ABOVE AND LEFT: The camera is light and beautifully balanced, but many of the extensive switches are a little small.

FEATURES

• HDV/DV switchability • 3x CCD (1,070,000 pixels) • Optical Image Stabiliser • Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T • 12x optical zoom • 1,440x1,080 HDV resolution • 3.5-inch 16:9 Hybrid LCD • Manual zoom and focus ring • Manual gain, iris, shutter speed, white balance and audio level • Expanded focus/Centre mark SYSTEM

A FireWire-equipped PC or Mac, with HDV compatible editing software, such as Final Cut Express HD FOR

• Low cost HD video • Good manual controls • Uses ordinary DV tapes AGAINST

• No XLR microphone inputs • Some small buttons • Supplied battery too small

VERDICT HD is the future of video, and the HDR-FX1 is an astonishingly lowcost way to get your hands on this impressive technology. The camera is a pleasure to use and the image quality is stunning, so if you’re looking to upgrade from standard to high-definition, this is the best way to do it.

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ABOVE: A typical Sony device, all the important features are easily accessible.

Sony HDR-FX1

RECOMMENDED

THE POWER OF HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO IN A LOW-COST PROSUMER CAMERA

I

t’s difficult to talk about the Sony HDR-FX1 without using the word “revolution”. This camera brings superb high-definition video to the prosumer in a format that’s better and cheaper than many of us could’ve hoped for. HDV enables you to record highdefinition video on ordinary MiniDV tapes, while delivering greater resolution than is possible with DV or MiniDV. The three 16:9 native chips, combined with a Carl Zeiss lens, bring exceptional colour, smooth shadows and crisp detail – on a highdefinition television, images appear jaw-droppingly sharp. Whether you make films, commercials or shoot footage for motion graphics, you’ll want one of these. Results are so impressive that footage looks as if it’s been shot on a high-cost television camera. Treat the output with a film-look filter, Magic Bullet 2, for example, and it’s virtually indistinguishable from 35mm film. It’s quite plausible that television commercial makers will be among the first to cash-in on this low-cost way to achieve a high-end look. Semi-pro filmmakers have longed for cheap access to HD ever since George Lucas and others

showed the potential of the medium. In truth, this HD video won’t look as good as film on a large cinema screen, but on a large TV, the results are astonishing. The camera is light, and beautifully balanced, too; handheld shots look almost like they were shot with a SteadiCam.

ON A HIGH-DEFINITION TV, IMAGES ARE JAWDROPPINGLY SHARP RESOURCE High-definition video (HDV) may be new, but you’ll find plenty of useful information – access to major forums, info sites on HDV, basic FAQs and in-depth shooting techniques, for example – via www.hdvcafe.com.

The camera itself is a typical Sony device – it’s easy to learn and simple to use. Although many functions are buried in the menu, the important features are accessible through buttons and dials. With so many switches, it’s inevitable that some are a little too small, but it’s disappointing to find that the oftused Auto-Manual switch is just as fiddly as that found on the VX-2100, which was universally hated. The LCD panel is huge and easy to see, even in bright sunlight. In extremely bright sunlight, you can use the viewfinder for focusing, then the LCD to frame the shot. Focusing

is critical with HD, so Sony has added the Expanded Focus button to double the image while you focus manually. You can also sharpen object edges briefly with the Peaking switch. Auto-focus does lag when the camera moves quickly, but works well with normal movement. There’s been plenty of excitement about Cineframe, Sony’s built-in film-like motion blur. But unfortunately, it doesn’t look all that great – it’s far too blurred and choppy. Also, when you record with it switched on, you can’t remove the effect in post. You’re much better off shooting ordinary HDV and applying a film-look afterwards. Thankfully, you can store white balance and picture modes, fine-tuning colour and sharpness to your liking. Problems are minimal. The lack of XLR microphone inputs, essential for professionals, will disappoint some. Prosumers, however, are unlikely to mind. They tend to record sound separately anyway. Although DV has served filmmakers and motion graphics experts well for the past decade, HDV brings such a huge leap in picture quality that the days of DV must finally be numbered.

REVIEW

MAC Yes

PC Yes

PRICE

£269 CONTACT

Fujifilm 020 7586 1477 www.fujifilm.co.uk ABOVE: Access the E550’s main functions (Scene modes, shutter and aperture settings, Movie mode, etc) via the easy-to-use Mode dial.

FEATURES

• 6.3 megapixels • Super CCD HR sensor • 4x zoom lens • Large 2-inch LCD screen • Robust easy-to-grip design • Multiple exposure modes, including aperture priority, shutter priority and manual modes • Save to the RAW unprocessed file format SYSTEM

Any PC running Windows 2000 or any Mac running OS X FOR

• Easy to use • Great image quality • Large display screen.

ABOVE: Use the circular arrow pad to navigate in-camera menus and select your photos.

Fujifilm FinePix E550 Zoom THIS POWERFUL, LIGHTWEIGHT CAMERA OFFERS EXTENSIVE FUNCTIONALITY AT A COST THAT WON’T BREAK THE BANK

AGAINST

• Plastic build • Feels lightweight

VERDICT In a crowded market, the Fujifilm FinePix E550 stands out from the crowd, thanks to a great range of features, a solid and easy-to-handle construction, and superb image quality. Shooting is easy – and at 6.3 megapixels the results always look fantastic.

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A

ppealing to both new and advanced users alike, thanks to a superb range of features, the FinePix series of durable and lightweight cameras continues to keep Fujifilm ahead of the pack. The E550 is an impressive and easy-to-use model that’s capable of superb results – creating 12 million pixel images via the company’s Super CCD high-res sensor (with its 6.63 million effective pixels). Fashioned in silver and grey, the camera is mid-sized, solidly built and at around 300g (with batteries and media) not too heavy to lug around, either. Constructed from tough plastic, complete with chunky hand-grip on the right-hand side, it handles and shoots well, too. If you’ve laid your hands on a digital camera before, getting up and running isn’t a problem. Control buttons are well arranged, with the main dial-based function selector situated on the top right-hand side of the camera. Power and shutter buttons are located next to the dial. One of the E550’s best features is its LCD screen which, at two inches, seems much larger than average for

a camera of this size. You’ll find more control buttons (arrow pad and menu access button) next to this. The E550 handles well – it’s noticeably lighter than many of its

SIX MEGAPIXEL SHOTS ARE SHARP, CLEAR AND COLOURFUL RESOURCE Can’t get images to download properly from your camera? Having problems with iPhoto? Need to source a repair centre? Then visit Ask Fujifilm at www. fujifilm.co.uk/ technical/ for help and advice.

rivals, which may deter some, but the main functions seem solid enough, with the zoom lens buttons and lens itself responding well. In use, the E550 is a top performer, capturing sharp images with great colour. The camera boasts a fourth generation 1/1.7-inch CCD and a 4x optical zoom lens (the equivalent of a 130mm lens on a 35mm standard camera). In terms of image size and presets, the E550 certainly comes well equipped. There are five image sizes to choose from: 4,048x3,040, 2,848x2,136, 2,048x1,536, 1,600x1,200 and 640x480. All images

are saved as JPEGs or as RAW files (via an option control). In terms of memory cards, the camera supports the xD format up to 512MB. Shooting with the E550 is simple. You can use the LCD to line up shots or the optical viewfinder. The LCD – a low-temperature, poly-silicon TFT screen with 154,000 pixels – frames images brilliantly. The camera offers advanced Exposure modes, too, in the form of Auto, Programmed AE, Aperture Priority AE, Shutter Priority AE and Manual. There are also four Scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, Sports and Night Scene. Other extras we like are the automatic red eye reduction setting and 30 frames per second Film mode with sound. In terms of image quality, the E550 produces superb photos. The six megapixel shots are sharp and clear, with fantastic colour reproduction and a great overall feel. With a street price ranging from £187 to £209, the price you’re likely to pay for the E550 is average for a digital camera in this range. But considering its impressive specs and superb image quality, that’s still terrific value for money.

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BOOKS

BOOKS

Get your hands on these great design reads

BOOK OF THE MONTH THIS AIN’T NO DISCO: NEW WAVE ALBUM COVERS AUTHOR: Jennifer McKnight-Trontz PRICE: £12.95 PUBLISHER: Thames & Hudson ISBN: 0-50028-550-0 The great post-punk DIY graphic explosion was a vital period for British design, not just for the boundary-breaking work that it produced, but because it provided the environment in which industry heavyweights such as Peter Saville and Malcolm Garrett would cut their teeth and develop the graphic design language that dominated the eighties and nineties. Pulling together album covers from UK and US new wave releases from the late seventies and early eighties, This Ain’t No Disco chronicles a period when young designers were looking to self-consciously destroy previous conventions. Drawing on influences as diverse as fifties graphics, Dada, constructivism, Bauhaus and emerging computer technology, artists such as Saville and Garrett laid the foundations of a graphic style that still influences today’s design talent. While much of This Ain’t No Disco is notable only for the daft trousers and haircuts within, the work produced by the likes of Garrett’s Assorted Images design group for The Buzzcocks and Simple Minds created a sparse but edgy graphics style which still looks fresh and incisive today. Of course, for every Power, Corruption and Lies, there’s a photo of some berk standing moodily behind a synthesiser, but to dismiss eighties pop culture as all hairspray and A Flock of Seagulls would be a disservice to the seminal design work contained here.

ALSO RECOMMENDED GETTING IT RIGHT IN PRINT: DIGITAL PRE-PRESS FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS AUTHOR: Mark Gatter PRICE: £17.95 PUBLISHER: Laurence King ISBN: 1-85669-421-6 Experiencing sleepless nights because you’re unsure how things will turn out with your latest print job? Then this invaluable guide, covering everything from calibrating a monitor to CMYK issues, should prove a godsend.

ALL ACCESS: THE MAKING OF 30 EXTRAORDINARY GRAPHIC DESIGNERS AUTHOR: Stefan G. Bucher PRICE: £27.50 PUBLISHER: Rockport ISBN: 1-59253-079-6 All Access successfully traces the development of 30 leading graphic designers, from fresh-out-of-college to the present day. Features excellent contributions from the likes of Tom Hingston, Ed Fella and Big Active.

VISUAL CREATIVITY: INSPIRATIONAL IDEAS FOR ADVERTISING, ANIMATION AND DIGITAL DESIGN AUTHOR: Mario Pricken PRICE: £35 PUBLISHER: Thames & Hudson ISBN: 0-50051-166-7 Exploring the very heart of the creative process, Pricken’s sequel to 2002’s well-received Creative Advertising is packed with great tips ands advice. Features interviews with special effects whizz Ben Snow and designer Jennifer Sterling.

May 2005

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GROUP TEST

90

|

May 2005

GROUP TEST

COLORVISION COLORPLUS P92

LACIE BLUE EYE PRO P92

MONACO OPTIX XR P93

GROUP TEST

MONITOR CALIBRATION TOOLS

Fail to calibrate your display’s colours and the quality of your print work could suffer. So we’ve tested five out-of-the-box tools that will regulate your colour gamut and ensure pristine output every time

I

f you’ve ever experimented with a PC’s Adobe Gamma utility or the Mac’s Display Calibrator Assistant, you’ll know what a hit-and-miss affair calibrating your monitor can be. Both provide all the tools an experienced calibrator needs to perfect his or her settings, but if you have an incomplete understanding of what’s involved, it’s all too easy to make things worse rather than better. Yet a finely calibrated monitor is the single most important peripheral in any designer’s kitbag, and without it you seriously run the risk of implementing erroneous colour corrections and balances that can lead to wildly unexpected results when printed or

COLORVISION SPYDER 2 P93

viewed through a well-calibrated screen. As a professional designer, can you afford to run the risk of comping together sample work with a colour bias that your monitor has failed to display accurately? To get the most reliable monitor calibration, it’s best to leave the software options provided by Photoshop or your OS to those with a little more experience, and turn instead to dedicated hardware that will provide more consistent and reliable results. Over the next few pages, we’ll take a look at five of these calibration solutions. So which is best for you? Illustration by Scott Hansen, www.iso50.com

EYE-ONE DISPLAY 2 P94

May 2005

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GROUP TEST

LaCie blue eye pro

ColorVision ColorPLUS A FUNCTIONAL BUT FEATURE-HEAVY PROGRAM THAT MIGHT JUST SURPRISE YOU MAC No PC Yes PRICE £84.95 CONTACT

0800 0735 845 www.colorvision.com

T

he budget option in this Group Test comes from ColorVision, which also manufactures the Spyder2PRO Studio (reviewed in Computer Arts, issue 108). Unlike its relative, the low-end ColorPLUS offers few manual options and plenty of wizard-based presets, so it’s clearly aimed at the consumer market. The entire process of calibrating your monitor with the ColorPLUS software is pretty routine, but does requires a little user interaction. The software walks you through the initial brightness and contrast settings, made clear by the onscreen examples. You then attach the supplied sensor to your screen and leave ColorPLUS to calculate the necessary adjustments. A colour profile is automatically generated. The results are satisfactory but, being restricted to preset white point and gamma settings, there’s little control over specific calibration details. However, the colorimeter

VERDICT

itself is reliable. It’s rather fragile and plasticky, for sure, but you can rely on it to give reasonable results that will dramatically improve the colour balance of your average monitor. As with all the sensors on test here, the ColorPLUS is capable of balancing regular CRT monitors and flat-screen TFT and notebook displays, although it is limited to supporting only Windows systems, mainly because of the preset nature of the supporting software. The sensor’s non-customisable settings are averaged to Windows standards, using a Kelvin temperature of 6500°, with gamma 2.2 (as opposed to gamma 1.8 used for Apple displays). Such limitations provide adequate quick-fix results that will certainly put the novice user at ease, but if you’re a designer looking for something that allows a little more variation for different media output, we think you’ll run into difficulties pretty quickly.

+++++

ColorPLUS is the budget contender in this round-up. Its preset options and Windows-only support make it of limited use within a pro environment, but for the average consumer it does provide reasonable results.

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MAC Yes

PC No

CONTACT

020 7233 8338 www.lacie.com

T

RESOURCE UK residents can buy all the calibrators here, other than the LaCie blue eye pro, directly through Colour Confidence (www. colourconfidence. com).They also supply calibration products for printers and scanners.

PRICE £229

he LaCie blue eye pro is something of an outsider in this Group Test, mainly because the Maconly unit may be a little beyond the requirements of the average user. Consistent readings and good results notwithstanding, this device is specially designed to work with LaCie’s 21-inch 321 TFT monitor. So while you can use it to calibrate a regular Mac monitor, LCD or CRT, it’s rather an expensive option, given that cheaper and more effective alternatives are available. In its defence, the blue eye pro does offer a calibration reporting tool, which inspects and reports on the current state of the monitor and compares the results with a target setting. This allows the user to find out if going through the calibration process, which can take some time, is actually required or not. The calibration method is pretty basic – you’re only given the option to choose white point and gamma

VERDICT

preferences before the hardware analyses sample colours. And with little on-screen explanation as to what’s happening, it’s easy to miss crucial adjustments that should be carried out in real time. Another concern – when the unit isn’t being used with the LaCierecommended 21-inch LaCie 321 – is how adjustments are made in the Mac OS. On smaller monitors, you need to place the blue eye in a position away from that vital central point on the display in order to access the on-screen Brightness and Contrast adjusters. This will have an obvious impact on the reliability of the final results. That said, if you’re lucky enough to own a LaCie 321, the blue eye is the perfect partner, offering a host of specially tailored features. We’d still question the high price, though, considering the fine software that comes with the Eye-One and OPTIXXR as standard.

+++++

The blue eye pro is a basic calibration package that only really finds its true strengths when used in conjunction with the LaCie 321 21-inch TFT monitor for which it was designed.

GROUP TEST

Monaco OPTIXXR

ColorVision Spyder2

MAC Yes

PC Yes

CONTACT

01625 871100 www.monacosys.com

A

PRICE £176.24

nother cross-platform calibrator, the MonacoOPTIXXR provides many of the same configuration options – and runs through similar processes – as the Spyder2, but exhibits a greater variety of white point settings. There are two models available: the regular OPTIXXR (reviewed here) and the more feature-heavy OPTIXXR PRO. But don’t think the OPTIXXR lacks options. Compared to the other sensors on test here, it’s as reliable and effective as the rest. However, in one important respect – the quality of the hardware’s supporting software – it’s actually one step ahead. It’s easy to get started. Simply install the OPTIXXR software, attach the weight to the cable so that it counterbalances the sensor, plug the USB cable into the port on your computer and launch the software. Once the package is launched, you are instantly presented with a comprehensive range of options,

VERDICT

from regular monitor profile creation through to more analytical and advanced controls. These include the ability to evaluate existing monitor profiles, which gives more experienced users the chance to examine the gamut and accuracy of their profiles. It’s also possible to finetune the colour on your display by editing the calibration curves, which is rather like adjusting an image’s gamma curves within Photoshop. Another advantage OPTIXXR has over its rivals is its multiple monitor calibration support – which could prove invaluable should you have many monitors in your set-up. Now you can match monitor profiles to ensure the closest match between all of your desktop displays. The superior OPTIXXR PRO model may boast a number of additional higher-end features, but even taking this into account, the regular OPTIXXR is still a major contender for the attentions of the pro user.

+++++

A powerful and capable calibration tool, OPTIXXR provides a fully featured supporting software package that will be appreciated by those wanting a little more control over their monitor profiles.

MAC Yes

PC Yes

CONTACT

0800 0735 845 www.colorvision.com

T

RESOURCE Is the standard Adobe Gamma utility still leaving you in the dark? Don’t have the ready cash to buy a dedicated hardware calibrator? Then why not try the online calibration test at www. easyrgb.com/ calibrate.php/

PRICE £136.24

he Spyder2, another ColorVision product, covers more advanced mid-price calibration ground. The software works in a similar way to the cheaper ColorPLUS, although there are additional establishing options that enable you to choose your preferred gamma and white point target. There are effectively only two settings, with 5k and 6.5k white point options for the Windows and Mac native gamma, but these do provide some powerful advantages when compared with the automated ColorPLUS. With the Spyder2, you can manually configure your monitor’s RGB and/or Kelvin controls, following a quick pre-calibration routine. So assuming your monitor provides manual control over such features, you can make use of the sensor to help you make such fine adjustments without having to worry about your personal perception of white balances (as you might with

VERDICT

software-based calibration tools such as Adobe’s Gamma utility). The software itself is refreshingly clean and logically presented. Experienced users will find the sequential settings intuitive and uncluttered, while first-timers will benefit from the comprehensive help system, which not only gives quick initial answers, but also goes into considerable depth to ensure you get the most out of your manual settings. For the more demanding user, ColorVision’s top-end Spyder2PRO Studio provides the ultimate control (see our review in Computer Arts, issue 108), although the Spyder2 considered here is a more than respectable all-rounder, providing a clear and easy approach to consistently balancing your monitor’s settings. With the useful addition of Pantone Colorist software, this bundle should be more than enough to keep all but the most professional user satisfied.

+++++

The Spyder2 is a reasonably-priced sensor that balances ease of use with quality results. Comprehensive support files make the process intuitive, while more advanced features allow for manual fine-tuning.

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GROUP TEST

MAC Yes

PC Yes

PRICE

£186.83

RIGHT: The accurate Eye-One Display 2 comes bundled with a comprehensive range of software utilities.

CONTACT

0800 0735 845 www.i1color.com FEATURES

• Multiple monitor profiling • Ambient light measurement • User-definable luminance setting • Automatic grey balance • Monitor profile summary • Basic and Advanced modes • Diagnostics software • Colour-matching software • Video tutorials FOR

• Easy to use • Logical calibration process • Comprehensive software bundle AGAINST

• Lengthy installation process • Colour matching software takes some mastering • CD-only documentation

Eye-One Display 2

RECOMMENDED

EYE-ONE’S PACKAGE IS ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION

F

VERDICT With multiple monitor support, ambient light consideration and the ability to accurately identify monitor-displayed colours, the Display 2 is way ahead of the competition. The bundled software will benefit anyone after reliable colour fidelity.

+++++ 94

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May 2005

inding a victor in this Group Test wasn’t easy. Aside from the over-simplification of ColorPLUS and the expensive yet niche capabilities of the blue eye pro, making the choice between the Spyder2, the MonacoOPTIXXR and our ultimate winner, the Eye-One Display 2, was pretty tricky. Like its rivals, the Display 2 sensor is an accurate piece of hardware that comes bundled with a comprehensive range of software utilities. The difference is that the Display 2 is a dedicated monitor calibration tool, one of a range of Eye-One products worth considering if you want to extend your colour profiling. It also offers a natural upgrade path to related higher-end models, such as the Eye-One Design (which adds capabilities more applicable to print output) and Eye-One Photo (camera and projector profiling).

An early sign of the Display 2’s credentials comes when it performs an ambient light check prior to running initial checks. All the sensors we’ve considered work best in particular lighting, but the EyeOne model is the only one that evaluates the light falling onto your monitor, as well as the light emanating from it, and takes any effects this might have into account. You can then run the calibration using either Basic or Advanced modes, depending on your preferences, before running through a series of tests in which the ultimate profile is generated. The Basic mode requires minimal input, but if you want the most accurate results, opt for the additional configurations provided by the Advanced settings instead. This may sound daunting, but the clear and informative video clips provided

RESOURCE The Color Knowledge section of www. i1color.com provides a range of information on getting started with colour, including useful tips on colour management in theory and in practice.

will help you understand both the tools and concepts involved. This should make even your first profiling attempts much easier to implement. Multiple monitor support is another distinct advantage of the Display 2. However, it’s the bundled software that really nudges this colorimeter into first place. The Spyder2 comes with Pantone Colorist, which helps to analyse screen colours to create convincing Pantone equivalents, and OPTIXXR sports powerful calibration diagnostics software, but the EyeOne manages to squeeze in equivalents of both. With effective hardware calibration, a comprehensive range of software options, and clear and informative help and video files, the Display 2 provides the best all-round package that we’re sure will find favour with designers of all backgrounds.

GROUP TEST

CONCLUSION

W

e tested all of the colorimeters featured here on CRT, TFT and notebook displays on both PCs and Macs where supported, using monitors of differing capabilities – those that allowed full RGB configuration and those with only basic adjustment of Kelvin temperatures. We then compared results against test files and prints generated using the Kodak Professional Colour Management Check-up Kit, which suggested that there was little difference in the performance between the actual hardware sensors. However, in terms of software results, interesting anomalies did appear.

PRODUCT

COLORPLUS

The Spyder2 and OPTIXXR models were close runnersup, creating effective profiles that were clear and easy to generate. Still, the Eye-One Display 2 managed to squeeze ahead by default simply because of its more comprehensive software bundle and impressive ability to measure ambient light. When calibrating your monitor, it’s always best to allow it to warm up for at least an hour before running any tests. That way, you can ensure that consistent colour detail is displayed. Similarly, you should allow your colorimeter to warm up for a few minutes before you

attach it to the monitor, so it too can gauge the correct light emanating from the screen. It’s worth pointing out that you can only calibrate a monitor to its potential – a new LaCie 123, for example, will display more intense blacks and brighter whites than a five-year-old CRT. Compared with the Adobe Gamma utility or the Mac OS Display Calibrator Assistant, any of the colorimeters considered here will provide more reliable results than those achieved by the human eye. But if you’re at all serious about your colour perception, you really should invest in some decent hardware.

BLUE EYE PRO

SPYDER 2

OPTIXXR

DISPLAY 2

RECOMMENDED

PRICE

£89.95

£229

£176.24

£136.24

£186.83

WEBSITE

www.colourvision.com

www.lacie.com

www.monacosys.com

www.colorvision.com

www.i1color.com

PLATFORM

PC

Mac

PC/Mac

PC/Mac

PC/Mac

MONITOR

CRT/TFT/LCD

CRT/TFT/LCD

CRT/TFT/LCD

CRT/TFT/LCD

CRT/TFT/LCD

PRE-CALIBRATION CHECK

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes – plus ambient lighting

MULTIPLE MONITOR CALIBRATION

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

GAMMA RANGE

Preset (2.2)

21 (1.0-3.0)

2 (1.8/2.2)

2 (1.8/2.2)

5 (1.8-2.2)

WHITE POINT RANGE

Preset (6500)

10 (5000-9500)

5 (5000-9300)

Preset (6500)

6 (5000-7500)

PROFILE DIAGNOSTICS

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE

Adobe Photoshop Album SE

N/A

MonacoOPTIX

Pantone Colorist

Match 3 iDiagnostics

May 2005

| 95

BUYER’S GUIDE What sort of designer are you? 3D ANIMATOR ANIMATION SOFTWARE P98 GRAPHICS TABLETS P99 MONITORS P99 + P100

MOTION GRAPHICS DESIGNER DIGITAL VIDEO SOFTWARE P98 PLUG-INS P100 DIGITAL SLRS P99

ILLUSTRATOR GRAPHICS SOFTWARE P98 PRINTERS P99 +100 LAYOUT SOFTWARE P98

WEB DESIGNER Having the latest software is a must for the highflying web designer – that and a well-specced workstation, digital image capture devices (cameras, camcorders) and a portable hard drive. For the best bargains online, remember to visit www.computerarts.co.uk/compareprices IMAGING EQUIPMENT P99

WEB DESIGN SOFTWARE P98

DIGITAL CAMERAS P99 NOTEBOOKS P99 STORAGE DEVICES P99

THREE OF THE BEST PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS

EYECANDY 5: NATURE

SCATTERLIGHT LENSES

FLAMING PEAR

Price: £79.99

Price: £50

Price: £20

Use this easy to apply plug-in to add some pretty amazing effects to your digital imagery.

A great range of fast and simple lighting effects that deliver realistic, and often stunning, results.

Filters with a good range of sliders and the ability to load and save presets. There’s also a series randomiser functions.

www.alienskin.com

www.andromeda.com

www.flamingpear.com

SOFTWARE PRODUCT

TAKE TWO WEB DESIGN APPLICATIONS

PLATFORM

PRICE

CONTACT

ISSUE

VERDICT

Illustrator CS Mac/PC £511 www.adobe.co.uk 89 ++++ Adobe focuses on boosting the app’s speed for this iteration. Version 10 wasn’t the world’s fastest, but this CS release goes a long way to compensate. In addition, the new 3D Effects engine delivers vector 3D tools superior to those found in FreeHand MX. ++++ Photoshop CS Mac/PC £605 www.adobe.co.uk 89 Pro photographers will love this upgrade because of the numerous quick-fix features Adobe has added. Graphic designers will love it, too, mostly because of the innovative new Layer Comps feature and the awesome Shadow/Highlight tool. +++++ FreeHand MX Mac/PC £299 www.macromedia.co.uk 82 FreeHand MX is without doubt a fantastic application. The final release is rock-solid – a few re-draw and interface bugs have been ironed out – and there’s a plethora of great tools that will be invaluable to the professional illustrator, artist or web designer.

Studio MX 2004 PRICE £339 URL www.macromedia.co.uk The component programs are industry standards, but there’s enough innovation here to make it a must-have for all web pros. FOR

Dreamweaver MX 2004 features better support for CSS – now the default for formatting and layout. AGAINST

Significant tweaks to the Fireworks graphics engine speed don’t seem to apply to all platforms.

+++++ Painter IX Mac/PC £249 www.corel.co.uk 102 Under Corel’s guidance, Painter continues to improve with each new release, boasting some truly revolutionary artistic tools and a welcome workflow boost. If you want realistic digital paint, there really is no other option. Buy it now. +++ + QuarkXPress 6.5 Mac/PC £1,169 euro.quark.com/en 104 This 6.5 upgrade doesn’t transform QuarkXPress into an InDesign-killer, but it goes a long way towards rebuilding customer goodwill and hints at what may be a radical overhaul of the program for version 7.0. We wait with baited breath... +++++ InDesign 2.0 Mac/PC £716 www.adobe.com 89 Version 2.0 is a significant release that will surprise many – it’s twice the program it used to be (literally!). Compare the featuresets of InDesign 2.0 with its predecessors and they look half-finished. Suddenly, the whole feature-set gels. +++++ Motion 1.0 Mac £199 www.apple.com/uk/motion 102 For a 1.0 product, we couldn’t be happier with Motion. It introduces a simpler, much more intuitive way to create fancy animations quickly, and brings plenty of other advanced features along for the ride. ++++ After Effects 6.5 Mac/PC £664 www.adobe.co.uk 99 Adobe’s industry-standard app now includes better motion tracking and grain management tools. The new version also provides a host of new features that will make this an indispensable tool for the video professional. +++++ Avid XPress Pro Mac/PC £1,527 www.avid.com/xpresspro 91 Extremely sophisticated video-editing tool aimed at the higher end of the mid-range market. Strangely, this is twice as expensive as Premiere, and yet not different enough to warrant the massive price difference. +++++ Shake 3.5 Mac £2,099 www.apple.com/uk 99 Shake could intimidate those new to compositing and digital effects. Once you master the non-linear node-based workflow, though, you’ll discover a tool that provides more creative freedom than any other in its price range.

GoLive CS PRICE £394 URL www.adobe.com This soon to be updated website design app is certainly a competent web authoring tool. Adobe has refined both its look and feel. FOR

GoLive’s CSS editor is great, as are the QuickTime authoring tools and PDF-X support. AGAINST

The clunky interface and tiny icons make navigation tricky.

98

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May 2005

+++++ ZBrush 2 PC £258 www.pixologic.com 98 The new tools are so impressive that ZBrush could look and feel like Bryce and still be a zillion times quicker at modelling complex 3D organic forms than any other 3D app currently out there. +++++ Amapi 7 Pro Mac/PC £559 www.eovia.com 101 Without a doubt, Amapi Pro excels as a powerful but easy-to-use NURBS modeller for the professional computer-aided industrial designer. Modellers, engineers, animators and architects will find its feature-set second to none. +++++ 3ds max 7 PC £2,695 www.discreet.com 105 A feature-rich system that’s been built on a less-than-ideal foundation, but it’s still capable of good results. Unlike competitors such as XSI and Maya, 3ds max is expensive, but still remains a popular choice. +++++ Maya 6 Mac/PC £1,470 www.alias.com 105 This great 3D app for the die-hard character animator or effects artist features some phenomenal technology. It’s less inviting for digital content creation and general-purpose 3D work, though. LightWave 8 Mac/PC £1,056 www.newtek.com 105 +++++ LightWave 8 is a great all-rounder with a relatively easy learning curve and excellent rendering quality. But the lack of modelling history can be a pain, and character tools still a little weak.

FEATURED NEXT ISSUE

GROUP TEST: MONITOR CALIBRATORS ON SALE: 12 MAY

BUYER’S GUIDE

HARDWARE PRODUCT

QUICK-SEARCH CONTACTS PLATFORM

PRICE

CONTACT

ISSUE

VERDICT

PowerMac Mac £2,199 www.apple.com/uk 103 +++++ If you never run high-end software, you might get by with a lesser-specced iMac G5. But if you run video software, music-editing applications or work regularly in 3D, the G5 genuinely reduces frustration and saves you time. ++++ PowerBook G4 17-inch Mac £1,049 www.apple.com/uk 92 As far a raw performance goes, this PowerBook holds up pretty well, but the limitations of its hard drive and the slightly antiquated SuperDrive let it down somewhat. Never the less, there’s no doubt that this machine’s processing power is present in spades. +++++ IBook G4 1GHz Mac £699 www.apple.com/uk 94 This iBook looks and feels great. The casing is now solid white rather than translucent, and the inner casing surrounding the keyboard is a subtle matte grey. The whole thing feels as though it will last for years, no matter what you chuck at it. ++++ RM Workstation Mac/PC £4,130 www.r.com/rmt/ 107 The RM system is exactly what you want from a workstation – it’s equally adept at real-time graphics as it is at rendering. As 64-bit apps appear to take advantage of its forward-looking architecture, it’s going to become far more powerful. +++++ Deskjet 6540 Mac/PC £118 www.hp.com/uk 103 The HP 6540 Deskjet may not be as packed with features as some printers in its league, but it delivers good results both in core colour and black and white printing, and can be customised via a number of optional extras. +++++ FP23W Mac/PC £1,275 www.benq.co.uk 102 An impressive widescreen LCD monitor that delivers in terms of resolution and picture quality. Ideal if you’re in the market for an effective creative monitor, but less useful if you need a dual-purpose professional unit and HDTV screen for domestic viewing. Colour LJ 2550N Mac/PC £459 www.hp.com/uk 105 +++++ The 2550N is a lovely, compact and supremely elegant printer, but it desperately needs more memory and an easier-to-understand error reporting system. It produces great prints quickly, but with a limited gamut and limited drivers… ++++ Perfection 4870 Photo Mac/PC £349 www.epson.co.uk 98 This is a highly proficient scanner with Digital ICE image-cleaning technology for the ultimate reproduction quality. This model is so slick it wouldn’t look out of place in a professional environment, let alone a home studio or small office. +++++ Phaser 7750 DN Mac/PC £5,779 www.xerox.com/uk 101 Thanks to the printer’s big, backlit, six-line LCD status screen, this product is both easy to operate and friendly on the eye. Print quality is very good, with only a minimum of grain in gradients and continuous tones. +++++ Magicolor 7300 Mac/PC £2,606 www.koniccaminoltaprinters.co.uk 101 Print quality is very good indeed, something that Konica Minolta puts down to its “Polymer Toner” and “Photo ART” imaging technologies. Colours, including gradients and continuous tones, lack the usual graininess you expect from laser printing. Graphire3 Classic XL Mac/PC £90 www.wacom.com 99 +++++ A USB-friendly A5 tablet with an active area of 209x159mm. A great all-round performer from Wacom, which will certainly do the job for a range of graphics professionals – although it lacks the quality of the Intuos range. Intuos3 Mac/PC £130-£306 www.wacom.com 102 +++++ The Intuos3 Pen Tablet System is a step forwards from previous models. Thanks to the addition of scroll and Express Key functions to the tablet and changeable nib options to the pen, these tablets are easier to use and produce better results. +++++ EOS10D Mac/PC £1,400 www.canon.co.uk 97 This critically acclaimed and well put-together digital SLR, featuring a superb magnesium alloy body and a number of fantastic features, is capable of producing first-class images. Don’t be put off by its age; this one’s still got what counts. ++++ NIKON D70 Mac/PC £800 www.nikon.co.uk 97 An upgraded version of Nikon’s D100, but at half the price. The D70 is fantastic value for money and superbly kitted out with great specifications. It’s also exceptionally well built, tough and reliable. What more could you ask for? +++ + 40GB USB 2.0 Mobile HD Mac/PC £103 www.lacie.com/uk 105 The LaCie Mobile Hard Drive isn’t the fastest or cheapest portable storage product on the market, but it is durable, hard-working, effective and very easy to use. In addition, the sleek and minimalist Porsche design makes it just that little bit different.

SOFTWARE ADOBE Sales: 020 7365 0733 Technical support: 0845 052 2222 ALIEN SKIN Sales & support: 001 919 832 4124 XARA Sales & support: 01442 350000 STONECUBE Sales & support: 01454 320 400 COMNET NETWORK Sales & support: (through Xchange International) 020 7588 5588 QUARK Sales: 00800 1787 8275 Support: 00800 1787 8275

HARDWARE LEXMARK Sales: 08704 440044. Support: 08707 337100 APPLE Sales: 0800 039 1010 Support: 0870 876 0753 SAMSUNG Sales: 01932 455000 Support: 0870 242 0303 EPSON Pre-sales: 08702 416900 Support: 0870 443 7766 LACIE Sales & support: 020 7233 8338 HP Sales & support: 0870 010 4320

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

May 2005

| 99

PRODUCT NEWS RECENTLY ANNOUNCED NEED MORE MEMORY?

NIKON D2HS COMPACT DIGITAL CAMERA

WACOM CINTIQ 21 UX

One of a new range of compact digital cameras recently announced by Nikon, the D2HS is a professional high-speed device with a large picture buffer and refined exposure metering system. It’s available now for £2,128. URL: www.nikon.co.uk

Wacom’s latest 21-inch interactive display is aimed at industrial designers and graphics professionals, and includes improvements such as on-panel express keys and high UXGA resolution. It’s yours for £2,231. URL: www.wacom.co.uk

RECENTLY REVIEWED HARDWARE PRODUCT

PLATFORM

PRICE

CONTACT

ISSUE

VERDICT

Perfection 4180 Photo Mac/PC £191 www.epson.co.uk 108 ++++ The 4180 boasts features that will satisfy all but the most insistent of pros, producing accurate scans quickly and reliably, irrespective of media types. Unless you have exacting needs, this machine will be a worthy addition to any studio. 32MB PRICE: £17.05 URL: wehavethings.com 64MB PRICE: £17.35 URL: www.epcbuyer.com 128MB PRICE: £26.60 URL: www.ebuyer.com 256MB PRICE: £36.73 URL: www.bargainbuys365.co.uk 512MB PRICE: £43.32 URL: www.planetmicro.co.uk 1GB PRICE: £146.47 URL: www.morecomputers.com 2GB PRICE: £398.50 URL: wehavethings.com

30-inch HD Monitor Mac/PC £2,549 www.apple.com/uk 106 ++++ A beautifully engineered display with the kind of pedigree that makes it ideal for the creative professional with a visually demanding workload. Its only weakness is its cost, at a time when the market for LCD displays is about to pass into surplus. +++++ Samsung CLP-550 A4 Mac/PC £476 www.samsung.co.uk 106 1,200-dpi duplex printing and strong font handling mean this is far from a bad printer. It just lacks the finesse required to make it optimal for design use. As a day-to-day solution for small workgroups, however, it’s certainly worthy of consideration. +++++ Perfection 2580 Photo PC £99 www.epson.co.uk 105 This low priced but effective scanning device produces good images, fast. The scanner is well designed and easy to use and its brilliant automatic loader device makes the once tricky process of scanning 35mm film negatives simple and painless. LaCie 40GB USB 2.0 Mac/PC £103 www.lacie.com/uk 105 ++++ This isn’t the fastest or cheapest portable storage product on the market, but it’s durable, hard-working, effective and very easy to use. In addition, the sleek and minimalist Porsche design makes it just a little bit different. +++++ HP DesignJet 130 NR Mac/PC £1,600 www.hp.co.uk 104 The DesignJet 130NR is an extremely capable A1+ proofing machine and, with the right software, makes a very attractive proposition for professional designers. The only caveat is that you’ll need to work with this to get the best results. ++++ Spyder2PRO Studio Mac/PC £223 www.colourconfidence.com 108 Essential kit for those who take their colour seriously, the Spyder2PRO removes the guesswork from calibrating your monitor and ensures that your designs are as accurate as possible. With the help of additional software you can send work confidently to print.

RECENTLY REVIEWED SOFTWARE GROUP TESTS: SCANNERS CANOSCAN 9950F Price: £291.40 URL: www.canon.co.uk Verdict: ++++ SCANJET 5530 Price: £186 URL: www.hp.co.uk Verdict: +++ + MICROTEK I700 Price: £287.88 URL: www.microtek.co.uk Verdict: ++++ 4490 PHOTO Price: £316 URL: www.epson.co.uk Verdict: +++++ 4180 PHOTO Price: £191.51 URL: www.epson.uk Verdict: ++++

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+++++ Photoshop Elements 3.0 Mac/PC £57.58 www.adobe.co.uk 107 Although not as powerful as the full version of Photoshop, Elements 3.0 provides a useful method for novice designers to get to grips with core functionality. The Album tools integration provides a comprehensive suite of image management tools, too. ++++ Form•Z 5 Mac/PC £1,171 www.formz.com 108 Form•Z is to 3D visualisation for architecture, industrial and CAD design what 3ds max is to computer gaming. Despite being a little flaky, it’s definitely a must-have: a complete solution for any professional modelling task. ++++ Xara X1 PC £118 www.xara.com 106 It’s hard to find fault with software that’s this good and this competitively priced. Xara’s speed, stability and ease of use means that it stands up well against the other leading vector drawing packages. Factor-in price and it becomes unbeatable. +++++ Acrobat 7 Professional Mac/PC £464 www.adobe.co.uk 105 Acrobat 7 includes a good number of tweaks and useful new features. The ability to make documents reviewable by just about everyone is a welcome addition, and might even change the way you submit roughs. +++++ PrintDevizor 1.0 Mac/PC £581 www.stonecube.com 105 PrintDevizor is a great idea – it simulates the effects of spot colours/metallic effects – but needs the inclusion of Pantone colours for it to work in a pro design environment. Will definitely come in handy if your work requires a lot of varnishes or embosses. +++++ FoldUP! 3D 1.5 Mac/PC £292 www.comnet-network.co.jp 105 Comnet’s elegant software certainly works hand-in-hand with Adobe Illustrator, and extends its capabilities beyond mere 2D design and artwork. It’s fairly useful to anyone in packaging or direct mail design or artwork. +++ + Eye Candy 5 Nature Mac/PC £79.99 www.alienskin.com 107 Used sparingly and sensibly, Eye Candy 5 Nature can add some amazing effects to your imagery – Snow Drift, in particular, is outstanding. Everything is so easy to apply and at £80 it’s pretty good value, too. Ideal if you’re into effects.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

GRADUATE SHOWCASE 2005 Put your work under the spotlight and ensure it’s seen by thousands of people worldwide

Will you be graduating this year? Would you like an effective way to showcase all your hard work? Well, we’ve got some fantastic news for graduating students across the UK – Computer Arts is making an official call for entries to its ninth annual Graduate Showcase. Each year, we sift through thousands of images submitted by design graduates from courses covering everything from illustration to new media, graphic design to 3D animation, and choose the best examples to be included in our impressive Graduate Showcase. The Graduate Showcase is seen by thousands of people within the creative industry every year. Not only is it included with copies of the mag sold at the UK newsstand, it’s also mailed to all our subscribers worldwide. How’s that for exposure? This year’s theme is Best of British, so only entries from UK graduates will be considered. Good luck!

GRADUATE SH OWCASE

2005

Ë

ENT YOUR WER ORK

NOW!

HOW TO ENTER

Graduate Showcase, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth St, Bath, BA1 2BW If you want us to return your work, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. *Your submission MUST be accompanied by a completed submission form.

VISIT WEBSI OUR T DOWNLE AND THE FO OAD RM!

DEADLINE: FRIDAY 22 APRIL 2005

ILLUSTRATION: ROB LINDSTROM

Entering couldn’t be easier. Simply complete the submission form*, which can be downloaded from our website at www.computerarts.co.uk, and send it with a CD containing your best work to us at this address:

ON O N TH THE CD D FULL PRODUCT PC

KoolMoves Lite

Create Flash animations in a few simple steps with Lucky Monkey Designs’ streamlined app

This month’s disc is crammed with a host of great resources for graphics animation and web design. First up, two full software packages: KoolMoves Lite, an entry-level Flash authoring tool that’s fully featured and easy to use, and Sketsa, a package for working with scalable vector graphics (SVG) images. Then there’s stacks of stock material, including stock Flash movies from Bigshot Media worth $1,500, over 70MB of royalty-free music and sound effects to use in your websites, animation or video productions, and all the very latest demos. Enjoy this month’s disc.

Joe Russ [email protected] NEW MEDIA CONTENT EDITOR 102

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Illustration: Andy Potts

WELCOME

Flash MX 2004 is a powerful and professional product aimed at businesses and professional designers who want to create complex Flash content quickly and easily. But Flash is expensive and out of the reach of many people who want to dabble with web animation or use Flash’s most basic functions. So if you’re daunted by the prospect of tackling such a hefty package, then you might want to consider alternative Flash authoring software. Enter KoolMoves, a stripped down Flash authoring tool designed by a professional animator to provide only the most essential functions for the budding designer. KoolMoves Lite, a leaner variation, gives you a taste of what the full app is capable of, enabling you to create a quick Flash movie with ease, and generate navigation systems, splash pages, flying logos, transition effects, character animations, drop shadows and much, much more. All you have to do is draw/import the shapes or images required for your project, then reposition, reshape and recolour the animation objects in subsequent keyframes. KoolMoves automatically tweens between shapes you’ve added to create

smooth animated motion. It’s just like putting together a cartoon strip, with each frame containing text, images, shapes, sounds and actions. KoolMoves also provides an array of powerful drawing tools for creating web vector graphics, including various colour and gradient fills, which can be integrated into your KoolMoves projects. KoolMoves is a great low-cost alternative to the full-fat Flash MX, and is unashamedly geared towards the amateur designer. With dedicated fans and community sites scattered across the web, you’re assured an abundance of sample animations, graphics and scripts to add to your KoolMoves projects.

UPGRADE OFFER The full version of KoolMoves features 9 ActionScriptbased text effects, 12 web interfaces, 259 clip-art items, 13 animated clip-art movies, 70 buttons specially designed for Flash movies, and 104 text effects templates. To upgrade to this fully featured version for the bargain price of just $14.95 (that’s a saving of $30!), simply visit www.koolmoves.com/ magazine_cd/ and follow the on-screen instructions.

ON THE CD

FULL PRODUCT MAC AND PC

Sketsa 2.1 Learn to create SVG files, an open source Flash alternative, with this accomplished graphics editor This cross-platform vector drawing app is an ideal alternative to Macromedia Flash and SWF files when it comes to creating efficient vector images for use in web animation. It makes use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), a graphics format and technology based on XML, originally developed by W3C, the web standards consortium. SVG graphics are incredibly useful, because you can scale them to any size without losing definition. Sketsa boasts a range of tools for creating SVG images, including rectangles, ellipses and lines, as well as a free-form Pencil and Pen tool. Rotate, Skew and Scale tools are also provided. Sketsa’s Object Property palette even mirrors Flash’s own Property Inspector, enabling you to inspect and reconfigure attributes – such as Stroke Fill and Geometry, for example – in seconds. For those who want greater control over their images, you can also edit some of the XML code that underpins the SVG graphics.

UPGRADE OFFER As a Computer Arts reader, you can buy Sketsa for just $34.30, that’s a saving of 30 per cent on the asking price of $49. To receive your discount, visit www.regsoft.net/purchase.php3?pro ductid=60311&pc=6I7s1 and quote the Price Code password FKEP when ordering. RIGHT: Sketsa has all the tools you need to create and edit Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Web developers can also tinker with its code easily enough.

3D PLUG-INS MAC AND PC

Swift 3D (MAX & LW) Convert detailed 3D models into smooth Flash vectors – in 3ds max and LightWave The web’s limited bandwidth normally works against 3D artists eager to showcase their skills on the internet. But not any more. If you’re a 3ds max or LightWave user, Electric Rain’s Swift 3D plug-in (both MAX or LW iterations are provided on the CD) will enable you to convert your creations into highquality, bandwidth-friendly Flash animations from within your favourite 3D package. Swift 3D features the acclaimed Ravix 4 renderer, which provides a fantastic range of output options. For instance, if bandwidth or file sizes aren’t an issue, you can retain a high level of detail using the Mesh Gradient level render, which generates each object mesh with a smooth colour gradient. Conversely, for projects where file sizes are at a premium, you can opt for the most basic rendering option – using one, two or four flat colours or simple

outlines. You can also customise images to create different cartoon style effects. This latest version of Swift 3D provides a number of notable new features, including new Pen style outlines. Rather than using set thicknesses for the outlines of a model, the pen can now articulate different kinds of paintbrush/pen shapes and styles. In addition, there are more rendering options with Per-object styles – so now you can specify differing fill and line styles to each object within a scene, for instance. You can also create user-defined render styles, which enable you to create your own set of rendering options. The rendering engine itself is much improved, claims developer Electric Rain, with simple scenes (only a few outlines and fills) now rendering up to 50 times faster than before.

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ON THE CD

MULTIMEDIA AUDIO MAC AND PC

Royalty-free music and sound effects Spice up your multimedia projects with these versatile audio files Two terrific sources provide the professional audio files featured on this month’s cover CD:

ProMusicLoops (www.promusicloops.com) Tony Alexander began creating audio for music libraries and advertising agencies back in 2001, and founded ProMusicLoops last year to satisfy the growing demand for short music loops in the web industry. His library covers a range of genres, from Acid Jazz to Soft Rock.

Headjog Music (www.headjog.net) Headjog Music archives a small library of highimpact royalty-free music for interactive media, video, the internet, Flash games, Flash sites and mobile phones. You can download music immediately after payment via the site’s secure credit card handler (PayPal). Most transactions take less than five minutes.

SOUNDING OFF: ProMusicLoops and Headjog Music offer vast archives of music and sound effects that will prove ideal for multimedia projects.

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY MAC AND PC

Turbo Photo images 20 superb royalty-free images from the Turbo Photo stable

20

FREE IMAGES FOR YOU TO USE 104

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Turbo Photo offers high-quality stock images for designers on a budget. Turbo Photo’s 50 stock photo CDs each contain upwards of 50 images, covering a variety of subjects, including animals, people, nature, food, travel and backgrounds. The 20 images included on this month’s cover CD, a selection of which you can see here, provide a good overview of the quality and breadth you can expect from the full collection. Image resolutions range from approximately 2,560x1,920 to 3,264x2,448 pixels, with each photo printing out at between 8.5x6.4 inches and 10.8x8.1 inches in size at 300dpi, These stock photos are ideal for small to medium-size print jobs, such as print ads, packaging, websites or multimedia. The royalty-free licence agreement also enables you to use the photos on merchandise that may be sold, including gift items such as mugs, mouse pads and calendars – and even framed art. Turbo Photo CDs are available from www.turbophoto.com. Prices start at $29 for a CD containing 25 images.

ON THE CD

FLASH INTRO BUILDER Spice up your site’s front end with this great animation app

FULL LISTING

TRAINING VIDEO MAC AND PC

Flash video

Digital-Tutors tells you how to create a draggable image mask in Flash In this highly accessible video tutorial – a typical extract from Fundamentals of Flash: Action Scripting, a two-hour training video that illustrates the power of ActionScript in 24 easy steps – you’ll learn how to set an object as mask to reveal the contents of a layer. In the example provided, the mask is used to highlight

areas on a modified car design. Events are triggered as the cursor moves over the car. Digital-Tutors was founded in 2002 to create a state-of-the-art library of learning tools, conceived by educators and driven by industry artists. Today, Digital-Tutors.com archives over 300 training videos, covering industry standard creative tools such as Maya, ZBrush, Adobe apps and web design, and is viewed by over 30,000 visitors every month. Whether you’re after training tutorials, new concepts, industry-related news, tips, or customer support, Digital-Tutors offers practical advice and sound solutions.

FLASH ANIMATIONS MAC & PC

Bigshot Media stock Flash animation

Add movement to your work with these smart Flash videos If you’re looking for an animated element to liven up your Flash website or ad banner, then Bigshot Media’s collection of royalty-free animation and stock video should have just what you need. Bigshot Media boasts the world’s first and largest collection of stock Flash imagery, and is dedicated to expanding the use of motion graphics and rich media imagery on the web and in multimedia. It stocks a range of motion graphics and pre-masked video in a Flash format that can easily be integrated into your work. The company aims to provide designers and producers with a single source visuals solution, covering royalty-free footage and royalty-free still imagery. For details, visit www.bigshotmedia.com.

KOOLMOVES LITE (PC) FULL SOFTWARE Complete Flash creation tool.

KOOLMOVES (PC) TRIAL Explore the latest version of this fine app. SKETSA 2.1 (MAC+PC) FULL SOFTWARE Create SVG graphics for the web with this dedicated web graphics software.

SKETSA 3.0 (MAC+PC) TRIAL Explore the latest version of this app.

BIGSHOT MEDIA (MAC+PC) TRIAL Royalty-free stock Flash movies and animations at your fingertips. DIGITAL-TUTORS VIDEO (MAC+PC) VIDEO TRAINING Creating a draggable mask in Flash is easy with help from Digital-Tutors.com.

SWIFT 3D MAX (PC) 3DS MAX PLUG-IN Render Flash files in 3ds max.

SWIFT 3D LW (MAC+PC) LIGHTWAVE PLUG-IN Render complete Flash files in LightWave. FLASH AUDIO LOOPS (MAC+PC) ROYALTY-FREE AUDIO Try out these Flash loops. FLASH MUSIC LOOPS (MAC+PC) ROYALTY-FREE AUDIO Give your Flash projects a soundtrack with these royalty-free music pieces.

DESKTOP FLASH BUILDER (PC) TRIAL Create a Flash website in just a few clicks.

FLASH INTRO BUILDER (PC) TRIAL Make a big entrance with this intro maker. TUTORIAL FILES (MAC+PC) To find this month’s supporting files, navigate the interface to “In The Mag” and select Tutorials. October May 2005 2004

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DB Masters

• Short and long runs • Competitive prices • Fast turnaround • A-Grade CDR • Thermal or screen print Tel: 01795 597 755 Fax: 01795 597 766 Email: [email protected] Website: www.dbmasters. co.uk


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Arcana Digital

Animation, imaging and post production for broadcasting, interactive and print. Folio available online or call for a CD sampler. Studio 15 minutes from Victoria. Clients include: Bray Leino, Citigate.A.F, DDB, Grey, JWT, Lowe, Masius, Ogilvy, OWN&P, Proximity, Publicis, RKCRY&R, Saatchi, TBWA, WTCS, WWAV. Tel: 020 8466 0655 Email: [email protected] Website: www.arcanadigital. com Contact: John Fox


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Display Print Services Ltd (dps)

It’s a big world out there and competition is fierce, so how do you create super-strong visual impact and really get noticed? By thinking big. Big graphics, big messages – and big pictures. As a specialist in large-format print and display, dps has all the know-how to transform your ideas into high

quality reality. We can produce anything from point-of-sale items up to posters, banners, exhibition stands or even wrap up whole buildings. Call us for more details of how we can help you to make a big impression. Tel: 01373 225555 Email: [email protected] Website: www.dps.eu.com Contact: David Wooster

   

Corps Business

Corps Business is the most established and professional recruitment agency in the design, advertising and media industries. Since 1989, we have been recruiting the top freelance and permanent creatives and developers. Our strict testing and screening procedure ensures that the people we supply can do what you want, when you want. Tel: 020 7222 8484 Email: [email protected] Website: www.corps.co.uk


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Corps Business

Corps Business is the leading UK authorised training centre for the top software houses, including Adobe, Macromedia, Apple, Maxon, Media 100, Extensis and Quark Systems. You can choose either a group or a tailored course, depending on your needs and abilities. Our consultants are all very knowledgeable in the software and can advise you on which course would suit you best. Tel: 020 7222 8484 Email: [email protected] Website: www.corps.co.uk

Escape

Escape offers world-class training in 3D computer animation and 2D VFX for the creative industries and serves as a centre of creative excellence for both individuals and companies alike. The course programme has been designed in consultation with leading industry professionals. Escape is the UK’s only authorised training centre for Alias’ Oscar®-winning 3D package, MayaR. Website: www.escape studios.co.uk Tel: 020 7524 7570.

Falmouth College of Arts

Are you passionate about the future of digital interactivity? The MA in Interactive Art & Design at Falmouth College of Arts, taught by renowned net artist Kate Southworth (www. gloriousninth.com), offers radical new ways of working in Web design, digital sound art, net art and interactive installation art and design. Tel: 01362 211077 Fax: 01362 213880 Email: admissions@falmouth. ac.uk

Metro New Media

London’s leading training centre for Web design, 3D, animation, multimedia, project management and programming • All trainers are professionals in their field • State-of-the-art studios • All levels from beginner to advanced • Specialists in customised training • Discreet accredited Tel: 020 7729 9992

Email: training@metronew media.com Website: www.metronewmedia.com

Central UK training

• 3ds max and all that goes with it • Discreet certified • Low client – tutor ratios (four normally) • High impact, short courses • Introduction, Intermediate, Character Animation, etc • Videogames and Texture Making • We can help you select the right courses • Dedicated forum • More on the website, including student work. Come and see. Tel: 01926 613002 Email: [email protected] Website: www.central-uk.com

XChange Training

The UK’s leading training specialists for creative professionals offer expert courses tailored to your training requirements. A wide range of flexible courses are available, including Adobe Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop; Colour Management; Enfocus products for PDF workflows; FileMaker Pro; Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash and Freehand; QuarkXPress and various 3D applications. Tel: 020 7490 4455 Email: info@xchange training.co.uk Web: www.xchangetraining. co.uk

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Dedicated Servers

The UK’s leading hosting company provides: • FREE and UNLIMITED phone & email support (24/7/365) • Service level agreement • State-of-the-art data centres • Dedicated Control Panel • Partner Programme • Windows, Linux, Sun, Cobalt and Co-location available • Host up to 200 Websites per server from £ 74.99 per month Tel: 0870 3339738 Fax: 0115 9195514 Email: [email protected] Website: www.dedicatedservers.co.uk

Netcetera

Formed in 1996, Netcetera is one of Europe’s leading Web hosting service providers. Our services are biased towards Microsoft-based Internet Technologies – Microsoft Certified Partner since 1999. Netcetera provides complete solutions for Web hosting, Domain Name registration, ecommerce, e-mail, dedicated server hosting, server-based applications hosting (ASP) and .NETppliance. Tel: 01624 612948 Fax: 01624 623385 Email: [email protected] Website: www.inetc.net

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BACK ISSUES

Missed an issue of your favourite mag? Call now and order old issues ISSUE 106 Code COA106

PDF VERSION AVAILABLE PRINT VERSION SOLD OUT Full copy of Comixware 1.2, Carrara 4 Pro demo, FontUtilities software, Group Test plug-in demos, and more.

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The insider’s guide: everything you need to create stunning artwork.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

It’s tough being a student. So how do talented undergraduates tackle their college assignments and, more importantly, do they make the grade? We ask the experts THE TUTOR

NAME: Dan Livingstone COURSE: BA/BSc Digital Art & Technology (formerly MediaLab Arts) CONTACT: http://b.i-dat.org TEL: 01752 233322

TOP OF THE CLASS

THE BRIEF

Establish a small development team, produce an innovative game prototype and effectively promote it through a “company” website, microsite and online/downloadable demo “The main challenge was for each team to come up with a novel gaming proposition and a marketing pitch that identifies potential industrial partners, potential revenue streams and a “value chain” for their product. In terms of physical deliverables, the students were asked to create a company website, a microsite to launch the game prototype, a single-level demo and an individual critique of an existing entertainment product – delivered through a formal commercial pitch and play-testing session. Several teams exceeded this requirement, producing level editors, promotional stings and custom-built interfaces. Most prototypes were supported by clear serverside web development and online project management. This process has generated a respectable number of graduate companies. Having developed a commercially viable production model, with clearly defined roles based on an integrated team of skilled individuals, graduates found that the logical next step was to win some awards and start trading.”

WHITEKIWI THE EXPERT

NAME: Rob Corradi OCCUPATION: Rob is the creative director of Preloaded, a supersuccessful interactive agency based in Shoreditch, London. CONTACT: www.preloaded.com

GOT A BRIEF? THEN TELL US ABOUT IT! Let us know about a brief you’re working on at college and get positive feedback from a professional designer. Please email suggestions for suitable briefs to: [email protected], under the header “University Challenge proposal”. 112

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STUDENTS Hannah Parsons, Tom Jackson, Emily Besley and Pete Harrison COMPANY SITE www.whitekiwi.net/ GAME MICROSITE http://shift.whitekiwi.net TUTOR’S VERDICT: “A beautifully crafted design showcase and a sublime exploration through engaging audio visual puzzles, this project oozes production values, with attention to every detail. It’s innovative in its use of a “haptic cursor” – a visual method of implying physical properties through cursor movement, cunningly integrated into the game space to reinforce immersion. Enter a “windy area” and the cursor will float away. This is a single-player experience.”

EXPERT’S VERDICT: “The support site doesn’t really prepare you for the experience of playing the game itself, though you do get an insight into the team’s sense of fun. There are no instructions, but then that’s the point. You’re encouraged to explore and learn, guiding the character through several levels of a fairytale world. It reminds me of Quest for the Rest (www.questfortherest.com) and is aimed squarely at people who want a more leisurely gaming experience. If I was to ask for only one thing, it would be more levels.”

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

THE BEST OF THE REST

FROZENHEAD

ELEMENTAL ENTERTAINMENT

STUDENTS Rioch Fitzpatrick, Rob Stillwell, Luke McGowan, James Bonshor and Chris Howard COMPANY SITE www.frozenhead.co.uk GAME MICROSITE www.swipers.co.uk

STUDENTS: David Wiltshire, Jamie Stonehill, Martin Watts and Ryan Carson COMPANY SITE: www.elemental-entertainment.co.uk/ GAME MICROSITE: www.m-watts.co.uk/elemental/wingmen/

TUTOR’S VERDICT: “A highly professional team effort, this is a unique gameplay proposition, with extensive promotional materials and viral marketing. “Swipers” has a clear target audience, fast arcade platform action and a unique twist – and you can create your character via your own “swipers” card and online database. The design elements have two distinctive styles: the detailed handdrawn elements on the microsite frame (the game world effectively) and the in-game visuals themselves.”

EXPERT’S VERDICT: “It’s clear that a lot of energy has gone into creating “Swipers”, but I found it hard to be drawn into its world. The initial illustrations suggested promising things, but the Flash interpretations of the original concept art are, I feel, a little lacklustre. It feels as if the designers devoted too much time to creating merchandising and the advert. The downloaded game is also a little disappointing. That said, some nice touches here and there did keep me interested.”

TUTOR’S VERDICT: “It’s difficult to deliver such a well-worn theme convincingly, but this team did well. Elemental Entertainment created its own game engine to produce a highly playable prototype and a convincing pitch and marketing campaign aimed at the XBox Live platform. The professional design of both the site and microsite reinforces the small developer model. The game itself combines “old school” arcade play mechanics with an extensive multiplayer arena.

EXPERT’S VERDICT: “Elemental Entertainment’s presentation is pretty flawless. The supporting site is professionally put together and does an excellent job of selling the game, imbuing it with real sense of atmosphere. The 38MB download seems hefty, though. This top-down shooter could’ve been done equally well in Flash, and been easier to download. Still, congrats to the team for being brave enough to tackle the world of Visual Basic and DirectX.”

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CV

“The Telegraph asked me to illustrate a year’s worth of horoscopes for its Saturday magazine on the theme of “freak show”. I really loved this job, because they let me do what I liked, even incorporating the design staff.”

CURRICULUM VITAE

SPENCER WILSON LOCATION: Berkhamsted, UK JOB: Illustrator and part-time print technician for HND graphics students at Southwark College DATE OF BIRTH: 17 October 1975 TRAINING: Graduated from Brighton University in 1998 with a first class degree in Illustration SOFTWARE: Adobe Illustrator 9, Adobe Photoshop 7 and Flash MX

“A solution to a tight deadline – a one-page book about Little Red Riding Hood getting lost and starving to death. I especially like the trees.”

HARDWARE: A 400MHz G4 with 516MB of RAM, combined with a 19-inch Mitsubishi Diamond Plus monitor. I import all my drawings with an Epson Perfection 1660 scanner and print on an Epson Stylus 1290. I’m still trying to get to grips with my oversized A4 Wacom tablet. INFLUENCES: I’ve always loved the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jean Dubuffet. Their direct approach and the sheer simplicity of the way they define figures and objects, together with the repetition of Basquiat, is an endless source of inspiration. Contemporaries I admire include Ryan McGuiness, Barry McGee, Yoshitomo Nara, Tim Burton, J. Otto Siebold, Geoff McFetridge, Luke Best, Brett Ryder, Allan Sanders, David Foldvari and various toys. STYLE: I’d describe my work as easily edited, simply designed expressive characterisations that use a limited colour palette. It’s extremely time efficient, so I can turn jobs around very quickly. I usually work directly on the finished piece with maybe a thumbnail or some jotted notes as a reference point. I start each piece from scratch, but occasionally add an element from a previous image – particularly the little bird and scientist at the moment. The other characters are drawn fresh as the image takes shape.

“This image formed part of a proposal for an animation to be screened in the reception area of WAVV Rapp Collins’ ad agency. It illustrates a rhyme about a girl with a massive brain.” “This image is taken from a short book that I produced for LAB 02, which illustrates a story about a monkey who misplaces a story he’s been writing and then has to go out and look for it. The actual book is black and white and is still for sale at www.peepshow.org.uk.”

CONTACT: To see more of Spencer’s work, visit www.spencerwilson.co.uk or www.peepshow. org.uk, or email [email protected].

EMAIL

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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Send us your CV, in the format shown, to ca.mail@futurenet. co.uk, with the subject line “CV”.

“I was asked to create a book for Honda’s new car technology (The Honda Book of Help), a Flash animation for www.honda.co.uk and a design for the entire platform at Oxford Circus and Kings Cross. They wanted it to be simple, with an emphasis on the flow of copy. I was especially pleased with the large-format tube posters.”

CREATIVE SUITE 2

INTRODUCING CS2 Creative Suite 2 has arrived, and we think it’s great. So we’ve rounded up the best Computer Arts reviewers to give you a sneak preview. From Photoshop Lens Correction to Transformation in InDesign, there’ll be something here to impress you...

AT A GLANCE P04 HOW CS2 WORKS Welcome to CS2 – the complete design environment that lets you realise your design ideas in print, on the web or even on mobile devices

A

fter 18 months of development work, Adobe has finally taken the wraps off Creative Suite 2 – the most unified package of creative software yet. The updated Creative Suite, a must have for Computer Arts readers, contains new versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive and InDesign and now adds further functionality through an intuitive feature named Bridge. So where’s the best place to find out what’s new in this year’s most exciting release? Right here. This Computer Arts supplement contains a first-look at all of the new Creative Suite features, tools, filters and utilities, with reviews and run-throughs from our expert panel of Computer Arts reviewers. Over the next 20 pages, these Adobe experts will guide you through the key new features in each individual package and give you advice on what this new software can do for you. And, in addition, we’ve managed to track down the creative brains behind the elegantly updated Creative Suite 2 box designs. We bet you can’t guess how they were made...

DOM HALL

EDITORIAL TEAM

P06 PHOTOSHOP CS2 Already the professional standard in desktop digital imaging, this latest release boasts improved power, precision and control

P08 ILLUSTRATOR CS2 Convert scanned line-art or bitmap images to scalable, editable vector paths and anchor points in a matter of seconds...

P10 INDESIGN CS2 Save drop shadow, fill and stroke, text attributes and other settings as Object Styles for efficient, consistent formatting

P12 ACROBAT CS2 You can now collaborate more effectively with clients and colleagues and prepare designs created in other CS2 components

P14 GOLIVE CS2

SENIOR EDITOR GILLIAN CARSON [email protected]

This new release introduces CSS layout tools and a rich environment for mobile content development

SENIOR ART EDITOR RODDY LLEWELLYN [email protected]

P16 BRIDGE/VERSION CUE CS2

DEPUTY EDITOR DOM HALL [email protected]

Access and launch files for any of the CS2 apps and allow multiple designers to work on the same or variant images

PRODUCTION EDITOR SOPHIE EMBLEY [email protected]

P18 X-RAY VISIONARIES Cover star: Brett Wickens of US-based MetaDesign talks to Computer Arts about the intricacies of designing for Adobe

Published for Computer Arts by Future www.futureplc.com 01225 442244 Many thanks to Adobe Systems Cover artwork ©Adobe

ÊCONTRIBUTORS ALISTAIR DABBS Specialising in digital imaging, graphic arts and prepress, Alistair writes for Computer Arts and a range of industry mags.

ROB CARNEY Rob has written about creative design tools for the last five years and is currently the associate editor of sister mag Computer Arts Projects.

CHRIS GREGORY Chris is an Adobe expert and training specialist whose company, inddtraining, has helped many publishers get to grips with Adobe products.

MICHAEL BURNS Michael Burns is a freelance writer and journalist specialising in IT and software.

CHRIS SCHMIDT Regular Computer Arts contributor Chris Schmidt is a freelance designer, computer journalist and photographer.

Creative Suite 2 •

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HOW CS2 WORKS Creative Suite 2 has been designed to work together in a unified way to remove as much as possible the barriers between programs so that designers can create artwork, pages, websites and more, with fluidity and ease. Creative Suite 2 does this through Bridge – a brand new visual file browser that serves as a greatly enhanced version of the File Browser found in previous versions of Adobe Photoshop. Bridge not only allows you to quickly manage and locate assets, but also provides instant access to new Adobe Stock Photos and lets designers achieve more consistent colour across the entire suite.

BRIDGE Photoshop Bridge

Independent from , promises to offer a central point through which you can access and launch files for any of the CS2 applications with recognition for the PSD, AI, INDD and PDF proprietary formats.

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PHOTOSHOP: “Professional digital photographers will find that Photoshop has grown up a bit. There’s now full support for 32bit images and multiple exposures in a single image and those using the Camera RAW format can easily import and correct complete rolls in one go. There is nothing in this upgrade that will disappoint.”

ILLUSTRATOR: “Illustrator has long been the software of choice for anyone wanting to produce sleek, crisp vector graphics with the minimum of fuss, and with CS2 it’s just got better. Possibly the most exciting new addition to this application is the Live Trace feature. For years, Illustrator has lacked a decent bitmap-tracing tool, and now it has one.”

ACROBAT: “Four times faster on start-up than previous versions, Acrobat 7.0 Professional is sure to make an impact on your workflow – and not just in terms of speed. No longer merely an add-on for creating and working with PDF documents; this is a fully integrated part of Adobe Creative Suite 2.”

GOLIVE: “GoLive is now celebrating its tenth anniversary, and to mark this Adobe’s web design software has been upgraded to include a number of impressive and functional features. These include new CSS-P layout tools, a media-rich environment in which to develop open standard mobile content, and closer integration with related CS2 titles.”

INDESIGN: “The fourth main outing for Adobe InDesign sees a well-balanced combination of tweaks to the core program following extensive user feedback (now there’s a concept!), a strong set of new features, and the wondrous Adobe Bridge, which is shared between all Creative Suite applications.” (see left)

Creative Suite 2 •

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IMAGE MANIPULATION

PHOTOSHOP CS2 Current users may have to hunt down the changes, but image compositors and digital photographers will have plenty to play with in this must-have upgrade

INTRODUCTION All eyes will be firmly set on Photoshop CS2 – it’s the core package within the new Creative Suite, after all. As with the previous upgrade from version 7.0 to CS, the new features do not turn the program upside-down, but there’s no doubt that they will be extremely well received. This is certainly a bonus for current users as they can continue to use the program without having to relearn anything. The star of the show is undoubtedly Vanishing Point – the upgrade will be worth every penny for this feature alone. Think of all those occasions where you wanted to copy or move a selection from one position to another within the same image, but then had to spend time adjusting it using the Transform functions before it would fit in with the size and perspective of the shot. With Vanishing Point, you can complete this process in just a few seconds. The software even comes with a Clone Stamp tool that respects perspective, too, which is great for angled textures such as floorboards and brickwork. Professional digital photographers will find that Photoshop has grown up a bit. There’s now full support for 32bit images and multiple exposures in a single image and those using the Camera RAW format can easily import and correct complete rolls in one go. There is nothing in this upgrade that will disappoint.

A QUICK GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW PHOTOSHOP FEATURES Check out the subtle but effective improvements to this essential software

Ó SMART SHARPEN The king of sharpen tools used to be Unsharp Masking, but Smart Sharpen may be about to steal its crown. As well as minimising the risk of halos, this smart new tool also enables you to vary the sharpen effect between highlights and shadows, and to intelligently strip away any blurs.

Ó REDUCE NOISE

Reducing visual “noise” and JPEG artefacts has just got much easier. The Reduce Noise filter is also very effective for eliminating gritty-looking scans where the sampling rate has overemphasised the grain in the film.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

VANISHING POINT

A three-dimensional grid mode that lets you Paste, Clone and Paint selections that automatically align to the correct perspective planes.

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LENS CORRECTION

Compensate for barrel and pincushion distortions, tilted images, chromatic aberrations, vignetting and other camera lens issues with this special mode.

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IMAGE WARP

This new Transform function allows you to stretch, bend, curl and generally manipulate selections within a malleable envelope.

4

SPOT HEALING TOOL

A quicker alternative to the Patch and Healing Brush tools, the Spot Healing tool hides spots and blemishes with just one click.

5

ONE-CLICK RED EYE CORRECTION

The hassle-free way to fix red eyes caused by flash photography. Simply click on the affected area with this new tool.

INFO Ì IMAGE WARP

The fake label shown here (left and below) has been produced using layers of live type and a vector rectangle, which were then grouped together as an embedded Smart Object. Then it’s simple. Just apply Edit>Transform>Warp and mould the envelope to fit the can.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC: PowerPC G4, Mac OS X 10.2.8, 384MB RAM, 1,024x768 display, 500MB hard-disk space PC: Pentium 4, Windows 2000/XP (SP2), 384MB RAM, 1,024x768 display, 500MB hard-disk space

Ó LENS CORRECTION

CONTACT

Images that have been distorted through wide and narrow-angle lenses, or merely shot at a tilt, are easy to correct with a minimum loss of quality using the Lens Correction filter. This is no miracle worker, but it comes close.

Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

Ó VANISHING POINT

Image compositors will love this. Now you can define the virtual 3D planes within an image – the front and side aspects of this church, for example – and let Photoshop do all the transforming for you.

PRICE

To be announced

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

6

VISUAL FILTERS

Reduce Noise compensates for visual noise in JPEGs and scans. Smart Sharpen produces even better halo-free sharpen results.

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WORK ACROSS LAYERS

Select and work with several selections across multiple layers at once. Smart Guides helps you align selections with those in other layers.

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SMART OBJECTS

Easily embed vector graphics and pixel images into Photoshop documents, edit them non-destructively and quickly create multiple linked instances.

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CAMERA RAW MULTIIMAGE PROCESSING

Apply common settings and non-destructive edits to multiple Camera RAW images in a single batch rather than one by one.

10

HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE

Work with 32bit colour images as well as 16bit and 8bit and merge multiple exposures into a single HDR image.

Creative Suite 2 •

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VECTOR DRAWING

ILLUSTRATOR CS2 The latest incarnation of this industry-standard vector graphics application includes some fantastic new creative features and a raft of productivity-enhancing tools

INTRODUCTION Illustrator has long been the software of choice for anyone wanting to produce sleek, crisp vector graphics with the minimum of fuss, and with CS2 it’s just got better. Possibly the most exciting new addition to this application is the Live Trace feature. For years, Illustrator has lacked a decent bitmap-tracing tool, and now it has one. What makes Live Trace “Live” is an incredibly handy preview, which preserves the bitmap and enables you to see the effects, paths, anchors, colours and areas of your converted graphic before you apply the trace. It is also possible to save presets, or use one of the 13 supplied. Live Paint, Live Trace’s even snazzier brother, enables you to quickly paint areas of colour – without creating separate layers just to hold colours. It’s like Photoshop’s Paint Bucket tool, only for vectors, and much, much cleverer. A gap detection feature quickly enables you to identify where colour may leak through open paths. Other new features include an InDesign-like context-sensitive Control Palette, new custom workspace layouts, and the ability, at long last, to specify the placement of a stroke on a path. Tighter Photoshop integration is borne out in Illustrator’s ability to import individual layer comps, and the full integration of the Photoshop Filter Gallery (as well as a “live” Effects Gallery) makes it much easier to preview and apply filter effects to placed images. It’s now easy to apply spot colours to drop shadows and greyscale images and better mobile and Flash export options will appeal to those using Illustrator as a web graphics tool.

A QUICK GUIDE TO ILLUSTRATOR’S BEST NEW FEATURES Live Trace, and its slick brother Live Paint, make bitmap tracing a doddle

Ó LIVE TRACE

Live Trace can be found in the Object menu and, on first impressions, looks like being an excellent (and very fast) bitmap-tracing tool. There are many options that enable you to trace in black and white, greyscale or full colour, and specify path fitting, corner angle, blur, max stroke weight and more. Thirteen included presets give you a range of different tracing effects straight out of the box. In this image (right) you can see the original bitmap image, tracing options and resulting paths.

Ó LIVE PAINT

Using Live Paint is simple; turn your artwork into Live Paint Objects using the command in the Object menu, then use the Live Paint Bucket in the main toolbox to fill areas of colour. Shapes are turned into edges and regions, both of which can be coloured with the Live Paint Bucket (and selected using the Live Paint Selection tool). If overlapping, Illustrator creates new edges and regions, which can then be filled. Live Paint objects retain a dynamic relationship to one another, so if you move one object, the overlapping region will change accordingly.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

LIVE TRACE With Streamline pretty much vanishing from Adobe’s portfolio of products, Illustrator CS2 includes a new Live Trace feature for, you’ve guessed it, tracing bitmap images. 8

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LIVE PAINT Live Paint is a new feature, which enables you to quickly apply colour fills to vector artwork without setting up numerous colouring layers.

3

GAP DETECTION Working with Live Paint, Illustrator’s new Gap Detection options enable you to quickly locate and repair non-intersecting edges.

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CONTROL PALETTE Like InDesign, Illustrator now features a contextsensitive Control Palette, which frees-up screen space and provides most settings within one handy toolbar.

5

CUSTOM STROKE PLACEMENT You can now (and about time, too) specify whether strokes are applied along the inside, centre, or outside of each path you select.

INFO

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC: PowerPC processor (G4 or G5), Mac OS X 10.2.8, 10.3 through to 10.3.4, 256MB RAM (512MB recommended), 960MB of hard-disk space. PC: Intel Pentium 3 or 4 or equivalent, Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 or 4 or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or 2, 256MB RAM (512MB recommended), 820MB of hard-disk space

Ï PHOTOSHOP INTEGRATION

Illustrator CS2 steps up the Photoshop import options and general integration. You can now choose to import individual layer comps from Photoshop. There’s also the inclusion of the Filter Gallery and Filter Effects (live versions of filters, which allow underlying artwork to remain editable), making it easy to apply Photoshop filters to placed bitmaps.

Ó CONTROL PALETTE

The new Control Palette echoes that of InDesign, and provides a context-sensitive range of options for controlling the appearance of paths, strokes, fills, text and any other Illustrator object. You can access around 80 per cent of Illustrator’s tools from this palette – and when you do need access to a full palette, you can simply click on an underlined element to display the relevant options.

CONTACT Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

Ó CUSTOM STROKE

Although maybe not the most exciting addition to this latest upgrade, the ability to specify whether strokes are placed along the inside, centre or outside of a path is an incredibly useful feature – and we’re extremely surprised that it’s never featured in Illustrator before!

PRICE Estimated street price: $499 (U.S.) for all platforms Registered users of any version can upgrade to Illustrator CS2 for $169 (U.S.). Users of CorelDraw and Macromedia FreeHand can also purchase Adobe Illustrator CS2 for $349 (U.S.)

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

6

PHOTOSHOP LAYER COMPS New to Illustrator CS2 is the ability to preview and open up Photoshop Layer Comps. A handy dialog enables you to specify which composition you wish to import.

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PHOTOSHOP FILTER GALLERY Direct access to Photoshop’s Filter Gallery from within the Illustrator Filter menu makes it easy to preview and apply filter effects to placed raster artwork and text.

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CUSTOM WORKSPACES By making use of the predetermined workspaces provided, or by creating your own, you can quickly tailor the Illustrator interface to any design job.

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MOBILE AND FLASH Illustrator CS2 enables you to easily save your artwork for mobile devices, and improved SWF export options make creating animated content a cinch.

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SPOT COLOURS You can now colour-up drop shadows or greyscale images by dragging a spot colour from the Swatches palette onto them. They will then preview and print accurately as separate plates. Creative Suite 2 •

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PAGE LAYOUT AND DESIGN

INDESIGN CS2 This latest release shows a clean pair of heels to the competition with an outstanding new feature set and refinement of an already excellent interface

INTRODUCTION The fourth main outing for Adobe InDesign sees a well-balanced combination of tweaks to the core program following extensive user feedback (now there’s a concept!), a strong set of new features, and the wondrous Adobe Bridge, which is shared between all CS2 applications. New features include shape-to-shape conversions, the option to fit graphics proportionately either horizontally or vertically (thus avoiding white space), separately lockable column guides and even better paragraph and character style management. Standout new features are plentiful, and include object styles, access to Photoshop and PDF layers, Anchored Objects and Snippets. As for the Bridge, think of an enhanced version of Photoshop’s File Browser that can organise and display a whole host of program formats, which allows access to royalty-free images and more, and you’ll start to get a feel for what a revolutionary feature this is for all of the Creative Suite applications. Serious users involved in page layout design may be deemed unlucky to have missed switching from other layout applications to InDesign 2.0. Likewise, they may be considered unfortunate to have missed out on InDesign CS. But frankly, on the evidence of this release, they could be deemed plain careless not to give this new release their closest consideration.

A QUICK GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW INDESIGN FEATURES New creative features are plentiful in this latest release...

ÓLAYERS

One of InDesign’s truly outstanding new features is its ability to turn Photoshop layers on and off (in Acrobat, too) either on Placing the file or by changing its Object Layer Options within the layout.

ËTRANSFORMATION

Adobe’s impressive ongoing response to customer feedback has resulted in a range of effective enhancements to InDesign’s Transformation commands. The software now enables elements to be easily transformed either individually or as a group and also includes the time-saving Transform Again command. This tool is useful for anyone wishing to perform a sequence of transformations – moving, scaling, rotating or skewing, for example – on an object and then quickly repeat those exact steps on another object.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

INTEGRATION WITH ADOBE BRIDGE Browse, label, drag and drop elements to and from your layout, synchronise colour settings, access Adobe StockPhotos and much more via this excellent feature.

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OBJECT STYLES Quickly apply named object styles and globally update graphic and text frame formatting with a wide array of creative options.

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SHOW/HIDE LAYERS InDesign redefines compatibility with other Creative Suite applications with its ability to access both native transparency, layers and layer comps in Photoshop and PDF layers.

4

SNIPPETS Quickly save out individual sections of an InDesign document to be shared with colleagues or re-used in other layouts.

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ANCHORED OBJECTS Use Anchored Objects to tie elements with their relevant text – sidebars, for example – both inside and outside text frames.

INFO Á OBJECT STYLES

Object Styles are similar to nested styles for text – one of InDesign CS’s most popular features – but applicable to frames instead. Potential uses are myriad and include saving individual named combinations of drop shadows, strokes, corner effects, transparency effects, feathering, and more. Note, too, the new Spread and Noise options, which can be used to control the appearance of drop shadows both on screen and in print.

ËROTATING STYLES

A great example of InDesign’s carefully enhanced text handling is its ability to apply multiple rotating paragraph styles at the same time using the Apply Next Paragraph Style option. The text shown (right) was formatted using just one style name.

ÓANCHORED OBJECTS

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC: PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor, Mac OS X, version 10.2.8 or 10.3, 256MB RAM (320MB or more recommended) PC: Intel Pentium II, III, 4, or 5 processor, Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, or Windows XP with Service Pack 1, 256MB RAM (320MB or more recommended)

CONTACT Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

Anchored Objects are similar to inline graphics, only with far more flexibility. Here, anchored sidebars move up and down with the text as it’s edited and can even move from one side of the page to the other as required.

PRICE Estimated street price: £609 Estimated street price for upgrade: £139

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

6

SMARTER TEXT HANDLING Improved text handling includes drag-and-drop text, paste without formatting, dynamic spell-checking, footnotes and the excellent Quick Apply style feature.

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ENHANCED SUPPORT FOR WORD AND RTF Use sophisticated style mapping to speed up formatting of imported Microsoft Word files and then save settings as presets for future use.

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BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY Cue fanfare... InDesign CS2 can save files in the INX (Interchange) format, which can then be opened by the original CS program.

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ENHANCED XML SUPPORT... ...including enhanced smart XML import, new support for tagging table content and the Create Link option to easily update content.

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FRAME-BASED BASELINE GRIDS One baseline grid per document is but a thing of the past. Each text frame can now have its own custom leading value.

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PDF CREATION

ACROBAT 7.0 PRO Think PDFs are dull? Think again. Stacks of user-friendly features and advanced functionality make Acrobat an essential collaboration, reviewing and output tool

INTRODUCTION Four times faster on start-up than previous versions, Acrobat 7.0 Professional is sure to make an impact on your workflow – and not just in terms of speed. No longer merely an add-on for creating and working with PDF documents; this is a fully integrated part of Adobe Creative Suite 2, boasting powerful PDF correction tools and an advanced Output Preview tool for preflighting your documents before print. As CS2 is such a collaborative environment, document sharing using Acrobat within the suite can really come to the fore with many useful features for real world applications. That collaboration also extends beyond the PDF enabled Microsoft Office applications introduced in Acrobat 6.0. Windows users can catch up with the native PDF support in Mac OS X using the new facility to convert a block of Outlook emails to a single PDF, as well as selections of web pages in Internet Explorer. You can also add these separate selections to an existing PDF document, while all PDF files created are up to 20 per cent smaller than those created with version 6.0. Technical illustrators and engineers are well served in the new version, as it lets you convert industry standard AutoCAD files to more portable PDF files. Another advanced new feature for this market is the ability to add 3D content to a PDF document, with embedded JavaScript to provide custom controls for the viewer.

A QUICK GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW ACROBAT FEATURES Packed with user-friendly features, this new release is worth a second look

Ë3D COMES TO PDF

With Acrobat 7 Pro, you can embed 3D objects and animated scenes in the new U3D format into PDF documents, then add JavaScript controls for navigation, appearance and behaviour. Multi-layered and multi-page AutoCAD files can also be converted to compact, layered and searchable PDF files with just the touch of a button.

ÓCONVERT DOCUMENTS

Convert Windows and Microsoft Outlook email messages or selected portions of an Internet Explorer web page to Adobe PDF files with just one click. By converting a selection to PDF, you can capture only the relevant content, skipping the ads, navigational links, or other unwanted elements.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

FASTER PERFORMANCE Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro launches up to four times faster than Acrobat 6.0 and creates PDF files that can be opened and viewed within a matter of seconds.

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SCAN PAPER Easily scan multiplepage paper documents wholly within Acrobat and convert them into searchable PDF files with one-button control.

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GET ORGANISED Quickly locate and view thumbnails and group PDF files using the efficient Organizer tool, easily adding PDF files to new or existing file collections.

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ANOTHER DIMENSION Embed and manipulate 3D objects within your PDF files and convert AutoCAD objects to multilayered PDFs.

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SIZE MATTERS Built-in functions enable you to measure distance, perimeters and area within a PDF file. You can manually specify the scale used for these measurements.

INFO

ÓCOMBINE ASSETS AND EXTEND YOUR WORKGROUP

Multiple PDF files can be easily combined to create a single project PDF, which can then be shared with all project team members for review, mark-up and comments. You can involve everyone in the workgroup in your design decisions by enabling commenting tools for Adobe Reader 7.0 users.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

ÓSCAN PAPER DOCUMENTS

The Create PDF from Scanner dialog box lets you scan a multi-page document, perform OCR and apply tags to a new searchable PDF document in one single step. It also provides robust controls over image and OCR settings.

MAC: PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor, Mac OS X v.10.2.8, 10.3, 128MB RAM, 495MB of hard-disk space, 1,024x768 screen resolution PC: Pentium processor, Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2; Windows XP Pro, XP Home, or Tablet PC Edition, 128MB RAM, 460MB of hard-disk space, Internet Explorer 5.5, 1,024x768 screen resolution

CONTACT Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

PRICE

ÌCOLLECT AND ORGANISE

The new Organizer tool uses thumbnails and document properties to locate and group PDF files on your local hard drive, on your network, or even on the web. Once you’ve located the files, you can drag them into collections you define and find them again much more easily. The Organizer also performs actions such as printing or combining on multiple PDF files.

Available as part of Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium or as a standalone product for £464. Registered users of Acrobat 4.0, Acrobat 5.0, Acrobat 6.0 Standard or Acrobat 6.0 Professional can upgrade for £135

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

6

COMMENTING TOOLS Enable reviewers using Adobe Reader 7.0 to use the intuitive Acrobat tools and comment electronically on shared PDF files.

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ADD ATTACHMENTS Add source file attachments to emailed PDF files simply by dragging and dropping them onto the Attachment Tab within Acrobat 7 Pro.

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SECURE FILES Simplify PDF security by applying named security policies instead of creating the settings manually to secure a file each time.

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ADOBE LIVECYCLE Apply advanced security and control to PDF/XML forms with the Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server – the software’s professional form-design tool.

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WATERMARKS Create a watermark quickly and easily by typing in text or by using an image such as a JPEG or BMP file.

Creative Suite 2 •

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WEB & MOBILE AUTHORING

GOLIVE CS2 Although not the highest-profile app in this suite, GoLive CS2 presents a formidable array of web design and development tools to challenge Macromedia’s market monopoly

INTRODUCTION GoLive is now celebrating its tenth anniversary, and to mark this occasion Adobe’s web design software has been upgraded to include a number of impressive and functional features. These include new CSS-P layout tools, a media-rich environment in which to develop open standard mobile content and closer integration with related CS2 titles – all of which make GoLive a more formidable application than ever before. Using more intuitive visual tools, you can now make use of pre-built CSS templates to create standards-reliant CSS-P page layout structures that are more efficient in terms of code and browser compatibility. Such templates are accessible via a new document prompt that bears similarities to Dreamweaver using the regular File>New command. From the same command, you can also create mobile content with support for SVG-Tiny (SVG-t), SMIL, MMS, MPEG-4, XHTML and CSS – all with samples included, so even those new to the platform have no excuse not to experiment with new output. The software is now much more secure and supports Secure FTP and WebDAV via both SSL and SSH. And, naturally, integration with related CS2 titles has been boosted. For example, it is now possible to create mobile content using Illustrator CS2, automate site creation through XHTML in InDesign CS2, and, of course, there are natural links with Photoshop CS2 and ImageReady CS2.

A QUICK GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW GOLIVE FEATURES It’s easier than ever to transfer content to the web or a mobile device

Ó NEW DOCUMENT OPTIONS

The New Document options are now presented in the same way as Dreamweaver, through a centralised dialog interface that provides access to a complete site, right the way down to individual page, CSS layouts and mobile device templates.

Ó CREATE MOBILE CONTENT

The creation of MMS SMIL content will soon become a familiar task to anyone with even the most basic grasp of timelines. You can now embed text, audio, images and animated content using an approach similar to creating animated GIFs within ImageReady.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

MOBILE AUTHORING Enhanced live rendering, driven by a rendering engine from Opera Software, includes a new Small Screen Rendering feature for improved mobile content development.

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SGV-TINY Visual SVG-t authoring (the de-facto interactive standard for mobile phones) allows development of future content to support this emerging standard.

3

CSS AUTHORING Visual CSS authoring boasts useful pre-built drag-and-drop layouts. Take your pick from basic page structures through to fully-functional blog sites.

4

MEDIA QUERYING Mobile CSS support with media queries enables you to generate one design and use style sheets to define multiple profiles.

5

SITE MANAGEMENT Enhanced site management includes support for transferring files through Secure FTP, and Secure WebDAV for both SSH and SSL.

INFO Ó REFINED INTERFACE

There is little change to the overall GoLive interface, so existing users will migrate to the new version easily. Adobe has ensured that new users, too, can navigate the interface with minimum fuss, so you can get straight down to exploring and making the most of the range of new features available.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC: PowerPC G3, Mac OS X 10.2.8 or 10.3, 128MB RAM PC: Pentium 3, Windows 2000 SP3 or XP SP1, 128MB RAM

Ì EASY CSS

A comprehensive range of prebuilt CSS files are now available for immediate application to your basic page layout. CSS configuration benefits from a dynamic real-time preview of how your edits will render.

CONTACT Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

PRICE Estimated street price: £335 Estimated street price for upgrade: £139

Ì BLOGGING OPTIONS

Included among some of the more dynamic elements of GoLive CS is an interesting provision that enables you to create fully functional blog sites, which incorporate more reliable CSS and CSS-P technologies.

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

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ASSET MANAGEMENT Collaborative asset management supports conte nt versioning through Perforce, CVS, Local Directory System and Version Cue.

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NATIVE SUPPORT FOR SMIL AND MMS Create interactive messaging applications quickly and easily using GoLive CS2’s object-based timeline interface.

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SIX APART TYPEPAD This latest GoLive release introduces Six Apart TypePad and Movable Type authoring for effective mobile blogging.

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AUTOMATED FAVICONS The notoriously difficult creation of Favicons (Favorite icons) has been intelligently automated and adds a touch of style to your live websites when bookmarked.

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ENHANCED SUPPORT Tighter integration with the other Creative Suite 2 titles includes automatically generated XHTML content within Adobe InDesign CS2 to help you jump-start the web-design process. Creative Suite 2 •

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ASSET MANAGEMENT

BRIDGE & VERSION CUE CS2 Make the most of your assets in a collaborative environment using the new Bridge feature, which expands on the original Photoshop File Browser. And there are some powerful improvements to Version Cue, too…

INTRODUCTION When the File Browser was first introduced to Photoshop 7, it allowed much improved access to digital assets and was quickly appreciated by its user base. Improvements within Photoshop CS saw the feature gain a little more independence, but it is through CS2 that the feature has evolved into its own stand-alone application, otherwise known as Bridge. Independent from Photoshop, Bridge promises to offer a central point through which you can access and launch files for any of the CS2 applications with recognition for the PSD, AI, INDD and PDF proprietary formats, in addition to the more generic formats such as JPG, TIFF and EPS. Another major feature Bridge enjoys is direct access to royalty-free images courtesy of a number of major providers, so now you can find suitable imagery for your current project with the minimum of fuss. Bridge may benefit the individual user, but for the collaborative design environment the advances made to Version Cue will be invaluable. With natural integration to Bridge, Version Cue enables multiple designers to work on the same or variant images while staying aware of each other’s developments. Web-based review practices mean such developments can be carried out over a Wide Area Network and with an approval system in place you can be sure that any revised work will have been cleared for further development.

A QUICK GUIDE TO THE NEW BRIDGE FEATURE Easy access to your digital assets

ÓSOURCE IMAGES

With the integration of the new Adobe Stock Photos feature it is now possible to quickly search and download comps for specific imagery that may be suitable for your current project.

ÓEFFICIENT INTERFACE

Using the new, easily accessible magnification slider at the foot of the Bridge interface, you can increase the scale of your previewed image instantly with no loss of quality.

Ë TEN ESSENTIAL NEW FEATURES 1

REAL-TIME PREVIEWING Preview scalable real-time content within Bridge using a dynamic slider at the foot of the interface.

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• Creative Suite 2

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MULTI-PAGE ACCESS Preview other Creative Suite 2 files – Illustrator CS2 files and InDesign CS2 templates, for example – and browse multi-page PDFs with access to individual pages.

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THE CORE Bridge has evolved from the Photoshop File Browser and is now accessible and available independently to all Creative Suite 2 titles.

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GET CREATIVE It’s easy to add original images to your work using Bridge’s full access to Adobe Stock Photos. Images come courtesy of the Getty, Comstock, Digital Vision, Zefa and Amana libraries.

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FLEXIBLE VIEWING The collapsible Bridge Center provides a convenient hub to access your files without taking over screen real estate.

INFO ÓTHE BRIDGE CENTER

The Bridge Center facility is the core of this software and the entire Creative Suite. From here you gain quick access to recently opened files and directories, as well as tips, advice and an RSS feed that can be configured to show your preferred content.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC: PowerPC G3, Mac OS X 10.2.8 or 10.3, 384MB RAM PC: Pentium 3, Windows 2000 SP3 or XP SP1, 384MB RAM

CONTACT Adobe Systems 020 7365 0733 www.adobe.co.uk

PRICE

Both Bridge and Version Cue are components of the Creative Suite, so no individual pricing is available

Ó EASY ADMINISTRATION

Version Cue administration is a simple task when run through the locally-hosted configuration. Options are available for you to add users and projects with varying degrees of permissions, so you can accurately review a project’s status.

ÓVIEWING OPTIONS

With options to run Bridge in Compact or Ultra-Compact mode, you can be sure that the utility will be constantly within reach – floating itself above any CS2 applications that are currently active.

KEEP UP TO DATE

For all the latest news, reviews and tutorials, log-on to www.computerarts.co.uk

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IMPROVED WORKFLOW Closer integration between Version Cue and Bridge allows a more efficient workflow over both Local and Wide Area Networks.

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METADATA ACCESS Metadata access through both Bridge and Version Cue includes both camera and keyword data.

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SHARE YOUR WORK Web accessible managed PDF-based reviews will help when checking work with remote colleagues or clients.

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EFFICIENT WORK SPACE The program’s simplified file organisation provides quicker access to assets and improved workflow.

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EASY ACCESS Version Cue is fully accessible through the original Creative Suite and all apps supporting the WebDAV protocol.

Creative Suite 2 •

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