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This effect is very popular among logo designers; you may saw it in many logos before if you are opened to designing field.
It's not a hard effect to do, just a few steps and effects using some trick and you ready to go.

First step- Create a new document, any size you need cause it doesn't matter how large your design is, so just go with your expectations or flow my document size which is 300px*300px .
Next you need to make sure that your background is black, so all you have to do is to hit “Ctrl+D” or “D” if you are using Mac.
Then fill you background with black , Hit “alt+delect” if you are using Mac or “Ctrl+backspace” if you are using a Pc I think .
just make sure that your background is black.

Second step- Go to Filters Menu and Follow:
Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap: In Plastic Wrap Dialog box settings you need to follow these settings,
20 on Highlight Strength scroll,
15 on Detail Scroll
and 15 on Smoothness .

See attached photo for this step filter .

Next step- Go to Filters Menu and Follow:
Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates: In Polar Coordination Dialog box settings you need to choose Rectangular to polar choice

See attached photo for this step filter and result.

Next step- A filter step as well so go again to Filters Menu and Follow:
Filter > Distort > Twirl: Now in this filter Dialog box settings you need to adjust the Twirl Angle to 300.
Note : this is step may change from case to case, so feel free to test different Twirl angles until you reach your special swirl effect.

See attached photo for this step filter and result.

Final Step- Applying Colors
You may use your special effect, or here is a hint, Using a hue/saturation, Just click “Ctrl+U” or “Command+U” if you are using Mac,
Or go to Image Menu >> Adjustment then click hue/saturation and chose your color.

If you want to use the same colors i used in my design to have a glowing green swirl effect, you may use this settings: Hue : 90 , Saturation : 37 and Lightness:1 .
Just Make sure that you selected the Colorize Check box.

See attached photo for my final design.

Now you can add your special touches to the design.
After you follow my steps you can go over and redo all these steps, but this time try to change settings on the last 3 steps you will get a different effect, so go ahead and try it.

Easily to do, easily to understood and we have fun after all, right.
That's all for today until next time, have fun.

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Many schools use Adobe’s excellent software solutions including the Creative Suite and the Digital School Collection. Both of these include Acrobat 9 Professional, one of the most unique and versatile applications at Adobe. Acrobat can do so much beyond just creating a PDF. It creates a “dynamic PDF”, one that preserves interactivity from source documents as well as enabling a PDF to become even more interactive.

One of the slickest features is the PDF Portfolio, a completely self contained “wrapper” that will allow you to drag and drop just about any file into it and produce stunning layouts with just a few clicks. You can add native source files, media files, movies, Flash content, and more. And because Acrobat 9 has native support for Flash, you and your viewers can view Flash supported content with ease.

This wrapper concept is key in understanding how Acrobat and Adobe PDF can revolutionize the way you re-purpose your digital content as you create all types of materials for use in both your professional and personal activities.

You can think of the PDF portfolio as the ultimate wrapper as this illustration shows.

Thinking About the Process

As you begin to wrap up your projects, semester, or school year, here are a few handy tips on how to get more organized and productive:

• Locate the documents you wish to organize.
• Sort out the materials you want to place in your PDF portfolio. You can drag in folders or files; either is fine.
• In Acrobat 9 Professional, choose File > Create PDF Portfolio
• Drag and drop or browse to add your files.

5 Easy Steps

Follow the 5 easy steps on the right-hand side of the Portfolio screen

• Choose a Layout (There are many to choose from. Be sure to get the latest updates at Adobe.com
• Add a Welcome Page and Header (this will give you or your reader the necessary information about the portfolio and its contents)
• Select a Color Scheme (not a graphic designer? Acrobat gives you preset color schemes as well as the ability to create your own)
• Specify File Details (this helps you view your portfolio contents more easily and allows you to organize yout contents quickly)
• Publish ( save the file, attach it to email, or share it on the free Acrobat.com (5 GB of storage as well as a whole set of free online tools.

Once you’re done you can secure the portfolio or its individual components to make sure your content is protected in just the right way. You can also securely share you documents on Acrobat.com.

Show Me More

The best way to experience this in action and to learn more is to check the examples and tutorials online. Here are some useful links.

• Sample PDF Portfolios at Adobe’s EDU portal
• Video tutorials on Acrobatusers.com
• Portfolio Galleries on Acrobatusers.com
• Adobe TV – a great resource for all things Adobe
• More details on Acrobat’s online help

Summary

Acrobat 9 Professional is one of Education’s most valuable tools. It can do so much. Portfolio creation is just one of dozens of tools that will improve the way you create, re-purpose, organize, collaborate, and communicate.

I would love to hear from you as you discover and create new ways to use it in you educational environment, whether you are an educator, student, curriculum developer, or administrator. Please leave a comment.

Adobe dropped a bumper patch for its PDF Reader and Acrobat today to fix 15 documented security holes that expose Windows, Mac and UNIX users to malicious hacker attacks.

The update is rated “critical” because of the risk of remote code execution attacks via rigged PDF files.

According to an advisory from Adobe, the vulnerabilities affect Adobe Reader 9.3.1 (and earlier versions) for Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.1 (and earlier versions) for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 8.2.1 (and earlier versions) and Adobe Acrobat 8.2.1 (and earlier versions) for Windows and Macintosh.

These vulnerabilities could cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

This patch batch also coincides with the release of a new automatic update for the Reader/Acrobat software.  The default installation configuration runs automatic updates on a regular schedule and can be manually activated by choosing Help > Check for Updates.

Here are the raw details on the 15 documented vulnerabilities:

• A cross-site-scripting vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0190).
• A prefix protocol handler vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0191).
• A denial-of-service vulnerability; arbitrary code execution has not been demonstrated, but may be possible (CVE-2010-0192).
• Denial-of-service vulnerability; arbitrary code execution has not been demonstrated, but may be possible (CVE-2010-0193).
• A memory corruption vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0194).
• This update resolves a font handling vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0195).
• A denial-of-service vulnerability; arbitrary code execution has not been demonstrated, but may be possible (CVE-2010-0196).
• A memory corruption vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0197).
• A buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0198).
• A buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0199).
• A memory corruption vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0201).
• A buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0202).
• A buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0203).
• A memory corruption vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-0204).
• A heap-based overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2010-1241).

Also see this important note from Adobe’s Brad Arkin on the new automatic updater that was released today.

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In this Photoshop Tutorial I am going to show you how to create a Green Glass Arrow Icon. These glass icons are used all over the web. This is a green glass rounded square with a white arrow on it. You can make it whatever size you want. It’s best to start out about the size that I have in my image and if you want it smaller when you are done, then you can size it down. There are two parts to this Photoshop icon. First, we will make the green glass square. Then we will make the arrow. If you are a beginner to Photoshop, the first part of this tutorial is for you. I will write the first part step by step and explain each step. I will write the second part for the advance Photoshop users. So if you are an advance user, please skip to the advance part of this tutorial.

How to Create a Green Glass Arrow Icon in Photoshop for Beginners

Create a new canvas by clicking File > New at the top of your Photoshop window. Create your canvas 300 pixels by 300 pixels. Set your background to white and click OK.

Create a new layer by clicking Layer > New > Layer. Name the new layer Icon Background and click OK.

Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool from your toolbar. Set the Radius at the top of your Photoshop window to 10px.

Draw the rounded rectangle on your canvas about the size of the one I have in my image. Remember, you can size it down when you’re done.

Right click on your Icon Background Layer in your Layers Panel and click Rasterize Layer. Press F7 on your keyboard if you do not see your Layers Panel.

Right click again on your Icon Background Layer and click Blending Options from the pop up menu. Apply the following effects in the Blending Options window.

Inner Shadow

Blend Mode – Multiply
Color – 309837
Opacity – 90%
Angle – 90
Distance – 10
Choke – 20
Size – 21
Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Unchecked
Noise – 0

Inner Glow

Blend Mode – Multiply
Opacity – 40%
Noise – 0
Color – # 004741
Technique – Softer
Source – Edge
Choke – 0
Size – 8
Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Unchecked
Range -50
Jitter -0

Bevel and Emboss

Style – Inner Bevel
Technique – Smooth
Depth – 100%
Direction – Up
Size – 11
Soften – 4
Angle – 90
Use Global Light – Unchecked
Attitude – 65
Gloss Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Checked
Highlight Mode – Screen
Color – White
Opacity – 100%
Shadow Mode – Multiply
Color – Black
Opacity – 0%

Contour

Contour – Gaussian
Anti-aliased – Checked
Opacity – 90%

Satin

Blend Mode – Overlay
Color – # 60ff6b
Opacity – 100%
Angle – 90
Distance – 38
Size – 38
Contour – Ring
Anti-aliased – Checked
Invert -Checked

Color Overlay

Blend Mode – Normal
Color – # 8aff00
Opacity – 100%

Click OK on your Blending Option window. Now we will move on to the arrow.

Creating the Arrow for the Icon.

Create a new layer by clicking Layer > New > Layer. Name the new layer Arrow and click OK.

Select your Custom Shape Tool from your toolbar. At the top of your Photoshop window you will see Shape and a drop down box. Drop that box down, click on the little arrow on the right, and select Arrows. Now select Arrow 9 in your Shape Box. Draw your arrow on your green square.

Right click on the Arrow Layer and click Rasterize Layer. Right click again on your Arrow Layer and click Blending Options from the pop up menu. You will only need to apply the following two effects to the arrow, Color Overlay and Stroke. You can make your arrow any color that you want by changing the Color Overlay color.

Color Overlay

Blend Mode – Normal
Color – White
Opacity – 100%

Stroke

Size – 1
Position – Outside
Blend Mode – Normal
Opacity – 100%
Fill Type – Color
Color – # 2a970d

Click OK on your Blending Options window. Your Icon should look like the one in my image. One last step and you will be done.

Click on the Icon Background Layer, hold CTRL down and click on the Arrow Layer, so that both of them are highlighted. Right click on one of them and click Merge Layers from the pop up menu.

Now you can size your Icon down if you want to by clicking Edit > Free Transform at the top of your Photoshop window.

If you have any problems with this tutorial, please feel free to contact me using the contact button at the top of this page.

How to Create a Green Glass Arrow Icon in Photoshop for the Advance

Create a New Canvas 300 x 300 and set your background to white.

Create a new layer and name it Icon Background.

Select your Rounded Rectangle Tool and set the Radius to 10px.

Draw your rectangle on the canvas about the size of the one in my image.

Rasterize the Icon Background Layer.

Open your Blending Options for the Icon Background Layer and apply the following effects.

Inner Shadow

Blend Mode – Multiply
Color – 309837
Opacity – 90%
Angle – 90
Distance – 10
Choke – 20
Size – 21
Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Unchecked
Noise – 0

Inner Glow

Blend Mode – Multiply
Opacity – 40%
Noise – 0
Color – # 004741
Technique – Softer
Source – Edge
Choke – 0
Size – 8
Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Unchecked
Range -50
Jitter -0

Bevel and Emboss

Style – Inner Bevel
Technique – Smooth
Depth – 100%
Direction – Up
Size – 11
Soften – 4
Angle – 90
Use Global Light – Unchecked
Attitude – 65
Gloss Contour – Linear
Anti-aliased – Checked
Highlight Mode – Screen
Color – White
Opacity – 100%
Shadow Mode – Multiply
Color – Black
Opacity – 0%

Contour

Contour – Gaussian
Anti-aliased – Checked
Opacity – 90%

Satin

Blend Mode – Overlay
Color – # 60ff6b
Opacity – 100%
Angle – 90
Distance – 38
Size – 38
Contour – Ring
Anti-aliased – Checked
Invert -Checked

Color Overlay

Blend Mode – Normal
Color – # 8aff00
Opacity – 100%

Click OK on your Blending Option window. Now we will move on to the arrow.

Creating the Arrow for the Icon.

Create a New Layer and name it Arrow.

Select your Custom Shape Tool and load your Arrows.

Select Arrow 9 and draw the arrow on your square.

Rasterize your Arrow Layer.

Open your Blending Options for the Arrow Layer and apply the following effects.

Color Overlay

Blend Mode – Normal
Color – White
Opacity – 100%

Stroke

Size – 1
Position – Outside
Blend Mode – Normal
Opacity – 100%
Fill Type – Color
Color – # 2a970d

Click OK.

Merge your Icon Background Layer and Arrow Layer.

If you have any problems with this Photoshop Tutorial, please feel free to contact me using the contact button at the top of this page.

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Last month we wrote about Crocodoc, a new Y Combinator-funded company that makes it very easy to upload a text document or PowerPoint deck and mark it up online to share with your colleagues. Unfortunately, it was also pretty bare boned — you couldn’t even save your edited document to your hard drive. Today, that’s changing: Crocodoc has rolled out some key new features (including the ability to save) that make the service significantly more flexible, and also pits it more directly against Adobe’s Acrobat Pro.

Aside from the ability to save to PDF, the new version includes a freehand pen tool, a tool to convert any website to PDF (which you can then add notes to), and a new API. In a few days, the company will be releasing its application on Google’s recently-launched App Marketplace. The service will also be rolling out a Flash-based embeddable document viewer (similar to what you’ll find on DocStoc and Scribd) that lets you both view and mark up embedded documents.

CEO Ryan Damico says that these features make Crocodoc more competitive with Adobe’s $400 Acrobat Pro software because the free Acrobat Reader most people have doesn’t allow them to mark up and save their documents (personally, I’ve been avoiding any software with the word ‘Acrobat’ in its title for years). Damico does acknowledge that there are still plenty of premium features that Crocodoc doesn’t have that Adobe’s paid software does, but says that this basic editing/saving functionality is what most people are after, anyway. Damico says that in the long term, Crocodoc is hoping to “do to Acrobat what Gmail did to Outlook” by taking a widely used desktop application and bringing it online.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010, we are planning to release Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.2 and 8.2.2 as part of our regularly scheduled quarterly updates.

As mentioned in a previous blog post titled Adobe Reader and Acrobat Updates Include New Security Improvements, we have been testing a new updater technology with select beta customers since our October 13, 2009 quarterly update. The purpose of the new updater is to keep end-users up-to-date in a much more streamlined and automated way.

During our quarterly update on January 12, 2010, and then again for an out-of-cycle update on February 16, 2010, we exercised the new updater with our beta testers. This allowed us to test a variety of network configurations encountered on the Internet in order to ensure a robust update experience. That beta process has been a successful one, and we've incorporated several positive changes to the end-user experience and system operation. Now, we're ready for the next phase of deployment.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010, as part of our quarterly update, we will activate the new updater for all users needing Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.2 and 8.2.2 for Windows and Macintosh. As of yesterday, April 7, 2010, we have been activating our new updater for those users who are not yet up-to-date with our latest versions. During this phase of the process, we are utilizing users' current update setting found in the Adobe Reader and Acrobat Preferences, under the “Updater” panel, as shown in the screen captures below.

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With Photoshop, you can pretty much do almost anything.� In essence, you're playing god of the computer art world, creating and editing whatever suites your taste.� If you want to play Zeus, then here are the steps to create lightning by using the tools that were already programmed in Photoshop.

Step 1: Making Clouds

You can't have lightning unless you got clouds, same in Photoshop.� First, create a new layer and name it Lightning.� You can name it whatever you want, but Lightning seems to be the most logical in this case.� Second, make sure your foreground and background colors are set to default, black and white, respectively.� This can be done manually, or you can just press D.� This is the same for both PC and Mac.

Once the colors are set to default, go to the Filter menu at the top of the window and choose Render, then Clouds.

Step 2:� Make More Clouds

Now, one cloud won't just create lightning, it's pretty harmless.� Again, same in Photoshop.� This time, instead of rendering another cloud, go back to Filter, Render, and then Difference Clouds.� Once that is done, go to the Image menu at the top of the window and select Adjust, then Invert.� This should result in something that looks like lightning.

Step 3: Finishing Touches

To finish, double click on the empty area to the right of the layer name, and then pull in the upper-left slider.� You'll want to split the sliders by holding down the Option key for Mac users and the Alt key for PC users.� The right half of the slider should be moved all the way to the right edge.� Next, grab the left edge of the slider and start moving to the right until you are satisfied with the look of the lightning.� To have an idea of how far you need to move it to begin making it look like lightning, you're going to have to move the slider almost all the way to the right as well.

As with Photoshop and many problems of life, there are multiple solutions and multiple paths.� This is just one of many ways to make lightning in Photoshop.� Fiddle around with this method and also combine it with other methods that you already know to make this lightning look more realistic.� After all, creating art is like magic, you can't give away all your secrets.

FedEx finally delivered me an iPad this weekend and, after spending some time with the device, here’s what I think about Apple’s latest gadget.

1. The iPad feels slightly heavy so you may want to grab a couch if you intend to use it for long. It’s something like holding a heavy dinner plate in a buffet – you can definitely eat while standing but it feels more comfortable if there’s a vacant chair around.

2. You need a Windows or Mac computer with iTunes to initialize the iPad – it comes fully charged but it won’t run “out of the box”.

3. If you are setting up iPad with a Windows 7 (or Vista) computer, you might see some unexpected errors like “Can’t sync iPad to itunes. Not enough access privileges.” This has something to do with “User Access Control” settings of Windows but you can fix them easily.

4. You’ll effectively get only 13-14 GB of storage space on a 16 GB iPad.

5. The iPad has plenty of storage space but, like the iPhone and iPod Touch, you don’t have access to the file system so you can’t directly transfer documents from the computer to the device over USB. That said, there are some third-party apps that let you copy files to the iPad through the iTunes interface or over the air (Wi-Fi).

6. If you are working on an iPad while standing, there’s always this feeling that the thing will slip out of your hands and break. You need to get a case for the iPad.

7. The touch-screen of the iPad is beautiful and extremely responsive. It’s also a magnet for fingerprints.

8. The iPad is NOT a giant iPod Touch. I have an iPod Touch (as review unit from Apple) for some time now and can easily say that these are just two absolutely different devices that can’t be compared.

9. The virtual on-screen keyboard of the iPad is brilliant and you can actually type pretty fast in landscape mode.

10. iPad doesn’t support multi-tasking and I actually find this “limitation” useful in certain situations. For instance, when you are reading books or writing a document, you get a “distraction free” environment.

11. Apple says that all existing iPhone apps can run on the iPad. While that’s technically correct, the iPhone-only apps (most of them) look ugly on the iPad so you may want to install only apps that are not just iPad-compatible but actually designed for the iPad. Examples include EverNote, Kindle, Wolfram Alpha, Twitterific (Twitter client), etc.

12. To capture a screenshot in iPad, you need to hold the “Home” button and then press the the “Sleep” key – it’s the same as your iPhone or iPod Touch.

13. iPad doesn’t have a built-in PDF viewer and I don’t know if Adobe is planning to build a version of their Acrobat Reader for the iPad. Until then, you can download a copy of the very awesome Good Reader app from the iTunes store and read PDF eBooks on your iPad without having to convert them into ePub files.

14. Google has developed a beautiful version of Gmail for the iPad but not for other apps like Google Docs or Google Reader. The NetNewsWire App for the iPad is a decent alternative as it can sync with Google Reader as well and also supports authenticated feeds.

15. I don’t have any movies or TV shows on my iPad but video podcasts look great on the screen. The volume levels are a bit low and, unlike the iPod, Apple doesn’t ship headphone cords with the iPad.

16. A number of popular iPad Apps are currently not available outside the US. For instance, you’ll be disappointed to know that you cannot install Zinio, iBooks, iWork, Adobe Ideas, Nuance Dictation, etc. on your iPad if your iTunes Account is linked to an non-US address.

17. Unless you have a Mac and the iPhone OS SDK, it is impossible to record a video of your iPad screen (screencasts).

18. There are some nice “doodle” apps that let you write on the iPad “slate” but handwriting recognition, a popular feature of Windows based tablet PCs, is still missing from the iPad.

19. Apple has created some excellent videos to demonstrate the various features of the iPad. The expectation levels have already been set so high but once you get to use the device on your own, the experience will still blow you away.

20. Overall, I would say that the Apple iPad is a truly stunning and must-have device. And at $499, you will actually be getting some great value for your money.

Also see: Screenshots of Apple iPad Apps

Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/gadgets/ipad-review/13425/

Tags: Archives, How-to Guides and Software Tutorials, ipad, z, Gadgets

Last month we wrote about Crocodoc, a new Y Combinator-funded company that makes it very easy to upload a text document or PowerPoint deck and mark it up online to share with your colleagues. Unfortunately, it was also pretty bare boned — you couldn’t even save your edited document to your hard drive. Today, that’s changing: Crocodoc has rolled out some key new features (including the ability to save) that make the service significantly more flexible, and also pits it more directly against Adobe’s Acrobat Pro.

Aside from the ability to save to PDF, the new version includes a freehand pen tool, a tool to convert any website to PDF (which you can then add notes to), and a new API. In a few days, the company will be releasing its application on Google’s recently-launched App Marketplace. The service will also be rolling out a Flash-based embeddable document viewer (similar to what you’ll find on DocStoc and Scribd) that lets you both view and mark up embedded documents.

CEO Ryan Damico says that these features make Crocodoc more competitive with Adobe’s $400 Acrobat Pro software because the free Acrobat Reader most people have doesn’t allow them to mark up and save their documents (personally, I’ve been avoiding any software with the word ‘Acrobat’ in its title for years). Damico does acknowledge that there are still plenty of premium features that Crocodoc doesn’t have that Adobe’s paid software does, but says that this basic editing/saving functionality is what most people are after, anyway. Damico says that in the long term, Crocodoc is hoping to “do to Acrobat what Gmail did to Outlook” by taking a widely used desktop application and bringing it online.

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Some advanced tools are easy to use and fun with Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4.0. Here's a quick guide to what some of these tools do.

The Magic Wand tool will select pixels in a similar color range to the ones you click on your picture. This tool is great for erasing large areas of an image that is very similar in color. I used it in my example photo to erase the clouds of the picture. I clicked on the wand tool and then clicked an area that was basically all clouds. I then got a dotted line outlining most of the clouds in the sky, then erased them using my delete button.

After the clouds are gone you can fill the dotted area using the eyedropper tool and the paint filler, or bucket. Click on the eye dropper tool and then click on a portion of the sky that is the color you want the rest to be. Looking at the color selection at the lower left of the window you can see what the color will be when you use it. Clicking on this box will bring up a window that allows you to alter or change the color. Now click on the Paint Bucket Tool and then move the bucket into the dotted area and click. It will fill the area with that color, you then use the brush tool with to smooth and fill in the color on the rest of the areas that did not get erased.

To remove the dotted lines of your selected area you have to be in the Magic Wand selection, click on the Magic Wand tool and then right click anywhere to get rid of the dotted lines. You then click on the brush and color in the areas of clouds that you did not get rid of with the Magic Tool.

The Magic Want Selection Tool is a handy and easy way to select one particular color in the picture, but beware that you only have that color of the thing you want to get rid of or alter in the area you want to be altering. This will choose any of the same colors in the entire picture. For instance if you have a picture with a person wearing a white shirt with clouds in the background and you choose the clouds to get rid of them, the shirt may also be chosen if the color is close to the one you picked.

If you want to pick and choose an area with a similar color and only in that part of the picture you would use the Magic Selection Brush Tool. This tool picks the area that is similar based not only on color but on texture to the areas near it. You can use this brush to paint the sky, not having to be careful of getting close to the trees and such of the border and it will automatically select the entire sky. You can then select a color and fill in the area to create your own sky color. You can use this tool to change the color of objects easily and quickly.

The brush shows the color that you use to see what you are selecting, let's say someones shirt. You can change the color of the brush to anything else if it is too similar to what you are working on by using the toolbar at the top of the window. Clicking on the color block will pop up a color chart and you can choose a different color for the brush that helps you see the area you are choosing.

When you paint in an area using the brush you will have a dotted line on the edges of the areas that are similar in color and texture. Using the brush you don't have to get real close to the edges, just paint any areas that are similar with a quick line of the brush. You can then delete that color and area and fill in with another, changing someones shirt color easily. You can alter the color using the color fill and the opacity settings by just filling over the original color and having the opacity set somewhere below 100%. With this method you can tone down a too bright shirt and not alter any of the rest of a picture.

The Lasso, Polygon Lasso and Magnetic Lasso Tool is other useful tools that selects areas using a drawn line that follows either the brush you are using or snaps to the objects that you select depending on which feature you select. These tools are very useful but hard to use and takes a lot of practice. This is one of those advanced features that takes a lot of patience and practice to become adept at. Using these tools in conjunction with the features of the tools you can select objects that have varying colors and textures to alter or edit them. This is handy for things like selecting something like a basket with a bottle of wine in it that would be different textures and colors.

The Spot Healing Brush is another very easy to use tool but is one that takes patience to use. This brush replaces the color and texture with one that is appropriate to the one that yo choose using either of the options of the tool. If you choose Proximity Match it will color over the area of the brush with the color and texture that is near it. This is useful to hide or color over blemishes or other unwanted features on people skin. If you select Create Texture the tool will automatically use the colors under the brush to make a color and texture to replace the ones there. Another very useful function of this tool is to cover over distracting portions of a picture. I have pictures of my son we are going to use for his Senior Portraits. One has him sitting on a tree and there are some large brighter and darker colored areas and knots on the tree that is somewhat distracting. Using this healing tool you can get rid of those areas and replace them with colors and like textures that are of the bark near the areas we want to replace. This quickly and easily replaces those areas you don't want on a photo with the colors and textures near by or with ones created like the ones they are replacing.

Two other handy tools are the Blur and Dodge tools. The blur tool does just that, blurs the area under the brush at the strength that is selected at the top of the window. The size and the strength can be changed along with some other features like whether you want to darken or lighten the blur or if you want to change the color or other features like this. Blur is nice to use to highlight a person or object in a photo and make the background less busy. If the subject of your photo is in a busy background or if the colors in the background are similar to the ones of your subject you might want to blur the background to make the subject stand out more.

The Dodge tool is also a handy tool to change certain areas of a photo and keep the original texture and color, only lighten or darken the area. If you want to darken or lighten an area you would simply use this tool and paint the area. Using the brush size for the control to color the areas and dodge to lighten or burn to darken you can color an area of a photo to lighten or darken it. This is handy when an area of a picture is in shadow but you don't want it to be or if you want to create a shadow area.

The Sponge tool is a very similar tool that changes the color saturation of an area. This will make colors appear brighter or darker without coloring over them with a white or black as in the Dodge Tool. This is handy for toning down a color or brightening one without changing the actual color. The Dodge Tool changes the color of the object by adding or taking away from the color using black and white. The Sponge tool uses the same color only it moves up and down the color scale depending on whether you are brightening or darkening.

These tools are handy ways to edit and fix photos and make the subject in your photo stand out. They also help you separate your subject so you can work on areas that need to be altered without changing other parts of your photo. Adobe's Photoshop Elements comes with many handy tools to help you make the most of your digital imaging.

AIM allows you to customize your information through bookmarking, personal RSS feeds and links, and communication with administrators through forums. When AIM is updated, you will be automatically notified of those updates on application startup. Updating involves the silent install of new content and does not require reinstalling the application or running any background services.

Customize this application by adding and removing RSS feeds, links, and bookmarks. You will be automatically notified of content updates.

The current version of AIM includes:

• Preference Reference for Acrobat and Adobe Reader: An in-progress database of configurable registry-level preferences that is updated regularly.
• Preference Overview: Describes the data types, feature lockdown, and other details.
• Feature Lockdown: A guide to locking features so that end users can't change the settings.
• Application Security Documentation: A guide to secure application configuration, including enhanced security, JavaScript controls, and other features.

Install the Administrator's Information Manager for Acrobat

A Security Advisory has been posted in regards to the upcoming Adobe Reader and Acrobat updates scheduled for February 16, 2010. The updates will address critical security issues in the products.

We will continue to provide updates on the upcoming release via the Security Advisory section of the Adobe web site, as well as the Adobe PSIRT blog.

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties and confers no rights.

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Photoshop is a static image editor but is also part of the Adobe Creative Suite and as such allows you to have greater control over the still images you use in your videos. Understanding how to use Photoshop will allow you to enhance your video with more effective still images.

This guide is one that I use in my classes to give people a basic understanding of the workflow of Photoshop and prepare them for using the many tools offered to them to edit their still images. While I will mention some tools, I will go into them in depth in later tutorials. Once you have completed this tutorial, you will be able to open an image, manipulate the size with the image tool, fix any errors you have made with the history tool, and be able to export your image (save) in a format you can use in video editing. The key is not to just know the tools, but to locate where they are, how to restore Photoshop if you have moved things around, and how the tools work in connection with each other.

To begin, open Photoshop and look at the standard desktop. This is the default workspace and while it is slightly cluttered, it does provide a base to come back with all the relevant tools when you are working. Image 001 shows all the palettes that are open in the default layout. On the left is the TOOLS PALETTE, where you will access the selection tool, the marquee tool, the shapes tool and others. On the lower right is the LAYER PALETTE where you will be able to access the individual layers of your image. In the middle right is the HISTORY PALETTE, which allows you to “fix” any problem you may have caused while you were editing. Finally, the NAVIGATOR PALETTE is on the top left, this allows you both to determine image size dimensions, move around your image, and zoom in on your image all in one go.

Once you have opened your image, you can click on IMAGE and then IMAGE size from the top menu bar (see Image 002). This allows you to view the current image size and manipulate it using the image information window (see image 003). You should note that your rulers should be in pixels, if they aren't, use the drop down menu to change from percent to pixels. Once you have changed the width, the height will adjust automatically. For video work, images should be 720 pixels wide and 576 pixels high. You can either use the selection marquee to crop your image to these dimensions, or simply adjust them in the image size window.

Once you have edited your image as desired, click on FILE and then SAVE AS… from the top menu and you will get the “SAVE AS..” selection menu. Left click on the drop down menu for type and then choose JPEG (see image 004) to select jpg image. Then name your image in the file name box above the file type box. You may also use the drop down menu at the top to change the location of where you are saving the image.

Now your image is edited and ready to be put (imported) into your video. The nice thing about using Photoshop and Adobe Premiere together is that once you have imported your image into your video, if you go back into Photoshop and edit it again, the changes will be seen in Premiere without you having to reimport the image.

How Big and Complex can you make your form?

I get asked this question often. Customers or partners develop very complex or large dynamic forms with many pages and large amounts of script. At what point do we cross the line and reach a level of complexity where Reader/PDF is no longer the right tool for the job?

There is no easy answer. The answer will be different for different users. But it is helpful to look at some of the stress points you’ll encounter with large forms.

Note that these notes apply to forms opened in Acrobat/Reader. The stress points for forms rendered on the server are much different.

1. Number of pages to render
2. File Size
3. Script size, complexity and development methodology
4. Script performance

Number of pages to render

One of the great properties of regular PDF files is that the file open time is constant no matter how large the PDF. The time to open a two thousand page PDF is pretty much the same as for a one page PDF. This is because Reader doesn’t load the whole PDF into memory and doesn’t read the bytes for page <n> until the user navigates to page <n>.

Dynamic XFA/PDF forms offer a different value proposition. The pages are shaped at form open time by the form data. Of course, there are great advantages to dynamic forms. But there are also associated processing costs. At form open time the entire form definition is loaded into memory. The entire set of data is loaded and merged with the form template. Reader performs enough of the layout to determine how many pages will be rendered. Then when you navigate to page <n>, Reader renders that page from the in-memory structures.

How many pages can Reader handle for a dynamic document? This depends on the complexity of the template. I’ve seen five page forms that take forever to open. I’ve seen a hundred page form open in a second. The limit is more related to the density/complexity of template and data rather than the actual number of pages.

Some form authors attempt to reduce file open time by hiding inactive pages. This strategy was effective in reducing form open time in Acrobat/Reader 7. But in Reader 8.1 when the form open algorithm was improved, the ‘page hiding’ strategy no longer makes a significant difference.

File Size

Dynamic XFA/PDF forms tend to be smaller than static documents. This is because of the template property of forms. For example: a hundred page static PDF will have a hundred pages of PDF mark-up. Whereas in the dynamic case, this could be one page of XFA mark-up that gets replicated a hundred times when merged with data. The latter will be a much smaller file. Nonetheless, dynamic documents can grow to the point where they begin to stress your system. The time to read and parse the documents happens very quickly – even for very large templates. However, the size of the template becomes more of a factor when there are security components in play. Operations such as Certification, Reader extensions and Signatures will perform comparison operations on ‘before-and-after’ versions of the form. The costs of these comparisons are proportionate to the size of the template.

So while there is no absolute threshold on file size, you will find the threshold is lower for certified/extended/signed forms.

Script size and complexity and development methodology

I have seen XFA/PDF files with tens of thousands of lines of JavaScript. Given that there is no debugger, you have to be pretty persistent to create this amount of script. If your big script library is well written, it may perform well enough, but the stress comes with the maintenance of the script:

• When you change the script, do you have the ability to rigorously test your changes? When you modify fields or subforms, will your script still work? Do you have test collateral that gives you code coverage for all the edge cases in your script? Do you have some form of automated testing? QTP anyone?
• Is your script maintainable? Or is the code ‘write-only’? Unless you have been disciplined in the creation of your library, you will have longer term maintenance issues when a new developer comes along to update an existing form.
• When you encounter problems with your script, are you able to isolate the problem when you ask for help? Your friends in our support organization are much better at solving problems with small, simple forms than with large, complex ones. If your script is modular and isolated into components then you’ll be able to ask for help much more easily than if your script is an inter-tangled mess.
• When you change script, do you preserve previous versions of your form? You need the ability to roll-back changes.

Again, there are no absolutes here, but if you want/need to write lots of script, you need to have the associated discipline in your development environment to make it maintainable.

Script performance

Large amounts of script do not necessarily imply poor performance. But poorly written script of any amount can kill form performance. A script that traverses the entire form hierarchy will have performance that is proportionate to the number of objects in the form. As the form grows, the script slows down. There are many 'best practises' for writing efficient script. It is very important to pay close attention to the contents of frequently executed loops.

Conclusion

But before you make a big investment in a form, make sure you consider the alternatives. You might be better off with a Flash form or an AIR application.  If you choose Reader/PDF, the maximum size and complexity of your form depends primarily on your own tolerances.  You need to decide whether the runtime experience is responsive enough.  You need to decide if you are getting the return on investment for your cost to develop and maintain the form. 

I'm so glad I ditched Adobe Reader a long time ago. It's a real POS.

A little bird told me that part of the reason for compulsory updates is so Adobe can keep an eye on other Adobe software installed on a users system. Using the reader as a kind of trojan horse to get in and send back information about the keys to Adobe apps like Photoshop. This is of course just a rumour, one I may, or may not have started.

Here's a typical user case scenario for the viewing of a PDF document. User gets out of bed. User wants to read PDF's, has heard Adobe Reader will do that. User goes to download it and instead of getting the download, first has to go through installing a new download system. After lunch user finally has the 16 gigabyte install for the reader software done, along with some extra software they didn't ask for. User goes to read PDF document but now there are updates, these are important security updates. User believes they must have these. After dinner user tries again to read the PDF document and the crowd goes wild, he shoots, he succeeds!

Cue Jingle

|At Adobe Dynamics, we make simple tasks stupidly hard, because we can.

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Didn't you always wish there was a way to make your life just a little bit easier? Well with using Actions in Photoshop you're one step closer to making that wish come true. While your Actions palette isn't going to do your laundry or take the dog for a walk, it will help you to automate some of the more common tasks that you do when you're working with Adobe Photoshop.

In this series, we'll take a look at how you can use your actions in Photoshop and how you can create your own actions in order to simplify some of the common tasks that you perform.

To begin, we'll open up the Actions palette and take a look at what we have available. You'll find your actions palette on the far right hand tab of the same palette where your Layers are located. Or, you can go to Window, Actions to display the palette automatically.

Now, if you haven't used your Actions palette then you're likely just to see the Default Actions listed in the window. A quick scroll through that list probably isn't going to impress you much, since these default actions are just a way of setting up your Photoshop work space to accommodate for the project that you're working on. What we're more interested in are the actions that really show some immediate results.

If you click on the tiny arrow in the upper right hand corner of your actions palette you'll be presented with a menu for your actions palette. Included in the bottom of this menu are the pre-installed actions that the good folks at Adobe decided to bundle along with Photoshop.

If you're using Photoshop CS2, then some of your available action sets will include Commands, Frames, Text Effects, and Image Effects along with a few others that you can play around with.

To get you more familiar with some of the fun you can have with actions, select the Image Effects action set from the list. Immediately a list of pre-installed Image Effects will load into your actions palette and you can scroll through the list to get a quick idea of what you have to choose from.

Next, open a photo or other image that you would like to experiment with. Be sure to make a copy of your image, so you don't destroy your original image.

With your image now open, it's time to put some actions to work. With the pre-installed actions you can quickly make the photo look aged, add a blizzard effect or even make it appear as if it's raining. Try out these actions by selecting the one you want and then clicking the “play” arrow at the bottom of your actions palette. Immediately you'll see Photoshop going to work playing through the set of instructions that are coded into the action. To see these instructions, simply click the little blue arrow immediately to the left of the action title to expand a list beneath that action. That list will include all of the commands that have been recorded within that action so you know exactly what is being done to your image.

Once the action has completed the list of recorded commands, you'll immediately get to see the results that it had on your image. If you don't like the results, then don't worry. Simply close out the copy without saving any changes and reopen to try again, or click onto your layers palette and delete any layers that were created by Photoshop during the process of the action, leaving only your original background image.

Experiment with all of the pre-installed actions to see what kinds of effects you can create with images and text.

In the next Actions tutorial we'll take a look at how you can create your own actions, just in case the ones you already have aren't good enough!

Today, we announced the availability of Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3 and 8.2. For more information regarding the security details in these releases, please see Security Bulletin APSB10-02.

As mentioned in a previous blog post titled Adobe Reader and Acrobat Updates Include New Security Improvements, we have been shipping a new “beta” updater technology in a passive state since our October 13, 2009 quarterly update. The purpose of the new updater, once activated, is to keep end-users up-to-date in a much more streamlined and automated way. Today, we are testing the new updater with a subset of our end-users, who previously signed up for the beta program. This is the first time we've exercised the new updater with “official” updates, which allows us to test a variety of network configurations encountered on the Internet in order to ensure a robust update experience. Over the next few weeks, we will be analyzing the test results and will continue communicating important details with you, including when we expect it to be active for all users, which could be as soon as our next update.

We also talked about the introduction of the Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript Blacklist Framework in that same blog post. The Framework provides customers granular control over the execution of specific JavaScript API calls. The purpose of the new JavaScript Blacklist Framework is to provide protection against attacks that target specific JavaScript API calls. As mentioned in Security Advisory- Adobe Reader and Acrobat, we were able to recommend this risk mitigation strategy during our recent zero-day exposure window. The JavaScript Blacklist Framework worked as planned and we had positive feedback from customers who were able to utilize the mitigation effectively.

As mentioned in Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript Blacklist Framework Mitigation for Security Advisory – APSA09-07, if you deployed the mitigation to a “non-locked down” area, Adobe will automatically reset the Blacklist Framework with the 9.3 and 8.2 updates. But, if you deployed the registry key setting to a “locked down” area, then you will need to reset that value yourself.

Finally, as described in an earlier post, Adobe Reader and Acrobat Version 7 End of Support, support for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x (as well as Adobe Reader UNIX 8.x) has ended, and Adobe strongly recommends updating to newer versions.

Important: Still using Acrobat or Reader 7?

Adobe no longer supports or patches for Acrobat/Reader 7 and earlier.

These versions and all previous versions are missing critical updates and users are recommended to upgrade.

For more information, see Adobe Support Policies.

NOTE: As described in Adobe's Supported Product Versions, Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.x and Adobe Reader 7.x support ended on December 28, 2009.

Read on to learn more about why it is important to keep Acrobat up to date.

Why Keep Acrobat Up-to-date?

Adobe Reader and Acrobat are an interesting target to hackers in some ways. These products have some browser-like capabilities, connect to the internet and interact with the file system.

I've previously written about how Acrobat can be extended via JavaScript to add all sorts of new capabilities. Indeed, there are a great many customers who take advantage of this.

Unfortunately, JavaScript can be used in some malicious ways. Hackers try to embed JavaScript in a document which could deliver a malicious payload.

To help you keep your software up to date, the Adobe Updater periodically checks with our servers and alerts you if a new update is available. You can also check yourself at any time by choosing Help—> Check for Updates.

It is alarming to me how many customers I talk to do not keep Acrobat up to date.

Quite simply, not patching is bad. You put you, your clients and your organization at risk by not keeping your software up to date.

Security Alerts

If you are in IT or just curious, you can sign up for the Adobe Security Notification Service.
The Adobe Security Notification Service is a free e-mail notification service that Adobe uses to send information to you about the security of Adobe products. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Security Blogs

Adobe has several Security-related blogs which are interesting reads, especially if you are on the geeky side.

The Security Matters Blog offers general insights about Adobe products and security.

The Adobe Reader Blog often covers security topics and will definitely be of interest to IT folks who deploy Reader.

Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has a blog that covers security across all Adobe products or interactions with operating systems and other tools.

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