July 2010 Software Closet
Click the links below to download each individual item.
Helpful Utilities
EasyEnvelopes 1.0.8
Ambrosia Software's EasyEnvelopes (free) is a remarkably useful Widget that does one thing very well: it prints an envelope for any entry in the Mac OS X Address Book, or from copied text (it can automatically detect if you have an address on the clipboard). You can control the fonts, choose envelope size and choose from a list of your own picture files for the return address. It can even add a USPS bar code for you! This incredibly slick tool even supports printing on both sides of the envelope, in case you want to put your return address on the back.
Pixus Measures Objects On Screen
JPEG Interactive's Pixus (free) is an Adobe AIR application that measures the pixel dimensions of on-screen objects. It includes an on-screen ruler, on-screen guides, lets users toggle guide colors, auto-updates measurements, and supports multiple screens. This is a useful tool for taking quick measurements of objects in Web pages, PDFs and other documents for placement in other documents or to make sure new objects match the sizes of current objects in layouts designed for on-screen viewing. Pixus requires Adobe AIR, which is also a free download.
Plug-ins & Scripts
Peel Off, Gray to White, and Gray to Black Filters
Berg Designs has a set of three free plug-ins for Photoshop CS3/CS4 that help with image masking and color manipulation. The Peel Off White filter is useful for silhouetting objects that you will later use in composite images by "lifting" them off of white or light colored backgrounds. Then, you can create an image with perfectly feathered edges that don't have that "clipping path" or "evenly feathered" look. The Gray To White filter is very useful for cleanly increasing the color saturation of an image without "blowing out" any pixel colors like even moderate "Hue/Saturation" adjustments can do. By repeatedly duplicating layers and applying the filter, you can make extreme saturation adjustments without degrading image quality. The Gray To Black filter is very useful for lightening the shadows in an image without "washing out" any pixel colors or creating posterized regions like "Level", "Curves" and "Brightness/Contrast" adjustments can do. It is not effective unless the shadows still contain some color since pixel values that are pure gray will not be affected by this technique. These filters only work on 8 bit/channel RGB images. And, they prefer images with no transparency. So if you get unexpected results from a layer with transparency, try flattening it onto white (or filling behind with white) and running the filter again.
Scripts for Working with Word and Text Files in InDesign
Working with Word files isn't always the easiest task, but is often part of the overall workflow. Luckily, there are a few scripts to help deal with the often daunting task. When importing text from Word files, creating and applying character styles to strip out local formatting is often a necessary evil. Dave Saunders' Preserve Local Formatting.jsx script for InDesign CS\CS2\CS3) creates new character styles then applies them to the local formatting overrides. Jongware's PrepText.jsx essentially performs the same task, but works only in CS4. If you are faced with exporting text back out, to an .rtf file for example, text styled using GREP or nested styles will lose its formatting. Luckily, there's a script (or two) for that: ApplyNestedStyles (CS3 and CS4) and TurnGrepStyles2CharStyles (CS4). Each script manually applies character styles to text that was auto-formatted using GREP or nested styles.
Get them here and here
Free Fonts
AHDN
Blomster
Panhead
|
