Graphics | Tech-Recipes

Graphics tutorials

Using QuickTime to Crop Letterbox or Pillarbox from Video Clips

Contributed by davak on April 24, 2008 under Graphics

Removing letterboxing or pillarboxing from video clips typically requires expensive video editing equipment. This tutorial (and screencast) describes how to do this with the inexpensive and ubiquitous quicktime.

Photoshop: Change eyedropper sample size

Contributed by qmchenry on February 27, 2008 under Graphics

One simple setting in Photoshop can make your life a little easier and your work a little smarter. That may be a bit of a hyperbole, but altering the sample size of the eyedropper tool in Photoshop from the default setting makes sense most if not all of the time. The how and why of this easy configuration setting will be covered in this Tech-Recipe.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Getting More out of the Objects Docker

Contributed by shamanstears on February 25, 2008 under Graphics

The Objects Docker displays thumbnails of the image background and each object layer, making it easy to select the appropriate object you wish to work on. By default, Corel sets the thumbnail size to Small, which can make it difficult to differentiate between similar objects. Each object also has a name listed, however, PHOTO-PAINT simply identifies the objects as Object1, Object2, etc. By changing the size of the thumbnail and giving your objects a better naming convention, you will have a much easier time selecting the appropriate object on your project.

Photoshop: Enlarge Layer Palette Thumbnail Size

Contributed by qmchenry on February 23, 2008 under Graphics

If you work extensively with layers in Photoshop, you may be suffering from layer-palette-thumnail-squintitis, a condition resulting from squinting at the tiny little thumbnails in the layer palette. Until medical treatments are available, you can just make them bigger using the steps in this short but sweet recipe.

Aperture: Create landscape or portrait only orientation smart albums

Contributed by qmchenry on January 7, 2008 under Graphics

Smart albums in Aperture allow gathering photos based on specific metadata keywords, camera type, date and so on, basically anything you can see in the Metadata view. One useful smart album trick is filtering based on orientation, portrait or landscape. This recipe will walk you through setting up this type of smart album.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Enable and Configure Auto-Save

Contributed by shamanstears on October 1, 2007 under Graphics

PHOTO-PAINT’s Auto-save can come in quite handy, especially if you are working on complex graphics with multiple masks and effects. It can be configured to periodically save to the file being worked on or to a temporary file so that the existing file remains untouched. Which one you use depends on whether you are looking to prevent loss of data due to hardware or software malfunction or to easily restore your image to the saved state (due to user malfunction).

Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Change the Default Units of Measure

Contributed by shamanstears on September 29, 2007 under Graphics

By default, PHOTO-PAINT uses inches as the default measurement unit. This is used for functions such as creating new images and resampling images to a different size. I do a great deal of work on graphics for use in web pages and prefer pixels as the unit of measure and don’t want to have to constantly change the unit when I’m working on new graphics. To change the default, follow these steps:

Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Increase the Number of Undo Levels

Contributed by shamanstears on September 18, 2007 under Graphics

When working on a complex image, the Undo function can be a huge help. By default, PHOTO-PAINT sets the level at 10, however you can increase (or decrease) the number of levels by doing the following: