Tech Tips for Catholic Teens

Q. I used to use the Filter menu > Color > Invert Color on a group of shapes with multiple colors to quickly change the colors. In CS3 the Color Filter is gone in the Filter menu! I tried the Invert and Complement options in the Color panel, but they don’t work on multiple colors. Invert makes everything black, and complement makes everything the complement of the topmost object… obviously not what I want to do. Where’s my color filter in CS3? I liked some of the other options too… like the saturation filter. Can someone point me in the right direction, or am I out of luck with this? Adobe often moves things around in upgrades, and sometimes it drives me nuts.

A. I totally understand your frustration. I often wondered why, in the earlier versions of Illustrator, spell-check was under the Type menu and not under Edit menu. Then, just when I started getting used to it being under Type, they went and switched it to Edit in the following upgrade.

Like you, I love the Color Filter feature that used to be found under the Filter menu (which only made sense). Well what I have found, after a little searching, is that they’ve moved it to: Edit menu > Edit Colors, in CS3. I read somewhere that the move was to help support the new Live Color feature.

See the related links for a better explanation of Live Color.

• Edit Colors in the Live Color dialog box
  
• Create a Color Group in Live Color
  

Blessings,
Joshua

If you have a question about anything computer or faith related, contact us and we will gladly respond in a futurer post.

To change the default font (Myriad Pro for CS3 and Myriad for CS2) in Adobe® Illustrator, you must create a custom startup file by editing the Normal Character Style in the Illustrator startup files for CS2, or the default template files in CS3.

To change the default font for Illustrator CS3

1. Choose File > Open and go to Documents and Settings/User/Application Data/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings/New Document Profiles (Windows) or to Users/User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS3/New Document Profiles (Mac OS).
2. Open one of the default document profile template files (Basic CMYK, Basic RGB, Mobile and Devices, Print, Video and Film, or Web, depending on which type of document you intend to use).
3. Choose Window > Type > Character Styles.
4. Select the Normal Character Style and choose Character Style Options from the palette menu.
5. Select Basic Character Formats and choose the desired font from the Font Family menu.
6. Click OK, and then choose File > Save and close the file.
7. Choose File > New and select the desired default document profile.

To change the default font f or Illustrator CS2

1. Quit Illustrator.
2. In the Adobe Illustrator CS2 Plug-ins folder, copy the current default startup file–Adobe Illustrator Startup_CMYK or Adobe Illustrator Startup_RGB–and save it with a different name. (This creates a copy of the original startup file in case you need it again.)
3. Open one of the default startup files (Adobe Illustrator Startup_CMYK or Adobe Illustrator Startup_RGB, depending on which type of document you intend to use).
4. Choose Window > Type > Character Styles.
5. Select the Normal Character Style and choose Character Style Options from the palette menu.
6. Select Basic Character Formats and choose the desired font from the Font Family menu.
7. Click OK, and save the new file as Adobe Illustrator Startup _CMYK or Adobe Illustrator Startup_RGB in the Plug-ins folder.
8. Restart Illustrator.

If you have any questions about this tutorial, please post them here.

As many of you know, I am a graphic designer. I use Adobe® Illustrator almost every single day.

One of the first things you should do, after you have purchased and installed Illustrator, is to customize your workspace, toolbars, shortcuts, scripts, fonts, and other preferences to your liking. In the weeks to come I will be posting some helpful tips on how to do just this!

The following tutorial will help you customize your starting document (new document). This also works in Illustrator CS2, however the process is slightly different.

To create a custom document profile in Illustrator CS3:

1. Open the New Document Profile file you want to customize in the New Document Profiles folder located in the below directories.
   • Windows: Documents and Settings\(User)\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings.
   • Mac OS: Users\(User)\Library\Application Support\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS3
2. Delete any existing swatches, graphic styles, brushes, or symbols you don’t want to retain.
3. Do any of the following:
   • Select the font and style you want as your default font.
   • Create any colors, patterns, and gradients you want, and save them as swatches. You can also import swatches using the Swatch Libraries command and then move the swatches you want in the Document Profile file into the default Swatches panel.
   • Save any graph designs that you want available in your files using the Graph Design dialog box.
   • Create any graphic styles you want and save them to the Graphic Styles panel.
   • Create any brushes you want and save them to the Brushes panel.
   • Create any symbols you want and save them to the Symbols panel.
   • Select the options you want as default settings from the following: View preferences (from the View menu), ruler origins, page origins, print settings (in the Print dialog box, File > Print), and actions.
4. Save the Document Profile file and restart Illustrator.

If you have any questions about this tutorial, please post them here.

Continue Reading »

I’ve saved up my allowance and am planning on purchasing a new shirt to add to my stylish wardrobe. Now for the hard part…choosing just one!

So where can you find all these sweet designs?

• www.AgnusGiftShop.com
• www.RomanticCatholic.com
• www.PhatMass.com
• www.Kerusso.com
• www.lzTees.com
• www.LifeTeen.com
• www.RomanHabit.org

Know of another place that has cool t-shirt designs? Click here to share.

My Light Magazine is looking for Illustrators for their new publication for kid’s. If you are interested check out the Illustrator’s Guidelines Page.

Also, I just got word about a potential contest. The winning illustration would become the cover of their debut issue! To participate visit www.groups.yahoo.com/group/mylight. If you’re not already a member, join for more updates about the magazine.

As many know, we strive to be good stewards of all that God has given to us. This includes our time, our talents and also our money… In the world of technology, everything seems to be overpriced, from the latest iPod Touch, to the Sony Ebook reader that I may get someday if I can ever save up the cash… However, there are some great resources out there that are totally and completely FREE for most computers.

Take for instance Open Office. Open Office is a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, which costs hundreds of dollars! It reads and writes to Microsoft Office formats, so you can still use it for all of your school projects.It has an excel-like program, as well as a Powerpoint clone and works pretty much the same as Microsoft office with the exception of certain menus and other things. However, for everyday use, it works just fine.

However, the free open-source software movement doesn’t stop with mere office programs that really aren’t that much fun. If you are an artist, or digital photo enthusiast, you may want to look into The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Project). The GIMP is basically a free, open-source version of the $400-600 Adobe Photoshop.

Using The GIMP you can cut and crop photos, apply effects and do more professional touch-ups to your photos and images. Or, if you want, you can make it look like you have a Saintly halo around your head, then you can print out the photo and say to your parents that they are wrong and that you are indeed a Saint!

A third example of a great free program is Blender. If you want to go into game design or computer animation, this may be the program for you! Blender is a free, open-source 3-d modeling program that can be used for anything from designing buildings, to creating game characters, and even to make animated movies such as Elephant’s Dream and the soon-to-be-released Big Buck Bunny (May 2008). The software is very complicated but, if you know to use it, it becomes very powerful. Commercial 3-D programs generally cost in the THOUSANDS so, this is a great alternative!

You’ll notice that all of the programs discussed are open-source. This means that the programming code used to make the program is available to the public. Open-source programs are great because they are usually free, will usually work on multiple operating systems and if you are a programmer you can adjust or make improvements to the program and re-release it.

Other examples of open-source software include: Mozilla Firefox, Flock, Audacity, Electric Sheep (screensaver), Opera and many other programs out there! You can find more at http://www.opensourcewindows.org or by doing a search for open-source using your favorite search engine.

While these programs may lack some of the bells and whistles of their commercial partners and can be a little harder to learn, once you get the hang of them they are very powerful. In fact, some of these programs have plug-ins, add-ons or features that professional products charge you extra for! For example Photoshop and 3D studio Max or Lightwave charge extra for filter packs, effects and other such things, but, in the open-source community these things are created by other users free of charge, again saving you valuable time and cash.

The other great thing about these open-source options, is that they encourage creativity and gives normal people the opportunity to explore things that they couldn’t normally do legally. A lot of people will want to pursue photography or 3-D modeling and get so overwhelmed with the costs that they obtain the software illegally through file sharing software. Stealing is NEVER an encouraged behavior for any Christian. So, these programs offer a way to learn the basics in the field you are interested in, without stealing thousands of dollars worth of intellectual property from software companies like Microsoft and Adobe.

Lastly, because open-source programs are usually free, you don’t have to spend anything but your time and creativity on them. This way, you can save those couple hundred or thousand dollars for better use, like donating to my ebook reader fund!

Seriously though, God wants us to be good stewards of the money he gives us. For example, right now there is a major food crisis in many countries. Did you know that a donation of $200 to the Haitian Health Foundation can provide a year’s worth of food for an entire family!? That’s $200 that you could have spent on software but, instead you can provide a better life for those in need! There are other charities as well, not to mention the needs of the Church and your own community.

So using open-source software is a great way to support the open-source movement, allow you to create in ways that you didn’t think were possible due to costs and to save money to be placed aside for better purposes, like supporting the Church or those in need around the world. How’s that for putting your money where your faith is?

I’m in the process of creating a little something for The Hands & Feet Show. I started with this more detailed drawing of Pope Benedict XVI, but they needed something a little less detailed and they wanted him to have the other hat (a.k.a. mitre). The original request was for a Pope Benedict stick-man figure, smiling, wearing a pair of shorts.

So this is the revised version I came up with. The guys from H&F are working on a little something and I’ll keep you all posted when they complete whatever it is they have planned. I trust that it will be in good taste and non-disrespectful to the Pope. The guys over at the Hands and Feet Show are a good bunch of guys and are doing a lot in reaching out to the youth. You can check them out at: www.beyourhands.com.

I don’t know why, but I picture the Pope wearing his shorts above his belly-button : ) That’s how I used to wear mine. No, actually I just wanted the drawing to look somewhat artsy.