Posts Tagged with Workflow
12 May 2008,
Jay Hilgert
This is a very quick Illustrator CS3 tip that will hopefully save you some time in the long run. I’m sure a lot of you, if not all of you, know how to load a Brush Library. There are 3 ways, actually, but my favorite, and quickest way is the Brush Library icon.
![Illustrator: Load Brush Libraries Faster [CS3] Illustrator: Load Brush Libraries Faster [CS3]](/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/faster_illustrator_brushes_2.jpg)
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7 May 2008,
Jay Hilgert
Some of you may have noticed that Leopard’s finder doesn’t really like EPS files. Its a huge inconvenience to have to open a file just to see what’s in it, and if you’re at all like me, you have a hard drive full of downloads that need to be browsed once in a while. Never fear, EPSQuickLookPlugin is here to help. It’s a (freeware) plugin for QuickLook, that allows you to view the contents of an EPS file (in Finder and QuickLook) without opening an application. Now that’s gonna save me about 500 hours per year, I’d guestimate.

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1 May 2008,
Jay Hilgert
We all love those little tips that save us a click or two, and I’ve got another one for you. For those of you on a Mac, you might remember how I showed you a faster way to install Photoshop brushes. This little click saver is pretty much the same thing. Details after the jump.

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1 Apr 2008,
Jay Hilgert
In the spirit of April Fools day, I wrote a tutorial on something I once considered “tricky.” If you’ve ever run into problems while trying to “Expand Appearance” on your brushes in Illustrator, you’re not alone. Expanding the appearance of your brush work has many helpful uses because you can get paths that outline your shapes, instead of just the brush stroke itself. This helps preserve the shape of your brush work when scaling and allows you to send files to print with outlined paths that prevents problems when the printers open your files, among other things. Let’s get started.

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25 Mar 2008,
Jay Hilgert
Workflow is always important for productivity. Avoiding as many clicks as possible is an everyday battle, and, with this little Illy tip, I hope to help you avoid yet another 3 clicks. For some reason, the folks at Adobe decided that Illustrator shouldn’t have a ‘Preset Manager’ like Photoshop, so here we are working around it. I’d like to share with you one way I get around a lack-of-a-preset-manager in Illustrator when it comes to brushes.

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11 Feb 2008,
Jay Hilgert
Whatever kind of designer you are (be it web, print, 3D, multimedia, etc.), you most likely rely on quite a few different apps on a regular basis, and you’re always looking to improve your workflow efficiency. With the release of OS X 10.5, we were introduced to stacks. A feature that promised everyone a clutter-free desktop environment. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was more than dissatisfied with stacks. Good news folks. Apple released 10.5.2 today, and one of the fixes I was personally hoping for came true. Stacks have been beefed up, and we got our list view back! This really made my day. No more 3rd party apps like HierarchialDock to keep my desktop clean. Thanks for listening to us Apple!

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