Flash Catalyst integration with Adobe Fireworks CS5

Flash Catalyst is a new interaction design tool for the Adobe Flash Platform. In Fireworks CS5, you can export a selection, an entire page, or all of your pages to an FXG 2 file and take that into Flash Catalyst where you can then add structure and interaction. FXG files can be imported into Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Illustrator, and Photoshop, or even added to a Flash Builder project.

Presentation mode in InDesign

Press Shift-W to switch into the new Presentation mode. This will hide the user interface and center and fit your document into the screen. Any extra screen area will be colored black. Press G to change the background to grey, press W to change it to white, and press B to change it back to black.

Paint inside

Use Draw Inside with the new Bristle Brush to fill any shape with beautiful brushstrokes. This brush creates painterly strokes by mimicking the appearance of actual bristles from an artist's brush, but the strokes are still vectors so they're fully editable and scalable. To find the Bristle Brushes, open the Brushes panel (Window>Brushes), click on the flyout menu, and choose Open Brush Library>Bristle Brush>Bristle Brush Library. Click on a brush in the Bristle Brush Library to add it to the Brushes panel, and then double-click on it in the Brushes panel to open the Bristle Brush Options dialog.

Working with keyframes in a tween span

To easily move a property keyframe to a different frame in the same tween span or a different tween span, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) the property keyframe to select it, release the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, then click-and-drag the keyframe to the new location. (If you want to copy the keyframe, Option-drag [PC: Alt-drag]). The trick here is to release the Command (PC: Ctrl) key before you drag the keyframe to avoid selecting additional frames.

Selecting hair in Adobe Photoshop CS5

Significant changes to the Refine Edge dialog take masking hair to a new level. The choices are daunting, but the steps are simple: make a selection with the Quick Selection tool (W); Option-click (PC: Alt-click) to remove unwanted areas; then continue to Select>Refine Edge. Using Black & White (K) from the View menu, choose a 10-15 pixel Radius, enable the Smart Radius checkbox, and voila. Use the Option-click (PC: Alt-click) method with the new Refine Radius tool (E) located in the Refine Edge dialog to refine the final mask.

Preserving Bullets and Numbers in Exported Text

If you plan to export an InDesign story to an RTF file, you’ll need to convert the automatic numbers (or bullets) to text—otherwise, they’ll be stripped out of the converted document.

To preserve automatic bullets and numbers, select your list and choose Type > Bulleted & Numbered Lists > Convert Bullets and Numbering to Text.



Or simply right-click and choose from the menu at your cursor.



You will now be able to select the numbers or bullets as text. The numbers will no longer be “live,” but they will survive intact when you export the story.

Field display settings in the Source and Program Monitors

The Source and Program Monitors can now be set to display the first, second, or both fields for interlaced footage. This can be useful when you need to grab a frame to use as a still. This was a top feature request from law enforcement investigation and forensic users.

Use Imagineer Systems mocha for After Effects for motion tracking

After Effects includes the mocha for After Effects (mocha-AE) standalone motion tracking application from Imagineer Systems. This planar tracker handles motion-tracking jobs that would be difficult with the built-in After Effects motion tracker. So, whether you need to replace a billboard on a bus or the contents of a mobile phone screen, try mocha for After Effects.

Interactive, cross-browser previews

Pausing drop-down menus in place, Ajax data in a particular state of display, tabs in a particular open/closed configuration, etr page right to BrowserLab to view it in all of the available browsers across operating systems.

Round and round we go

A huge timesaver, and a giant benefit to working with Flash Catalyst, is its integration with other Adobe Creative Suite design tools. By selecting a vector or bitmap graphic in Flash Catalyst and Right-clicking on it, you can quickly bring it into Adobe Illustrator CS5 or Adobe Photoshop CS5, make changes, then automatically merge the changes back into Flash Catalyst. This roundtrip editing lets you use familiar design products to easily add interactivity to your static artwork.

Scaling to Specific Size in InDesign

You know you want to scale an object (text frame, graphic frame, path, or group) to a particular width or height, but what percentage should you type in the X% or Y% fields of the Control panel to achieve that size?

It’s easy: replace the 100% in one of those fields with an absolute value – the size you want it to be. For example, if you type 10cm, InDesign will do the math for you, figuring out what percentage it should scale the object(s).

Punch out holes in your extrusions!

In the Repouss dialog you can manipulate the constraint (sub-path) using any of the Internal Constraints tools to either punch it out to make a hole or add separate extrusion parameters. You can also add constraints to an existing Repouss object by drawing a selection or path and choosing either 3D Repouss Create Constraints From Selection(s) or Selected Path(s). You can also use the Add(Selection) or Add(Path) buttons in the Internal Constraints section of the Repouss dialog.

Text layout in Adobe Fireworks CS5

Text is part of nearly every design, and for Fireworks CS5, lots of refinements have been added to the already impressive text layout features. A favorite is the new noncontiguous selection feature after selecting some text characters in a text object using the Text tool (T), press-and-hold the Shift key and click-and-drag to select additional noncontiguous characters.

Mind the gap in Adobe InDesign CS5

At the position of the gap, and the frames on either side of the gap will adjust at the same time the uniform gap width will be maintained! Hold down the Shift key to only adjust the two closest items relative to the gap. Hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key to resize the gap instead of moving it.

Masking reversed in Adobe Illustrator CS5

Instead of creating complex artwork and then drawing another object on top to mask that artwork, you can now simply click on any object and change the drawing mode to Draw Inside (Shift-D) at the bottom of the Toolbox. After you've set Draw Inside, the selected object will mask everything you draw. Draw Inside also supports the Paste and Place commands pasting inside an object has finally come to Illustrator.

Display full color when editing a single channel

As you may know, images are made up of channels on which color detail is stored. By default, all the channels in a Photoshop document are selected to show the full color of the image. Sometimes, though, you need to work an individual channel in the Channels panel for editing purposes. What isn't necessary is for you to view just the color on the selected channel while editing it.

After you select the channel you want to edit, simply press the Tilde key [~]. Now, you can view the image in full color while editing only the selected channel.

Display full color when editing a single channel

As you may know, images are made up of channels on which color detail is stored. By default, all the channels in a Photoshop document are selected to show the full color of the image. Sometimes, though, you need to work an individual channel in the Channels panel for editing purposes. What isn't necessary is for you to view just the color on the selected channel while editing it.

After you select the channel you want to edit, simply press the Tilde key [~]. Now, you can view the image in full color while editing only the selected channel.

Delete layer masks quickly and skip the warning with this trick

You decide you don't want a layer mask after all and click and drag it to the trash to delete it. But Photoshop prompts you with the warning, asking if you want to apply the layer mask before you delete it. In all fairness, Photoshop's just looking out for you, but you don't have to receive such oversight. If you're sure you don't want to apply the mask before deleting it, then bypass Photoshop's warning by pressing [option] ([Alt] in Windows) as you click and drag the layer mask to the trash.

To spring or not to spring

In Flash Professional CS5 you can now add springiness to any IK Bone in an armature. The Strength (stiffness of the spring) and Damping (rate of decay of the spring effect) properties of bones give real physical movement by integrating dynamic physics into the IK Bones system. However, it may be desirable to turn off Spring for bones without having to set both values to zero on every bone. To do this, select the Timeline layer that the armature is in to reveal an Enable checkbox for Springs in the Properties panel

Working with Photoshop & InDesign

Knowing Photoshop is one thing, but knowing how Photoshop can be used across the whole Adobe Creative Suite is another. In this three part series, we will be focusing on the features that will help you become more productive when using Photoshop in conjunction with InDesign, Dreamweaver & Illustrator.

By looking at the features that often get overlooked and by demonstrating how you can use them in conjunction with other CS programs, it will make you a much more efficient designer.

Content-Aware Scaling


When you are required to include a photo in your InDesign layout but the photo isn’t working to the layout you had in mind, a useful trick is to take advantage of the CS4 feature of Content Aware Scaling. This feature allows you to keep the important details of the photo without ruining too much of the composition of the original photograph. Select what area you want scale, then go to Edit, then Content-Aware Scaling. Remember to use the “Protect Skin Tones” option when working on people as this usually yields the best results – click the human silhouette icon to turn it on.