Adobe Creative Suite

Color Management without the Jargon video: now available!

[Note: I now have a newer video, Color Management for Photographers and Designers (2014), that updates what I covered in Color Management without the Jargon (2009). Color Management for Photographers and Designers includes more current information about color-managing Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Creative Suite applications as well as demonstrations of profiling a display, a printer, and a camera.]

Are you a photographer or designer and still not quite sure how color management works? Confused about how to use color profiles? Have you tried to read books and articles about color management, but are overwhelmed by the terminology?

Color Management without the Jargon cover

Now you can better understand color management with my DVD and online video, Color Management without the Jargon: A Simple Approach for Designers and Photographers Using the Adobe Creative Suite. I created this video as an approachable introduction to the ideas behind color management and the basics of a good color management workflow. While there’s a lot of good material about color management out there, I feel that much of it jumps into jargon and abstract concepts too quickly. I saw an opportunity to explain color management in the simplest possible terms. I intend Color Management without the Jargon to prepare you for and to complement the deeper, more comprehensive, but also far more challenging material out there.

What you’ll learn

This 1½ hour training video helps beginning and intermediate Photoshop, Bridge, InDesign, and Illustrator users understand the basics of color management, including how to profile monitors and create consistent color in a production workflow. This video provides technical background without being overwhelming, and presents concepts and steps that are easy to follow.

How to watch

You can order Color Management without the Jargon as a DVD from your favorite bookseller or store, or you can watch it online as a streaming video from Peachpit Video. Here are some links to get you started:
DVD on Amazon.com
DVD on Peachpit.com
Watch online at Peachpit.com

More info

Below is the publisher’s marketing copy if you want to learn a bit more…

Every digital photographer or graphic designer knows that color management is important, but many still do not calibrate their computer monitors or understand how color works in different spaces. This 90-minute DVD will help beginning and intermediate Photoshop, Bridge, InDesign, and Illustrator users understand the basics of color management and how to create consistent color in their workflow.

Highlights of this accessible and easy-to-follow DVD video include:

  • Calibrating your monitor and digital SLR camera
  • Tackling color profile detective work in Photoshop and InDesign
  • Assigning, converting, and embedding profiles
  • Managing color output for print and the Web
  • Integrating raw files and Lightroom into your workflow
  • Handling color conversions between video-editing software and Photoshop

The supporting 48-page printed reference guide provides additional links and content.

Adobe Bridge: Workspace not saved on Mac OS X

You want to save a workspace in Adobe Bridge in Mac OS X, but it won’t “take.” The next time you start Bridge, the workspace isn’t available or doesn’t apply when you select it. It just does nothing.

The fix is to open Apple Disk Utility, select your startup volume, and click Repair Disk Permissions.

Now, I know that in theory, repairing permissions shouldn’t fix it. You can count me among those who think that repairing permissions is generally voodoo and that you really oughta be going down other roads first, to fix a problem. But for this particular problem, repairing permissions has worked every time. One time a person walked up to me after one of my conference talks and asked this question and brought the laptop on which it was happening. We tried deleting Bridge preferences and all the other usual troubleshooting techniques, but saved workspaces simply didn’t work until I repaired permissions. It doesn’t make sense, but hey, don’t knock it if it works, right?

I know this is true for Adobe Bridge CS4 on Mac OS X 10.5. I’m not sure if the problem exists or if the solution works on other versions of either software.

Photoshop CS4/CS5: Restoring pre-CS4 channel shortcuts and curves

In Adobe Photoshop CS4, the keyboard shortcuts for viewing channels changed, and the Curves adjustment layer was implemented as a non-modal panel rather than a modal dialog box. While these changes were done for good reasons, many people are unhappy with them and wish they could do things as they did in Photoshop CS3 and before. Since Photoshop CS4 shipped, a couple of tools have emerged to roll back the changes to some extent.

Use Old Shortcuts plug-in

In Photoshop CS4 (for Photoshop CS5 see below), you can download and install a plug-in that restores the pre-CS4 shortcuts for viewing channels, where Command-1/Ctrl-1 is the composite view of channels. (In Photoshop CS4/CS5, Command-2/Ctrl-2 displays the composite channel view, and accordingly, the single-channel viewing shortcuts were all moved up one key.) The link to the plug-in is available from John Nack’s blog post “Use Old Shortcuts” plug-in now Universal. To install it, first unzip the downloaded file, identify the plug-in for your system (Mac or Windows), then drag it into the Plug-ins folder inside the Adobe Photoshop Cs4 application folder. It doesn’t matter where it is inside that folder.

In Photoshop CS5, you don’t have to use the plug-in to restore the channel shortcuts because there’s a built-in option that does the same thing. To use it, choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and select the Use Legacy Channel Shortcuts check box.

Curves-Dialog panel

This is a panel that lets you add a new Curves adjustment layer or edit a selected Curves adjustment layer using a dialog box, as it was before Photoshop CS4. This panel was built as an extension using Adobe Configurator, and is again downloadable from John Nack’s blog (CS4 Curves Dialog panel) (CS5 Curves Dialog panel). To install it, first double-click to unzip it, then double-click the unzipped .mxp file. It should open in Adobe Extension Manager, which should install it into the right location automatically. You may need to download and install (or update) Adobe AIR for the extension to work. For more details, see John Nack’s blog post, Using a dialog box to edit a Curves adjustment layer.

Important: It’s still recommended that you learn the CS4/CS5 shortcuts and Curves adjustment panel workflow and shortcuts, because it’s the way future versions of Photoshop are likely to work. There is no guarantee that the plug-in or extension will still work or be upgraded to work with versions of Photoshop beyond CS4. Even though I’ve used Photoshop for many years, I’m using the new shortcuts, partly because I agree with the decision to make the Actual Pixels (100% magnification) shortcut (now Command-1/Ctrl-1) match other Adobe and Apple software.

InDesign: Watching for overset text on the last page

When you’re writing within a specific page count in InDesign, you probably want to know if you’ve run out of room at the end of the document. While InDesign provides an overset text indicator in a story’s last threaded text frame, you aren’t going to see that indicator as long as you’re writing on another page somewhere in the middle of the document.

On the last page of the document, there is overset text, but you want to edit many pages further back in the document.

On the last page of the document, there is overset text, but you want to fix it by editing many pages further back in the document.

The slow way to check that overset text indicator would be to go to the last page, look at the indicator, then choose Layout > Go Back to return to the page you were on. You may find it faster and easier to open a second document window displaying the last page of the document, and keep it around behind the window containing the page you’re actually editing. To set this up, choose Window > Arrange > New Window. Now you’re seeing the same document in two windows. In one of the windows, go to the last page in the document. You won’t be changing that window’s view.

The New Window command gives you a second window on the same document, which can display a different page.

The New Window command gives you a second window on the same document, which can display a different page.

Now switch to the first window; as you edit the text you can check on the last page at any time by switching to it and switching back. Of course, this is very fast if you use the Command+` (Mac) or Ctrl-` (Windows) keyboard shortcut to flip through the open windows in InDesign CS4, because InDesign won’t lose your text insertion point in either window. Just flip back to the original window to continue editing.

I use this so often that I used the Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box to create a keyboard shortcut for Window > Arrange > New Window. When I want to create a last page window, I just press the shortcut for New Window, press the End key to get to the last page, and press the window switch shortcut to get back to editing. Once it’s set up, whenever I want I can press the window switch shortcut a couple of times, once to check my story length and again to return to editing.

If you want to simultaneously view both the page you’re editing and the last page of the document, you can use the window management commands in InDesign. If you using floating (not tabbed) documents in InDesign CS4 you can choose Window > Arrange >  Tile. If you’re using tabbed documents, you can click one of the n-up options in the application bar to instantly display both views tiled side-by-side. The only reason I first talked about flipping between two overlapping windows is because I usually prefer to use the entire monitor to see a double-page spread at once, but if you have own a very large monitor you might prefer to tile your documents so you can see them together.

When you're using tabbed documents and Window > Application Frame is on, you can click the 2-Up button on the Application Bar. If you're using floating windows instead, choose Window > Arrange > Tile.

When you're using tabbed documents and Window > Application Frame is on, you can click the 2-Up button on the Application Bar. If you're using floating windows instead, choose Window > Arrange > Tile.

With two views, you can edit a page in the middle of the document while watching for the overset text indicator to go away on the last page.

With two views, you can edit a page in the middle of the document (left) while watching for the overset text indicator to go away on the last page (right).

Camera Raw: Detailed image inspection with one key

Camera Raw 4.1 and later add a very useful feature that appeared first in Lightroom. If you want to inspect an image closely for dust or other defects that need retouching, the Page Down key takes you through the entire image, from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. Here’s how it works:

1. In Camera Raw, zoom to 100% view or higher.
2. Press the Home key to view the top left corner of the image.
3. Press the Page Down key to move down one screen.
4. Press Page Down again to move down another screen. This is the cool part: If you hit the bottom of the image and press Page Down, Camera Raw automatically jumps to the top of the image one screen to the right! This means that all you have to do to check the entire image is keep pressing Page Down, until you reach the bottom right corner of the image.

On notebook computers without separate Home, End, Page Up, or Page Down keys, remember that they may be available as second functions on your arrow or other keys. For example, on Mac notebooks, these four functions are overlaid on the four arrow keys, and invoked when you also press the Fn (function) key. So to use Page Down, you’d press Fn+Down Arrow.