» Productivity- tutorial blog

Preparing your document for print has become much easier over the past few years. Some printers now only require a high quality PDF file for printing. Others may still ask for the native file along with the fonts and images used in the document.

This article is going to take a closer look at the 2nd option. We’ll discuss the items to double-check and the files to include when sending your document for print. And, we’ll look at a few cleanup steps we want to do within the native file before declaring it truly “print-ready.” The more we follow these steps prior to printing, the more likely we can keep the relationship with our printer on the up-and-up.

(more…)

Our goal, when placing images on a web page, is to make the file as small as possible without compromising image quality. In this article, we will go through the steps to make your image web-ready using the web-savvy features inside Photoshop.

It is tempting to just save the file as a jpg or gif using the File/Save As option inside Photoshop and call the image web-ready. However, if we do it this way, we miss taking advantage of the image-shrinking tools found only inside Photoshop’s “Save for Web” dialog box. These features let us fine-tune the saving of the image, resulting in even a smaller file size without compromising image quality.

(more…)

Once upon a time I was a skeptic of Adobe Bridge. It took too long to open. It didn’t seem to necessarily enhance my workflow, so I just kind of ignored it. But, that has changed! Adobe Bridge has become an invaluable tool within my work environment.

(more…)

The Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox is often listed as one of the must-have tools for web developers. Having used the toolbar within my design environment, I whole-heartedly agree. It cuts back development time by hours. It makes what can be tedious tasks, almost fun. It lets me quickly glance at a website in a different size window. It helps me debug and validate Javascript and CSS code.

(more…)

I have been working from home for just over a year now, in the beginning I found it hard to focus and my productivity dropped, especially in the summer months when the sun was shining and beckoning me to go out. Today I’m going to share a few tips that I have put in to practise…

(more…)