The Absence of Light  

If you ever create shadows in your designs or illustrations, check out these tips for making them richer and more realistic.

Campbell, J. Scott. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing

Access Ability  

More and more Web surfers are vision-impaired. Can they understand your site?

Williams, Maxine. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Web Design>Accessibility

access.adobe.com

This site is a jumping-off point for information on the features and capabilities of Adobe products that enhance electronic document accessibility for people with disabilities such as blindness, low vision, and motor impairments. There are also links to resources that help people with disabilities work more effectively with Adobe software and aid authors in optimizing content for accessibility.

Adobe (2000). Design>Accessibility

Accessibility and Macromedia Flash MX 2004

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 helps to accelerate accessible application development with a core set of UI components. These components can automate many of the most common accessibility practices related to labeling, keyboard access, and testing and help to ensure a consistent user experience across rich applications created with Macromedia Flash MX 2004. For each component, the designer or developer need only enable the accessibility object by using the command enableAccessibility(). This includes the accessibility object with the component as the movie is compiled. Because there is no simple means of removing an object once it has been added to the component, these options are turned off by default. It is therefore very important that the designer or developer enable accessibility for each component. This step needs to be done only once for each component; it is not necessary to enable accessibility for each instance of a component.

Adobe (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Flash

Add Drop Shadows and Feathers

Now you can add drop shadows automatically in Adobe InDesign. Sandee Cohen shows how to feather shadow edges and adjust transparency to get the results you want.

Cohen, Sandee. Adobe (2004). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design

Add Interactivity With Rollovers

Want to spice up your Web pages with rollovers? Learn how to use GoLive CS to create two types of rollovers.

Adobe (2003). Design>Web Design>Software>Adobe GoLive

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop

You can use the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop to start learning about any application you're interested in, whether you own it or not. The Video Workshop shares expertise from across Adobe and the Adobe community--you'll learn tasks, tips, and tricks from leading designers, developers, and Adobe experts. There are introductory videos for new users, and more experienced users can find videos on new features and key techniques.

Adobe (2007). Resources>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Adobe InDesign Tutorials

Get up to speed on some of the exciting new features in Adobe® InDesign® 2.0 with the following tutorials. Each consists of a Flash movie as well as step-by-step instructions and sample files for download, so you can follow along within InDesign. For demonstrations of key features, take a video tour in the InDesign 2.0 overview.

Adobe (2002). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Adobe PageMaker Tutorials

Links to numerous tutorials in Adobe PageMaker desktop publishing.

Adobe. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

Adobe Photoshop CS Layer Effects

In this topic, you will apply Bevel and Emboss and Outer Glow effects to an Adobe Photoshop CS type layer.

Adobe (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop CS Type Layers

In this topic, you will create a Photoshop CS type layer in which you will add and format type.

Adobe (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Power Shortcuts  

In Photoshop CS2, many of the shortcuts for the application menus, palette menus and tools can be customized using the Keyboard Shortcuts editor. Although this document mentions some of the more common editable shortcuts, it also provides additional functionality only accessible through using keyboard modifiers which can't be changed through the Keyboard Shortcut editor. Although this is not a completely comprehensive list of all of the keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop CS2, it is my goal to present the shortcuts and additional functionality that enable me to use Photoshop CS2 both more freely and efficiently.

Kost, Julieanne and Daniel Brown. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Adobe XML Architecture Specification

The Adobe XML architecture combines the powerful data and business logic capabilites of XML with rich presentation capabilities of Portable Document Format (PDF). The Adobe XML architecture offers support for arbitrary XML, allowing you to leverage existing and industry-standard schemas. Depending on the process requirements, forms can be deployed as PDF or an XML Data Package (XDP) and processed as XML.

Adobe. Design>Publishing>XML>Adobe Acrobat

Advanced Techniques for Creating Accessible Adobe® PDF Files  

A step-by-step guide that covers more advanced techniques for optimizing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files so that they can be made accessible to users with disabilities such as blindness or low vision.

Adobe (2004). Books>Web Design>Accessibility>Adobe Acrobat

Alphabetizing Menu Commands  

Ever forget the exact location of a menu command in InDesign? You can use this tip to make your menu commands easier to locate.

Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Anti-Aliasing Evolves  

A variety of technologies are evolving to help make type readable on the computer screen. Here's a report on anti-aliasing.

Tinkel, Kathleen. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Typography>Online

Automating Photoshop CS2  

Automating repetitive tasks in Photoshop can increase productivity as well as save time and money. Almost any command (or set of commands) in Photoshop can be recorded into an action to be applied repetitively to a single file or across multiple file. The most basic action will execute one command such as resizing an image or displaying a dialog box. More complex actions can execute multiple commands automating more elaborate tasks. When used with the Batch command and/or Droplets, these actions can be applied to multiple files at once, enabling Photoshop to do repetitive tasks more quickly than even the best-trained Photoshop user! When repetitive tasks in a more involved workflow need to be carried out between applications, then AppleScript, Visual Basic, or JavaScript can be used to create scripts which work with Photoshop. In the case of conditional logic (a fancy way of saying 'Make a decision!') when an action needs to be applied to some files but not others, JavaScript files can be written to fulfill this need. One word of caution when first trying to conquer actions - run them on duplicate files, leaving your pre- cious originals unaltered. As you become more Action savvy, you can kick off those training wheels, and batch away!

Kost, Julieanne and Daniel Brown. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Baking up a Batch of PDF Files  

Customize how Acrobat works for you by building and using batch sequences. The beauty of a batch sequence is that you can modify or run it as you like.

Baker, Donna L. Adobe (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Be Your Own Private Eye  

Your document won't print? Don't panic - here's a systematic guide to troubleshooting the problem.

Powers, Lynn. Adobe Magazine (1995). Articles>Computing

The Best of Both Worlds  

OpenType, a new font format and font-rasterization technology jointly developed by Adobe and Microsoft, promises to make fonts more sophisticated and easier to use.

Larkin, James. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Typography>Standards

Beyond the Phone Book  

Whether you know it or not, 'database publishing' probably describes some of what you do. Here's how to do it better!

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Databases

The Bleach Wars  

Blank paper...could anything be more basic and uncontroversial? Who'd have thought those innocuous white sheets could cause such a ruckus? Learn what the fuss is about and why paper mills and environmentalists are lining up on either side of the presses.

Sidles, Constance J. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Blurring the Boundaries  

For years, the desktop-publishing landscape has been characterized by sharp boundaries - PC vs. Mac, vector vs. bitmap, page-layout vs. illustration, and so on. But Illustrator provides the perfect example of how that is changing.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Illustrator

Bridging the Gap Between Design and Editorial

With both Adobe InDesign® CS and Adobe InCopy® CS in your publishing workflow, writers and editors can compose stories in InCopy at the same time designers are laying out the pages using InDesign—without overwriting each other’s work.

Adobe (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Building Preloaders and Progress Bars in Macromedia Flash

One of the unique features of web content built with Macromedia Flash is the ability to control when and how the content loads. When loading a heavy HTML page, the user is usually stuck looking at a blank window until the content starts appearing. Flash allows for the creation of animated preloaders, which give the user precise information about the progress of the loading process. A simple rectangular progress bar or percentage indicator will do the job, but why stop there? A preloader should be given just as much love and consideration as the rest of the site content, especially on a site that is trying to evoke a mood, or create an immersive experience. If a preloader is engaging enough, the user won't mind waiting for content, and the time it takes to load will seem shorter. The preloader is the first element someone will see when visiting your site. You can make a good first impression by welcoming your visitors with a snappy preloader.

Hirsch, Joshua. Adobe (2005). Design>Web Design>Interactive>Flash