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Photoshop Actions to Emulate Instagram Effects

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I’m not always a fan of heavily processed images, but as a matter of artistic expression, I often like to “play” around with images for some cool effects. Since I got the iPhone, I’ve really liked a lot of the image looks that can be accomplished using Instagram. But, since most of my images are shot using my Nikon, and not my iPhone, I wanted to create a set of actions that would emulate Instagram while within Photoshop.

Turns out, I don’t have to! Daniel Box has already done a bunch of these, and he’s made the actions available for FREE (Thank you, Mr. Box!) He says they’re not “100% exact match, but they’re pretty darn great – and remember, you can still tweak your images in Photoshop to improve at will.

Check out the FREE action download at: http://dbox.tumblr.com/post/5426249009/instagram-filters-as-photoshop-actions

GIF Files – Possible Photoshop CS5 Security Risk!

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Here’s something new… According to John Nack – official Adobe blogger – maliciously coded GIF files can cause crashes in Photoshop (I’m thinking other possible security risks as well).

There is a fix, however – so visit John Nack’s Blog to find the appropriate resolution to the problem:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2011/08/plug-in-security-fix-for-photoshop-cs5.html 

I Love Lions – But Don’t Know if I Want One as a Pet

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Lions are beautiful animals – smart, strong, powerful. However, I’m not feeling that great about upgrading to the new Mac OSX 10.7 Lion. From what I read, it seems that some features on which I depend are going to be either completely deprecated, or won’t function at all in the way I want them.

However, I am NOT an early adopter – I don’t install version 1 of ANYTHING, especially an operating system. It’s my hope that by the time I do install it (probably around the .2 update), Apple will have addressed my needs for Address Book, and iCal, and will have maybe found a way to sell Rosetta as an addition to Lion – or at least for Parallels to devise a way for me to use my Snow Leopard installation in emulation, and have resolved some issues I already see as being against my personal interests to upgrade.

However, many of my clients ARE early adopters, and I get the phone calls to help bring them back, when they’re sorry for what they did. That’s great – thanks – I love the work! But, as I’ve mentioned to ALL my clients and students in the past, it’s IMPERATIVE to have a reliable “Cloned Backup” of their original startup disk.

This article addresses how one may go about resurrecting your Snow Leopard installation, if they don’t like Lion. It emphasizes the “Cloned Backup” idea quite strongly.  A good read:
http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-downgrade-from-lion-to-snow-leopard/ 

InDesign Templates – FREE Download

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One of the big complaints about InDesign CS5.5 – with all it’s hoo-ha about being so great for developing materials for the broadening range of devices – was that Adobe’d stopped shipping it with all the Templates they used to include!

Pre-created Templates are great for  deconstructing and developing personal, creative designs without starting from scratch.

Today, InDesignSecrets.com has posted links to bunches of the original templates (they’ve used CS4’s versions) for free download. SO nice not to have to hand-make the CD label template again!

http://indesignsecrets.com/adobes-free-indesign-templates-now-available-at-indesignsecrets.php  

Tutorial by Dave Cross on reducing Gradient Banding

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Gradient banding is the effect in which the transition lines in a gradient are too visible. For Photoshop, this is more often an issue for onscreen images than it is in print (it’s rather the opposite in Illustrator)

on KelbyTV (one of my favorite places) Dave Cross has a very interesting tutorial on some anti-banding techniques.

You can watch the video here:

 http://kelbytv.com/askdave/2011/07/11/reduce-banding-in-gradients/