Category: mungenet

Adobe After Effects Techniques from Angie Taylor
Angie Taylor

Stranger Than Fiction

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Two Minds

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Happily Marooned

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The music on this page is ©1987 Stranger Than Fiction, and can only be used for personal listening pleasure.

Wednesday, 08th June, 2005

A 45% full Air New Zealand from Christchurch to Sydney, landing on 34L. Quickly through Customs and Immigration, and home. Being a farmer’s son, I know the impact of footrot (and other nasty diseases), so I’d cleaned the sheep poo from my shoes. Customs were happy and no xray or hand inspection necessary. I was expecting the full drug-sniffing dog treatment.

On Sydney soil for only 18 hours, and Avril and I are off. To Mexico via LAX.

Monday, 06th June, 2005

Out of the hotel at 8.30pm, Stamatia and I head towards Mount Hutt. A little secret in my life is that I’ve only been to “the snow” once – when I was less than 2 years old – and have never returned. Today is the day for me to be re-introduced.

Mount Hutt is the closest skiing/snowboarding mountain to Christchurch – about 2 hours drive from centre Christchurch to the car park at the peak: including time for the application of chains and to stop and take in the scenery of the Cantebury plan juxtaposed with the snow-capped mountains.

At the base of the mountain, I hire chains for the hire car – including installation this is NZ$20. Not a bad deal at all, since it takes two people crawling around the dirty wheel arches; mud, grease and tire black: installing chains to the tyres.

Picking up two Christchurch student snowboarders for company, Jack (from Shanghai) and Steelian (from Belgium) we drive up the winding, muddy and then snow capped roads with a sheer rise on one side, and fall to the other. Our lives are in my hands. Okeydoakey, lets go.

The disconcerting experience of having the wheel hard over in the exact direction of the sheer drop to certain page 1 headlines in Sydney, to point the car in a forwards direction is rather strange. Being my first experience with snow and chain driving is all the adrenaline rush I need. For today at least.

Snow. It starts of cold, and then it gets wet. Then its really cold. Now, I’ve cleaned refridgerator freezers in my time: from the big box ones to baby ones. Snow is this, just spread all around. As a committed winter person, I am in love. OK, so I’ve now experienced snow. Cool. Its bloody cold; time for coffee.

After watching the skiiers and snowboarders clash for the powdery runs, we decide the leave for windier climes.

One the trip down Mount Hutt there are two pieces of critical advice that pounded in my head. One over 20 years ago from my dad about “turning out of the curve of a slide” and more recently from Shanghai Jack (the snowboarder hitchhiker): don’t break and use a low gear. Both of these pieces of advice were instrumental in a safe trip down. Once sideways slide (saved) and many times ultimate control helped.

Chains off, and two hour drive back via Lyttelton to Sumner for a late lunch at the Rock Cafe. This is on the esplanade near what Sumner calls a beach. Two surfers brave the temperature, wind and rain.

We follow more sheer cliff-bound roads to Godley head. Scoped out yesterday, and after the rain and into the wind – Stamatia and I explore the site of a WWII battery that has clear views over Lyttleton harbour and Christchurch. All that is left now are sheep of mixed heritage (merinos, suffolks and a lancashire cross I think) protecting the harbour from terrorists.

Drive home (hotel) and rest.

Monday, 06th June, 2005

I have returned to Christchurch (refer Wellington and Christchurch (21st April and 22nd April)), New Zealand, for 4 days. Away from Sydney at Sunday at 6am, for a 40% full Qantas flight at 8:55am. The flight was so quick, I didn’t have time to listen to 2 hours of the 17 hours I can fit onto my new iPod Shuffle. Yes, I caved in at Duty Free and lumped down AU9 for 1Gb of backup device. This is about AU more than a Sandisk 1Gb SD card – so its not too bad for Apple-badged equipment. On the flight, only 5 seats out of 30 business class seats are taken.

Flying over the snow-capped peaks causes all the passengers to peek out at a unique piece of geography.

Through Christchurch Immmigration and Customs, I look sheepishly for the drug-sniffing dogs. Looking like a sheep when attempting to avoid professional coked-up canines is not a good move. Last time I came into NZ via Christchurch, I was assaulted in a “special way” in the crotch by a drug sniffing dog. This caused 30 minutes of extreme baggaging searching and ultimate frustration for the eager customs officer. This time, I exit cleanly.

Christchurch is conveniently situated around the local rugby fields, so its easy to find your way around. This trip, I’ve taken the plunge in a hirecar.

I think of Alan, the taxi driver I had in my last trip to Christchurch. I hope he has today off. Many of the locations of visit today and tomorrow are a result of my questions. Sumner, Mount Hutt.

Making my way out to the southern part of the Pacific, I take some quick photos and make my way to Taylor’s Mistake via Sumner. Spotting the Godley Point WWII battery, I make a note to visit tomorrow. Its back to Christchurch via the Lyttelton tunnel. Now that’s a tunnel!

I’ve noticed more in the south island that rubgy plays a close first as the official religion of state – just like AFL is the religion of Melbourne. One can just imagine what would happen if Rugby was outlawed in this country – it would fall apart.

PacPrint 2001: Acrobat in a PDF Workflow
Presentation given at PacPrint 2001

AODC March 2001: Acrobat Future Directions
Presented at the AODC conference, Canberra, early 2001.

Acrobat 5.0 Launch: Business Indepth Presentation
From the SEAsia Roadshow, April 2001. Looking at Acrobat indepth for business use.

Acrobat 5.0 Launch: Business Introduction Presenta
From the SEAsia Roadshow, April 2001. An introduction to Acrobat for business use.

Acrobat 5.0 Launch: Prepress Indepth
From the SEAsia Roadshow, April 2001. Looking at Acrobat indepth for prepress use.

Acrobat 5.0 Launch: Prepress Intro
From the SEAsia Roadshow, April 2001. An introduction to Acrobat for prepress use.

PacPrint 2001: Acrobat 5.0
The presentation I gave on the Adobe stand at PacPrint, Melbourne May 2001.

PDF Intensive
PDF Intensive

Openpublish: SVG Tutorial
Presentation used in the half day SVG tutorial given at OpenPublish, July 2001 in Sydney.

XML Asia Pacific 2001: SVG Presentation
SVG Presentation given at XML Asia Pacific, Sydney, November 2001.

Adobe, eBooks & DRM
Quick presentation slides given 15/5/2002 in Sydney. The talk was better than the slides.

gasaa prepress july 2002.pdf

Scripting+XML=Productivity

GASAA PDF for Print, Oct Nov 2002 Jan 2003
Presentation for the October/November 2002 & January 2003 PDF for Print workshop

Plenty O Acronyms, Open Publish 2003

Andrew and Melody’s MINI Wedding 24 May 03

ClubMINI Run 26 February 06

Many Pictures of Nicks MINI Cooper S

Nick Visits Brisbane MINI2 crew 12 June 2003

Nick’s Old, Original MINI

Putty Road Run 18 March06

Sydney MINI Cooper S Meet 10 Nov 02

Sydney MINI Cooper S Meet 16 March 03

Sydney MINI Cooper S Meet 24 Nov 02

Sydney MINI2 Italian Job 11 August 03

Sydney MINI2 Meet 13 July 03

Sydney MINI2 Meet 18 May 03

Sydney MINI2 Meet 21 September 03

Sydney, Canberra MINI2 Meet 29 February 04

The Place to MINI 18 February 06

MINI2 Video, 13th July 2003
Nick Hodge, Avril Hodge

MINI2 Video, 18th May 2003
Nick Hodge, Rogue Traders

Statue in Korean War Memorial

B52 in Distance, War Memorial in Seoul

C-??, War Memorial in Seoul

Plane, War Memorial in Seoul

T-34, War Memorial in Seoul

Helicopters, War Memorial in Seoul

T-34, War Memorial in Seoul

Sherman, War Memorial in Seoul

Planes, War Memorial in Seoul

More Planes, War Memorial in Seoul

Anti-aircraft machinery, War Memorial in Seoul

Tracker, War Memorial in Seoul

Bofors, War Memorial in Seoul

Midget Submarine, War Memorial in Seoul

Various Captured Russian/Chinese Tanks, War Memorial in Seoul

Entrance to War Memorial in Seoul

Captured North Korean Fighter, War Memorial in Seoul

American Guns, Korean War, War Memorial in Seoul

F-4 Phantom, War Memorial in Seoul

F-86 Sabre, War Memorial in Seoul

Various Tanks, War Memorial in Seoul

M1 Garand Clips from Korean War, Korean War Memorial. Dec 03

Various guns from Korean War, Korean War Memorial. Dec 03

Plane from Korean War, Korean War Memorial. Dec 03

Duotones: Photoshop to InDesign CS

What are duotones? From the Photoshop’s Online help file:

Duotones are used to increase the tonal range of a grayscale image. Although a grayscale reproduction can display up to 256 levels of gray, a printing press can reproduce only about 50 levels of gray per ink. This means that a grayscale image printed with only black ink can look significantly coarser than the same image printed with two, three, or four inks, each individual ink reproducing up to 50 levels of gray.

Sometimes duotones are printed using a black ink and a gray ink–the black for shadows and the gray for midtones and highlights. More frequently, duotones are printed using a colored ink for the highlight color. This technique produces an image with a slight tint to it and significantly increases the image’s dynamic range. Duotones are ideal for two-color print jobs with a spot color (such as a PANTONE Color) used for accent.

Duotones is a generic name given to monotone, duotone, tritone etc images. The mono- prefix here denotes the number of colourants (plates) in the final file generated by Photoshop.

Generating Duotones from Photoshop

The greatest control over true Duotones as defined above is going to be in Photoshop. However, there is a concept known as fake or poor man’s Duotones, which InDesign CS supports directly.

The process of converting a coloured image into a Duotone in Photoshop starts with converting the image to grayscale. The quickest, and rawest method of converting is to go Image>Mode>Grayscale

After converting to greyscale, the next step is to Image>Mode>Duotone change the grayscale into a Duotone image. The dialog box that appears allows you to change the spot colour that makes up the second colour. If you would prefer a monotone, change the first “Black” ink in the list to the spot colour. The curve box permits tweaking of the ink density where the second colour is applied.

How do you get Photoshop Duotones into InDesign CS?

To place this file in InDesign, the format that we need to save the file is Photoshop PSD or Photoshop PDF. InDesign Prepress: Photoshop to InDesign workflow

In InDesign, File>Place the Photoshop file saved above. Once the image is placed, you will notice that InDesign adds a new Swatch to the Window>Swatches palette.

From this point, the new Swatch is considered a Spot colour. To preview the output of this InDesign file, use Window>Output Preview>Separation Preview. Managing this spot colour at print time the same as managing Spot colours in InDesign: through the Ink Manager.

Poor Man’s Duotones in InDesign CS

Grayscale images can be directly made into Monotones in InDesign 2.0/CS. Here, we are assigning the Black (K) plate to an alternate colour, including potentially a Spot Color. The user-interface needs to be carefully described as there is a little twist: something the help file doesn’t quite explain. The order of steps below are critical!

1. Place the Grayscale TIFF or Photoshop image into InDesign 2.0/CS
   
2. Open Windows>Swatches
3. Ensure that the Swatch, Spot or otherwise is in the Swatches list
   
4. Select the Direct Selection Tool
   
5. In the Swatches palette, ensure that the Fill is selected at the top:
   
6. Click inside the Greyscale image with the Direct Selection Tool
7. Click on the Swatch you would like to apply to the image:
   

Looking north on Las Cuevas Beach, Punta Mita, Mexico

Pacific Ocean, looking NZ-wards

Avril leaving home

Another day, another airport lounge. Qantas Club, Sydney International Airport.

View from our Room, Punta Mita, Mexico

Cabanas, Las Cuevas Beach, Punta Mita, Mexico

Lovely bunch of coconuts, Punta Mita, Mexico

Cactus at Punta Mita

Iguana sunning on the rock

Four Seasons, Punta Mita: view of main building

Mariarchi Band rocks on playing Smoke on the Water

Avril chats up Manuel, our tour guide through the Sierra Madres

Mike Zahorik goes exploring in Mexican fishing village.

Volcanic sand, umbrella. Beach is Monterrey Beach somewhere over the Sierra Madres in Mexico.

Monterrey Beach, Mexico

Nick and Avril with various avian friends.

Avril gets close to Wiggy

Life is hard in Punta Mita.

Nick in Puerto Vallarta. Somewhere 14000 kms away over the Pacific is New Zealand.

Tim Burton’s inspiration: Mexican Death Masks. Shop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Hills behind Puerto Vallarta. We ran out of shops, so had to turn back.

Candles outside our room, Punta Mita, Mexico

View at Breakfast, Punta Mita, Mexico

Lounges on southern beach, Punta Mita, Mexico

Northern Beach, Punta Mita, Mexico

Casa de Fernandez, Punta Mita, Mexico

Hammocks on Monterrey Beach, Mexico

Church, PV

Nick at the info booth at Kare Kare.

Kare Kare – North Bluff and stream

Kare Kare – North Bluff

Kare Kare – the hills behind

Southern Bluff, Kare Kare, NZ

Nick in front of city centre map, Te Awamutu, New Zealand. Just to prove I’ve been there!

Rose gardens, Te Awamutu, New Zealand

Rose gardens, Te Awamutu, New Zealand

Rose Gardens, Te Awamutu, NZ

Photo of a painting by Phil Judd. A portion of this was on the Split Enz ‘Mental Notes’ album. Displayed in Te Papa Museum, Wellington, NZ. November 1998.

Sorry about the out-of-focus. Split Enz costumes displayed in Te Papa Museum, Wellington, NZ. November 1998.

North Bluff, Kare Kare, NZ. May 2000. I love this image.

Southern Hills, Kare Kare, NZ. May 2000

Kare Kare, NZ. May 2000

Looking at Kare Kare from the Southern exit road. Has to be the best photo I have ever taken. May 2000.

Beach, Kare Kare NZ. Looking South-South West. May 2000

Nick on jetty, Bay of Islands, May 2000.

Piha, NZ. Looking toward south beach.

Piha, NZ. North beach. Used on Mungenet. May 2000

Lion rock, mid-Piha, NZ. May 2000

Nick at Kare Kare, NZ, May 2000. Photo taken by Victor Guerrero

InDesign 2.0: Export or Distill PDFs?
Nick Hodge
Should you Export PDFs or Distill PDFs from InDesign 2.0?

InDesign 2.0: Generating Composite, Trapped PDFs
Nick Hodge
Using InDesign to generate Composite Trapped PDFs

InDesign 2.0: How to Export and Place Pages back into InDesign 2.0
Nick Hodge
Why should you export pages from InDesign as PDF rather than EPS

InDesign 2.0: Photoshop to InDesign workflow
Nick Hodge
The best way of taking Photoshop files into InDesign 2.0

InDesign 2.0: Photoshop with Spots, InDesign and Composite PDF
Nick Hodge
How to take Photoshop with Spots, Transparency and Vector into InDesign 2.0 for composite PDF

InDesign 2.0: Photoshop, Duotones into InDesign
Nick Hodge

InDesign 2.0: Printing Output Choices and Flattener Tricks (including force Greyscale export!)
Nick Hodge
How to use the Flattener to get greater colour control at output time

InDesign 2.0: Spot Colors, Transparency
Nick Hodge
InDesign 2.0 has great support for Spot Colors; this is how they work with transparency

InDesign 2.0: Text and the Transparency Flattener
Nick Hodge
Explaining how Text and Transparency Flattener interact in InDesign 2.0

InDesign 2.0: Trapping Journey with Prinergy
Nick Hodge
Specific settings in Prinergy that effect InDesign output

InDesign CS Printing Guide

partners.adobe.com: CS Printing Guides

Printing Acrobat 5.0/PDF1.4 Generated by Adobe InDesign 2.0
Nick Hodge
How to successfully generate quality print results from a PDF 1.4 from InDesign 2.0