DTG News and Else
DT&G: Vol. 13, Number 7, JULY, 2003 ~ The eZine for Design, Typography, & Graphics   (since 1990)  
Happy July...
Our liberty depends on freedom of the press,
   and that cannot be limited without being lost.
      Thomas Jefferson

JULY: Fonts, Books, Fun

Ahhhh... summertime!

This month, just grab a book and off to the beach you go! Or, you can try any of our fabulous font selections in the Publishers' Warehouse.
      Get blurbs about this month's content items on the front page of Graphic-Design.com. As part of our new makeover, we're keeping new content items on the front page, and reserving the newsletter here for "&Else" items. However, for the sake of the email version of this newsletter, I'll list them quickly...
Interview: Katrin Eismann, author of Photoshop Retouching and Restoration, with a new edition on the presses
Secrets of Adware and Spyware by Wallace Wang shares some interesting aspects of this computer security issue
FONTS! The Harry Potter collection has been released along with several other "off the wall" fonts for summer antics.
CLIP ART! Actually a number of items including a whole disk full of summer items. There's also a little league field, and some surprises. They're all vectored EPS files, but they're all in the loading dock. See below for the address.

Design Bookshelf Updates

We have more than 60 new titles in the Bookshelf, just pick a category.
      I do however want to direct you to the front page to see the new "Design" bibliography series. A number of readers have written asking for suggestions for graphic design "starter" books.
The Design Bookshelf

Designers in Handcuffs...

This is our Editor's Choice this month, because it's a knock-out book! Not the usual design book -- this one is cover-to-cover tips and tricks on dealing with the myriad of problems and pit-falls you'll experience as a designer, and how the big designers cope. If you're in any of the visual fields, you'll want this book.
Designers in Handcuffs
Font Team International we can show you a lot of fonts, but to fully appreciate these unique fonts and awesome digital photographs you need to visit the Font Team International web site www.fonteaminternational.com

July Photoshop Adventures

A reader wrote Photoshop 911 for help creating gridded montages... patterns and channels to the rescue!
Creating Grid Masks in Photoshop

Photoshop 911 Quick-Tips

This month we help a Reader with a Pesky Webmaster; Screening behind type; Images imported into typography; Blending Images into Montage using gradient masks; Reviving the last settings in dialogs; Inserting Faces into historic halftoned photos; the rescue of treasured Poloriod photos; generating Dotted Lines in Photoshop and more
in the Photoshop FAQ

Awesomely Good Minolta Film Scanner

This month, Dr. D'Lynn Waldron takes a look at the Minolta DiMage Scan Dual III, which is under $300, and compares scans from other scanners costing many times more! See her full story of the Minolta DiMage Scan Dual III
Minolta DiMage

Adobe follows Apple

Of course if you're a Mac users you can't help knowing about the awesome new G5 engine making Mac once again the fastest computer in the world. Then Adobe saw the miserably slow performance of Photoshop under the new architecture, so they had to get with the program. By the time Apple starts shipping the new G5 line, Adobe will have a free Photoshop Plug-in Technology that exploits the new architecture. They say PS will run twice as fast, when compared to any previous Apple system.
      That will be at Adobe.com, but if you want some quick links to the easiest news on the new products from apple, then go to:

Letters from Readers:

M Johnson writes:
I'm unable to download the pdf files for the newsletter. Can you assist me with this? Thanks.
      (A) Yes, we get asked that quite often. The PDF editions have been removed. We no longer offer a PDF version, everything now is web based. We may start them back up again at some point so stay tuned.

E. Roberts from Little Rock, Arkansas writes:
Congratulations on your redesign work! I'm finding it easier to navigate, and the new pages look great.
      Thanks!

Antique Western Fonts

Edward writes from Maynard, MA, asking:
      Does anyone know the typeface used on the following tutorial? I would greatly appreciate your assistance.
      He's talking about the "Layers" seminar in the Photoshop department, and yes, that font is "Laredo" from the SilverFonts collection. It's an antique "wood" style font duplicated in many collections, by many names. Similar shareware fonts (Mac) can be found in the Loading Dock, search (Use your browser's "Find" function) the fonts index for "Antique Western"
  Publishers' Warehouse Fonts

New Web Templates available...

Tom McFleet writes to alert us of the new Web Templates Shop where it's extremely easy to buy any of the templates that catch one's fancy. The template designs were strategically developed to make it simple for users to modify their sites within seconds.
  Web Templates Shop

TypeCon2003 July 17-20

Typeface Twin Cities Project to be Unveiled -- The University of Minnesota Design Institute (UMDI) invited six teams of typographers to answer that question. Each proposed a new typeface for the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, as part of the Twin Cities Design Celebration 2003. July 17-20
      Thanks to Tamye Riggs, Director of The Society of Typographic Aficionados - for sending this one in. Tamye is a frequenter of the Designer's Cafe, and a long time friend of the Design Center.
  Typecon 2003

Requiem: Casady & Greene

Long time "good guys" developer Casady & Greene Software close their doors tomorrow. I'm sorry to see them go, they brought us such great titles as Conflict Catcher and Spell Catcher, among many other high quality Mac products, which I am using as I write this today! Their MP3 player gave birth to Apple's iTunes and is still my favorite player.
Be sure to check their site if you've used any of their products. They list the "new" owners of the products where you can get support.
      Goodbye C & G ... we'll miss you.
  http://www.casadyg.com/

Reader Tip: Video in Elements

B. Cheryl Bliss from Dearborn writes:
I recently imported a video tape(Using "Dazzle"-'Digital Video Creator 150') into "Photoshop Elements 2.0". I found it quite amazing how I could advance the images frame by frame in order to find the best images suitable for editing in PSE. I was able to pull images from the darkness. It was great! Now I can print hard copies of photos to share with others. I even found some images that did not show up when the video was played.
      Fantastic! Can't wait to try it!

Web Design slows down

I am sad to report that the WebDesign and Review department, for some reason, took a drastic slow-down during June, and there were so few submissions, I'm delaying an update there for another week or so. Also, there were only four web site critiques -- all of which are under 8 lines, so they'll be ganged into a collection. None of our regular reviewers were present this month, and I'm hoping they return during July.
      There are still 60 or so reader sites to be reviewed. Don't take the first one you come to.
  Review a Reader Site Today

Font Finding

Her "Geekness" Anne-Marie Concepcion referenced "Identifont" in her latest "DesignGeek" newsletter and we thought we'd pass it along for when you need to match an existing font you didn't recognize. Walk through the process at their web iste and it returns the name of the font. Pretty slick.   IdentiFont.com
      See Marie's digs at: Seneca Design & Training, Inc., http://www.senecadesign.com/

Design Cafe and Calendar Resources

Members of the Design Cafe have been exchanging some very cool resource links and mentioned that they should be posted. Well, the DTP Jumpstation is the spot.
      If you have resource links you'd like to share with the rest of us, or if you know of any upcoming events, either send them as email, or use our handy online form. Be sure to add a few words of description about the link.
  Easy online submission form!

Off for New York...

Fred In last month's newsletter I promised after the trip to L.A. and Berkeley, we would be working on anti-spam litigation once the new Virginia anti-spam laws kicked in. We're working on it and will let you know all about our experience.
      Our trip to the west coast was wonderful, I got to visit and tour Peachpit Books to plan our "Back to School" promotion for this August. I also stopped in to visit Bert Monroy and get an advanced peek at his new book the "commercial" side of Photoshop art. He was just finishing a major client project -- a magazine cover -- with umpteen layers! We'll be showing you that in next month's issue.
      This month, we're going to New York to see Macworld (now called "Creative Pro Macworld Expo") and attend the Adobe breakfast. It's always exciting and always fun. So this month's Loading Dock is in New York, or at
  http://www.graphic-design.com/newyork/
      Until next month, here's hoping you have a wonderful July. Stay in touch.
Next stop: New York City!

Thanks for reading

Fred Showker
Editor / Publisher, DT&G Magazine

Parting words: on the subject of performance

"Resolve to perform what you ought.
    Perform without fail what you resolve."
        Benjamin Franklin

Participate in your Design Center

Lots of fun and information for all... don't forget, any community is only as good as the participation of its members. We invite your tips, tricks, comments, suggestions and camaraderie.