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A Guide to Using Waveform Monitors as Artistic Tools in Color Grading

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For my students who’re color grading their footage using an external waveform monitor – Tektronix has just posted a Primer on Color grading theory and techniques.

AND, it’s my second favorite price- FREE!

http://www.tek.com/regional-page/guide-using-waveform-monitors-artistic-tools-color-grading?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=publications&utm_content=guidetocolorgrading&utm_campaign=aimclear

Creative Cloud Backlash

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SO many people are responding negatively to Adobe’s recent announcement of their sole offering of a cloud based Creative Cloud subscription that I’m seeing dozens of posts on the subject. The article below offers some links to follow the discussion (read: Rebellion), and a link to a petition to sign, if you find a life-long payment plan is not for you!

http://creativebits.org/photoshop/creative_suite_6_forever

Get rid of that Space-Wasting “Other” on iPhone

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I’m a Software Instructor and Mac Consultant – not an iPhone expert, so I was pleased to find an answer to a question today.

I have a 16GB iPhone 4, which has quite a lot of apps, music, video, photos and books on it. So, I’d expect to have a lot of space used on my phone. However, even with all this stuff, I was losing storage space to a “little item” called “Other” in my iTunes view of my phone – I was losing 2.6GB of space!!

I knew I could restore from a backup, but I’d just spent quite a bit of time clearing some photos and didn’t really want to spend an hour restoring from backup.

Fortunately, I found a very simple solution that worked perfectly:

On the iPhone, Go To “Settings/General/Usage/Music and then swipe left to right over the “All Music” entry and select Delete, then re-boot the iPhone.” He stated, ” you think it would delete all your music, but id doesn’t” (sic)

This was listed at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3418045?start=75&tstart=0

Research is my friend!

Some info for When you Finally Move to Mountain Lion

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The Macworld Help Desk has a really helpful article about what to expect when upgrading to Mac OS 10.8 (currently 10.8.2) Mountain Lion. The article can be seen at http://bit.ly/10n5gNc

Personally, I haven’t performed this upgrade, but there’s really only one reason for this at this point. I HAVE upgraded to Lion (10.7) and do not particularly like it. It’s GREAT for new users, but for those of us who’ve been using the Mac for a long time, we have to jump through too many hoops to do anything with real control. This is the same issue with Mountain Lion, and from what I see, Mountain Lion has some improvements over Lion. So, you ask, WHY have I upgraded to Lion, and skipped Lion?

Well, I NEED my old applications that run in Rosetta. “But” (you say), “Lion doesn’t run Rosetta either, so how can this be a good reason?”

In my efforts to keep my old apps running, I found the ONE version of VMWare Fusion that allowed us to install Snow Leopard as a guest operating system so I can run my old Snow Leopard installation (my favorite OS so far, btw) in emulation – much the same way I run Windows. Now, I need you guys to know that installing Snow Leopard’s Client OS may be breaking the “letter of the law” unless you use the Server version.

The ONE version of VMWare Fusion that will allow the use of Snow Leopard’s Client (means end-user version) will stop working if I upgrade it, and the old version will not run on Mountain Lion – simple as that!

Oh, and I should tell you that I HAVE tried using the Server version of Snow Leopard in Parallels and VMWare. They work fine, but don’t have the same capabilities as they do when emulating Windows – they don’t allow copy/paste to work between environments, and they don’t allow drag and drop of files from the main environment to the virtualized one (a VERY helpful feature between Mac and Windows – non-existent in Mac to Mac emulation – can you believe it?!)

All this, so you can understand the implications of upgrading your Operating System on the Mac. It may not affect you as most of you have been using the Mac for a short enough time that you don’t have any older programs that require Rosetta. But if you do, you may wish to take heed.

Apple Malware Identified – Looks like we finally “Made the Grade”

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It’s very rare to see Macs targeted for Malware and Cyber Attacks. In large part, it’s because the Mac OS is really quite a secure Operating System, based on UNIX and containing lots of built-in security controls. However, I believe another factor in it’s lack of focus by the “bad guys” was because it has always been a “smaller target” a less popular, less-used OS, because there’ve never been as many Macs out there as Windows computers.

This time, it’s not the OS that’s been targeted directly, but an addition to the OS, called Java. Java (developed by Sun Microsystems) is a programming language that’s used within operating systems to enable the development and implementation of many functions and applications that can work on both Windows and Mac systems (and others). It’s something we rarely see directly being used, but lots of interfaces interact with Java: in particular lots of web apps and games.

So, imagine my surprise when MacWorld released an article named “Apple confirms cyber attack, releases Java update and malware removal tool”. Don’t worry – there’s a fix already posted by Apple in their software update – but you should all know.

Read MacWorld’s article at: http://www.macworld.com/article/2028740/apple-confirms-cyber-attack-will-release-security-tool.html#tk.nl_macwk

Adobe Offers CS2 FREE

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Last week, Adobe did something unprecedented for them. They set up a website from which you can download any or ALL of the the Adobe CS2 Creative Suite for Windows and/or Mac. The site includes valid serial numbers, and is a valid Adobe site.

Just so you know, these programs may not run on your newest computer or operating system. Here’re the Adobe CS2 System Requirements:

  • Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8. PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor
  • Microsoft® Windows® 2000/Windows XP. Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor

If you can use these programs, you can snag them here:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

No telling how long Adobe’s going to keep this page up, so get it while you can!

Very Good Deal on a Wacom Tablet

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Today, Dealfind.com is offering a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Tablet for $70!

As my graphics students know, I’m a big advocate of using a pressure-sensitive tablet for precision masking, vector drawing control and tons of other functions. This is the smaller version of their tablet – which makes it quite portable as well. check it out at:
http://www.dealfind.com/products/los-angeles/brightlightbusiness2?a=16589f8ddd39

 

Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch

Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch

 

Really Great Open Source ClipArt Library

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Free – and Open Source Clip Art. Not only are they free in the public domain and usable for any purpose whatsoever, but there’s also a cool collaborative environment in which you can make your own alterations and share them. A great graphics resource, and an excellent way to get involved in the practical design of these images.

http://openclipart.org/