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» Brand new Pixelmator tutorials!

 I’ve updated the tutorial section today with a couple of brand new Pixelmator tutorials after a lot of requests for those. I’m working on a bunch more of tutorials at the moment as well and if you want to see any special one, leave a comment here or on the contact form Below here is a list of the just added tutorials!

 

• Combine two images easily
• Make a gleaming sunlight effect - Part 1
• Make a gleaming sunlight effect - Part 2
• Create a Zoom Burst effect

 

» Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac is shipping!

 Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac is now from today and on shipping! Adobe has skipped the whole version 5 and now made the newest version 6 available on Mac as well as on Windows, leveling out the version differences. Elements 6 is really a brand new software from the previous versions and it is a really welcome release.

The pricing sets at $90 for the full new version of Photoshop Elements 6 and if you are upgrading from a previous version of the program, you can get the upgrade for $70. You can purchase the program over at the Adobe website.

» Easy Going Tuesday

 For me at least today is a really easy going Tuesday with loads of free time to work on so here is a Tuesday news post, filled with some cool goodies!

• Rumors were apparently true yesterday! Today marks the official release of Windows Vista SP1 and it should be available in the Windows Updater for you all using Vista.
   
• Justin Seeley had a pretty cool blog post today about the Social Network Wars that are going on right now, where they are definately in war for us visitors. It’s a very interesting read. PS: I should also mention that Justin is back on blogging now so check is totally revamped blog out, it’s pretty cool.
   
• Apple has today released a new version of Safari bringing it up to version 3.1. They promise it to be even faster now, and I’d say it runs smoothly, so no reason not to upgrade.
   
• I just gotto rave on a bit about B&H Photo! I’m on the lookout for some new lighting gear to add (mainly things that Scott Kelby suggested in his first lighting week day, things that do suit my budget) to my set-up, and the thing is I need some extension cable and with the whole world of cables out there, I had no idea what to get. So I go to the B&H Photo site and fire up the live chat. Immidiately I get a person assigned and get a great answer and product numbers for what I need, from the cables to the adapters. Really great service!
   
• I also want to finally pass on a congratulations to a friend of mine, Elizabeth Gast on the NAPP Forums (or there known as Firgs), who have got herself a job as a Photoshop teacher! Congrats!!

 

» Monday News Stuff

 Today’s been a pretty cool Monday with a lot of music for me, playing flute at a place which I feel was really, really appreciated. So coming up is some of the latest news.

Adobe draws back the Lightroom 1.4 update!

After some problems, Adobe has today removed the update to Lightroom 1.4 for booth Mac and Windows from their site. All users that have installed 1.4 are now advised to remove the version and install 1.3.1 instead.

Rumor: Vista SP1 coming tomorrow?

The latest rumor has it now that Windows Vista SP1 will be released tomorrow. I suppose we just go to wait and see tomorrow don’t we. Microsoft however don’t want to confirm anything other than "on track for mid-March", Amazon has been listing March 18th for a while as the SP1 release date.

Article: Rock your readers like a hurricane!

Today’s article tip is again from Copyblogger where they have a really cool article about rocking your readers like a hurricane! It’s a good read so read it here you too!

» Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 released

 Adobe has today released updates to both Lightroom and Camera Raw, bringing them booth up to .4 releases and the change in booth is that they now include support for the newest cameras like the Canon 450D and the Nikon D60.

• Lightroom 1.4: Win | Mac
• Camera Raw: Win | Mac

» Birthday Tuesday

Today is my birthday and it is a tuesday, so naturally it is birthday tuesday here on the blog! I’m 16 years old today which really makes me able to start practise driving by the laws here! Pretty cool I think, can’t really believe it.

As for presents; I got a one year extension to my NAPP membership, a brand new 250gb internal HDD to replace my old one which I’m going to put in an external case and use as a backup drive I think, plus finally, a brand new 22" Eizo FlexScan S2201W screen, which was from me to me.

Lighting week over att Photoshop Insider

Scott Kelby over at his blog Photoshop Insider has pronounced this week a lighting week over at his blog where he will be going over what you need when you are starting with lighting. Yesterday was the time for the budget starter kit and you can read the post right here. Today was the time for a little step up.

 Interesting writing article on Copyblogger

In an interesting article over on Copyblogger, they are today asking us all to "say no to the three enemies of clear and direct writing". It’s a pretty nice read and we can all learn something from it.

Designing for smaller screens!

When we are designing today many think this way "most people visting my site has got a screen larger than 1024×768 and therefore I can skip the 800×600 compatibility". This is the time when you should take a look at how many is using a resolution above 1280×1024, because over that resolution comes the time where you don’t always have your browser expanded throughout the whole available screenspace and when you perhaps want to be able to view sites at 800 in max width! So be wary and think the other way around as well! As screens get larger, browser windows get smaller!

Anyway, now I*m off to continue copying over my old disk to my new one and to eat some more cake

» Late Friday Post

I know I’m very late with this Friday post but I do have a valid reason. I and my class at school will be going away at a ski trip from Sunday morning until Tuesday night. I’ll talk more about that in a later post however, but I’ve been busy (still am) making sure I’m packing all stuff I need etc.

Nik Software announces their Viveza plugin for Photoshop!

Nik Software has released what could possibly be the best Photoshop plugin so far! Even better, if you are a NAPP member like me, you’ll get a great $50 discount on the plugin! Their press release says as following:

Introducing Nik Software Viveza, powered by U Point® technology for direct on-image editing, the most powerful and precise tool available to control light and color in photographic images. For the first time, corrections and enhancements can easily be made without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks.

Read More »

Free Lightroom Gallery Templates

• If you are looking for new new free Lightroom gallery templates, then Sean McCormack has released a bunch of free templates, just for Lightroom.
• Also, The Turning Gate has released a gallery that lets your visitors rate and comment photos!

Getting a CSS Signature in OS X Mail

If you, like me, are using Mac OS X built in Mail application, then this is a good read for you. It’ll tell you how you can make CSS signatures in the mail application. It’s pretty cool and I think you’re all going to like it! Read here »

» My Favourite WordPress Plugins

 It is probably no surprise to you that I’m running this site of the WordPress blogging platform and I run my other sites of it as well becuse it is a nice foundation. However I use quite a few plugins to help make the site what I want it to be, apart from a custom theme that is. So here is a list with my top favourite WordPress plugins that I actually use myself, and best is that they are all free!

Akismet

Included with the WordPress distribution is a spam protector that is called Akismet. It does its job wonderfully and protects me from the masses or comment, trackback and pingback spam I would be cleaning up every day! All you need is to get a free WordPress API key from the wordpress.com site and you’re good to go! It is a real life saver!

All in One SEO Pack!

The All in One SEO Pack is a great little plugin that is used to get better SEO control. It allows you to insert keywords and a description that is unique for each of your posts that helps search engines crawl your site better. It works great and really helps the SEO of your site.

cforms II

If you need any type of form on your site for email purposes, you really need to check out the cforms plugin! It is just the most powerful form creator available for WordPress! I use it for my contact form and I love it and couldn’t live without it! Check it out!!

StatPress

StatPress is a visitor logging script which logs your hits and unique visitors as well as the usual info such as browser, country and stuff. You can also see the latest referrers and also the latest keywords that people used to get to your site from search engines.

WP-Cache

The WP-Cache plugin is a plugin that caches your site for you to help the loading time. You can set it to include or exclude certain files and rules so it only caches what you would like it to!

Dean’s FCK Editor for WordPress

If you want a little more powerful WYSIWYG editor then this is for you. I just started using it and I find it awesome already! It has a lot more features than the Tiny MCE editor and suits the more advanced post writer.

 

 

» MacHeist - Software for charity!

 

I found out about this site on the NAPP Forums from Bryan Sproles called MacHeist and it is apprently their second year of doing this. Their mission is to raise money for charity and as of this writing they have raised over $190,000 with an amazing 17,000+ bundles of software packages sold. So the deal is; you buy the software bundle containing the apps for $50 and certain per cent of that goes to charity. It’s a fixed bundle containing the following apps; 1Password, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, iStopMotion, Awaken, Speed Download, AppZapper, TaskPaper, CSSEdit, Snapz Pro X, Pixelmator and right now they’ve also thrown in an extra game called Wingnuts 2 and the Tiki Wiki Minigolf. That’s some seriously cool apps for only $50 where the retail price of them together would be over $400! So even if you are just interested in like Snapz Pro or Pixelmator, then you’ve saved some money when you buy it for $50, plus you get more apps and you donate to charity.

 

Myself, I just got the package today since it is a good deal and I’ll actually use a lot of the programs (and mostly the ones prized higher than $50 anyway, like Snapz Pro) and I also donated to charity.

» Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 announced for the Mac!

Adobe has announced that Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac has been finished in development and will be shipping in the beginning of the second quarter this year! My opinion of this is; finally, there is a good need for it coming! Read more on version six, here.