2008
Dymo DiscPainter
Before you can start producing a CD or DVD for content distribution, you will have gone a long way. Somewhere along the way, at the start of the production process you will have decided on a design for the packaging and the medium label. Your decision about the design of…
Interview: KODAK COLORFLOW Software Combines 14 Tools Into One
Integrated colour control across all devices --monitors, scanners, halftone and inkjet proofers, and digital and conventional presses-- is going to be achievable using one software solution across the entire production environment: KODAK COLORFLOW Software. Kodak announced that it will launch the new COLORFLOW Software solution at drupa 2008. Although the…
oXygen XML Editor
Cross-media publishing often involves the use of technologies that can bridge the differences between the different output channels and media, such as print, web, and even dynamic publishing technologies. XML is the technology most often used to bridge these differences. XML itself is a Markup Language, much like HTML is…
Preliminary Test: The Sony Alpha 700 and RAW Converters
The Sony Alpha 700 is Sony’s flagship dSLR for the time being, and until the Alpha 900 is released. The Alpha 700 has a whole bunch of nice features, but some of its built-in processing power isn’t appreciated much by the purist photographer. The built-in noise reduction algorithm, for example.…
Open Source Conquering The Cross-Media Publishing World?
Open Source software is omnipresent these days. Even Apple is modestly involved in Open Source. Few companies are also using an Open Source business model. Although Adobe and Quark both have software that is open to techniologies such as Tomcat and Java, they keep on selling their software as in the nineties.…
LightScribe 1.2 And the Colour Revolution
Has it been two years now that LightScribe promised its user base the possibility to print --silkscreen-- onto coloured disc media? I believe so. A couple of weeks ago Verbatim released the first coloured LightScribe 1.2.x discs. Besides the gold coloured discs, you can now “Lightscribe” onto red, orange, green,…
OmniGraffle Professional 5 (beta)
Omni Group these days has a complete set of applications developed to accommodate project management, task management, and the necessary reporting. One of the reporting tools that can be used for illustration purposes in newspapers, magazines, and books, is OmniGraffle Professional. Omni Group has recently released their public beta of…
French report outlines the benefits of Dynamic DeviceLinks versus Static DeviceLinks
Alwan Color Expertise, a world leader in standardization and implementation of color management has released a report comparing Dynamic DeviceLink profiles (DVLPs) and Static (conventional) DVLPs. Compiled last year by Amélie Trichon, a French print engineering student (EFPG), the report aims to put forward the performance and possible difference between…
Barcode Plugin for Adobe Illustrator
Blitz Tools is well-known for its barcode software. Barcode Generator is hard to beat in terms of powerful features and ease-of-use. One of their latest barcode utilities is Barcode Plugin for Illustrator. If you want to have a tool that is readily available from the toolbar and that creates vector-based…
Freeverse SoundStudio 3
SoundStudio 3 is a sound editor with relatively powerful features, a simple interface and a no-frills approach. If you want to create simple podcasts without much effort and without the addition of video, SoundStudio may prove to be faster to work with than SoundTrack Pro. However, if sophistication is what’s…
Technical Brief: SoftCare K4 v 5.9
SoftCare wasn’t too happy with the results of the Editorial Workflow comparison report we wrote earlier. They asked us to clarify how we got to our conclusion, which we did. After reading our comments, they checked and found that the files for installation their engineer was to provide us with…
Report: Atomik Dynamic Publisher
Dynamic Publishing is a fast-growing market. Dynamic Publishing has been defined as a value chain of software that enables the creation, repurposing and publication, and delivery of content across a variety of media (Frost & Sullivan).
We propose our own definition:
Dynamic Publishing is a process…
xScope 2.0, A Web Designer’s Best Friend
IconFactory and Artis Software are two innovative developers who have found each other in their common quest for the perfect tool for designers. IconFactory being specialised in design that mainly focusses on what is happening on your computer screen, have brought the design tool xScope to perfection. xScope is a…
Pantone Huey Pro Monitor Calibration
Colour management is probably among the most important and least understood technologies designers and publishers have to cope with. Monitor calibration and profiling is no exception. To do it right, you need expensive equipment and arcane software. Not true, says Pantone, which now is an integral part of the X-Rite…
Alpha 700 Focussing With Accuracy
The Sony Alpha 700 has three different auto focus area options: Spot Focus, Local Focus Area and Wide. The Alpha 700 has 11 focus points to choose from when in Local mode. It also has a F2.8 focus sensor that kicks in when a F2.8 lens (think Zeiss lenses, for…
Apple Logic Studio
Apple Logic Studio is a complete music creation environment, a virtual music studio. It is an indispensable tool when creating music for video and motion pictures, and even presentations. Logic Studio is a software bundle that includes Logic Pro 8, SoundTrack Pro 2, Apple Sound Loops, and a completely new…
Avenza Announces MAPublisher 7.6 for Adobe Illustrator
Avenza Systems produces MAPublisher cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator and Geographic Imager spatial tools for Adobe Photoshop. The company just announced the release of MAPublisher 7.6 for Adobe Illustrator. MAPublisher 7.6 is the latest version of this software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data.
MAPublisher…
Technology: Empowering Adobe XMP
Most users of Adobe products know XMP from displaying the EXIF metadata that comes with a digital camera image file in Bridge or Photoshop. All Adobe applications have the XMP metadata panel, and professional users will surely use the standard panels to fill in copyright and ownership metadata. Less commonly…
Quark Labs Launched
Quark announced Quark Labs, a new portal featuring QuarkXPress 7 XTensions that are not initially being released as commercial products. Designed as a testing ground for QuarkXPress technology and a community for QuarkXPress users and developers, Quark Labs offers free access to technology previews, proofs of concept and both new…
Review: Timeline 2.0.3
Is there an easy way to create an illustration that shows a timeline like the ones you find in some history books? The most control over what your timeline looks like used to be had with a copy of Adobe Illustrator and a lot of patience. Some 30 minutes for…
Tutorial: Setting White Balance on a dSLR
On any decent dSLR camera you can set a custom white balance to neutralise the colours under different lighting circumstances. Every dSLR brand comes with its own methodology and approach to neutralising the camera, but they all share in common that the colour temperature can be compensated for by taking…
Review: WireTap Studio 1.0.4
Ambrosia Software is probably best known for its Mac OS X games, and its professional screeenshot recording utility, Snapz Pro. WireTap Studio used to be called WireTap Pro, but that first shot at audio recording wasn’t too successful, mainly because it offered too little in the area of podcasting capabilities.…
2007
Atomik Dynamic Publisher: A Real-Time Cross-Media Publishing System
With Easypress’ deep XML knowledge, a robust document management system (Alfresco) as its backbone, and a lot of sound business logic behind it, Atomik Dynamic Publisher is the first of a new breed of publishing workflow systems. Easypress literally re-invented the traditional publishing workflow system, based on complaints it overheard…
IT Enquirer Awards of Excellence 2007
In 2007, we were once again treated to a large number of new applications and hardware that allows us to perform our creative tasks with more pleasure, and above all: easier and faster. We composed the list of Award-winning products based on our reviews and how the market reacted to…
Sandvox Still Outperforms iWeb
Sandvox 1.2.5 has two competitors: iWeb and RapidWeaver. Dreamweaver isn’t really competition, as it’s more aimed at professionals who don’t mind playing with HTML and Javascript code. And Coda is in a league of its own: it’s a coders’ delight, but you won’t find pre-defined design templates in Coda. You…
