8 common mistakes when working with color

The Color Purple. Such a great story and a fantastic movie.

Unfortunately, as designers, we don’t have the luxury of talking about colors figuratively. Our world is mostly RGB, CMYK or hexadecimal, with regular trips to HSB.

It might not sound fun but it’s a serious business. Working with color is an essential part of the graphic design industry and mistakes with color can be a big financial loss in the print industry.

Dash away all in Adobe Illustrator CS5

The new dash adjustment option for strokes will make dashes look as if they were carefully and correctly placed-evenly distributed on a path and cleanly bisecting any corners, even on complex shapes such as a 20-pointed star. To turn this option on, go to the Stroke panel (Window>Stroke), click the Dashed Line checkbox, and select the second icon to the far right: Aligns Dashes to Corners and Path Ends, Adjusting Lengths to Fit. Want to keep that setting turned on for future object creation? Deselect New Art Has Basic Appearance from the Appearance panel's flyout menu (Window>Appearance).

Tips for useful quick look Leopard 10.5

Quick Look is likely the only feature in Leopard 10.5 that I actually notice and something I would certainly miss if I went back to 10.4, it’s just too useful. We've listing usage tips, some are built right in and won’t require modification, while others will require 3rd party plugins to use. Here’s the full list, minus the detail:

1. Identify files on remote machines.
2. Preview the contents of Zip files (plug-in required).
3. Preview the contents of a folder (plug-in required).
4. Examine snippets of code with syntax highlighting intact.
6. Prep your iWork documents for use with Quick Look.
7. Enhance TextMate.
8. Preview fonts.
9. Quick Look and Cover Flow.
10. Send images to iPhoto.

How to Choose the Right Color for Your Site

The Internet is an almost inexhaustible source of applications and sites and given the current trend the future will bring a steady growth both in numbers but also in importance. The winner of this avalanche of possibilities is definitely the Internet user who will decide who will thrive and who will require a rethinking or changing of strategy.

One of the most important factors in attracting customers is the color; its eye-catching power can convert visitors into regular users or customers. Choosing a color scheme for a site is not easy, this being emphasized by the importance of color in the whole ensemble.

Hands-On With The New iPhone 5

The iPhone 5 is real and nearly ready to ship and we got a bit of hands-on time with it today. The new phone is just a bit longer than the current iPhone 4S and far speedier. Maps and photos flew by and the various apps popped up in a few seconds.

It’s not as earth-shatteringly different than the iPhone 4S, to be sure. While the real benchmarks and games aren’t quite available yet, folks who haven’t used the 4S will notice a bump.

Solving the Mystery of of Overset Text in InDesign

Did you ever come across text that mysteriously became overset when you copied and pasted it to another page (or document). Sometimes text can go from OK to overset even if you just nudge its text frame a tiny amount. What's going on? A text crime has been committed! Round up the usual suspects!

View two colors modes in Photoshop

When creating a document that you'll eventually convert from RGB to CMYK, it can sometimes be difficult to picture how the colors will look upon conversion. To eliminate the guesswork, here's how to work on your RGB document while previewing it in CMYK:

Open an RGB image in Photoshop. Then, choose Window > Workspace > New Window for document name.

Doing so opens a second view of your document. Next, choose View > Proof Setup > Working CMYK. Now go back to your original document and work away while previewing
everything in CMYK.