designer-info: All

CorelDRAW X4 announced

TomArah — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:43:37 -0700

[inline:coreldrawx4textpreview.jpg=X4's highlight feature is live text preview]

Two years since the impressive X3 release Corel has finally announced the launch of its X4 Suite.

New highlights include:

Live Text Preview - so that you can quickly explore different font choices in situ. And more fonts are included in the package...

Technical Communication Suite review

TomArah — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0700

[inline:technicalcommsacrobat3d.jpg=Acrobat 3D shows the Technical Communications Suite's leading edge]

VERDICT: A modern cross-media technical publishing solution – that at its centre is old-fashioned and in need of a major overhaul.

We live in a fast-changing, global, consumer society and just about every product, and minor product variation, needs to come with its own technical documentation...

RoboHelp 7 review

TomArah — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0700

[inline:robohelp7html.jpg=RoboHelp HTML’s major advances are Vista, Unicode and Framemaker support]

An enhanced interface and support for Framemaker and multiple languages help give RoboHelp a new lease of life.

At one time producing online help was generally treated as an afterthought to the software development process and usually knocked up in Word using a few macros and Microsoft’s free compiler...

Flash 9 update and Flash Astro

TomArah — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:14:02 -0700

[inline:astroEdgeLayout.jpg=Adobe is upgrading Flash to match Silverlight]

Adobe is clearly determined to match Microsoft Silverlight all the way and has made a number of announcements regarding new versions of its Flash player.

To begin with Adobe have now released the Flash Player 9 update 3 which adds support for H.264 standard video as seen in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. With new hardware acceleration and multi-processor support, and new associated Media Server options, this promises to lift the ceiling for web video quality and to match Microsoft's Silverlight 1.0's handling.

Silverlight 2.0 announced

TomArah — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:56:01 -0700

[inline:silverlightinstall.jpg=Silverlight 1.0 will be replaced by... Silverlight 2.0!]

Announcements regarding Microsoft's Flash-killer Silverlight player are certainly coming thick and fast.

The media-oriented Silverlight 1.0 beta went live back in May at the MIX 07 conference but most of the talk was about the imminent launch of the next 1.1 player which would add .NET support for advanced programmability. Now Microsoft has begun talking about what's going to be in Silverlight 2.0...

Photoshop HD Photo Plugins

TomArah — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:14:07 -0700

[inline:hdphotoplugin.jpg=HD Photo Photoshop Plug-in]

Microsoft has finally officially released its free HD Photo plug-ins for Photoshop CS2 and CS3.

I wrote about HD Photo a while back when it was first announced and after my initial doubts - why on earth would we want a JPEG replacement? - I was won round by the flexibility of the specification...

Live At Last

TomArah — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:33:04 -0700

Well it's taken a lot longer than planned (of course) but the new version of the site has finally gone live with about a year's worth of new content.

Aplogies for the massive delay and, as one of the primary motives for moving to a cms-based site (drupal-based in case you're wondering) is to make it much easier to post new content, hopefully it won't happen again.

And if you're wondering where all the old content has gone - it's still all here and can be accessed via http://designer-info.com/archive.htm

Creative Illustrator article / tutorial

TomArah — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0600

[inline:rw160transparency.jpg=Version 9 marked a turnaround in Illustrator's creative handling]

Tom Arah shows you how to uncover Adobe Illustrator’s creative depths.

Ten years ago today’s market-defining vector drawing package, Adobe Illustrator, was an underpowered embarrassment. Compared to pioneering rivals such as Xara and Expression (see previous article), Adobe’s flagship just wasn’t able to produce work with the same creative depth...

Captivate 3 review

TomArah — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0600

[inline:captivate3quizzes.jpg=Captivate 3 offers a lot more than onscreen software demos]

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT: Improved recording capabilities, richer design and interactivity and deeper integration with PowerPoint see Captivate build on existing strengths.

Adobe Captivate is a Flash-based solution for computer-based training (CBT). The use of Flash provides an immediate and massive advantage as it means that Captivate’s output is automatically viewable by anyone with the Flash player installed – roughly 98% of users with an internet connection...

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 review

TomArah — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0600

[inline:psppx2expresslab.jpg=The new Express Lab workspace seriously boosts efficiency when handling multiple images]

VERDICT: Plenty of core new power for the digital camera user – but Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is still playing catch-up.

Over its long history Paint Shop Pro has built up a great deal of bitmap editing power, but it has also come to seem dated and increasingly out of tune with the times...