The Road Ahead Was a Ribbon of Moonlight

A paraphrased title for today's blog entry dedicated to my elementary grade English teacher Mrs Little. She loved poetry, and she gave me a very very long lecture when I had expressed otherwise. Any ideas of where this phrase comes from?

Like Mrs Little had taught me, there's truth in poetry, it's not just about fanciful stories and ways to woo women. And the truth about the road ahead deals with a ribbon!

Windows 7, the predecessor to windows Vista, has been in development for some time. Expected to be released between the summer of 2009, and first quarter of 2010. It's a Vista that's been refined. Now I could go on about all the features and enhancements that are expected with it, but this is a graphics blog, so today I'll give you an update on MS Paint! Yes, MS Paint, which has been part of windows since version 1 is seeing a makeover in windows 7.

Paint in Windows V1

Paint in windows 95

Paint in windows 7

Notice anything? Yes, MS Paint in windows 7 has now adopted the "ribbon" interface. This interface will show up on other applications too. Like Wordpad. The point is to show you, the current users of AutoCAD and Office, that the ribbon is here to stay. Office 2007 users have less choice of what to do with the Ribbon, yes there are third party utilities to bring back the old menu system. Autodesk was more lenient about what AutoCAD users do. You can disable the ribbon interface completely in AutoCAD 2009, but to help yourself with future upgrades of AutoCAD, learn to work with it now! You will be seeing the ribbon interface showing up in more and more programs on the road ahead. (Ooh, see how that ties into the title!?)

More Power for Powershot Users

Well, I've come across something that I thought I'd share with other Canon Powershot owners. There's a firmware project called CHDK

CHDK is a firmware enhancement that operates on a number of Canon Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera's memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware.

CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it. The benefits are pretty substantial. Enhancements include:

a. Enhanced ways of recording images - you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB)


b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen - histogram, battery life indicator, depth of field, and many more.


c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself

There's more features available but check out the site to see if your specific Powershot Camera is supported. Mine is! :-)

NOTE: The CHDK site can be confusing to go through. So I've assembled here some links to help get new users started. These are the bare essentials. I strongly suggest reading the FAQ thoroughly:

FAQ

CHDK FIRMWARE DOWNLOAD (AllBest version)

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS (VIDEO)

INSTALL FOR S2 IS (linux reference, but it's the same for windows)

AutoCAD 2009 GUI-ing Pains

If you've been using MS Office for a while and upgraded to Office 2007, you would have noticed the biggest change is the interface. The ribbon is Microsoft's answer to having access to all the tools and functions that their flagship products contain without hunting and searching through pull down menus. Many long time users of Office have complained about the ribbon. I personally found it took a bit of getting used to. But why am I writing about MS Office 2007 in a post about AutoCAD 2009?

ANSWER: Welcome to the new "ribbon" interface of AutoCAD 2009!

Apparently AutoDesk who has always been close partners with Microsoft, has decided to adopt Microsoft's interface enhancement in it's latest release.

 

Now for long time users of AutoCAD there will be some growing pains. But AutoDesk has made sure that the other interface tools from past releases are still there, including palettes, menus, and even the Tablet and Screen Menus are still there for anyone who uses it. (Seriously, who still uses it?)

Autodesk has done a few things better than Microsoft. The big one is that the ribbon interface is very easy to customize thanks to the CUI editor. Also, you can have different modes for the ribbon display.

Simply right click on the arrow shown on the top of the ribbon to access different view modes. This is a handy way to control what panels you see and how much screen space the ribbon will take up. I personally like to have the ribbon collapse to panel titles.

After some testing 2009, I think that the new ribbon interface is a welcome addition to AutoCAD and its vertical products. Considering that Office 2007 is now a standard in Universities and colleges, users who shirk the ribbon interface should give it a try. There's no way of avoiding the ribbon! As with any new feature that AutoDesk introduces, there's a bit of a learning curve, but productivity for veteran users should be the same if not better. And this GUI change is a step in the right direction for users new to AutoCAD.

Take the time to go through the "What's New" workshop included with AutoCAD. There's many enhancements that come with 2009, including significant changes to the new DWFx file format introduced in AutoCAD 2008. Keep an eye on this blog for updated information and tips for AutoCAD 2009!

Picasa 3

Picasa 3, the free image browser, from Google has been released (as a beta). I personally prefer to use other image browsers, but I've had it installed for one main feature. The Auto collage function! Even though you can duplicate the effect in Photoshop, picasa's collage feature is by far the simplest I've used. Literally, it takes 10 seconds to create a collage. You select the photos you want to collage and then select "photo collage" from the menu. Then save the result. The only issue with it was the ability to fine tune or edit the collage before saving it.

Well, with version 3 of Picasa, the developers have included more collage styles, including mosaics, thumbnail pages (of course), and some interesting ones like the multiple exposure collage.

But what is really great with the new update, is the ability to fine tune the images themselves. For the picture pile collage you can specify borders or the old Polaroid framing they had in v2.7

You can adjust the placement of individual images and change the rotation and scaling, simply by clicking on the image and using the dial to adjust. grab the handle on the dial and move it up or down to alter the rotation or drag it to the left or right to resize the image.

If that wasn't enough, Picasa now includes the ability to make movies from photos with a variety of transition effects. Similar to Microsoft's photo story, but with the ability to upload your finished movie to Youtube within the picasa application.

The only thing I wished they included in the movie tool was a bit more control for the audio. Options to fade out audio or record audio while the movie is playing in draft mode would be handy. Also linking more than one audio file would be nice too. As it is, the audio component is crude and is only meant for background music. If you want a free photo to movie tool with more control, check out Microsoft Photo Story.

Picasa 3 is still in beta, but I've found it stable and worth the upgrade if you're using older versions of Picasa. There are other enhancements for Picasa users including automatic synching to web albums. Well done Google! Find out more about the changes HERE.

You can also give feedback about the beta HERE.

Download Picasa 3

Tinting & Toning in ACDSee

Everyone has seen dramatic tinted or sepia tones photographs. For users new to ACDSee, this quick tutorial shows you how you can achieve the same effects.

First go into the EDIT mode for your image.

Select "Effects" to find the sepia effect.

The sepia effect is a one click solution that produces acceptable results. (see below)

But we can adjust the effect by going into the "Color" option in the Edit Panel.

Use any of the adjustment options to play around with tint and color of the image. I use the HSL (hue saturation lightness) tab to make small adjustments to the sepia effect. Click Done when you're happy with the changes.

You can further adjust the image by going into the "Exposure" option in the Edit Panel, to change the tone of the image using Levels or the Curves tab. Below are some variations made from the original image.

Remember to always "Save as..." when you're done. Always keep your original. This is a very easy way to make an image artistic. Experiment and enjoy!

Photoshop Express

An online version of Photoshop is available for free. Browser based photo editing goodness. No, don't expect fancy layers and masking, but some good image enhancement and cropping tools are available. Enjoy! Photoshop Exress