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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- Two Ways to Make Arrows in Photoshop
-- Who's Ripping Off Your Website Content?
-- Heads Up on My New Webinar Series
Issue 71, 5/15/08
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
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Two Ways to Make Arrows in Photoshop
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Ever needed to create an arrow to point at something in a photograph? (Like, "Dead body found here," or "Note the crack in the fuselage"?) You don't have to jump to a different program to do that. With the image open in Photoshop, you have at least two ways to create an editable, vector arrow pointing at exactly what you want.
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Method 1: Use One of the Built-in Custom Shapes
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To begin, choose the Custom Shape tool from the toolbar. Can't find it? Click on the Rectangle tool instead, located at the bottom of the toolbar's group of vector tools (Pen tool, Type tool, Selection tool). Now the Options bar shows all the vector shape tool variations. The Custom Shape tool is the blobby-looking one at the right. Select it there, or choose it from the Rectangle tool's fly-out menu down in the toolbar.
Make sure the tool is in Vector Shape mode, one of the three modes available when you're working with vector tools in Photoshop. That way, dragging the tool across the image creates a vector shape layer (instead of a path or a selection) which is what we want. Vector Shape mode is the first icon at the far left of the Options bar and looks like a square with points on the corners. Click it if it's not selected already.
Now with the right mode and the right tool selected, you can open the custom shapes library. In the Options bar, look for the label "Shapes:" and click the shape thumbnail to the right to open the library. The arrows aren't part of the default shape set, so you'll probably have to use the library's fly-out menu to choose it. (Hint: the library you want is called "Arrows." Very obscure.) Add or append the shapes to the ones already in the library, it makes no difference.
You'll see twenty different arrow shapes to choose from, so click on the one that calls you to and then press Return/Enter to close the library. Now just start dragging diagonally on the image and you'll see the arrow appear, changing its width/height ratio as you drag the mouse. Release the mouse button when it's roughly how you want it.
Initially, the arrow is filled with the foreground color, but that's easily changed by double-clicking the color swatch thumbnail in the shape layer that you just created and choosing another color. You can modify the path with the Direct Selection tool, add/remove/modify points with the Pen tool variants, and curve the shape with Edit > Transform > Warp. To get the bounding box back (so you can change the width, height and rotation of the entire arrow shape), press Command/Ctrl-T, which is the keyboard shortcut for Edit > Free Transform Path.
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Method 2: Use the Line Tool
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Here's another way to skin the cat. You may have noticed that one of the vector shape tool variants is the Line tool. It's the only tool in Photoshop that allows you to add arrowheads at the start or end of it (or both).
The trick to the Line tool is that you have to set up its weight and arrowhead styles before you drag a line with it. After you create the line, its shape can only be modified with the Direct Selection and path editing tools, or by transforming it, as above. So, it may take some experimenting with different lines and settings to get what you want. (You can save the perfect settings, though, as a Line tool preset. That way you can have the same type of arrows in other Photoshop files.)
You'll find the Line tool in the shape tool's fly-out menu (press and hold on whichever shape tool is currently active -- the default is the Rectangle-- to reveal the fly-out) or as one of the shapes in the Options bar when any Pen or Shape tool is active.
Select the Line tool and change its weight (thickness) in the Weight field in the Options bar, the default is only 1 pixel. Then, click on the downward-pointing triangle to the right of the array of shape tools in the Options bar. Doing so reveals the options for the particular shape tool that's selected. When the Line tool is selected, the options are all about arrowheads.
Here's your cheat sheet for the Arrowhead Options:
Start: Do you want an arrowhead to appear at the start point of the line you're about to drag out? If so, turn on this checkbox.
End: Do you also or alternatively want an arrowhead at the end of the line, when you release your mouse button? If so, turn it on.
Width: What percentage of the line weight should the width of the arrowhead be? The default is 500% (five times the line weight), your typical arrowhead. As you transform the finished arrow, the arrowhead will grow/shrink proportionally.
Length: The default measure of 1000% means that the length of the arrowhead (from its pointy business end to its base) should be ten times the line weight. In other words, accepting the default 500% width and 1000% length means you'll get a somewhat narrow, pointy arrowhead -- its length will be twice its width. If you want an equilateral triangle for an arrowhead, enter the same percentage for Length as you did for Width.
Concavity: Because this is set to 0% by default, the base of an arrowhead -- the side that touches the line's end -- is perfectly straight. To make the bottom end curve inwards, towards the tip of the arrow, enter a larger percentage. You can go up to 50%, which I think stands for 50% of the arrowhead's length. Interestingly, you can also go down as far as negative 50% (enter -50), which makes the bottom end curve outward, into the line.
Now that you've entered your settings, press Return/Enter to close the Arrowhead Options window and get-to-draggin'. All arrows come in straight because that's what the Line tool does, but you can make them curve with Edit > Transform > Warp. For more control you can add curve points to the shape with the Add Anchor Point tool (one of the Pen tool variants). It's kind of tricky, though, since the "Line" tool actually creates very thin rectangles, not lines (!) so you'll have to add matching curve points on either side.
To change the overall width, height, and rotation of the arrow itself, use the same Free Transform method as above.
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Fancy it Up
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Don't forget that you can apply Layer Effects to shape layers. I've seen some striking Photoshop arrows designers have created with clever applications of Stroke, Drop Shadow, Gradient Overlay and Bevel & Emboss. These too can saved in a Custom Shape or Line tool's preset!
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Who's Ripping Off Your Website Content?
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On a beautiful spring evening a couple years ago, when I was (of course) sitting at my home computer instead of enjoying the night air, I received an e-mail that really freaked me out. I've only told a couple colleagues about the incident, but it's such a perfect intro to this story I had to write it up for you all.
I'll copy and paste the e-mail's relevant content here, protecting the sender's identity:
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From: [a newspaper editor in Colorado, per his sig]
Subject: A question about your training web site
To: [me, and someone else I didn't know]
Hey guys -- Assuming that Seneca and [the unknown other guy in the "To:" field] are not the same company ... I'm wondering how you both wound up with the exact same "letter" from a satisfied customer. Too bad -- we're looking for a company to run a series of training seminars in Colorado, but I don't think we can go for anyone who fakes their letters of recommendation.
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The writer then copied and pasted one of the client testimonials that appear in the sidebar of a couple pages in my site. He prefaced the first excerpt with my URL and the other instance, a duplicate of the first, with this other guy's URL.
In other words, this other guy -- a small training company in Oregon, turns out, who has since closed shop -- had at some point copied and pasted content from my web site to his own, including my client references!!!! Apparently, the trainer-seeking potential client in Colorado had Googled a phrase that resulted in both our pages appearing in the results, found that our content was exactly the same, got disgusted and fired off the e-mail.
I went to the thief's URL and was aghast to see not just my client testimonials, but page after page of my finely-tuned marketing copy appear under his training company's logo. He even grabbed my CSS and used my sidebar styles and colors, which didn't match his design at all.
Well, thank heavens I'm a packrat when it comes to e-mail, because I was able to find the original e-mail my satisfied client had sent me, the one Mr. Colorado quoted in his e-mail. I forwarded it to him, including the headers, and told him that *I* was the originator of the content, not this other guy, and here's the proof. I went on to say that while I was sorry to have lost him as a potential client (he never did hire me), I was grateful that he brought it to my attention!
The story ends well; I was able to contact the ripper-offer the next day, who was exquisitely embarrassed and ashamed, and he removed the content immediately. I followed it all up with a paper trail in case it happened again.
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Wish I had Known About Copyscape
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Since the freaky-e-mail-from-Colorado incident, I've been periodically entering unique phrases from various pages in my web site into Google's search field to see if they appear anywhere else on the Internet. (So far, nothing I don't know about.)
And then I found Copyscape. Saints be praised. It's a free web-based service that lets you enter a page URL and see where else on the web that page's text content is found -- even if it's just a few sentences, even if it's been reformatted, even if someone quoted from it in a forum post. Results are almost instantaneous. You can click on the URL links it found and Copyscape highlights the passages that were lifted from the page URL you entered.
Copyscape
http://www.copyscape.com/
Under the terms of the free service, you can hand-enter up to ten URLs from the same web site per month. If you spring for the Premium plan (you know there's gotta be a Premium), you have an unlimited number of queries you can enter, and you can paste in off-line content (like from your magazine or e-book) to see if anyone's using it for web content. There's even an API available, so if you've got a developer-type geek on staff, they can figure out a way to automate the checking from a web-based interface.
No developer around? Then consider a related service they offer called CopySentry, where for $5/month and up you can have Copyscape check your site's pages on a daily or weekly basis and e-mail you reports.
I don't think I need to go that far for my own little training company site, but I can see where it would be extremely useful for other types of companies; ones where competition is fierce and custom content is in high demand. And blogs, too ... if you've got a popular blog, wouldn't you like to see if someone is posting your content as their own?
Check out Copyscape, it's great! Interesting chatter on the Copyscape forums, too, such as people talking about what they've done when they've found a content thief. (Apparently I was way too easy on the Oregon guy.)
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My Upcoming Webinar Series:
Online Marketing for for Creatives
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Faithful readers of DesignGeek might remember that in a recent issue's "Upcoming Events" article, I mentioned that I was doing a presentation for a local arts group I belong to, the Chicago Creative Coalition. Its members are mainly freelancers and small-business owners in the arts: Graphic designers, web site developers (including a strong contingent of database gurus), photographers, fine artists, writers and illustrators.
Chicago Creative Coaltion
http://chicagocreative.org
The presentation went great! It was called "Online Marketing for Creatives: Promoting Yourself with Blogging, Podcasting, and Other New Media." We drew a decent crowd on a stormy April night. Armed with my trusty laptop, a screen projector and a surprisingly strong wireless Internet connection, I was able to zip through the best free and low-cost web sites where creatives can promote their portfolios and services and get results.
We created a blog on the spot with two different blogging engines, even writing new posts and uploading images, showing how a blog can be an easily-updated and interesting portfolio, or just a regular blog that entices potential clients to send RFPs. Then I whipped out my headphones and Audacity and showed how easy it was to record a podcast.
There was no time to get to videocasts, social network sites, AdWords and e-mail marketing because the audience kept things hopping with great questions about related issues throughout, like "How do we add a blog to our existing web site?" In fact, it turned into a marathon three-hour-plus session that didn't break up until almost 10:00 p.m. -- and I think they would've stayed another hour or two if my voice hadn't started to give out!
Since there's so obviously a need in the creative community for this kind of information, and since I've apparently picked up a ton of knowledge about it over the years -- tips and tricks that I use myself and for my clients, and that I really enjoy sharing -- I decided it'd be the perfect topic to turn into a series of live, low-cost webinars, each about 60-90 minutes long, that I want to hold this summer.
I've tentatively scheduled the first session in mid-June, but you can't sign up yet ... this is just a heads-up that it's coming. If you want to get on the announcement list for the DesignGeek Webinars, go here and add your e-mail address:
DesignGeek Webinar Announcement List
http://senecadesign.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/dgwebinars
As soon as my registration page is finished for the June session, I'll send out the link in an e-mail to the announcement list subscribers. Of course I'll also announce it in the next issue of DesignGeek, as well as on my home page at senecadesign.com and in my blogs and podcast etc., but if you want to make sure you learn about the webinars as soon as they're ready for sign-ups (attendance will be limited) definitely subscribe to that announcement list.
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MASTER THE LATEST DESIGN APPS WITH HERGEEKNESS!
Do you like what you read in DesignGeek? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail.
To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site:
http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html
Recent training clients in Chicago and throughout the U.S. and Canada include Abbott Labs (Photoshop); Penn State University (InDesign); the Daily American newspaper (InDesign); Rotary Club International (InDesign); Wiley Publishing (InDesign); Gresham Partners (InDesign); and Loyola Press (CS3 Suite).
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DesignGeek is a free monthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com).
To subscribe to DesignGeek or read archived issues, go to its home on Seneca's site:
http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/
(To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page.)
Can't wait for the next issue of DesignGeek?
Read Anne-Marie's monthly "HerGeekness Says" column at CreativePro.com:
http://www.creativepro.com/articles/author/127510
And check out the tips she posts about Adobe InDesign and the InDesign/InCopy workflow:
http://indesignsecrets.com (blog and podcast co-hosted with David Blatner)
http://incopysecrets.com (with its own free e-zine, InCopyFlow)
Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2008 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in DesignGeek may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement.
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