imageSynth for Photoshop By Ko Maruyama Many people know modo. What some don't know is that the company who makes the premiere 3D software is called Luxology. In addition to the 3D modeling, animation and paint software that Luxology has created, they are now offering a new tool called "imageSynth" which works within Photoshop. ...Read More »

JUST THE BASICS By Ko Maruyama While there is a lot of control to be had by modeling using polygonal shapes and NURBS objects, there is no reason you can't start your exploration of CINEMA 4D software with some serious modeling using only primitive shapes and some simple modeling tools. I put my assistant, Will Goodan to the task of modeling as much as he could without using splines, NURBS or editable meshes. For rigid objects like this speaker, primitives worked just fine. ...Read More »

From After Effects to Flash and Back, Part 2 By Kevin Schmitt If you were with me for the last installment, you're already hip to the palpable excitement in the air that has already worked its way into a fever pitch. Today we're going to--wait for it--take the content we made last time in After Effects and put it all together in Flash. I, for one, can't wait, so let's get this party started. ...Read More »

Lenovo ThinkPad Z61T notebook computer By John Virata Notebook computers have been fast outselling desktops, and the market for these devices is fast becoming glazed over as notebooks become more similar in look and feel as well as in price and performance. First it was the widescreen format that attempted to differentiate units, then it became price. Lenovo has begun to address this bland, me-too disease by delivering the ThinkPad Z61T notebook, which not only offers speedy processors, WiFi, and other features, but delivers the experience in cases that others can only dream of delivering. ...Read More »

Questions Answered 3: Illustrator Brushes By Dave Nagel Chris from the Bay Area writes in, asking about custom brushes in Adobe Illustrator: "... Is there a way to save a new brush to a custom brush library? I would like my new brush to be available at all times, not just in the file for which it was created." Yes indeed. In fact there are two methods you can use, each with its own advantages. ...Read More »

Enabling Interactivity For Usability In Flash 8 In this video-based tutorial excerpted from the Flash Professional 8 Beyond the Basics training course, Shane Rebenschied shows you how to build Flash 8 applications that include user interactivity via ActionScript. ...Read More »

Mel Gibson, Trash Talk and Mobile Syndication By Mike Browne Mel Gibson stepped up just when I was looking for a subject for my CFC cartoon series that airs specifically on cellphones. CFC stands for "Celebrity Fart Challenge". Gross yes, but it pays the bills. ...Read More »

Creating & Saving Custom Brushes in Corel Painter IX Learn how easy it is to create custom brushes in Corel Painter IX and how to save them, allowing you to build your own library of custom brushes and brush effects. ...Read More »

Astute Graphics Phantasm CS By Dave Nagel If you sat down and compiled a wish list for Adobe Illustrator, chances are that a suite of robust color adjustment tools would make it somewhere in the top five. It's such a basic, fundamental feature that you'd think somebody on the development side would have crammed it in there by now. (Give them time. Illustrator's only 20 years old. They'll get to it eventually.) But fortunately, Astute Graphics has come along with an affordable and robust solution to fill this void: Phantasm CS. ...Read More »

Sun CEO at communication`s vanguard, among the few chiefs speaking to public through blog By The Associated Press At the helm of Sun Microsystems Inc., Jonathan Schwartz became "un blogeur" last week when he started publishing his blog in French and nine other languages. ...Read More »

Moho Reborn By Ko Maruyama A robust, although lesser-known animation application called Moho has been in the pocket of many vector-based animators. With the ability to create tons of animation styles with more features than similar software, Moho's metamorphosis into a studio-style package is no mystery. It's pairing with other eFrontier software however, is a surprising, but interesting match. ...Read More »

After Effects 7 Animation Techniques In After Effects 7 Animation Techniques, Jeff Foster shares methods and best practices for creating fantastic animation. From setting up a camera and getting the right angles, to imitating the movement of the human skeleton and animating text layers, Foster explains everything you need to know to create and edit animations for the most realistic effects. In this segment Jeff demonstrates animating text layers in After Effects using Photoshop text layers with displacement. ...Read More »

Photoshop Tip: Tinting the Grays in a Color Image By Dave Nagel We've recently looked at a few methods for desaturating selective elements of a photo, with a particular emphasis on minimizing the manual labor involved. So what if, after desaturating parts of an image, you them want to colorize them to create even more of a nostalgic feel? No problem. ...Read More »

CREATIVE AFTER EFFECTS 7 By Ko Maruyama After Effects users, or artists who want to learn the software, constantly ask me which book they should buy as a guide. After Effects has been around for quite a while, and as a result, there are many books about the application. The first book I've seen on After Effects 7 is Angie's Creative After Effects 7. Here's the scoop. ...Read More »

Photoshop Tip: Color Range in Hue/Saturation By Dave Nagel In our last Photoshop tutorial, we desaturated an image of all but a single color to create a nostalgic photo effect. For the particular image we used, the process was simple, since the object we left saturated was the only one of that particular hue in the image. But what happens when there are elements in your photo composed of similar hues to the object you're trying to isolate? ...Read More »

Photoshop Tip: Desaturating Parts of a Picture By Dave Nagel One common way to create a nostalgic effect in a photo is to desaturate all but one element in the photo--a balloon, a flower, a dress, what have you. And if you have a particularly complex element that you want to leave saturated, this can be quite a masking chore. But there are other techniques that can save you some time in the process. In this first Photoshop quick tip, we'll take a look at one simple method: using Hue/Saturation to desaturate all but one color from a picture. ...Read More »

Distributing Objects in Adobe Illustrator, Part 2 By Dave Nagel In our last tutorial on object distribution in Adobe Illustrator, we looked at a fairly routine method for spreading out objects evenly across and down a page. But there were limitations to that technique. So this time around, we'll take a look at a different method--one that gives you a bit more control over the results and also allows you to introduce rotation into the objects that you spread over the page to create spirals, wreaths and other geometric patterns. ...Read More »

Quick Tip: Text Distortions in Adobe Illustrator By Dave Nagel Creating a logo from scratch or reproducing a logo can require complex text distortions, which usually requires you to convert text to outlines and then go through a series of difficult or time-consuming path manipulations. However, there's a quicker way for some projects, and one that doesn't require you to convert text to outlines: envelope distortions. ...Read More »

A Stroll Through Office 2007 By Lynn Greiner Microsoft's Office 2007 will sport a shiny new interface. Lynn Greiner walks you through a few of the changes, and points out likely places where users might be confused. ...Read More »

Illustrator Tip: Distributing Objects By Dave Nagel "Distribute" commands are some of the more misunderstood features of Adobe Illustrator. It's likely that you've tried to use them a few times, given up and forgotten they ever existed. And it is, in fact, tricky to get them to do what you think they should do: distribute objects across your canvas. But with a little trickery, you can actually use these commands or this purpose. ...Read More »