BittBox

Free Stuff: 300 (x3) High-Res Textures - Comment to Win

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:54:20 +0000

Who wants some free stuff? Yeah, I know, we all do. Grant from Colorburned wants to spread the word about his awesome high-res texture packs, and that’s what I intend to help him do. The Colorburned shop has 6 ginormous texture packs, and 3 lucky commenters will be downloading all of them. But wait, I’m not done. Even if you don’t win one of the (3) grand prizes, you can still get a discount on these texture packs, which are already very affordable. Everyone wins! So if you just can’t wait, put all 6 packs in your cart and enter the code BITTBOXFRIEND to take $10 the 50% price, bringing the total price to $25. (That’s roughly $0.08 per texture folks)

1) Pavement Pack

2) Clouds Pack

3) Wood Pack

4) Metal and Rust Pack

5) Brick Pack

6) Concrete and Stone Pack

The Prizes:

3 Commenters will be chosen randomly and will get to download all 6 of the Colorburned texture packs for free.

The Rules:

Leave a comment to enter.
Only Comment Once.
You MUST enter an email address while commenting in order to win, because winners will be notified via email.
Winners will be chosen randomly.
Comments will be open until Friday, November 21st.

Good Luck everyone !!!!

This is a post from: BittBox.com

How to: Make a Hand-Drawn Font

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:25:11 +0000

Before I start, let me say that this is by no means the only way to make a hand drawn font. Ever since I began giving away fonts, I’ve had many requests for me to write a tutorial on my font making process, so here it is. This is how I do it, and depending on your responses, I can go deeper into a FontLab Studio tutorial. This tutorial, however, is designed to reveal my process from start to finish. A lot of you may not have FontLab Studio, so you may need to adapt the second half of the tutorial to whatever font software you may have access to. Here we go.

1. The Tools

I like to use India Ink and a primitive Bamboo Pens (above) to draw my characters, but you can even just use a pencil and paper if you like. You can get both the items pictured above really cheap (< $10 total) from your local art supply store or Hobby Lobby, etc.

2. Start Drawing

Take whatever tools you choose to use and start cranking out letter forms. It’s ok to mess up, just draw the letter again. But keep cranking them out until you’re happy with what you’ve got. I like to lay all of the finished ones out in front of me so I can see what I already have and what I still need. The squiggly lines are just where I got rid of some excess ink from the tip of the bamboo pen before sketching.

3. Scan

Next, I scan the images in at a relatively high resolution.

4. Bump up the Contrast

In order to get a better final result, I adjust the contrast of the scan. I typically convert my image to grayscale, then use Levels (Control/Command + L) to make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker. Then save as a high-res jpeg.

5. Open the Scans in Illustrator

I use an “outline font editor” (FontLab Studio) which is another way to say that the final product needs to be a vector. I use Illustrator’s Live Trace to vectorize the shapes. So next, I open the jpeg scans in Illustrator.

6. Live Trace

Vectorize your image using Live Trace to get the results your happy with, then hit “Expand.” So now you have something like below.

7. Ungroup

After you Live Trace, ungroup the objects.

8. Get Rid of the White Shapes

After ungrouping I use the Magic Wand tool, and click on any of the white space in and around the letters. This selects all of the white shapes at the same time, and then I delete them.

So now all that remains is the black shapes. Notice the bounding box. There is no more whitespace around the edges compared to just after live trace above.

9. Prepare the Font Editor

It’s now time to fire up the font editor of your choice. I use FontLab Studio ($649) but it’s not the only one. TypeTool is a $99 Font Editor from the same people who make FontLab Studio. If you’re not looking for anything fancy, that’s the one I recommend (Windows, Mac), and it’s affordable compared to other products on the market. FontForge is a freeware font editor, but I believe it’s Windows only.

Depending on which editor you plan on using, the next part might be a little different than your software, but you can get the general idea, and adjust accordingly. If you use TypeTool, it should be very similar, since the software I use is from the same company.

Create a new blank font file.

Go to File > Font Info.

Fill out the information that describes your font. Family Name, Weight, Bold or not, etc. This information is important and will be embedded in the file in it’s final form.

10. Copy/Paste

Start copying/pasting your characters (paths) one-by-one from Illustrator into their corresponding slots in your font editor.

11. Adjust

Adjust Each character’s paths to your liking in the font editor. You can always go back and make adjustments if you don’t get it right the first time. And again, I can’t go too deep into this if you aren’t using FontLab Studio, but I’m sure you can find some info in your software’s help section, or google :)

Here’s a peek at what one of my completed fonts looks like in the font editor.

12. Generate Your Font

Go to File > Generate Font….

Choose your format (.ttf will work fine for both Mac and PC) and Save!

Done!

Like I said, this isn’t the only way to do this, it’s just the way I happen to do it. You can draw your letters with the pencil tool directly in Illustrator if you feel like it. There are many different ways, I just wanted to share my process with everyone, since you’ve been wondering. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial :)

This is a post from: BittBox.com

BB Free Font: 23rd Street Demo Version

Jay Hilgert — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:41:34 +0000

I almost forgot I had this font laying around. It’s called 23rd Street, and it’s another free demo version font for everyone to download. It’s not my best font, but it’s still a font :) Click here if you’re interested in the full version. I just started a big project, so I’ll get on those vectors in a couple days. I’ve also been listening to all of the comments about a portfolio wordpress theme, and I think I might be able to come up with something sufficient. Time will tell. Hope you like the font :)

The Demo Version includes both upper, and lowercase A-Z:

Download (.ttf) Mac/Windows »

This is a post from: BittBox.com

In the Spirit of Election Day: Vote for Your Most Wanted Freebies

Jay Hilgert — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:34:27 +0000

In the spirit of Democracy on this historic day, I’d like you to cast a vote for your favorite freebies, and I’ll get to work for you. I’ve added a poll in BittBox’s sidebar, where I’d like to give all of you a chance to chime in on what you want the most. Just another way to let you interact with me a little more. I’ll be changing the poll questions regularly from now on. Now go Vote !:)

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Illustrator 101: Reset Your Rulers (Video)

Jay Hilgert — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:58:18 +0000

Hey everyone, before you blow up the comments about how you already knew this, let me say one thing. Not everyone is an avid user and these little tips are meant to help rid people that are learning Illustrator of some daily frustration with simple answers to simple problems. Today’s question was sent in by Morgan, and it has to do with rulers. Have a watch.

Illustrator 101: Reset Your Rulers from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Freeware Find: Hugin Photo Stitcher

Jay Hilgert — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:45:53 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with panoramas lately and as a result, I found a very nice free program for stitching multiple images together. It’s called Hugin, and its available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. You don’t need a fisheye lens to make panoramas, all you need to do is take a bunch of overlapping images and let Hugin do the rest.

If you browse around the sorceforge page for Hugin, there are plenty of tutorials to get you started.

I did a panorama of my workspace as I learned more about stitching, so here it is:

In my experiments, I used Hugin to stitch my images into a single image, then I used a program called Cubic Converter ($49 US) to make a 360 degree QuickTime VR. Cubic Converter tutorials here. Here is the result:

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Free Stuff: 5 Free Vector Packs up for Grabs - Comment to Win

Jay Hilgert — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:18:43 +0000

Hey everyone, I’ve partnered with Alex from Designious.com to give away 5 free Vector Packs to 5 lucky BittBox commenters. Designious is a design studio that creates great vector illustrations and design elements. All their work is hand drawn and most of all, its original. Their studio creates designs for web, print and apparel like t-shirt templates. Check out the Vector Packs Section to see what’s up for grabs. Rules and Details after the jump.

The Prizes:

The vector Packs that are up for grabs are any of the Simple Vector Packs at Designious, not the Mega Packs, or Giga Packs. Winners will get to download the simple pack of their choice.

The Rules:

Leave a comment about how you will use the vector pack, should you win.
Only Comment Once.
You MUST enter an email address while commenting in order to win, because winners will be notified via email.
Winners will be chosen randomly.
Comments will be open until Friday, Oct 24th.

Good Luck everyone !!!!

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Hidden “Reset” Button in Photoshop Adjustment Palettes

Jay Hilgert — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:41:35 +0000

I have a time saver for you folks. I have a keyboard shortcut I’d like to share it with you. I could have done this with screenshots, but I’m playing around with video these days, so here it is, my first video tutorial. I hope is saves you some time :)

Hidden “Reset” Button in Photoshop Adjustment Palettes from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Vectorstock Launches Re-Design, Adds “Free Vectors” Section

Jay Hilgert — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:10:52 +0000

As many of you know, I’m all about free stuff here at Bittbox. I’d like to bring to your attention Vectorstock.com’s latest re-design, and the addition of a new “Free Vectors” button on the homepage. I’m not entirely sure if the button itself is new, but it’s clearly easier to locate the freebies all in one place. Vectorstock regularly releases free vectors and it’s even better to have them all in one place. As for the re-design itself, you’ll probably agree that its a great improvement on the old site. It’s peppy, responsive, easy to navigate and a new popup preview/zoom script has been added as well. Overall, I say the redesign is a success, especially 1 click access to the freebies! :)

A quick shot of the new preview script.

Oooh, the Freebies button, love it.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Free Stuff: Political Poster Contest at Lost and Taken

Jay Hilgert — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:55:20 +0000

I’d like to let all of my readers know about a new contest with $1000 in prizes up for grabs. Caleb from LostAndTaken has launched his first contest, and yours truly will be the judging the project. There are prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, and the theme is none other than the 2008 election. Submit your political poster designs to enter. Head on over to check out the details and the prizes. This should be a fun contest, good luck!

This is a post from: BittBox.com

BB Free Font: Tire Shop Demo Verison

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:57:45 +0000

I’ve got another free demo version font for everyone. It’s called Tire Shop. I include upper and lowercase in my demo fonts, but in this case, the lowercase is the same as the uppercase. However, I did include both upper and lower in the font file itself, so you won’t have to worry about using shift or capslock. I know I’ve been on a font binge lately, but hey, its a freebie right? Anyway, hope you can find a good use for it. :)

Here’s a look at the characters. If you’re interested in buying the full version, you can see the full character map here, on myfonts.com

Download (.ttf) Mac/Windows »

This is a post from: BittBox.com

BB Free Font: Conglomerfont

Jay Hilgert — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:25:01 +0000

It’s done! Conglomerfont is a free font created by myself and the design community from all over the world, on nearly every continent via email. I asked people to send individual letters to my inbox, and I coagulated the submissions into a single font, hence the name, Conglomerfont. Below you’ll find a list of all of the contributors, and a link to their websites. Thanks to everyone who participated, and if you didn’t get into the font this time around, don’t worry, I plan on doing another conglomerfont in the future. :)

Here’s a look at the character set.

Download (.ttf) Mac/Windows »

Uppercase	Contributor	Website
A	Dan Matutina	plus63.net
B	Blog Theme Machine	BlogThemeMachine.com
C	Salvatore Palange	tumitu.com
D	Sergio Kossio	dako.berserkstudios.net
E	Jeff Lewis	10footstick.com
F	FORMED	beformed.com
G	George Coghill	CoghillCartooning.com
H	Hot Glue Media	HotGlueMedia.com
I	Allahverdi Suleymanov	none
J	Jacob Cass	justcreativedesign.com
K	_kris aubuchon	krisaubuchon.com
L	kailoon	kailoon.com
M	Dino Muhic	dinomuhic.com
N	Brian Loughner	brianloughner.com
O	Deb Grant	d-74.com
P	Shahin Shokoui	PersianPanda.com
Q	Alex	HighResolutionTextures.com
R	Nikola Leskarac	www.lavlab.de
S	Kristopher Kanaly	kanalydesign.com
T	Bill Biwer	williambiwer.com
U	Jan Järfalk	unwrongest.com
V	Matt Varone	mattvarone.com
W	Ben Leivian	twitter.com/bleivian
X	Ovid Nine Graphics Lab	ovidnine.com
Y	Sunny Sachdev	imprimisproductions.com
Z	Dustin Evans	zindustry.com

Lowercase	Contributor	Website
a	Amy Stewart	stewartdesign.com
b	Bloground.ro	Bloground.ro
c	Sven Lubenau	dersven.de
d	Dan Berkowitz	danberko.com
e	Mark LeMoine	none
f	Franz Jeitz	fudgegraphics.com
g	Megan Hinteman	none
h	Brian Fegter	misternifty.com
i	Littlefish IT Support	littlefishsupport.com
j	Alex Davy	curbeddesign.ca
k	Kristen Ley	cultigraphic.com
l	lnunezinfante	none
m	lim	none
n	anca	visualdexterity.com
o	Alex Dukal	circografico.com.ar
p	Patrick Huss	path82.com
q	AlexK	monarts.de
r	Rajesh Pancholi	www.r27.co.uk
s	Alexandre Dumas de Rauly (dinobib)	dinobib.com
t	Brooke Condolora	ascendinglines.com
u	Max Stanworth	designshard.com
v	Vin Thomas	vintom.com
w	Nan Davenport	nannigans.com
x	Dickie Adams	FreelanceSwitch.com
y	Werner Mollentze	blimp.co.za
z	Viktor Engborg	viktor.engborg.nu

Numerals	Contributor	Website
0	Tim Duffels	imaginate.nu
1	Ed Hall	eddidit.com
2	Carolien	none
3	Gavin	gkdesignz.com
4	LadyAngora	darah.com
5	Doctor Rose	daviddoctorrose.com
6	Lily	None
7	Derya Öztürk	derya-landet.de
8	81designs, Inc	81designs.com
9	Chris Bishop	canddbishop.com/design

Download (.ttf) Mac/Windows »

This is a post from: BittBox.com

BittBox Vectors Spotted in a Hollywood Movie Trailer

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:55:14 +0000

I was browsing the movie trailers on the Apple website the other day and stumbled onto a few of my vectors in one of the trailers. The movie is called “Inkheart.” It looks to be along the lines of The Chronicles of Narnia style movie, and it appears to be a pretty high budget film. Kinda neat to see one of my freebies in a high budget Hollywood film trailer. I’ll have to check out the film itself to see if they used anything else :)

Here are the vectors they used. They actually came from some headers I released ages ago.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Conglomerfont: A Community-Created Free Font Project - Calling all Creatives

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:43:01 +0000

This is a project I’ve started here at BittBox as a community effort to create a free font so that everyone who’s willing can have a hand in the creation process. It will be a 100% free typeface, and anyone who wants to help can design a character/letter of their choosing. Let’s make history :) !!!!!

This is how it works:

Below, you’ll find a few tables with all of the characters slated to be a part of this community-created font. Items marked with an “X” have already been accounted for, everything else is free game. People (everyone besides me) can choose a character that they want to design, create a hand-drawn character, and email it to me in jpeg or tiff format to jhilgert00(at)gmail.com. I will then use my software (Font Lab Studio) and create a font from all of the individual submitted characters, and I’ll give it away for free, right here on BittBox. Bookmark this page if your are interested in contributing, I will be updating the list of characters often.

I can’t guarantee that your character will be used because there will likely be multiple submissions for the same character in between the time I update this page, but don’t worry, this is only the first of many BittBox Community Fonts.

Each person who submits a character used in the font will get credit, as well as a link. When the font is complete and I make the post to give it away, I will include the tables below in that post, with each character, it’s creator, and a link for each contributor, as a credit to everyone who participated. So, if you submit, please make sure to clearly state what name and URL you want included in the credits for the font in your email.

For this first run, I’m only including uppercase, lowercase, and 0-9. If the project goes well, we can expand the character set with the next community font :)

Uppercase	Availability	Contributor	Website
A	X	Dan Matutina	plus63.net
B	X	Blog Theme Machine	BlogThemeMachine.com
C	X	Salvatore Palange	tumitu.com
D	X	Sergio Kossio	dako.berserkstudios.net
E	X	Jeff Lewis	10footstick.com
F	X	FORMED	beformed.com
G	X	George Coghill	CoghillCartooning.com
H	X	Hot Glue Media	HotGlueMedia.com
I	X	Allahverdi Suleymanov	none
J	X	Jacob Cass	justcreativedesign.com
K	X	_kris aubuchon	krisaubuchon.com
L	X	kailoon	kailoon.com
M	X	Dino Muhic	dinomuhic.com
N	X	Brian Loughner	brianloughner.com
O	X	Deb Grant	d-74.com
P	X	Shahin Shokoui	PersianPanda.com
Q	X	Alex	HighResolutionTextures.com
R	X	Nikola Leskarac	www.lavlab.de
S	X	Kristopher Kanaly	kanalydesign.com
T	X	Bill Biwer	williambiwer.com
U	X	Jan Järfalk	unwrongest.com
V	X	Matt Varone	mattvarone.com
W	X	Ben Leivian	twitter.com/bleivian
X	X	Ovid Nine Graphics Lab	ovidnine.com
Y	X	Sunny Sachdev	imprimisproductions.com
Z	X	Dustin Evans	zindustry.com

I’ll post thumbnails of the included characters as I receive them.

Lowercase	Availability	Contributor	Website
a	X	Amy Stewart	stewartdesign.com
b	X	Bloground.ro	Bloground.ro
c	X	Sven Lubenau	dersven.de
d	X	Dan Berkowitz	danberko.com
e	X	Mark LeMoine	none
f	X	Franz Jeitz	fudgegraphics.com
g	X	Megan Hinteman	none
h	X	Brian Fegter	misternifty.com
i	X	Littlefish IT Support	littlefishsupport.com
j	X	Alex Davy	curbeddesign.ca
k	X	Kristen Ley	cultigraphic.com
l	X	lnunezinfante	none
m	X	lim	none
n	X	anca	visualdexterity.com
o	X	Alex Dukal	circografico.com.ar
p	X	Patrick Huss	path82.com
q	X	AlexK	monarts.de
r	X	Rajesh Pancholi	www.r27.co.uk
s	X	Alexandre Dumas de Rauly (dinobib)	dinobib.com
t	X	Brooke Condolora	ascendinglines.com
u	X	Max Stanworth	designshard.com
v	X	Vin Thomas	vintom.com
w	X	Nan Davenport	nannigans.com
x	X	Dickie Adams	FreelanceSwitch.com
y	X	Werner Mollentze	blimp.co.za
z	X	Viktor Engborg	viktor.engborg.nu

I’ll post thumbnails of the included characters as I receive them.

Numerals	Availability	Contributor	Website
0	X	Tim Duffels	imaginate.nu
1	X	Ed Hall	eddidit.com
2	X	Carolien	none
3	X	Gavin	gkdesignz.com
4	X	LadyAngora	darah.com
5	X	Doctor Rose	daviddoctorrose.com
6	X	Lily	None
7	X	Derya Öztürk	derya-landet.de
8	X	81designs, Inc	81designs.com
9	X	Chris Bishop	canddbishop.com/design

I’ll post thumbnails of the included characters as I receive them.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

BB Free Font: Blox Demo Version

Jay Hilgert — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:07:41 +0000

Hey everyone, I’ve got a free font for you to download, and before you start blowing up the comments, let me explain why it’s a “demo” version. I recently started to sell some fonts on MyFonts.com as a secondary source of income. I have a contract with MyFonts, and giving away a demo version is the only way to still be able to share something with you, without violating my contract. Make sense? Ok, anyway the demo version only means its not the full version, you may use this font for personal and commercial projects.

Here’s a look at the character set:

Download (.ttf) Mac/Windows »

This is a post from: BittBox.com

101 Reasons to Follow Me on Twitter

Jay Hilgert — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:51:47 +0000

I’m not gonna lie, I’m addicted to Twitter. I’ve compiled a list of reasons why you should follow me on Twitter, not only because I think it’s silly how hooked I am, but because it can help build the community here at BittBox and help me connect to you in real time. Here we go :D

101 Reasons to follow me on Twitter:

Twitter is a great way to get in touch with me.
You can ask me a question about something that isn’t in my FAQ.
It’s a great way to request a tutorial.
I can help you Digg stuff.
I’m more likely to respond to a tweet than an email.
You can send me links to stuffs around the webs.
I have Twitterfeed set up, so you will know every time I publish a new post.
I can answer questions in real time.
I can help you Float stuff.
You can see random pictures I upload to TwitPic, like pictures of my cat puking because he eats too fast.
Twitter is awesome.
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This is a post from: BittBox.com

Freeware Find: DrawBerry - A Free Vector Editor for OS X

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:20:50 +0000

I recently found a little gem in the ever-growing list of software of the Apple site. DrawBerry is a free vector graphics editor for OS X. It has a slick, Pixelmator-like interface and is pretty easy to use. It’s not as powerful as Inkscape, but it’s much more lightweight and it’s very easy to use. Some features to note are, layers, opacity, blending modes, history, fill shapes with images, SVG support, shape alignment tool, and much more. Check out the video below, and screenshots to get a closer look.

DrawBerry from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

I really liked the simplicity of the Gradient Palette:

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Best of BittBox Part 1: High Resolution Photoshop Brushes

Jay Hilgert — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:34:47 +0000

I’ve been making high quality freebies here at BittBox for a little over a year and a half (19 Months). There are 94 posts in my Freebies section, and I thought I’d make a list for people to see all of my stuff in one place. I know how people love lists, so I’m making some of my own. These aren’t all of my freebies, just the cream of the crop. We’ll Kick the series off with my High Resolution Photoshop Brushes. Happy Downloading, here we go :D

Free High-Resolution Photoshop Brushes:

Watercolor Photoshop Brushes »

I am happy to announce BittBox’s first set of Photoshop Brushes (Free). I’m constantly going back and forth between Illustrator and Photoshop in my projects, and I’m starting to pretty much make everything from scratch. I often have trouble finding brushes…

Watercolor Photoshop Brushes - Set II »

In this set of brushes, I went a little more crazy with the strokes. These brushes are more complex than the previous set and were painted on a higher quality paper, so the end result is in fact, much better.…

Leaves Photoshop Brushes »

I actually took leaves from my own back yard and scanned them to make this Hi-Res Photoshop Brush set. There are 10 brushes in the set, and most of them are 2500px in size…

Splatter Photoshop Brushes »

This is my second set of brushes, but my first set made in CS3. My first set (Hi-Res Watercolor Brushes) was pretty popular, so I thought I would keep making more. The smallest brush in this set is 2457px. Hope you like them.…

Floral Photoshop Brushes »

I took a trip to the store, got a bouquet of flowers with a nice variety (I can’t grow flowers to save my life), whipped out my Nikon D-80, and went to town + a few hours of Photoshop tweaking…

Grungy Texture Photoshop Brushes »

In this set you’ll find grungy textures, as well as some rocky cracks. There are 12 brushes in the set, and they are all 2500px. Available for CS3, CS1, and in PNG format for everyone else…

Messy Spraypaint Photoshop Brushes »

These aren’t traditional spraypaint brushes, so “Messy Spraypaint” is as close as I could get to an accurate name. Most of them are 2500px, and I also included PNGs for anyone not using Photoshop…

Grungy Wings Photoshop Brushes »

Believe it or not, but I made these with a sketch pad, a can of spray paint, and a kitchen sponge. It was actually quite fun. I was inspired by a t-shirt I bought recently and decided to churn out a new brush set…

Grungy Watercolor Photoshop Brushes »

These are, as always, super large brushes. There are 10 in the set, and I also included a zip file with PNGs for non-Photoshop users. I’ll be releasing the actual textures themselves in…

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Photoshop 101: Button-Mode Actions

Jay Hilgert — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:12:56 +0000

I guess this could also be categorized as a workflow tip, but it’s good to know, no matter what you want to call it. I’d like to take a second to show you about Photoshop’s (and Illustrator’s) “Button Mode” in the actions palette. If you aren’t familiar with actions, they are customizable tasks that save you time and make you more productive by eliminating redundant tasks. I haven’t written an article on Actions themselves yet, but here is a nice one I found on the web.

Actions save you time, yes, but you might notice when you create them that Photoshop gives you the option to designate a keyboard shortcut to run the Action. While this is a good thing, I actually prefer to use “Button Mode” for all of my actions. I do this because of 2 reasons. 1) I have so many hot keys set up that I wste too much time trying to come up with keyboard shortcuts that aren’t set up for another task already, and 2) I don’t have to remember all the exotic hotkeys for actions that I constantly edit and/or delete.

With button mode, you can activate an action with a single click. Here’s how to enable button mode:

Click on the palette options in the upper right to enable Button Mode. It may be in a different place on the list for other versions of Photoshop. (CS3 shown here). Note - Illustrator also has button mode.

And now you have button mode. The only thing I don’t like about button mode is the fact that you have to disable it in order to edit, record, or change an action, but It save me lots of clicks in the long run.

This is a post from: BittBox.com

Congrats to the 3D Wall Pro Winners

Jay Hilgert — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:02:25 +0000

Thanks to everyone who participated and to Floashloaded for making the contest possible. And the winners are… Bill Stapleton, William Mooijman, and catd21. Congratulations to the winners. I hope you enjoy the software and find some good uses for it :)

This is a post from: BittBox.com