The following paragraph is taken from The Complete Guide to Isometric Pixel Art - but it could apply to ANY situation where a user has been duped by the media, pop culture, a malicious bystander, or their own sad brain into thinking that not knowing how to use a computer should in any way impede them from…. using a computer.

To even begin to be able to understand Isometric Pixel Art you need to have a fair understanding about how to work the basics of computers. This includes operating the mouse, keyboard, loading saving, etc. I know this may sound silly since you’ve managed to get yourself to this website, but constantly I am asked by people if I could teach them how to do this sort of art, even when they are unable to even do basic operations on a computer. So please people, before even continuing from this point forward, if you are lacking in the basic computing skills please go to a course or something. Then come back when you are ready.
- Rhys Davies

I get users like this on a …. not quite daily basis, but often enough that I am tempted to take them aside (hard enough to do over the phone) and ask them if they would insist on competing in the Indy 500 without knowing the gas pedal from the brakes.

Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 slated for early 2005 release. Right now, I don’t care about new features - Photoshop CS has all I think I could possibly need (though hey - maybe they’ll give me something so grand I’ll decide I can’t live without out it. Who knows?) What I am concerned about? Backwards compatibility.

90% of all the user supplied art I handle at work is vector line art, and NONE of my vendors can take anything higher than Illustrator version 9. The printing industry is famous, BTW, for the slowness of it’s upgrade cycles. A huge portion of my job, therefore, is to be a bridge between upgrade happy business users who think that newer software is always better, and printers who don’t understand why they should upgrade anything that still functions. (I’ve seen old-school vendors who grumble about the linotype machines going away.)

This is not a problem with Photoshop, regardless of the relative cluelessnesss of the end user. There’s a nifty option called “maximize compatibility” that makes it real simple to make sure anyone can open your .psd. (and most of the time, a bitmapped file is sent to me as a .tif anyway - which I can open *anywhere*.)

Illustrator though? Is *horrid*. If you save an .eps or .ai file straight from Illustrator CS, there is /no option/ for backwards compatibility. You have to export your file as a “legacy eps”. This command is not only counter intuitive, it’s frelling well hidden from the average user! It’s so damm hidden I’ve had to post a tutorial for my poor users, and even then half of them couldn’t get it right.

I was loosing so much time walking users though the export procedure for Illustrator CS (30 minute calls with hysterically frustrated users wherein I provide free training and tech support do not make me a happy camper) that we’ve finally upgraded from version 10 just this week. Not ’cause I need any of the new features, but because now we can take Illustrator CS files directly. Without the time sucking hysteria.

Of course, the only users who had a problem with my directions? Were the ones who shouldn’t be allowed near a graphics app in the first place. (Putting sales guys in charge of art files is usually a bad idea. I really prefer it when our customers let me deal with their graphics people directly.)

Blogging this now for future reference in case I ever have to deal with this particular PS quirk again.

The direct link for the discussion is over here, but seeing as message boards are ephermal, if you’re running Windows XP and PS decides it just doesn’t want to initalize, try this solution:

It seems that the ‘Preferences’ file can become ‘corrupted’ if you have more than one version of Photoshop running (and under other circumstances) and the solution is to delete the preferences file.
This can be achieved by holding down the ‘Ctl-Alt-Shift’ keys when starting PS CS and then replying ‘yes’ to the prompt.
Seems to work fine now except got to set up preferences again!

And in that vein, if you’ve installed fonts and Photoshop decides that it doesn’t want to acknowledge their existence, the solution’s over here. (Adobe’s support knowledgebase, so I have more faith in the permanance of the link.)

Finally got my hands on the upgrade a few days ago, and have been playing around since. Lots of small, less than flashy feature enhancements. It’s nothing like going from 6 to 7, but I’ve been wanting pathed text and nestable layer sets *forever*. Haven’t even gotten around to testing out all the new features. Maybe that’s what I can do tomorrow. :)

• ZD Net looks at Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
• Digital Photography Review’s take on the upgrade.
• NAPP’s Photoshop CS resource center

But real text on a path in Photoshop CS (nee, Photoshop 8) is holy grail-ish enough for me. Other highlights (PDF document) that are making me drool…

• Full 16 bit editing
• View live histograms
• Layer comps - history snapshots with balls.
• Nested layer sets
• New color replacement tool
• New match color feature - looks useful
• Customizable help menu and shortcuts

Had a co-worker yesterday as me what combination of filters I use to create my digital paintings. I had to explain that filters weren’t really part of the process. I guess it’s nifty that someone’s trying to do the same stuff I do. Of course, it’s also nifty that it’s not so easy to duplicate.

Bitstream’s just released the Vera font family as a cross platform replacement for the now removed MS core web fonts. JD Welch has a page up promoting them and their use online.

Lot’s of folks are jumping up and down about this, and it’s a good thing they’re now out and available, especially for the Unix/Linux/Open Source/Etc. crowd but they’re just not doing it for me. I have added the family as a second choice in my style sheets ’cause they don’t suck, and I think they will get picked up by a good percentage of viewers in the future.

So of course, Quark had to release a pretty vague PR statement about it. John Gruber offers the official statement and a great real world translation. I wanna see what he comes up with when Adobe starts issuing PR verbiage about PS8.

Eric Meyer just put up a nifty little applet that will let you calculate the the midpoint and up to ten intermediate steps between two hex colors.