Peripatetic. Now there's a word you don't often see on a website. It sounds vaguely disturbing, maybe even a bit criminal. It's used to describe one who travels from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods. Designers used to be tethered to drafting tables and their computers. Tablets helped and Adobe has blown the doors off design studios everywhere. Now designers can do what they do best wherever they are and whenever an idea strikes.
About a year ago, Adobe released the first generation of mobile applications. So that I could see what's new, the company loaned me an Ipad and initially I thought not much had changed. As it turned out, the tablet had the previous generation of applications on it and I kept thinking this looks a lot like it did last year. Eventually, with the help of Devon Smiley at Adobe's public relations agency, I realized that I was looking at last year's apps. Fixing the problem required only that I delete the old apps and install the new ones, a process that took no more than a few minutes.
What a difference!
After installing the current versions of the various applications, I realized how much difference Adobe's developers can make in a year. But before I get to that, let me take a moment to talk about Adobe Voice. This is a mobile application that doesn't have a desktop analog as most of the mobile apps do.
Voice is all about creating short videos to illustrate or explain. I spent about 5 minutes with Voice (2 minutes reading through the instructions and 3 minutes recording a sound track and loading text or images) to create my first test video.
Then I decided to try something a bit more expansive and put together about 2 and a half minutes on algebra. Overall, it took no more than half an hour, which included the process of creating 10 or 11 images. If you've ever created a short video with multiple slides, narration, and music, realizing that the process of putting the program together took only about 10 minutes should impress you. View my impressive little algebra video: A Little Fun With Math.
Anybody can make a video like this. I didn't have to do anything to fix the audio, to add background music, to handle video or audio transitions, or anything else. An air conditioner was on in the room where I recorded the audio (directly onto the Ipad Mini) and you'll hear it, but overall the sound processing is surprisingly good. When it comes to empowering users, Adobe does an astonishingly good job. I'm not reviewing Adobe Voice in this program, but I can imagine that many people will find it to be a very useful application which just happens to be free.
The most interesting new mobile feature for me is Adobe Comp, which works primarily in conjunction with InDesign, but can also communicate with other Adobe desktop apps. This is what a designer would use to mock up a design while in a client's office or on the way into work on the subway, bus, or carpool.
That is the genius of Comp: The designer can start working on a project at any time and in any location.
The first screen asks me to specify what I'm designing for. Because I'm an old guy who thinks mainly in terms of paper, I selected the letter-size option.
Click any of the smaller images for a full-size view.
Press Esc to dismiss the larger image.
In the previous version of the mobile application, users had to select placeholders from a menu. Now Adobe Comp understands gestures.
To create a placeholder for paragraph text, I need only to draw a box with my finger and add 3 lines inside. Comp takes over from there and creates a block of "lorem ipsum" text.
The same is true for geometric shapes, headlines, lines, and placeholders for images.
I had created several color palettes in Adobe Color. The palette at the top right is the result of pointing the Ipad's camera at Chloe Cat and I decided to use it for this exercise.
Bear in mind that I am not a designer and I don't even play one on television, but in a past life, I was occasionally called on to design something for print. I've had enough experience working with real designers that I can usually create something that, if not inspiring, is at least not ugly.
So ...
Here's what I put together on the Ipad. I created a color bar on the left and used that color for the Lorem Ipsum headline at the top. Then I placed a "G" inside a circle to act as the logo, added a photo, text where a Web address would be, and set up two more text blocks.
It's possible to add actual text on the tablet, not just the placeholders, so I selected the text at the bottom of the page and inserted the URL.
Adjacent to the faux logo, I added an address. Don't bother to look for it because the Tischman Building doesn't have 75 floors. Additionally, greentrees.com redirects to another company's website, so don't bother looking for that, either.
Now the magic happens. I save the document locally and, when I get back to my office, I tell Adobe Comp to send it to InDesign.
Moments later, InDesign opens on the desktop and loads the design I created in the client's office on an Ipad, complete with the typefaces that I downloaded.
Next?
Easy. Now it's time to replace the lorem ipsum text with the real message. I started by modifying the headline. Were this a real project, more modifications would follow.
But ... WOW! I'm old enough to remember hot metal type (even if I never dealt with it) and the first feeble steps into computerized typesetting and design (those I remember very well).
If you are a designer, welcome to the most exciting period in the history of design, compliments of Adobe.
Fortunately, some (not all) of the mobile functions are available on Android phones (not tablets). That's good because, despite the Ipad's coolness, I find it to be a very difficult device to use. Simply attempting to delete files that are no longer necessary is a complex operation that, in some cases, requires deleting the application and reinstalling it.
So I'd really like to see all these apps be ported both to Android phones and Android tablets. Phones will probably get most of the apps eventually, but Android tablets aren't currently on the road map. That's because Adobe hasn't received enough requests from designers who use Android tablets.
And I can't blame Adobe. The company needs to spend its development efforts where they will provide tools that will benefit the largest possible group of users. Right now that's not Android tablets.
Although for me Comp is the most compelling of the new or updated mobile apps from Adobe in this version of Creative Cloud, it certainly isn't alone, so let's take a quick look at some of the others.
Photoshop Mixes Up the CatbirdPhotoshop Mix allows users to perform some image pre-processing on their phones and one of the more amazing functions is the one that allows multiple images to be combined.
First I have to warn you that the images used to create the catbird picture should never have been used together. The lighting isn't similar (one is an outdoor picture and the other was taken indoors, for example), but I happened to have the images handy. We have a penguin from the Columbus Zoo and Chloe Cat sitting on the bed.
I cut out the penguin head, rotated it, resized it, and dropped it on top of the cat. There's enough here that we can see where the image is going, but it will need some refinement. With a couple of finger taps, I sent the combined file off to the computer for editing in Photoshop ...
... where a certain amount of roughness is apparent.
The most obvious problem other than the lighting mismatch is the glow around the cut-out image of the penguin. The camera case in the background is also distracting.
I worked on the mask a bit, darkened the camera case in the background so it would be less distracting, worked to remove the halo, and used the clone tool to extend the penguin part of the image here and there.
It still looks like a penguin picture stuck on top of a cat. After all, you can do only so much when the raw images are such a poor combination. Even so, if I had wanted to spend more time merging the neckline, the image could be passable.
I wasn't trying to create great art here, but I did want to suggest how useful it would be to be able to do some prep work when you're on a plane or train, or even when you're just sitting at home in a comfy chair, and then finish the project when you're back at the computer.
Sketchy Designs
Let's say you need a sketch of a pair of headphones. Like the one on the left, for example. And let's say that your ability to sketch is about equal to the ability of a giraffe to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope while balancing a beach ball on its nose.
That's about where my ability to sketch comes in.
So I put a couple of sheets of paper down near a north-facing window (above) and used Adobe Sketch on the Ipad to create the line-art sketch at the right.
It needed a bit of cleaning up to remove the cord and areas where the background is visible. But the result would be a perfect starting point for someone who needs a line-art image.
And it doesn't stop there. I've used Adobe Sketch to create sketches of people, too. Real estate agents who might want to create a striking look for some of their house pictures -- something to make the image stand out -- could use Adobe Sketch.
I pointed the Ipad at my desk and used Adobe Sketch to create a minimalistic view.
Sketch isn't limited to what you can photograph with the Ipad, either. You can use any photograph from any source as a starting point. In fact, that's true for all of the applications that can use the Ipad's camera. If you already have a photograph that you'd prefer to use, just load it in.
Color Your WorldRemember Adobe Kuler? "Kuler" is a Mauritian Creole word for "color". Kuler, now called Color, is an application designed to help users create color schemes based on the colors present in nature (using the tablet's built-in camera) or the colors in a photograph.
Each color scheme includes 5 colors that will work together well. Once created and named, the color scheme can be shared among the various Creative Cloud applications.
Here I pointed the camera toward the ceiling during the late afternoon and the color swatches on the left represent what the application suggested.
Next, I saved the color scheme so that I could use it in other applications just as I used the colors based on a cat in the demonstration of Adobe Comp.
Besides saving the color scheme to your own private space, you can share it publicly if you wish.
The Big Brush OffBrushes can be used in Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, but making a brush used to be really hard work. Adobe Brush simplifies the process to the point that it's actually a lot of fun.
The two brushes at the top of the illustration at the right are mine. I started the one on the left by pointing the Ipad's camera at some rumpled sheets and clicking the shutter. Then, I manipulated the image a bit and selected a style. That's all there is to it.
The one on the right started as a picture of a dental cleaning device -- one of those Oral-B combination flosser-picker things. What this means is that your brush can start with an image of just about anything.
During the process of creating the brush, you'll work through several steps in one panel and you can use the brush in the right panel to see how it will work in practice.
As with color schemes, just save the brush to your private space in Creative Cloud or share it with the world.
Here's Looking at Hue, KidAdobe Hue is somewhat like Adobe Color, but it's more complex and it's intended to create filters that will be used in video projects.
Adobe explains it this way: Use your Iphone or Ipad to capture color and light from the world around you — or even from photos in your camera roll or Adobe Creative Cloud account — and then use those colors as Looks to enhance your video projects.
You can preview the effect on the tablet, so I gave it a try. Here I'm capturing some of the colors of my office. (And yes, this is the same desk I used for the Adobe Sketch image a while ago.)
To try it out, I moved to the preview screen. This is an image with a lot of color in it, so modifications made by the "look" will be apparent.
Here I've cranked up the effect to a little past half scale. To use this Look as part of a video project, you would just save it to your Creative Cloud account and then call it forth whenever needed.
Memo to Adobe: I'd like to see this technology given the ability to work with Photoshop images, too!
I'm not even going to bother with a cat rating this time. There are too many pieces and trying to rate them all separately would just be confusing. What's remarkable is that most of the mobile apps provide some functionality even if you don't use them in conjunction with the full Creative Cloud suite. But when you combine mobile and desktop apps, you have the best of both worlds.
Technology is rushing forward to provide artists -- whether they work with cameras, line drawings, illustrations, words, audio, or video -- with tools they can use whenever and wherever they happen to be. If you are a photographer, a videographer, a designer or graphic artist, or a recording engineer and you haven't looked at Creative Cloud, you are shortchanging yourself.
Recently, a friend gave me a link to a half-hour video that described the changeover, in 1978, from hot metal type to what was high tech in those days at the New York Times. Until Sunday, July 7, 1978, the Times had 140 Linotype machines. The video reminded me that I had seen a Linotype in operation at my hometown newspaper when I was a kid, but never worked with one. By the time I did anything with printing, photo-typesetting had replaced hot metal and desktop typesetting would replace it.
There's no question that today's computer typesetting is far better than than the old hot-metal technology, but the old way is no less fascinating. The program is a remarkable reminder of how much manufacturing used to be involved in page makeup. Farewell etaoin shrdlu. The new technology shown in the second part of the program was retired in the 1990s.
Farewell - ETAOIN SHRDLU - 1978 from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.
The Windows 10 upgrade process has gone reasonably well, but with tens of millions of installations, one thing is certain: Not every installation will be perfect. Let's take a look at some of the problems I've either seen or heard about and what kinds of remedies are available.
I use the command prompt occasionally, so I've pinned it to the Task Bar. Last week it started reporting an error and would not start. The computer actually has several "cmd.exe" files stored, some in the Windows.old directory and others within the Windows file system. The shortcut to the one you need is stored in the User directory and the executable file is in System32.
After locating the executable, I found that I couldn't run it, either, and thought that the file might have become corrupt. The file's checksum was OK, though, so that wasn't the problem.
Eventually I determined that the problem had been caused by another installed application that had created a bad entry in the Registry. After fixing that, all is well.
I don't consider this to be a Microsoft bug.
My wife received an error message after restarting her computer: "Critical Error: Start menu and Cortana aren't working. We'll try to fix it the next time you sign in." Restarting took care of the problem the first time, but it returned. Restarting didn't fix it that time.
This seems to be an uncommon problem, but one that renders the computer nearly useless when it strikes. Research on various forums, including Microsoft's Support site suggested several options ranging from easy to difficult.
In my case, removing Avast Antivirus resolved the problem. The Microsoft Support site has several recommendations that I would have tried if the first option hadn't worked. And, of course, the last (and least palatable) option would be to go back to the previous version of Windows until the problem has been resolved.
Some users find that clicking the Start Button has no effect or that the Settings Panel won't open. I suspect that this is related to the problem with the Start Menu and Cortana.
Windows now has 2 settings sections, the new Settings panel and the traditional Control Panel. Eventually everything will be combined into the Settings panel. If it's just the Settings panel, you might be able to open it with WinKey-I or by approaching through the Action Center (WinKey-A).
Assuming you're able to get to the Settings panel, install available updates because Microsoft has been releasing fixes to address various problems, including this one.
If that doesn't work and you're unwilling to wait for an update to be installed, this problem can often be fixed by creating a new user account. If you do that and the Settings panel works properly, migrate your data from the old account to the new one and then delete the old account.
Update patch #KB3081423 caused some computers to reboot continuously. I don't know a lot about that one, but it was fixed in a patch that was released on August 11, KB3081436, which is a cumulative update that covered several topics. There were lots of posts on the Microsoft Support forums about the problems. People reported that their computers proceeded through the update normally until reaching about 60% and then rebooted.
The KB 3081436 update also takes care of vulnerabilities in Microsoft graphic components, a Net Framework bug that could allow elevation of privileges, and a Mount Manager bug that could also allow an attacker to use the computer as an administrator. Although the new patch fixed the reboot problem for many users, some still had problems and Microsoft provided a temporary workaround: Open the Control Panel, select View Installed Updates, click KB3081436, and uninstall it. Then restart the computer. The reboot problem is apparently caused by a bad entry in the Windows 10 Registry that's created when one of the updates fails.
The primary point here is that operating system updates, even when carefully planned, can fail. Microsoft Support's forums seem to be doing a good job of handling the problems and they're the best choice when something goes wrong.
When Microsoft removed the Start Menu from Windows 8, no small number of people freaked out. The Start Menu made a partial return to Windows 8.1 and now Windows 10 provides an improved Start Menu with alphabetized entries under All Applications. When combined with optional tiles that were introduced in the Start Screen and the continued ability to pin commonly used applications to the Task Bar, finding and starting applications is easier.
I've never been a fan of placing program icons on the Desktop. That's probably because I rarely have fewer than 8 to 10 applications open at any time. To start an application from the Desktop, I would have to collapse all of the applications. So I kept most of the frequently used applications on the Task Bar.
But there were so many commonly used applications (or programs waiting for review) that I had to create a 2-story Task Bar. I prefer small icons, so sometimes finding the one I was looking for took a while.
With the improved Start Menu and the ability to set up a limited number of tiles on a small version of the Start Screen, I've been able to reduce the Task Bar to a single level. The combined Win10 Start Menu with (optional) tiles looks like a winner.
Other installed applications are in the All Apps section, or I can start an application by pressing the WinKey and typing a bit of the application's name. To run Google Earth, for example, WinKey+ear and press Enter. This functionality has been around since Windows 8 and it's one of the reasons why I felt that all the whining about the missing Start Menu was absurd.
Running the Registry Editor (and other utilities with the potential to do damage) requires a bit more work. WinKey+reg doesn't offer the Registry Editor. Instead, press the WinKey and type regedit. Presumably, Microsoft believes that if you know the name of the command, you will be able to use it properly.
You may have wondered why the background is green in the first image and blue in the second. That's because I've turned on the function that allows Windows to change the background and accent colors based on the color of the current screen background. Between the time I grabbed the images, the background had changed.
