Category Archives: Software

Software for the graphic arts or photography

Can’t we just have it the way we used to have it?

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Brian Lawler

Sometimes I wish that software developers could just leave things alone. I paid hundreds of dollars earlier this year to buy the Creative Suite upgrade. Mostly what I got was the new (and very exciting) black interface. Which is really … Continue reading →

Posted in Software | Leave a comment

A not very brave new world of storage

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Brian Lawler

I just bought a pair of 4TB drives. I installed them in a LaCie RAID drive enclosure to make a single 8TB drive that will become my Time Machine back-up drive. Until I run out of space again. I know … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Digital video, New technology, Software | Leave a comment

My bookbinding class ends with literal works of art

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Brian Lawler

  Where have I been? I’ve been here, binding books. For the past ten weeks I have been teaching a course called Book Design Technology. It’s a senior-level course for students of Graphic Communication in our Design Reproduction Technology concentration, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bookbinding, Imposition and Pagination, Software, Typography | 1 Comment

Meadows Software releases a clever QR Code generator for Adobe InDesign

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Brian Lawler

Variable-data software publisher Meadows Publishing Solutions has developed a new plug-in for Adobe InDesign that makes QR codes inside any text box in that application. The product can make three different types of bar codes: QR, Data Matrix and PDF … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Typography | 2 Comments

In praise of Data Rescue

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Brian Lawler

For the past twelve days I have been toting cameras around, shooting thousands of photos of musicians playing in concerts around our county. This is the time of the 42nd running of the musical bulls that we call Festival Mozaic. … Continue reading →

Posted in Mistakes you can avoid, Photography, Software | 1 Comment

More Mysterious Forces at work: using Mac OS to repair corrupted JPEG and EPS files

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Brian Lawler

In yesterday’s blog I revealed that I can “convert” PNG files to TIFF files just by changing their suffix in the operating system. In fact no conversion is taking place; the file name is being changed, and that’s it. Somehow … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | 35 Comments

Mysterious Forces in OSX appear to change file types (but can’t really)

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Brian Lawler

Note to my kind readers (January, 2017): The mysterious forces described below no longer seem to work. I have experimented with this in recent months, and have had no luck in repairing JPEGs using this technique. But read on anyway! … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Software | 2 Comments

I have created a photo too large for Photoshop

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Brian Lawler

For those who have been following my work to make ultra-high-resolution panoramic photos with the GigaPan robotic camera mount, I have finally triumphed! I made a panoramic image this last Saturday with 1515 contributing images. The resulting image is 384,728 … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | 4 Comments

Pushing preflight upstream

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Brian Lawler

The responsibility for preflighting a job prior to printing has been for a long time the aegis of the prepress professional. It is logical that preflight should be carried out in the prepress department as a job makes its way … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | 3 Comments

An adventure in Lego photo mosaics

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Brian Lawler

I am the father of a 25 year old young man who, when he was in his pre-teen years, was a championship Lego brick builder. Several times he won local Lego competitions, and his life seemed for several years to … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Photography, Software | 3 Comments