[Adolf Witzeling]

I feel for you Michael ( I work in a relatively small business too where there is NEVER money to upgrade , and so far I have always somehow managed to just prove that it is worth to upgrade, by showing how it can improve the workflow). Let me just mention one app. that you really need to check out is Adobe Acrobat 7 or 8., especially in regard to automated work flow.
But Richard is right. There’s NO WAY for a work around.
Bite the dust and CONVINCE your boss how “nonsensy” it is to buy a brand new multi core computer and running old software. Are they aware of how much more productive you can be the way CS3 is build now…totally integrated…saves time….and….money.

How about downloading a trial version of CS3 and checking ou the new features, that are worth the upgrade. And I’m looking at it from both sides….the artistic……and the functionality side of CS3. I hope you can awake the common sense in your boss…give it your best shot.

If I wanted to be sarcastic I would say:”they are trying to run a Porsche by p…ing in the tank”

good luck!
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

Hello friends at the cow!

Please allow me to throw in my 2 cents worth.

First of all, I believe the reason why your picture is falling apart, when you downscale is the fact that you are using the JPG format. JPG is probably the worst format in the world ( sometimes I like to exaggerate), because every time you open it, do something to it, then save it, it averages the colours it contains. That means it chooses similar colours and reduces it to one average colour.
So you are loosing colours every time you save. That’s also known as posterisation.

Also I don’t agree 100% that when you downscale you loose all the pixel information.
The correct way in my opinion is in PS in the image size dialog, to uncheck the RESAMPLE IMAGE button, but make sure the KEEP PRPORTIONS button is checked.
This way when you downscale, you don’t loose pixel info because if you go down in size, the resolution will go up, so it’s still contained in the picture.
If you downscale withe the RESAMPLE BUTTON checked, you will loose information, because the image resolution stays but the picture get’s smaller. Does that makes sense?

A good idea when downscaling is to at the very end apply some unsharp masking ( depending on the reduction factor I would start with something like: 150, 1-1.3 pixel.

The most important although is that you first, right after opening the document, save it as an PS or TIFF or such, but not JPG.

Give it a shot, I bet you will be surprised about the differnt result.

Hope that helps,
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

After you used Live Trace to vectorize your PS image, you have to “expand” the tracing Result via “Object”…”expand”.
Once it’s expanded you can select all the traced shapes and use “Pathfinder” to combine them all into one shape, from which you can create the outline by applying a stroke and no fill.
hope that helps.
cheers,
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

Hi Mark,
don’t look no further it’s all in the pasture here on the cow.
There is a way to change the default frame numbers from 10 to 999,999
using the Adobe script editor, so can trace 1 hour long sequences.
I learned this from a tutorial that Aharon Rabinowitz did a while back.
Check his podcast tutorials. He explains precisely how to “hack” the default value of 10 into 999,999.
I’ve used it often since then and it works like a charm for me.
Look for his cartooning tutorials.
Hope that helps.
cheers,
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

Hi,
You didn’t say if you intend to have the poster offset or inkjet printed.

I’m assuming you want to print on an ink-jet ( don’t even try to have it offset printed…there’s no way you would get a satisfying result). You would be wasting your money.
Even for an high res. inkjet, the picture you are working with does NOT have sufficient resolution to print a quality piece.
Even for an inkjet you need good resolution..300dpi would be ideal, but 200 would work too.
Since your image is 42×28 at 72ppi you would need to upsample approx. by a factor of 300%.
Programs like Genuine Fractals Print Pro claims to be able to upsample up to 1000%,… but…don’t do it. I personally think it’s a great program, I use it often…but still…it can’t turn chicken sh.t into chicken sandwich ;=)
Due to its slightly different process of upsampling than Photoshop it can do a pretty decent job, but in your case it’s too much of a step.

Here’s what I would do: Have your image printed at 10×6.75 at 300dpi to a high res photoprinter, then have a transparency made (5×7), then have the transparency drum-scanned to your desired size (42×28) at full res (300).
That would give you in my opinion the best possible output.
Hope that helps.
Take care,
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

David, the statement you made regarding iPods, see quote below,
is just plain silly and “immature”- If you really mean that in all honesty you are making a fool out of yourself…
Take care,
Adi

“Um, excuse me, but I don’t really see what you’re talking about. The only time I ever mentioned Apple on my website is in my entry about the Creative Zen in which I state that most iPod users only bought iPods so they can say “Hey, look! I have an iPod!”.”

[Adolf Witzeling]

Hi everyone,

Well…I agree with Ron that most of the Creative Cow is about “Software tools” and not about MAC or PC.
For many years I have been using both systems at work, (Mac only at home) and once I open an application i need to work in, I don’t really care anymore if I’m on a Mac or PC, because there are no big differences in how apps work in either environment.
Don’t get me wrong, although I’m a Mac-Enthusiast, I know very well that no system is perfect. Because if one was , that would be the end of progress.

Folks mostly getting frustrated about things, because they don’t want to spend time to solve a problem, through troubleshooting and reading up on it. Of course it’s a lot easier to just post on the forum, than spending time to dig deeper into a problem . In my experience most problems are caused by operator error.

I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong by being a MAC-fan or a PC-Fan,
but once you try to convince someone that your machine is better than the other , that’s where folks getting carried away easy-let’s leave the church at home.

I wish everyone here on the cow a happy New Year.
Adi

Oh, by the way I drive a Toyata truck because Toyota makes better trucks than Chevy ;=)

[Adolf Witzeling]

Before you erase and install, I would manually export all your bookmarks to a back-up drive,
then after install you can import them into your browser. That’s how I have done it in the past,
worked for me…
Take care,
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

I just realized that I forgot to mention to copy the old prefs from those apps (Phoshop…) that don’t work to the new prefs folder, not old system files…Sorry about that.
cheers.
Adi

[Adolf Witzeling]

Hi,
here’s just a thought.
If you did an “archive and install” (I’m guessing you did..) you should have 2 system folders.
A new one and an old one.
You said you deleted (removed) some apps whatever you could find, maybe you missed some essential files like activation and registration files of those programs.
Most apps now put an uninstaller in the user..lib…application support folder.
I definitely would recommend to first uninstall not just remove the programs.

I had an issue a few weeks ago with upgrading to 4.11, not quite the same, but
in a way it was.

Although recommended to do an erase and install, which is the most stable,
archive and install the OS works too….

I solved my problem by letting disk warrior rebuilding my disc directory, then installed 10.4.11
Then I clean uninstalled all my programs and reinstalled. You will have to reactivate though.

Oh, by the way, it would be worth a shot, to look in your old system folder in the prefs and copy ( and overwrite the “new prefs”) to the new system prefs folder.
But honestly, I myself would only do that if I had a tight deadline, like a “quickfix” before getting deeper into it, which would require more time.

I don’t know if that will help you, but it may be worth a thought.

Good Luck.
Adi