Photoshop CS6 will improve the UI look and feel!

Posted on January 29, 2012 by IdeaMonster

Photoshop took some cues from Pixelmator on UI design?

Finally, after many apps have shown that darker interfaces are easier to work with (even some Adobe Apps had these) the change is coming to the flagship product. It took about 20 years for them to realize that, which is typical Adobe-slow, but apparently cheaper competition breating down their backs with new features (pixelmator 2.0 is really getting there, although it’s not there … yet) maybe they decided to improve everything they possibly can so they’ll stop using customers. Especially after those odd decisions that only the two last versions of their products can be upgraded to the most recent one – the rest having to buy it all over again.

iPads are becoming more and more useful for the creatives

Posted on January 24, 2012 by IdeaMonster

iPad has transformed from a tool to consume content to something that can be more useful for content creation

Sure, it did start as a content consuming device initially, with all the “sit in your comfy chair, watch a movie, read a book, post to facebook you’re sitting in your comfy chair” babble. But with releasing a much powerful iPad2, and an upcoming retina display iPad3, more and more companies are making add-ons and apps that can actually do a lot for the creatives. Sure we don’t have photoshop yet, but there are plenty of CSS/HTML editors with FTP support and preview, there are tools for sketching layouts, for UX designers, VJ’s, DJ’s and regular musicians.

More and more DAW apps are appearing in the app store, a trend started with FruityLoops, expanded by GarageBand. These are for now simplified, but more and more things are bound to appear. Remember this – 4 to 5 years ago computers most people used for recording their albums were about the power of the iPad. And if the iPad3 will be significantly faster it’ll encourage bigger DAW’s to come to the platform as well. Ableton Live for iOS anyone?

NAMM this year was actually dominated by iOS – we’ve seen external sound cards (some quite robust), guitar and drum effects, and even an akai dedicated MPC interface (the MPC FLY). This all proves that it CAN be used to create things, and maybe that change is needed to switch from the old ways of thinking and jump into the new. New possibilities await us right ?

Is IE 6 finally going to die?

Posted on January 4, 2012 by IdeaMonster

For years web developers have been begging and petitioning for this to happen. Now it's finally just around the corner.

Microsoft has launched a campaign of it’s own to free the world of it’s dreadful (to developers) browser from yesteryear. Go to http://www.ie6countdown.com/ to see for yourself the steady decline of usage which is now finally below 10%. That means that web developers no longer need to put time and effort to make an IE6 specific version of their websites. Ain’t that a nice new year’s gift? Microsoft thinks so too, even though the decline in IE6 doesn’t necessarily result in an incline for newer explorers. More and more people are turning to chrome and firefox. Which is fine, cause anything is better than IE6. And a year from now at this rate it will finally be extinct.

Quicklook not showing photoshop files? Here’s the fix!

Posted on January 1, 2012 by IdeaMonster

A lot of people have been struggling with quicklook and Photoshop, so who's to blame here? Adobe or Apple?

Neither. In fact in most cases the blame is on the user side. First of all check your file handling, because maximize compatibility might be set to “Never”. That’s one culprit that does that. Did that help? If not there’s another thing that makes QuickLook show only a white rectangle instead of the PSD file. The problem is the color profile – you have to embed it in the file or QuickLook will be VERY confused. Poor ol’ QuickLook. Doesn’t matter if it’s CMYK or “DISPLAY”, just remember to embed it while you’re saving your PSD’s and all will be fine and dandy.

That helps A LOT while browsing for that one PSD from a year ago ;)

Skitch came to the iPad!

Posted on December 23, 2011 by IdeaMonster

The annotations just got a lot more fun!

After Evernote acquired Skitch – the annotations editor, some people were afraid that it will cease to exist and instead be merged into the evernote app itself. Good news is that it’s not entirely true, since the Mac app is now free, and we just got our hands on the iPad version which is even better.

To review and annotate designs has never been easier and more fun. Touch controls for apps like that are an amazing improvement of the workflow. The only downside is that it sometimes freezes the iPad completely, but I guess it’ll be fixed. You can download Skitch for iPad for free below:

http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/skitch-for-ipad/id490505997?mt=8

Physynth – amazing user interface design

Posted on December 19, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Every now and then in a sea of copycats we see something truly new and unique that catches our attention

Physynth stands out not only for it’s musical capabilities, but most notably for great and innovative design. It uses the iPad’s accelerometer to simulate light and shadows on it’s surface. That means if you turn your device to the left, the shadows of the knobs and dials will go to the right and so forth. It all looks so “real” and “artificial” at the same time, that it really catches attention.

The app is just 1$ and it’s available at:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/physynth/id469924626?mt=8

Android Ice Cream Sandwich finally has integrated credit card purchases!

Posted on December 11, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Finally Google has come to it's senses about their Android Market app quality.

It took a while of sms, freemium and ad based Android Apps, but now apparently the new version of google’s ~~iOS ripoff~~ original operating system has credit card information built in the way Apple does it. That allows the users to purchase the Apps more efficiently, which in turn can lead to better apps for the platform, which right now is treated by developers as a side dish to iOS. Do you think this move will improve app quality in the market?

Browser version of Windows Phone interface for iOS and Android

Posted on December 3, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Microsoft is generally considered a non-creative, "suit philosophy" company. Sometimes though, it takes a step away from that and creates something cool. Bing, xbox, some recent ads and most notably the Windows Phone interface. The latter you can now preview on your iPhone or Android device inside the browser. Sure it’s not a full experience, and reminds us a bit of the Web iPad demo, but it’s a clever way to show how the interface is innovative and cool to use. Good job microsoft. To test it open this url on your phone:
http://aka.ms/wpdemo

App review: Galleried (iPhone/iPad/Mac)

Posted on November 21, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Rating:

Galleried is an awesome app for finding great web designs, managing a collection of inspirations (some call them "stealing enhancers") between your devices. The App is 8Eur for the Mac, and has a free companion app for both iPhone and iPad. They sync through dropbox, so you’re always up to date with your findings no matter the device. The selection is made from a couple of sites that feature good design and 9 out of 10 times it gets the right sites. Sometimes we can see something that doesn’t quite fit, but in general there’s plenty of inspiration there. I think it’s the best app of that kind for any designer so you should get it right now! It’s worth the money.

http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/galleried/id402974391?mt=8

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/galleried/id410762987?mt=12

Content Aware battle – Pixelmator vs Photoshop

Posted on November 17, 2011 by IdeaMonster

A while ago I tested the Content Aware Fill feature of Photoshop by removing myself from an image of some mountains. It worked surprisingly well, so I decided to do the exact same test with Pixelmator now. Above you can see the original photo. It took 3 separate content aware steps to do both images. The first step was for the whole part to be removed, and then the other two to remove little artifacts and errors afterwards. See the results after the break.

Continue reading →

Haha! Adobe is abandoning mobile flash. Steve Jobs told you so!

Posted on November 13, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Adobe Flash on the iOS platform was a hot topic for quite a while. Many handset makers (like samsung or htc) even put the ability to play flash content inside their ads, to differentiate their phones from in their opinion a crippled product like the iPhone. They omitted from these ads the facts about battery and procesor usage when flash is on. Who cares if you can use it for 10 minutes, but you can use flash. Yay! The truth is that even Adobe finally realized, that web wants to be more efficient and less processor heavy – not only for mobile devices. They released their own HTML5 authoring tools, and now in the next step – they’re abandoning the development of flash for mobile platforms completely. That means that in a few years flash in the mobile space will be even more non-existant than it is now. Good!

Funny to see their whining though – saying that it was Apple who killed mobile flash. Well Apple also killed the diskette, and nobody’s complaining about that now. The same fate will meet flash soon enough.

Also don’t get me wrong. I love Adobe Flash app. It’s the best creative vector-drawing editor ever. The tools are perfect for drawing (far easier to use and more fun than illustrator’s). But flash is much better for animation and cartoons, than websites. HTML5 is the future and we’re all ready for it!

Game Review: Tiny Wings (iPhone)

Posted on November 4, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Rating:

Tiny Wings is a phenomenon almost the size of Angry Birds. It’s simple, yet addictive in a way that’s completely unexplainable. The game revolves around the idea that you’re a bird (go figure!) that has those little wings, and yet you want to fly. So you use the hills (which by the way are randomly generated everyday so the game always looks differently) to gain momentum and jump into the air, where flapping those little wings can give you a few seconds of flight. There are islands between which you travel, coins to collect and clouds to touch. There are also achievements to achieve (which is a nice thing and makes the gameplay less boring after a while). The only thing that can ‘hurt’ you is the sun setting, so your time of flight is limited, but other than that you can’t really “die” in this nice, colourful game which makes it all the more “fun”.

It’s one of those games that should get boring after a while and yet it doesn’t. It’s mesmerizing and when I’m looking at my games folder thinking what to play casually for a short while it beats the other games nearly every time. You can get it on the App Store for 0,69 quid, and sadly there’s no iPad version (yet), but it does play well even in 2x mode.

http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/tiny-wings/id417817520?mt=8

Game Review: League of Evil (iPhone/iPad)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Rating:

League of Evil is one of those rare, 8bit platformers that don’t suck. In fact it’s probably one of the best such games in the App Store, and no, they’re not paying me to write that (yet;)). The whole appeal of this game can be pinpointed to simple, yet addictive gameplay (which actually works that way with every good game) and a GREAT set of controls. They’re onscreen, which usually ruins the fun, but here they’re super-responsive and after a while of getting used to them the gameplay just flows flawlessly. Seriously – think of a touch-controlled game in which you don’t do unintended things. The graphics are pretty good too – 8bit, simple, but beautiful at the same time. Gotta warn you though – the people you kill in this game (soliders and evil scientists) explode into a pile of blood, guts and gore. Sure it’s just a few red pixels but the imagination adds a lot to that. So yeah, it’s a brutal game, but isn’t life that way?

The levels are pretty simple and quite short, but the goal is to be quick – you get more points for speed, pretty much like Keanu Reeves in that one movie about speed. You know which one I’m talking about. Yeah, the Matrix!

Your mission is simple – get to the evil scientist, kill him and find a briefcase with his evil plans and the world will be saved again. Bruce Willis was on vacation so they chose you. Yeah, lucky you. So instead of working, you can be sitting in the corporation toilet for half an hour saving the world. Pretty neat huh? It’s addictive enough to be time-consuming, and simple enough to play “just one level at a time” every now and then (especially at work). Games like LoE are to blame for the decreasing amount of work being done in the workplace. But we do save worlds on the other hand so I guess we’re ok.

Go and get that awesome universal app for 0,69 quid at : <a href=”http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/league-of-evil/id405552598?mt=8″ target=”_blank”>http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/league-of-evil/id405552598?mt=8</a>

More thoughts on Pixelmator 2.0

Posted on October 31, 2011 by IdeaMonster

So I had the big “2.0” for a couple of days now and I can honestly say that it ALMOST got me to the point where I can sell my Photoshop license and go have a party for the money. Sure it’s lacking CMYK support – but most printers nowadays even for big posters prefer RGB anyway, or even no color profile at all. The most annoying thing is lack of Layer Styles, but I’m almost sure they’ll turn up in some 2.x iteration sooner or later. The other annoyance is the color palette which is not a part of the Pixelmator interface, just like the previous type tool was. It should be more streamlined, easier to use and better looking (better UX)

The rest of the added tools are good and/or sufficient for day to day creation, and it’s now possible to do website layouts and posters, which could’ve been done in PXM before, but not without frustration. Now it’s ALMOST completely there, and I’m starting the slow (and potentialy painfull) move towards it instead of the big brother. The Vector Tools are AMAZING by the way – and Adobe could learn a thing or two from the Pixelmator Team on this one.

With Hype and Purple hitting the Mac App Store there are also nice and cheap tools for HTML5 animation, so being a designer on a budget loses the dogma of doing crappy products because of underpowered tools. The tools are there, now it’s up to us to get that creativity rolling.

I think PXM 2.0 is 9 out of 10 stars, but it’ll surely get to the whole 10 in the next couple of months. Good!

Game Review: The Incident (iPhone/iPad)

Posted on October 28, 2011 by IdeaMonster

Rating:

The Incident is a fun, 8-bit styled game made when there weren’t a gazillion retro games in the App Store yet. It revolves around the idea that “stuff is falling from the sky” – literally everything you can think of from cars, road signs, fridges, tv sets, painting, beach balls and statues. Your job is to find out what’s causing it (by going up, constantly jumping on the stacks of objects) and of course – to survive. The game offers a story mode, and an endless night mode which as the title proclaims is, well … endless.

You have a nice achievement wall with trophies saying what object landed on your head at what height that ended your short sad life, which is kinda funny. The graphics are pretty good for an 8bit game – pretty detailed and the objects are really complex and well designed. There’s some nice music (8bit of course) and a cool way to use your iphone as a controller, and play on the bigger screen of your iPad. It also supports AirPlay, so you can hook it up to your big screen TV.

It’s a nice and addictive game and for 1,49 quid it’s a steal since it’s an universal App so you pay once for both iPhone and iPad version!
You can download it from the App Store

So here it is : Pixelmator 2.0 – what’s good, what’s bad?

Posted on October 28, 2011 by IdeaMonster

So Pixelmator 2.0 is finally here! We’ve been through delayed launch dates, lots of anger in their website comments, lots of feature requests and Apple Design Awards. Between all this an idea has emerged that this little, 30$ app can replace the 700$ pro app from Adobe. Looking at PM2.0 I can say once again – “it’s close but not yet there”. Which shouldn’t really be of any surprise – Photoshop was developed years ago and got layer support in version 4! So that’s understandable. For me PM2.0 has all the tools I need but one – it’s lacking layer styles. That one single invention in Photoshop is now as ubiquitous in my design as layers themselves. The ability to add simple stylings (color overlay or even a shadow) without creating new layers. That’s the main thing that is going to keep me from using PXM for some of my professional work.

The other thing I found a little annoying is the color palette. It jumps out as a completely style-less window from OS X and jumps out randomly. The order of tabs there is awful. Who needs those crayons? All we need is a color spectrum, a color wheel and swatches, that can be used as a constantly on, styled palette (meaning it should have dark windows like the rest of them and better UI). That’s a big design flaw.

On the other hand the new type tool is pretty good and there’s enough functionality there (including finally opening PSDs with editable text) to stop complaining. The dodge, burn and sponge tools are pretty good too. Famous Content-Aware-Fill isn’t as good as in Photoshop and sometimes needs a little help from some clone-stamping, but it’s a nice effort for their first try.

I really like the vector design tools – here we have a feature (pen tool, freehand pen tool and shapes) that is actually done BETTER than in Photoshop. Good job Pixelmator team!

As for the rest of the App there are a lot of little refinements here and there, so I decided to take it for a spin and design my next pro layout exclusively in Pixelmator. I’ll probably post some shots from the process and some more insight next week. If you don’t have it yet go to the Mac App Store now:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12