I came across this YouTube video from MacMost. It gives instruction on how to create a customized slide show in iMovie (rather then iPhoto). Besides the vacation stuff, it could also be a good way of providing marketing information to a potential client interested in your quilts or artwork. You can put together some images, add titles, information under each image, and so on.
I came across a free Mac OSX utility program called PagePacker. The program gives you the tools to create a little 8-page organizer from one sheet of paper.
After launching the program, you’ll see a template page with eight sections. The program comes with a variety of DIY Planner pages, such as daily, weekly, and monthly to-do lists, calendar pages, and so on. You then select a form and drag it onto the template. You can also bring in your own PDFs and images. Once the eight sections of the template are filled, it’s time to print. After it’s printed, you fold, fold, snip, fold and – presto – you have a booklet.
In addition to the to-do list reminder booklets, with some careful folding and a bit of glue stick, you can make a very cool little booklet with quilt images. Or with some Misty Fuse or Wonder Under, you can make a small fabric booklet. Once you understand the orientation and layout for each page, you can create as large a book as the paper your printer can handle. How? Print the book to a PDF. Then import the PDF into a program such as InDesign or Photoshop and enlarge it as much as you need to.
If you don’t have a Mac, there is an online tool – PocketMod – that’s similar. To run the application within your browser, you’ll need a Flash player. Also, there’s a video that gives you a quick demo of the folding and snipping process.
There are a lot of online color tools. And while researching an article on color-related websites for an upcoming article for the National Quilting Association’s quarterly journal, I discovered one called Color Sphere that I enjoyed and wanted to share. To quote, “Sphere uses basic color theory in order to automatically provide you with visually appealing colors.” They also call it “an online color theory visualizer.”
By selecting one of the formulas, such as complementary or split-complementary or even clash, you can see how a selected color or colors will interact.
The tool also allows you to select a formula and simulate how the colors will look under different forms of colorblindness.
You can view the full spectrum, web smart, or web safe colors. The above is the web safe palette. While you cannot control the size of the swatch or mix colors such as a pastel with a heavily saturated color, it’s an interesting tool.
I was happy to learn that this tool, created by Mudcube and minus the sliders, is also available as a free Macintosh widget to download and add to your Dashboard tools.
Click here to download the Dashboard Widget from Apple.
ColorSchemer, Design in Harmony, also offers a free application for Windows users called ColorPix and another widget for Mac users called Galleria. Windows users can also download Just Color Picker from Anny Studio. It that allows you to select a particular pixel under your mouse and transform it into different color formats and then select different color harmonies.
I came across this new search engine, Search Me. It’s visual-based, allowing you to see the site that relates to what you’re searching for.
For example, when I search on my name, the first site that comes up is my personal site (which is good). As I scroll through, I find all kinds of things — like an old interview of me done more than 10 years ago! — and some pages that have nothing to do with me (my name is so common!).
If you’re a Mac user, you’ll see that the view is nearly identical to that “Cover Flow” view in the Leopard OS.
Under the Preferences, you can do things like create a “day theme” which makes the background white rather than the “night theme” (the default) which makes the background black.
You can also select “searchme lite” which gives a vertical column of pages with a white background.
The program allows the creation of “stacks” — kind of like bookmarks, but visual. To use stacks, first create a stack name. Then, each time you find a page that you’d like to save into a particular stack, you drag the page and drop it into that stack. Then, the next time you’re on the site, you can look at your stack to see what’s updated on those pages. Search Me provides some stacks. Being a news junkie, I loaded up the News stack, which includes 13 news sites. There are other news sites that I like checking out. To add them, I opened each and then dragged and dropped each page directly onto the stack. The stack tools section includes the ability to email the stacks, share them, and so on. There is also video tutorials on the site explaining how to create and use stacks.
Here’s the “news” stack which I copies from their example stacks. (Caveat: the stack was working when I added it. If you don’t see it, first give it a chance to load, then check to see if you have a Flash plugin, finally let me know as it’s posible that they changed the code.) Under the “share” link in the Stacks section, there is an option to share to a blog, which is what I did here. There is information on their site on how to do this (basically grabbing the HTML code and putting it directly into the source of your blog page).
Important to note: The site is BETA, and it requires Flash. That means that while most of it works, it’s still int the testing phase and is a bit buggy. Also important to note, if you clear your Flash cache, you will lose your stacks. Here’s a workaround: (1) Email the stack to yourself; (2) open the email and click the link to see the stack in your Searchme browser window; (3) click the copy link within site to save it to your stack. A caveat: I do not know how long the email link is good for. For this reason, save any favorites the “old fashioned way” — in your bookmarks folder!
Last night I had the pleasure of being the first guest in a telecast hosted by The Professional Quilter magazine. The topic was digital-related and it covered a few of the topics in my book. I was looking forward to taking questions. However, the format of the telecast didn’t allow for me to hear questions from participants but rather to take them through email. The following is one of the questions I received. I’m sharing it and my answer in the hopes that it will be helpful to someone else in this situation.
The question:
I am trying to sell hand-dyed fabrics and am concerned about my potential customers being concerned that the color on their monitor will be the same as the fabric they receive. I was thinking of adding a swatch of white to each photo? Will this help.
Answer:
It won’t hurt, and it may give a point of reference knowing that the swatch should read white. Thus if the white fabric reads darker than it should, chance are the hand-dyed fabric would also be darker.
The main question is can you match what your customer sees on his/her monitor to the actual fabric they receive. The answer is you generally cannot guarantee what your customer sees. Why? There are several factors that are outside of your control. They include:
To alert your customers, consider including a statement on your fabric page that the color being displayed may vary from the actual color of the fabric. If color is critical, the person should contact you for more information. Something like ..
“I have made every effort to photographically represent that fabric as best as possible. However, because of the wide variations in monitor quality and color settings, I cannot guarantee that what you see on your monitor will exactly match the actual fabric color. If color is critical and you have any questions about the fabric, please contact me and I will be happy to help.”
If you have a digital-related question that you’d like to ask me, please drop me a line and I’ll try to help.
Color management is basically a system whereby you try to match the color between your various devices. The bottom line for me is that I want what comes out of my printer to match what I see on my monitor – or darn near close to it. For the most part, it does. However, I find when printing on certain fabrics I adjust settings too many times which results in wasted ink and fabric. Thus, I’ve been considering buying some tools to calibrate my various monitors and printers to work in harmony. However, with equipment for profiling a monitor and printer is expensive and can run a couple thousand dollars.
When at Photoshop World in Orlando this past March, I saw information about a new product that was being shown on the tech floor — ColorMunki. This single product profiles a monitor, printer, and projector, and for about $500. Big difference in price! There are two versions — the photo version and the designer version. I’m told they are the same, except they are being marketed to different audiences. I was prepared to buy the designer version, but only the photographer version was available for purchase at the show, and I wanted it then and purchased it.
The main ingredients of Colormunki are a spectrophotometer and profiling software. A spectrometer measures bandwidths of visible light. And while you can look at your monitor and print and make adjustments based on how you see the color, a spectrophotometer does it with complete accuracy. The profiling software takes the measurements from the spectrophotometer and create a unique profile for the device your are profiling.
Heres the Colormunki spectrophotometer.
After the software is loaded and launched, you select what you want to profile. The software then walks you through the various steps — very user friendly.
I started by calibrating my monitor. The software instructs you to place the spectrophotometer within a designated area directly on your monitor . The device comes with a weighted bag that drapes over the back of the monitor so that the device stays in place. As the calibration is taking place, various color fills the screen as the device takes its measurements. My job was to basically sit and watch. When it’s finished, it creates a profile of the monitor.I’m using Macintosh equipment, and I’m happy to say that the Colorsync color management that is part of the Mac OS was extremely close to the profile created by the spectrophotometer.
Next I wanted to create a color profile for a particular silk I print on. The software instructed me to first print a color test pattern onto the media – in my case the silk.
After the print is made, I use the same spectrophotometer to slowly read each vertical strip of colors.
When the colors are read into the software, a vertical gold box instructs you to move over and scan the next vertical strip of colors. It did take me a few times to learn how to get the spectrophotometer exactly placed. But the system is very patient and will not move the gold box until the complete scan of the row is read.
After it is finished, the software instructs you to print a second set of colors, and the process is completed. This is where you’ll see a difference in color, depending on the media you’re profiling. After those colors are read in, a profile for that particular media (in my case the silk) with the printer it was printed with in my case an Epson) is created. Then, the next time when printing on that fabric, I use the profile it created.
When printing, regardless if you use a profile installed on your computer or one that you create, it is important not to double profile!
If I want to work with the specific profile I created to use with silk, I need to turn off the color management within the print driver. Otherwise I will be using two profiles — the one I created and the one the printer driver provides. Using two profiles is known as “double-profiilng,” and the vast majority of times will create a print with a heavy magenta cast.
To use a profile you created or one installed within your image editing software such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements), do the following:
Using Epson’s printer driver color management
I have also found that the profiles included with Epson print driver work very well. In that case, turn off the color management when in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. To do so, reverse the instructions:
In my book “Digital Essentials,” coming this fall from Electric Quilt, I have a chapter on color management. While I mention Colormunki and some other systems available for purchase, I do not go into any detail. Instead, the chapter focuses on how to use the tools that come with your computer and image editing software.
In other words, not everyone can afford a spectrophotometer – even the $500 model. Even so, you still can get very good color matching using software tools. Prior to buying this system, all of the digital prints I’ve made were done using the built-in Colorsync management that comes with the and using the Epson print driver to manage colors.
What’s with the egg timer, you wonder? It’s something that I’ve been using to get my butt into gear so that I can work on something that I don’t feel like working on.
Here’s what I do: I set the timer for 45 minutes. I tell myself to work on whatever it is that I don’t want to work on for only 45 minutes. No more. No less. Just 45 minutes. When the alarm goes off, I stop. I might write only one paragraph, an opening or a closing. I may stare at my monitor and only type out a few sentences. If the project feels like a particularly big job, I may organize things for that 45 minutes. I’ll pull together notes, arrange them in a file, highlight things that are important, and so on. If I need to work on a design, I set up my documents, look at the images I need to work with, and do some digital sketches and color schemes. Whatever it is that I’m stuck with, I give it 45 minutes. Once that alarm goes off, I stop.
This method tends to work for me. More often than not, something does start to come together and I want to work longer. But I don’t. I move onto something else. What generally happens is that later in the day I start to crave the original project that I had a hard time with. I get an idea, or ideas, and I want to return to the project. Generally by the next day, I find myself looking forward to working on the very projected that I dreaded. Okay, there are some jobs that I still muddle through. Even so, I know that if I put those 45 minutes in, eventually I will get it finished.
Now, the problem with my egg timer: It ticks. And it ticks loudly. And it has a very shrill alarm that not only jolts me, but jolts my sweetie 92 pound doggie off the floor and into high alert mode. While most of the time I can handle the ticking, especially when I muffle it with a towel, the alarm is annoying. As a result, I’ve been looking for a new timer that is quiet and has a soothing alarm (is that an oxymoron?).
Enter widgets. Widgets are small little programs that can be added to the Mac OSX Dashboard. I visited the widget page at Apple to sift through the thousands available. There were so many capturing my attention that I got totally sidetracked. There’s even a juice bar widget that provides a new fruit juice recipe daily! After digressing, I returned to the matter at hand and found two promising timers.
How could I resist a widget called EggTimer? This one is very straight forward: Set the time, click the Start button, and off it goes. The timer doesn’t tick and the alarm is three chimes. Three? By the second chime my doggie’s ears started to perk up.
ProdMe is the second widget that I downloaded. Its sound is described as “the chimes of a grandfather clock …” This timer has lots of neat features, including text alerts. While it can’t be set for more than an hour (at least I haven’t discovered it yet), the chime is one melodic note that I like and that doesn’t bother my dog one bit.
Sure I could have used iCal, but I like these widgets.
I now have two quiet timers, each with a soothing alarm. Now to get busy.
Earlier this year at MacWorld, I learned that the definition of nearly any word is easily found by using Leopard’s Spotlight, the search tool included in the Mac OS. I had forgotten about it until I came across a similar tip in today’s NY Times.
There are two ways to access the reference library to learn the definition of a word:
One is by using a keyboard shortcut. The default is Command-Spacebar. This brings up the Spotlight window. The other is to click on the magnifying glass on the upper right of any menu bar.
Then, type in the word to find its definition. I typed in “computer” and then selected Definition from the drop-down menu. A Reference Library box pops up, with different reference options — Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wikipedia.
Clicking “All” brings up the word in all reference libraries. In order for Wikipedia to work, however, you need an Internet connection.
First, a refresher on how to create a PDF in the Mac OS. 
Any printable document in your Mac (and this applies to operating systems prior to Leopard) can quickly be made into a PDF. To do so, open the document, go to File > Print and then select “Save as PDF.” Name your document and click the Save button. Voila, a PDF.
The New PDF Options: combining, deleting pages, and rearranging pages using Preview
Preview, a program that comes preinstalled in the Applications folder on a Mac, has expanded its PDF features under the Leopard OS. You can now combine multiple PDFs, delete or add pages to a PDF, and rearrange pages in a PDF. This is a great way to organize your PDFs into related topics.
Here are the basics
To add a PDF:
To rearrange the pages within a PDF:
When finished, name and save the PDF.
Here are some additional tips:
If a document is already a PDF and you click on the print command, you’ll see there is an option under PDF to open it in Preview.
I generally put the PDFs that I want to work with onto my desktop. I then select them all and drag them onto the Preview application icon in my Dock. To select multiple contiguous documents, hold the shift key down and drag across the documents you’d like to select. To select non-contiguous documents, hold the command key and click each.
If you don’t have Preview in your Dock, and you’d like to add it, first locate the program. Go to your Applications folder, and scroll down until your see Preview. Then drag the program directly to your Dock. Remember, this is simply placing a short cut to the program; the program remains in your applications folder.
