Dreamweaver Oxford

In November at OFVM Film Oxford the Adobe User Group will focus on imaging software.

Alun Ward will take us through Photoshop.com the Adobe tool for editing images online and integrating with online photo collections like Flickr.

Glenn Clarkson will show how he created an award-winning presentation for a housing association using Illustrator, Photoshop and PowerPoint.

Glenn will also show the beta release of Lightroom V3.

In addition, in response to members’ requests, we shall be visiting Lynda.com to look at Using Masks in Photoshop.

If you have any specific areas of these tools you would like to have covered please let us know (info@dreamweaveroxford.com).

Bring along a friend or colleague, there will be lots of opportunities for networking with likeminded creatives.

See you there.

Advance warning of our December meeting. Thursday December 17th, 7:30pm, OFVM Film Oxford, Christmas social and guest animators.

Keep up to date with the User Group and RSVP please at the Adobe Groups site.

OFVM Film Oxford, can be found here:

http://tiny.cc/yTEyB

We had a great night on Wednesday thanks to Steve Newberry who drove down from Adobe HQ to give us a whirlwind tour through some of the timesaving devices in Illustrator, Bridge, Photoshop and Flash CS4.

I noted down just two of the millions of tips, feel free to send in the ones you remember if you were there.

In Bridge, Ctrl-Space-B (PC) on a selection of images brings up the ‘cover show’ cycle of images full screen. Very nice.

Photoshop: zoom even when using the Hand tool on a pic by pressing Ctrl, phew!

Then we had a quick tour through Adjustment layers in Photoshop – for the casual user, which must still be me then.

Content Aware Scaling – a reminder of this amazingness. How many times could I have used that recently if I’d remembered it was there!

Examples of 3D  usage – only available in Photoshop Extended, however, along with video editing and medical imaging.

In Design: we had a pretty in-depth example of exporting an In Design document to SWF and to XFL format, an interchange format which brings all the design imagery and text through correctly preserved, ready to play with in Flash CS4. We looked at FLYP – a more complex online magazine format.

We watched a quick preview movie from Russell Brown about potential Photoshop developments. If you like his quirky presentational style, he’s all over the web.

Steve answered a bunch of your questions and was both helpful and entertaining, so it was a great night.

A reminder that the next User group meeting is on Friday November 20th, but there’s also a soft-launch of the Premiere User Group on November 12th also at OFVM.

This month, the Adobe User Groups have Stephen Newberry, Technical Resources Mananger at Adobe HQ (UK), coming to talk to us about all things Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign, at OFVM.

If you have any pressing topics you’d like covered, do let Alun know as soon as you can (info@dreamweaveroxford.com).

You can find out a bit more about Stephen at Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenewberry

There’ll be time for questions after his presentation, and the usual chat with likeminded creatives from the Oxford area.

Keep up to date with the User Group and RSVP please at the Adobe Groups site.

Advance notice too of next meeting in November: Friday November 20th.

OFVM, Oxford, can be found here:

http://tiny.cc/yTEyB

See you there.

Hot footing from Flash on the Beach in Brighton, Chuck Freedman from Ribbit.com (the day job) talked about his microphone app for Flash which uses a C application and merapi (application by Adam Flater of Roundarch) which is a bridge between C and AIR, to talk to Flash.

The problem in Flash currently is that stereo microphone input is not supported natively, and that there’s really not much you can do with the audio feed other than check activity levels.

Chuck showed us a way to use a C application to analyse data from a stereo microphone attached to his laptop, and change values in a Flash application accordingly.

There’s some other fantastic stuff out there utilising microphone input, in particular everyone loved the microphone leaves SWF by Bartek Drozdz on EverdayFlash.co. Plug in your mic and try:

http://www.everydayflash.com/flash/pv3d/leaves/

The work that Chuck has been doing will be up and Open Source very soon he promises, but in the meantime you can add your support in the call for Adobe to open up microphone data to Flash via the bugs site on Adobe. Read about the campaign at getmicrophone.com then sign the bug list at http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1766 (You’ll have to register)

Thanks Chuck! His blog is at http://www.chuckstar.com/blog/

Good morning!

We’ve fixed the dates for the next batch of User Group meetings now, so put these in your diary:

• Thursday 24th September
• Wednesday 21st October
• Friday 20th November
• Thursday 17th December + Christmas party

Then we’re back in 2010 on January 21st for the first ever Premiere User Group meeting, followed by Feb 26, Mar 25, Apr 22, May 19 and June 23.