The First-Ever Custom CS4 Palette

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Comments

C&M palette source

Submitted by jrsforums on 28 January 2009 - 7:55am.

Deke..

I love the palette and will use it as I go through your book.

However, I think, at some point, I would like to modify...personalize...the palette to meet my specific needs.

No being a programmer, starting this from scratch is a bit "daunting". Would you be willing to share the "source" of the palette....to use both as a basis and a learning tool?

Thanks...John
jrsforums at nc.rr.com

EDIT: Found out from JN that the "source" is already there...in the /plugins/panels directory....the .GPC file.

Excellent

Submitted by deke on 28 January 2009 - 11:10am.

I'm away from the office at the moment, furiously recording lynda.com content by day and writing dekePod scripts by night. So I don't have all the files I used to craft that thing.

But if you can work from the GPC file, then fantastic.

Needless to say, I have no problem with you or anyone else customizing the palette to suit your needs. I'd rather see it accommodate your workflow than the other way around.

New Channels and Masks Palette crashes CS4

Submitted by ckelly on 22 January 2009 - 3:19pm.

All,

I posted this message on the comments for the book as well - before I saw this comments area. I am wondering if I can re-create it if I can't get it to work. Any thoughts?

I am fired up to start leaning from this book. Installation of all the extras went great right up until I clicked on the extensions: channels+masks. Photoshop shuts down so fast I had to look around the first time to see that it was actually gone. I am running photoshop CS4 in Windows in 64bit. Other than this little issue I have had absolutely now problems with the program - I have been stitching together panoramas and multiple image collage and generally having a good time on large high intensity operations without so much as a hiccup. Does this palette not work in 64bit? Is there a setting I need to change? Please help.

Thank you,
Chris

New Channels & Masks Palette Win XP 64

Submitted by ckelly on 23 January 2009 - 2:25pm.

Since posting I have found out that it is only on XP 64 bit and that XP 64 is specifically not supported by Adobe. They MAY fix this in a few weeks. BUMMER! It is so much better than Vista 64 - more stable etc. Wish they would unofficially support it. Even palettes that you make yourself cause insta-crash. If anyone finds a workaround please tell me.

Thanks,
Chris

Dang, that's unfortunate

Submitted by deke on 25 January 2009 - 3:11am.

Sorry to hear you can't use the C&M palette with 64-bit Win XP. I must admit, I have 32-bit XP and it didn't even occur to me to test.

The good news is that the book doesn't hinge on your having the C&M palette up and running. I created it after the main body of the book was written, so with the exception of the Preface, the text does not specifically reference it.

That said, your pain is my pain. Here's hoping Adobe gets on it. They have the usual market incentives to do so. And I know from personal experience that product manager John Nack champions both emerging and proven technologies to the best f his ability.

(I hope you're okay that I modified your comment headline to better reflect the problem.)

Can't help

Submitted by jeremyv10 on 23 January 2009 - 12:07pm.

Chris- I'm sorry, but I haven't had any issues. I'm running CS4 on Windows XP (not 64-bit) and the Channels+Masks pallette has worked fine for me. -Jeremy

Channels+Masks Palette

Submitted by Huguette on 18 January 2009 - 3:57pm.

Hi!

Thank you so much for this Palette!!! What a big gift !

I am actually following your videos at Lynda.com. It is so well done and easy to understand even for a french girl like me. I'am there for at least one year :-).

Thanks again,

Huguette

Custome Channel & Mask Panel

Submitted by pixelpunk on 5 January 2009 - 8:23pm.

Hi, I'm looking forward to being able to use this panel but I'm having trouble with installing it on my computer. I'm running Vista Ultimate (if that matters) followed the above directions and I just end up getting a file on my pc that won't open. I get prompted to search the web for the appropriate program to open the file and so I tried that and the web doesn't seem to have anything that recognizes the file. If you can please help, I'm excited about having this new tool.

Hey

Submitted by fabulacious on 5 January 2009 - 8:51pm.

pixelpunk, you are looking for the Adobe Extension Manager. It should have a shortcut in the Creative Suite start menu folder after installing CS4. You might run into the problem that you don't have the necessary permissions to install the custom panel, in that case try launching the extension manager with administrator rights by rightclicking its icon and choosing "run as administrator".

fab

Thanks Fab

Submitted by pixelpunk on 5 January 2009 - 11:40pm.

I did exactly what you said and it worked out great. Great big buckets of gratitude your way!

Hue & Saturation

Submitted by fpaulic on 19 December 2008 - 7:21pm.

I recently purchased CS4 and there is a disagreement between Deke's tutorial and Adobe's tutorial on hue and saturation control. Deke's tutorial claims that one can check the 'Colorize' box and then click on the 'drag directly into image control' icon in the upper left corner to adjust the hue and/or saturation in the photo. This was also demonstrated in Deke's video.

However, CS4 disable the 'drag directly into image control' icon when the 'Colorize' box is check. When moving the pointer to this icon when the 'Colorize' box checked, the pointer change to a diasable icon, a circle with a line throught it.

Without the 'Colorize' box checked, I can use the 'drag directly into image control' as Adobe's tutorial instructed.

Was Deke's tutorial for a beta version? I recently purchased CS4? Or do I have a bug?

I have a Mac 10.4.11 and CS4 Extended.

Frank

Colorize dims the target adjustment tool

Submitted by deke on 19 December 2008 - 9:54pm.

So, no, the behavior you're experiencing is exactly as it ought to be.

Can you direct me to my video in which you think I say otherwise? All the videos I can say are technically correct, but I want to make sure I'm not putting any misinformation out there.

Thx!

Hue & Saturation

Submitted by fpaulic on 20 December 2008 - 11:00am.

The following is from CS4 on-line help file, in which it has your written tutorial that replicated the video. The tutorial is titled 'Making Adjustments', dated 15 Oct 2008.

USING HUE/SATURATION

To change the color of an object, you add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

1. Choose Hue/Saturation from the Color Adjustments menu.
2. Select Colorize to color the entire image. By default, the image is tinted red. To change the color and saturation, you can use the Hue and Saturation sliders or the onscreen selector.
3. Click the Toggle Onscreen Selector button in the upper-left corner of the Hue/Saturation panel.
4. Drag to the right inside the image to increase the saturation.
5. Drag to the left inside the image to decrease the saturation.
6. To change the Hue, Ctrl+click (Windows) or Command+click (Mac OS) the image.
7. Select the Toggle Onscreen Selector button in the upper-left corner of the Hue/Saturation panel.
8. To advance to the right in the color spectrum, drag to the right inside the image. To move to the left in the spectrum, drag to the left.

I did exactly what was stated above, but once Colorize is selected in step 2, it disables the Toggle Onscreen Selector. In fact, every thing else is disabled in the Adjustment panel, except for the Saturation, Hue and Lightness slide bars. I can replicate your steps 1 through 2. After that I use the sliders.

Thanks for the quick response, I enjoy watching your videos. For a first time user, your videos got me navigating around Photoshop in a short time.

This isn't mine

Submitted by deke on 21 December 2008 - 4:59am.

I'm confused, I didn't write this. For example, there is no Color Adjustments menu. And I don't call it the Toggle Onscreen Selector button (it's the target adjustment tool). And you're right, the whole damn thing doesn't work as written -- several problems, in fact.

Do you have a URL for this? I'm eager to see how I'm connected to it.

Thx for your meticulous documentation. (And your kind comments.)

Hue and Saturation

Submitted by fpaulic on 23 December 2008 - 12:24pm.

Deke,

The above instruction for Hue and Saturation is in the following URL, in which I was directed to from CS4 help. Write 'Hue and Saturation' in the search box, and it will direct you to a list of help topics on this subject matter. The second help topic 'Adobe - Photoshop CS4 tutorial : Making adjustments' is the one I'm referring to with this URL.

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/photoshop/articles/lrvid4002_ps.html

Frank

Why is it so HUGE?

Submitted by davep on 18 December 2008 - 10:02pm.

Does anybody know why it is that when I open a 12 MB NEF file in PS it is 35 MB!? Before I've made any edits the document is already 35 MB. I am in 8-bit mode. Is this normal? Why doesn't a 12 MB file in Bridge open as 12 MB in PS? DP

Your NEF file

Submitted by deke on 19 December 2008 - 2:31am.

Is a compressed linear file, meaning that it contains just one channel of 10 bit/pixel/channel data.

When you open it in Photoshop, the compression goes away. (Images are never compressed in RAM, even if they hail from JPEG files.) Plus, Photoshop renders the image in three channels.

I cover this kind of under-the-hood stuff in my video series Photoshop CS2 Mastering Camera Raw available from lynda.com. It's a little long in the tooth, but many of the movies (especially the early ones) remain as viable as ever.

E-NEF Bits Already!

Submitted by davep on 19 December 2008 - 10:22am.

Thanks Deke, BTW, I had ACR set to 16-bit for a while, so when I opened the 12 MB file in PS it went to 70 MB! Wow! It doesn't take much retouching to generate 200+ MB files. In your opinion, is 16-bit ever worth the extra file size? DP

I regard 16-bit/channel the way I regard a necktie

Submitted by deke on 21 December 2008 - 5:16am.

By which I mean, normally, ye gads no.

In fact, the whole proposition is rather absurd. Assuming you get most of the heavy lifting out of the way with Camera Raw, why give yourself an auditorium of space to edit a relative double-wide trailer of data? And once you start adding layers, then you've got yourself a nine-floor auditorium for your tiny, dismal double-wide trailer.

Argument: C'mon, Deke, are you seriously suggesting that a 12-bit/channel image doesn't deserve 16-bit? Put it this way: You own a McMansion that costs you $4000/month. For whatever reason, you are forced to move your family to either a double-wide trailer for $256/month or a nine-floor auditorium for $65,500/month. (Those are your options, where Photoshop is concerned.) Which do you choose? Completely up to you, my friend. Me, I think: I got my beer, my woman, my little bitty chilun', what's so bad about the double-wide?

Meanwhile, Lab in 8-bit gives you way more latitude than RGB in 16-bit. And 8-bit Lab keeps it cozy. It's like a double-wide trailer with a crazy scientist on board. Who brews your beer. And makes your gasoline. Like a mute and innocuous version of Harry Dean Stanton's Brain from Escape from New York. (And hubba hubba if Brain comes with Adrienne Barbeau, it's 2^n good.)

On the other hand, every once in a while, it's a special occasion. And so you throw on a necktie. (Make it a $40 one; why waste time on the $5 stuff?) Which is how I treat 16-bit/chan. The occasional black-and-white line art. The occasional hard-to-fix image. The occasional pain-in-the-ass event.

Otherwise, me, not so much. My midsize TV is so much bigger in my little trailer. With Brain and Adrienne at helm.

Why is it so HUGE?!

Submitted by Petra on 18 December 2008 - 10:15pm.

That's what she said!

(Sorry....couldn't he'p mahself....carry on.... )

}:-o

separator in Configurator?

Submitted by wilderness on 17 December 2008 - 2:43pm.

How do I get separator in Configurator?

Same way you get a separator in old-school HTML

Submitted by deke on 19 December 2008 - 2:38am.

You make a tiny solid-color graphic and add it to your panel/palette.

Unfortunately, each graphic gets a thin border. So if you want to see whatever color you've assigned to your graphic file, the image has to be 3 pixels tall.

That's my experience anyway.

Submit Jpg to Deke

Submitted by DCHastings on 17 December 2008 - 7:39am.

Again I ask: Is there some way I can send a small .jpg file of Sammy directly to Deke?

-dch

Sending Images

Submitted by colleen on 18 December 2008 - 11:22am.

Hey there. Not sure what the file you have in mind is, but you can send it to quiz@deke.com for now. Going to take Petra's advice and set up a Flickr group for dekeCommunity as soon as, you know, I figure out how.

Flickr groups

Submitted by Petra on 18 December 2008 - 1:53pm.

Good morning, Colleen!

It's pretty easy to start a group. Do you have a Flickr account? I've got a Pro Flickr account via my ISP by default, so if you like I could start the group and then I think I can transfer admin/moderator privileges over to you guys (but I need to look into that a bit more). Otherwise, all you have to do is follow the instructions at this link: http://www.flickr.com/groups_create.gne

:-)

Love you for volunteering, Petra

Submitted by colleen on 18 December 2008 - 7:09pm.

But I have to earn my sidekick salary somehow. I was hoping my Flickr/Yahoo sign-in info would pop back into my head. (Apparently I lied to Yahoo about my birthday and now I can't retrieve.) I'll get on it this weekend. You're awesome. Thanks for the push.

cw

This weekend?

Submitted by Petra on 18 December 2008 - 8:25pm.

Are you insane?! :-p

Crikey, guys - you've been working yer asses off, Christmas is next week, New Year the week after (and what a joyous year this one will be to leave, eh?) - for goodness sake, give yourselves some family and fun and friends time. We can wait.

Relax. Be good to yourself. :-)

RE

Submitted by DCHastings on 18 December 2008 - 1:50pm.

I assume that is quizdeke@deke.com

Thank you so much,

-dch

Desperately seeking Bernhard Modern Standard

Submitted by LPersonne on 16 December 2008 - 10:44pm.

Deke - Is there any way you can convince Adobe to make this font available to purchasers of CS4 Design Standard who have also purchased your InDesign CS4 book? I bought the full-price retail upgrade version and none of the members of this font family are provided.
Thanks

The Bernhard knock-off

Submitted by deke on 18 December 2008 - 1:15pm.

Not sure I would advocate Archee's solution.

Technically, such knock-off fonts are actually (and surprisingly) legal. As I understand it, the only attribute of a font that you can copyright is its name.

But I'm very suspicious of any site that has no discernible business model. If it seems too good to be true . . .

Even assuming the knock-off is clean, it very likely has different size and kerning metrics that will throw off the page design.

My designer David Futato has created two alternative sample documents. I will do my best to get them posted this evening.

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