Filter Forge, Inc. today announced an upcoming series of free Photoshop plugins and the availability of the first plugin in the series, “Filter Forge Freepack 1 - Metals”.

Alexandria, VA, USA (PRWEB) November 30, 2007 — Filter Forge, Inc. today announced an upcoming series of free Photoshop plugins and the availability of the first plugin in the series, “Filter Forge Freepack 1 - Metals”, which generates photorealistic metal textures and effects.

Over the course of the coming year, Filter Forge, Inc. plans to release seven free Photoshop plugins named Filter Forge Freepacks, with each plugin centered around a different theme. The freepacks are based on the technology used in the company’s flagship product, Filter Forge, an innovative Photoshop plugin allowing users to create their own filters in a visual editor. Each freepack will be capable of generating seamlessly-tiled textures with professional-grade anti-aliasing, and will take full advantage of modern dual-core processors.

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Hosted by Jeff Gamet and Jay Nelson of Design Tools Monthly.

Lulu: Custom Calendars: Easy & Profitable
Tip: Create a Movie from an iPhoto Slideshow
TransType Pro: Convert Your Fonts to OpenType
Take Control of Fonts in Leopard
PDF2ID: Convert PDFs to Native InDesign
ID2Q: Convert InDesign documents to QuarkXPress
Tip: Panes-to-Palettes in Acrobat
Tip: Power Paste in QuarkXPress & InDesign
Tip: Hide Items from Master Pages in InDesign
Tip: Remove Paragraph Formats but Keep Character Formats in QuarkXPress
Tip: A Useful Pangram

 

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Hosted by Jeff Gamet and Jay Nelson of Design Tools Monthly.

Microsoft JPEG XR to Become Industry Standard
Adobe Acrobat 8.1.1 and Reader 8.1.1
Holiday Gift Guide for creative professionals (click for list with links)

 

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What’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to charge more money for your creative services?
 
The answer to that question (believe it or not) is an easy one – differentiate your services from other designers and design firms. How? By adding more value and a greater advantage to your design services than your competitors are currently offering.
 
One way you can do this is by sharing and leveraging the information you ALREADY KNOW to your prospects and clients – in writing!
 
Writing down your expertise and sharing it with your prospects and clients is a ‘must do’  exercise for the creative entrepreneur. If you are not communicating the value you bring to your client’s business you could start to experience a slow and steady erosion to your profit margins. And put your business in the vulnerable position of being commoditized in the near future.

 

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White space, an easy way to take good art, and screw it up. White space is something that all designers should think about more often, but seldom take the time to do so. In logo design podcast 14, Paul shows you how to take your artwork, and test for the correct amount of white space. This gentle relationship between the positive and negative elements in design, is key to overall balance, proportion, and design hygiene. White space plays a very important role in design symmetry, and symmetry is what keeps the eye’s attention from straying.

 

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Hello once again, and sorry for the layoff. In this episode, Paul takes one of our logo review clients, and gives their logo an extreme makeover! He shows how you can take clipart, and turn it in to something respectable. Since many clients like the look of clipart enough to use it as their company brand, and sometimes actually insist on using it over original design, Paul illustrates how you can use this to your advantage as a solid starting point. You already know what the customer likes, now you can proceed from the there and put your own original touch to the design, and give them back something unique that they will love.

 

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In this star-studded episode, Paul dives in to originality in logo design. Often times it is very easy to think you are being creative and original if you just sit down and create something from scratch. Problem is, often times we are influenced by things we have already seen and are just too lazy to research in an attempt to avoid plagiarism. There are some resources on the web that are in their infant stages of image recognition, and hopefully one day we will be able to submit a design, and get results back that show if anything has been created very similar to what we have done. But until that day, it is each designer’s responsibility to do reasonable, proper research, and investigation to avoid plagiarizing another’s logo.

 

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PAPERSPECS ANNOUNCES FREE WEBINAR TO AID GREEN DESIGNERS AND PRINT BUYERS TO APPLY SUSTAINABILITY
 
News Highlights
•       The webinar, titled “Sustainability – Hands On,” will be conducted on December 13th at 2:00 pm EST/11:00 am PST;
•       Guest speaker Brian Dougherty is a respected leader in green design and a founding partner at Celery Design Collaborative in Berkeley, California;
•       The webinar will be sponsored by Finch Paper who earlier this month announced a report detailing their own sustainability program;
•       To attend the FREE webinar, prospective attendees can register at www.paperspecs.com/webinar/handson.htm. For more information about PaperSpecs or to sign up for their free newsletter, go to www.paperspecs.com.
 
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Corel Corp. said Wednesday it will close its Minneapolis office and consolidate digital media operations in California’s Silicon Valley and China.
 
 About 50 people will be affected by the closure, but most will remain with Corel until May, a spokeswoman for the Ottawa computer software company said.

A “small number” of Minneapolis workers will be allowed to work from home and the rest will be offered severance packages, the spokeswoman said.

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Corel Announces WinDVD(R) is the World’s First Blu-ray Disc Playback Software to Receive BD-Video Profile 1.1

Certification WinDVD(R) now supports BD-Video Profile 1.1 for high-definition, picture-in-picture playback on Blu-ray Discs.OTTAWA–(Business Wire)–Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL) (TSX:CRE), a leading developer ofgraphics, productivity and digital media software, today announcedthat WinDVD(R) is the world’s first Blu-ray Disc playback software toreceive BD-Video Profile 1.1 certification. By receiving certification for BD-Video Profile 1.1, WinDVD haspassed the stringent standards and guidelines set by the Blu-ray DiscAssociation to ensure the best possible user experience. With BD-Video Profile 1.1 support, WinDVD users can now usepicture-in-picture functionality to playback a smaller high-definitionvideo in the corner of their screen while watching the high-definitionmovie on the background main screen. With this enhanced functionality,movie fans can now watch the director’s commentary as an overlay tothe action on screen.

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Corel Corporation Catherine Hughes, 613-728-0826 ext. 1659 (Media) catherine.hughes@corel.com or The Blueshirt Group Todd Friedman, 415-217-7722 (Investor Relations) todd@blueshirtgroup.com Stacie Bosinoff, 415-217-7722 (Investor Relations) stacie@blueshirtgroup.com Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL) (TSX:CRE), a leading developer of graphics, productivity and digital media software, today announced that it is increasing its focus on the Digital Media market by
concentrating its Digital Media operations in Greater China and Silicon Valley. These actions will enable the Company to fully maximize its broad portfolio of digital media software and technology assets in order to deliver an enhanced user experience to consumers worldwide. Centralizing Corel’s Digital Media operations will also enable the Company to further accelerate the development process and increase speed-to-market for new and upgraded products.

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Merriam-Webster OnLine, the leading source for English language reference on the Web, is asking its visitors to vote for the one word they feel best sums up the past eleven months and most deserves the distinction of becoming Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007. Last year the overwhelming majority of voters chose “truthiness” — a word introduced by Stephen Colbert on the debut of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report — to take top honors. This year, visitors may choose from a list culled from 2007’s most frequently looked-up words on Merriam-Webster OnLine as well as submissions from one of the site’s most popular features, Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary. All votes will be tallied by the company’s staff and the winner will be announced online at http://www.merriam-webster.com/ in December.

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EFI Advances Award-Winning, BestColor Technology-Driven Colorproof XF Proofing and Production Solution

New Remote Proofing Configuration, Support for Current Pantone Libraries and New Printers Mean Greater Flexibility, Improved Productivity and Higher Accuracy for Customers

EFI (NASDAQ: EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced significant advancements, including an innovative new configuration, of its award-winning BestColorR Technology-driven ColorproofT XF proofing and production solution. To improve efficiencies, increase productivity, and deliver higher accuracy and greater flexibility for Colorproof XF customers as they communicate colour, EFI has focused on remote proofing, support of newly launched printers and PantoneR GoeT System support with Colorproof XF Service Pack 4, immediately available.

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Markzware Announces the Immediate Release of Microsoft Publisher to Adobe InDesign (PUB2ID) for Macintosh and Windows Users!
www.markzware.com - Markzware Mary Gay Marchese, 949-756-5100, ext. 250 pr@markzware.com After a very successful beta testing program, Markzware is pleased to announce the exciting worldwide release of Microsoft Publisher to Adobe InDesign (PUB2ID) v1.5.

If you have Microsoft Publisher versions 2002-2007 files, you can now easily convert them into Adobe InDesign CS2 and CS3
documents.

Jessica Herbig, of Allegra USA, said of the PUB2ID release, “I use a multi-page MSP document with a few pictures, and lots of text flowing from page-to-page. The original was a PC file, and I opened it on my Mac G5 in InDesign CS2. It was such a fast conversion process and all of the images were automatically linked. The Windows fonts were missing, which was a quick fix. It worked great, and what would have taken hours to retype and set text, now would only take about 15 minutes to format. Thanks! Great work!”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Adobe Systems Inc. and Yahoo Inc. plan to launch a service Thursday allowing publishers to insert advertisements into many online newsletters or other electronic documents.

For example, a company that publishes a daily bulletin for electrical engineers may open the content to digital camera companies, laptop computer vendors and other advertisers. The ads will contain links so the reader can go immediately to the advertiser’s Web site.

If the reader decides to print the newsletter on paper, the ads — which appear online on the side of the document — disappear.

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 (PRLEAP.COM) OAK PARK, MI, Nov. 28, 2007  Vertabase, a leading developer of project management software, today announced the launch of the Vertabase Timer in public alpha. The Vertabase Timer is a software tool that makes accurate time management simple and effortless by tracking time on projects and tracking time on clients. It runs on Adobe AIR and is compatible with Windows and Mac OS as a desktop widget. Ideally suited for individuals, freelancers, teams and enterprises, the Vertabase Timer generates detailed time reports that may be exported to XML for use in other applications. It is available for free online at http://timer.vertabase.com.

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Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Wednesday, November 28, 2007  — (Business Wire India)
The Writers Block (TWB) has broadened its portfolio by offering Adobe FrameMaker training through the TWB Online portal. The program titled TWB Online: Adobe FrameMaker Certification is targeted at individuals who are Technical Writers, Programmers or Professionals wanting to create or enhance help systems for desktop or Web-based applications. It is helpful to technical writing professionals who want to upgrade their skills with minimum investment of time and money. Adobe FrameMaker� is the industry standard help authoring tool used by most technical writers. The three week program has been designed keeping in mind the sharp learning curve faced by technical writers at the beginning of a new project. The program is priced at US$ 275.

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Free Plug-In Enables Users to Save PDF Documents Directly to Popular Document Management Systems and Repositories

ANDOVER, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Omtool, Ltd. (OTCBB:OMTL), a leading provider of document capture and routing products and services, today announced the availability of the Omtool Swiftwriter Plug-In for Adobe, a free one-click solution that delivers integration of Adobe Acrobat® software and Adobe Reader® software with document management systems (DMSs) prominent in the legal industry.

This new plug-in, which is now available for download, integrates with Acrobat and Adobe Reader versions 6, 7, and 8, enabling users to save PDF files directly into document management systems. Omtool’s Swiftwriter Plug-In streamlines the document management process by presenting a toolbar icon and “save-to” command that are tailored to a specific DMS. The Swiftwriter Plug-In is compatible with and currently available for document management systems and repositories from Open Text® (Hummingbird), Interwoven®, Microsoft® SharePoint®, and WORLDOX®. Additional document management system support will be available in the future.

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Urban Geko, a leading graphic design and web design firm shares secrets for creating high quality brochures and marketing collateral.

(PRWEB) November 29, 2007 — Urban Geko, boutique print, multimedia and web design firm in Newport Beach, California, shares five tips for bringing value to your brochure.

“I try to impress on my clients the importance of their brochures,” says Urban Geko co-founder Reza Widjaja. “If designed correctly, a brochure can do wonders for a company.”

Urban Geko’s 5 Design Secrets:
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Laughingbird Announces New Design-Software Products, Update to Original Logo Design Software

Marc Sylvester — CEO and owner of Laughingbird Software — announced two, new, design-software products this month: the Ad Creator version 2.5 and The Web Graphics Creator

Camarillo, Calif. (PRWEB) November 28, 2007 — Marc Sylvester — CEO and owner of Laughingbird Software — announced two, new, design-software products this month: the Ad Creator version 2.5 and The Web Graphics Creator.
Laughingbird Software is the company that invented the extremely popular do-it-yourself logo design software, The Logo Creator. Laughingbird has also announced the release of an updated version of the trendy, logo-software product.

“The Logo Creator does just what the name implies,” Sylvester said in a recent interview from the studios of BorpeanTown Productions, in Orlando, Fla. “It allows the small business owner to easily design high-quality logos for small businesses, company web sites, intranets, school web sites, and a myriad of other markets. The list is endless. It allows the small business owner to play David to the bigger Goliaths that exist in the world.”

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