Slade Knowledge Base » Digital Print

Adobe Kuler: Explore, create and share color themes

MJC — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:37:02 +0000

Discover Adobe® Kuler® — the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.

DID YOU KNOW…

Adobe Kuler is now available as a tablet app

The Adobe Kuler app, an extension of the full Adobe Kuler service, enables you to generate and view color themes on the go. Initially available for Android only.

Kuler is available online at no charge

Explore, create, and share color themes.
Try Kuler now

Kuler is accessible from your favorite Creative Suite 5 software

Explore, search, and create new color themes right where you work with the Kuler panels built into Adobe Illustrator® CS5, Photoshop® CS5, InDesign® CS5.5, Fireworks® CS5, and Flash® Professional CS5.5 software.
See more features

web: http://kuler.adobe.com/

An atlas of modern risography

MJC — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:23:13 +0000

A directory of publishers, print shops, and design studios usingRisograph duplicators in a creative context.

This atlas is set up as a wiki, anyone can add or edit a location without logging in. There are currently 71 listings.

web: http://issue-press.com/atlas

Apple iBooks Author review and how-to

MJC — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:12:03 +0000

Apple’s much-hyped iBooks Author came out a while back, and Cupertino hopes the free app can become the iTunes for the self-publishing textbook world. Available solely through the Mac App Store at a healthy 320MB, I’ve been putting iBooks Author through its paces in the hopes that the interactive iBook will bring me some added sales of a recently self-published e-book. I wanted to get this review out sooner, but you can’t really know how well this program works unless you actually have something to publish. A bird’s-eye view of a publishing tool doesn’t do it justice—you have to use it in production to really see its strengths and weaknesses.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2012/04/apples-ibooks-author-the-itunes-of-self-publishing-apps.ars

Book printers

MJC — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:35:33 +0000

As a rough guide, these kind of printers would take jobs of 500+ copies

Aldgate Press, Gunthorpe Workshop, Gunthorpe Street, London E1 7RQ
020 7247 3015
BAS Printers, 1 Premier Way, Abbey Park, Romsey, Hampshire SO51 9DQ
01794 834 605
Kube Digital Print, 44 Paul Street, London EC2A 4LB
020 7739 9744
Lecturis, F36 Argos House Office Centre, Kilburn Park Road, London NW6 5LF
020 7644 0498
Lithosphere, London
020 7686 6111
TRL Digital Print, 25 Holywell Row, London EC2A 4XE
020 7739 3152
White Offset, 159-179 Empress Road, Southampton SO14 0JW
02380 632 111

Die Keure

Colour Laser Printing at UCL

MJC — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:22:39 +0000

Colour Printing

Colour Printers are Located in the following cluster room areas: (Cluster Room Map)

Christopher Ingold (G20, Ground floor, 20 Gordon Street)
Cruciform (B12 and B.1.3, Basement, Cruciform, Gower Street)
DMS Watson (Ground floor, Science Library)
Foster Court (B24, Basement, Malet Place)
Torrington Place (Room 113, 1-19 Torrington Place)

It will cost you 25p per page to print in colour. You’ll need to choose print queue “ClusterColour”.

Dealing with grids in Photoshop is a pain

MJC — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:30:08 +0000

With GuideGuide, it doesn’t have to be. Pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines can be created based on your document or marquee with the click of a button. Frequently used guide sets can be saved for repeat use. Grids can use multiple types of measurements. Best of all it’s free. Honestly, if you haven’t started downloading it by now, you’re probably a masochist. Weirdo…

Grid Tab

Fill in the fields and click the GG button to create your grid.
Negative margin values will place the guides outside your selection.
Hold the clear guides button to clear all input fields.
Clicking the icon next to a margin field will apply its value to all margins.
Clicking the + button will let you save the current values as a preset.

Sets Tab

Double click a guide set to edit it.
Hold the clear guides button to delete the selected set.
Holding the GG button with a set selected will switch to the grid tab and populate its form

website: http://guideguide.me/

Digital Print Costs

MJC — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:16:06 +0000

All prints at Slade have to be paid for, as below.

Colour inkjet for photographic or exhibition quality prints

DESKTOP PRINTERS
70 pence per A4 page excluding paper
140 pence per A3 page excluding paper
or use our online calculator to work it all out
We do not provide paper as there are so many types which depend entirely on the results you need. We can give recommendations.

LARGE FORMAT PRINTERS
Ink is charged per unit used and paper by length from a roll. We use these calculators for the total costs
Epson 9800 online calculator

For normal printing in both black/white and colour, UCL have Cluster Rooms in many locations. Students are allocated a “free” printing quota each term.

Documenting your work

MJC — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:40:04 +0000

Richard Taylor looks at how to create a documented library of your work for online and print publishing: producing better professional practice and forwarding your work by establishing a self-archive.

Website: A-N Magazine article

eBook conversion tools

MJC — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:00:10 +0000

gut or txt2html for text -> html.
PHP-PDB for Palm Doc.
Pyrite Publisher. (might be gone – seeFreshmeat project page for some information.)
Plucker.
iSilo386.
makedoc.
rbmake for RocketBook format.
makeztxt for ztxt format.
htmldoc for HTML -> PDF conversion.
HTMLtidy for fixing up the automatic HTML generated by “gut”.
TCR.
makelrf 0.3
makebook for eReader format.
methods originally developed by Daniel Durisfor iPod Notes conversion.
Apple’s textutil command for RTF.
Desktop Connection Library for Newton Paperback format.
Mobigen.exe for Mobipocket format.
Wine to run mobigen.exe on OS X.
Componnents of mjBook for cellphone “.jar” files
HAWHAW toolkit for the WAP sitehttp://mnybks.net.
Calibre for ePUB format.

Ebook Cover Design and Optimum Size Specifications for Amazon, Kindle, B&N, Nook, iBookstore, and iPad Formats

MJC — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:07:49 +0000

QUICK AND HANDY GUIDE

All images should be RGB and not CMYK. Lulu will reject sRGB, if you want to use them to get into the iBookstore, but other retailers accept it.

Again, always go for the correct file size first, at the cost of resolution if necessary; not the other way around.

EC = Embedded Cover (give to ebook formatter to embed)
CC = Catalog Cover (you’ll upload separate from ebook)
n/s = Not Specified

	Format	Size in px	Resolution	File Size
Kindle CC	JPG, TIFF	min 500px max 1280px	72 dpi	n/s
Kindle EC	JPG	600 x 800	167ppi – 300dpi	127kb
B&N/Nook CC	JPG, GIF, PNG	600 x 730	n/s	n/s
B&N/Nook EC	JPG, GIF, PNG	600 x 1024	170 ppi	300kb
iPad EC	JPG, GIF, PNG	600 x 860	132 ppi	200kb

Again, 600px x 800px will pretty much cover your bases, so if you choose one size, I suggest that one.

source

Enlargement software for digital images

MJC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:40:26 +0000

There are a range of Photoshop plugins to assist with enlarging image files.

Attached Mac User article article discussing the most recent versions of these plugins. The conclusion to draw is the type of enlargement software used, really depends on the file you start with. The plugins mentioned make a noticeable difference to enlargement of web-graphics.

Epson inkjet cartridge recycling

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:53:25 +0000

The only way to recycle EPSON inkjet cartridges is to return them to EPSON. None of the reuse schemes accept EPSON.

Slade Digital Print are part of the EPSON Recycling Scheme and have a large blue box in the Digital Print are to collect them in. All students and staff are welcome to take advantage of this box for EPSON inkjet cartridge recycling.

(But, please do not use the Epson box for any other manufacturer or compatible cartridges as these will end up in landfill.)

Free alternative to Microsoft Office

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:41:46 +0000

The Document Foundation, which coordinates development of LibreOffice, a new, free and open office suite, has reached an important development milestone significantly ahead of schedule. LibreOffice 3.3 shipped this week; it’s the first, stable, road-ready version of the suite. A large, 100+ community of developers has been attracted to the project, and while it’s still clearly under construction, it’s an impressive showing in a short time.

Website: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

free seminars on web development and digital publishing

MJC — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:55:38 +0000

Noble Desktop has been teaching courses in web development and digital publishing since 1991. They offer comprehensive day and evening classes and certificate programs in web design, web development, digital publishing, print design and photo retouching.

Check out their free seminars on web development and digital publishing. Just this month they have seminars on state of the art web design techniques, as well asresponsive web design.

Hahnemühle Photo Rag

MJC — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:08:27 +0000

A smooth bright white 100% rag based paper specifically designed to meet the need of photographers or artists using digital photographic output. The heavier 308 gsm paper provides the weight of an art paper with a smooth calendered surface, which picks up every detail captured in the photograph.

PDF: Hahnemühle Photo Rag data sheet

instructions for converting all of your DRM’d Kindle books into a non-DRM format that you can read on any number of devices.

MJC — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:42:16 +0000

Migrating from Kindle to iBooks

I started off reading eBooks from the Amazon Kindle store. As time has progressed, I’ve found myself using my physical Kindle less and less. Partly because I forget to charge it, and partly because I can never get the lighting in my favorite reading locations quite right. And at night? Forget about it.

So I’ve converted all of my Kindle purchases to ePubs for use in iBooks. I could use the Kindle app for iOS but I’ve found iBooks to be faster at syncing read position, and it feels a lot more natural to use.

Since I went through the effort of converting all of my Kindle documents, I figured I’d write a mini guide to getting it done. I’m specifically focusing on the Mac since that’s all I know; other users will have to venture elsewhere.

Setting up Calibre

Calibre is a Java application which is an eBook management suite. It’s a bit ugly but it does what it says and works well. Since the Kindle’s eBooks are encrypted, we need to install a decryption plugin to do the heavy lifting there.

Download and install Calibre.
Download and decompress the DeDRM archive.
Open Calibre’s preferences (⌘,).
Go to “Plugins”.
Click “Load plugin from file”.
Choose the K4MobileDeDRM plugin’s zip file (zip within the main zip; don’t extract).

The encryption used on Kindle books is fairly basic. The decryption key is a product of the serial number for your device, so it’s not difficult to determine.

Getting eBooks

The DeDRM scripts work by understanding Kindle for Mac’s settings files, so to get the eBooks we need use the application. There are scripts to do conversions directly from Kindle hardware’s eBooks, but it’s more effort.

Download Kindle for Mac.
Register it with your account.
Download all of your eBooks (open them from the “Archived Items”).

Converting eBooks

Kindle eBooks are in the MobiPocket format. However, iBooks requires ePub, so we need to both decrypt and convert the files. At this point, we’ve got all we need, so we can use Calibre to do the conversion.

Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Kindle/My Kindle Content/
Drag all of the .azw files into the Calibre window.
Select the books in the Calibre window which you wish to export.
Click the “Convert books” toolbar item.
Choose “ePub” as the output format in the top-right of the convert window.
Go to the “Page Setup” item in the left list, and configure the conversion as so:
1. Select “Kindle” as the input profile.
2. Select “iPad” as the output profile.
Hit the “OK” button to begin the conversion. It may take a while.

If you have any issues at the decryption step, you should delete your~/Library/Application Support/Kindle folder and start again.

Enjoy

You can now “Save to disk” from the toolbar item to save the books which you’ve converted, and import them into iTunes for use in iBooks. Calibre is powerful enough to do many other formats if you want to use other devices as well.

Remember, don’t post any of the unencrypted documents anywhere. Just because the DRM is gone doesn’t mean you’re legally authorized to do so. They’re for your personal use only.

http://zacwe.st/blog/kindle-to-epub

Learn HTML and CSS – book – Jon Duckett

MJC — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:31:02 +0000

A NICER WAY TO LEARN ABOUT HTML & CSS

A book about code that doesn’t read like a 1980′s VCR manual… It’s not just for programmers, it’s written and presented to make it easy for designers, artists, bloggers, content and e-commerce managers, marketers to learn about the code used to write web pages…

Learn how to:
Read and write HTML5 and CSS3
Structure and design web pages and sites
Prepare images, audio and video for the web
Control typography and layout
You will also find lots of helpful hints and practical advice alongside the code

A NICER WAY TO LEARN ABOUT HTML & CSS

ManyBooks.net – catalogue of free eBooks

MJC — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:59:12 +0000

Browse through the most popular titles, recommendations, or recent reviewsfrom our visitors. Perhaps you’ll find something interesting in the special collections. There are more than 29,000 eBooks available for Kindle, Nook, iPad and most other eReaders, and they’re all free! If you still can’t decide what to read you might want to browse through some covers to see what strikes your fancy. Or try the Recent Additions to the library, with genre filter.

Many of the etexts are from the November, 2003 Project Gutenberg DVD, which contains the entire Project Gutenberg archives except for the Human Genome Project and audio eBooks, due to size limitations, and the Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks, due to copyright. As of July 2004 most current PG texts are available here, usually within the week of release. There are also public domain and creative commons works from many other sources.

web: ManyBooks.net

Photo Rag Baryta

MJC — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:45:57 +0000

Photo Rag Baryta

315 gsm · 100% Cotton · white
high-gloss

Photo Rag Baryta combines the virtues of a luxury cotton paper and a traditional baryta board. The very fine surface texture with the baryta gloss endows portraits with a particularly expressive character.

Web: http://www.hahnemuehle.com/prod/us/461/592/photo-rag-baryta-315-gsm.html

PDF: http://www.hahnemuehle.com/media/photoragbaryta_rev02.pdf

Photoshop colour settings for print

MJC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:44:35 +0000

The attached file are Slade’s recommended colour settings for Photoshop when working to any print output in colour or greyscale.

slade-recommended.csf

Once downloaded, goto Photoshop and from the menu Edit > Color Settings, and use the load button to locate this file. Quit and relaunch Photoshop.

Pressbooks – make ebooks, webbooks, and printbooks

MJC — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 23:41:34 +0000

Easily create ebooks for any device, webbooks for accessibility and promotion, and PDFs for printbooks and print-on-demand. Use our distribution services to get your books into Kindle, Apple iBooks, Nook and other retailers — or do it yourself. PressBooks is built on WordPress, so it’s as easy as blogging.

Pressbooks

Printing Ink

Onya — Thu, 31 May 2012 19:42:05 +0000

Printing Ink Technology and Manufacture
painting_printing_inks_technology

Quotes & Accents

MJC — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:37:21 +0000

Quotes & Accents

(& Dashes)

We all need to use them but hardly any of us know how to type them. Here is a brief guide of how to type smart quotes and accented characters (and dashes) on a Mac. If you have the latest OS you probably discovered that you can also find accented characters by holding down a letter to reveal its spicier cousins (I discovered this myself many times when attempting to type “heeeeeyyyyy” in an iChat window.). If you’re on a Windows computer or some nerdy space machine, I’d recommend googling “keyboard commands for accented characters”. If you use a non-English keyboard, you probably already know how to find all the accented characters you need. Made by Jessica Hische for your enjoyment and enlightenment.

These are dumb quotes: ’ “

Don’t use dumb quotes for quotations or apostrophes—the nerds will revolt. Do use them as shorthand for feet / inches.

These are smart quotes: “ ” ‘ ’

They are also known by the cuter term “curly quotes”.

This is how you type smart quotes:

Left double quote:

option + [

“
Right double quote:

option + shift + [

”
Left single quote:

option + ]

‘
Right single quote:

option + shift + ]

’

This is how you type accented characters:

Any letter with ˆ above it:

option + i then release and type the letter you want accented

âêîôû ÂÊÎÔÛ
Any letter with ´ above it:

option + e then release and type the letter you want accented

áéíóú ÁÉÍÓÚ
Any letter with ` above it:

option + ` then release and type the letter you want accented

àèìòù ÀÈÌÒÙ
Any letter with ¨ above it:

option + u then release and type the letter you want accented

äëïöüÿ ÄËÏÖÜŸ
Any letter with ˜ above it:

option + n then release and type the letter you want accented

ñãõ ÑÃÕ
To type an å:

option + a for lowercase

shift + option + a for uppercase

å Å
To type a ç:

option + c for lowercase

shift + option + c for uppercase

ç Ç

This is how you type (and when you use) different sorts of dashes:

Here is a really long wikipedia article of how to use various dashes and below is my own shorthand version adapted from that information. There are more kinds of dashes than those mentioned here but these are the ones you’re most likely to use and confuse.

A hyphen: -

You know how to make this.

Used to break single words into parts (like when lines of type break within a word) or to join separate words into single words.

I love me some hand-lettering.
An en dash: –

option + -

Used in dates to replace “to” or “and”. It can also be used to illustrate the relationship between two different words.

I was in jail from 1976–1978.

Mother–daughter beauty pageants make me uncomfortable.

I have a love–hate relationship with stretchy denim.
An em dash: —

option + shift + -

For a break of thought similar to but stronger than a thought contained within parentheses. An em dash can also be used where a period (or full-stop) seems too strong but a comma seems too weak. At times it can have a similar vibe to a colon. Some non-Americans use en dashes in place of em dashes and add a space before and after them.

I once had to use the bus station bathroom—horrifying.

I tried a durian fruit once—tasted like hamburger pudding.

http://quotesandaccents.com/

Scribus is a free and open-source alternative to InDesign.

MJC — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 10:36:52 +0000

Scribus is a free and open-source alternative to InDesign. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux, and does most of what InDesign can, but it’s not quite as polished. If you can’t stretch to InDesign this might work well for you.

Software at UCL Clusters

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:28:50 +0000

There are many applications available at UCL Clusters that would be useful to Slade students, such as Photoshop

It’s worth noting that some Clusters, such as those in UCL Libraries, are open 24 hours at certain times of year.

Full list of software is on this webpage: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/staff/purchasing/software/software_bid/applications

Standard book sizes

MJC — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:48:33 +0000

Books can be any size. Here are the standard sizes to which most books follow:

134 x 197mm (Standard)
216 x 138mm (Demy)
210 x 148mm (A5)
234 x 156mm (Royal)
249 x 177mm (Pinched Crown Quarto)
246 x 189mm (Crown Quarto)
276 x 219mm (Demy Quarto)
297 x 210mm (A4)

it is often cheaper to use one of these.

types of book cover in epublishing

MJC — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:03:56 +0000

COVERS

P-COVER: The cover of the printed book. There may further be paperback p-covers, hardback p-covers, trade paper p-covers, etc.
“Anybody can do p-covers. They’re not even interactive. BTW, what’s “ink coverage” mean?”
E-COVER PAGE: The big splashy first page of an ebook; its primary visual identity.
“I accidentally applied the “cover” semantic to the acknowledgments page instead of the e-cover page in Sigil, so now I get to learn TextWrangler! Yay!”
E-COVER GRAPHIC: The graphic displayed on the e-cover. (eg, e-cover_graphic.jpg is displayed on e-cover.xhtml.)
“Wow, lots of colors in your e-cover graphic! Yeah! That’s really…oo…Hey, I meant to ask. How long have you owned Photoshop?”
WEBSTORE COVER: The primary graphic displayed on various store webpages. (eg, when Amazon asks you to upload a cover image and turns it into an Amazon-branded graphic).
“I’m done with his e-cover graphic, but I still have to make twelve webstore covers and change my fee from flat to hourly.”
LIBRARY IMAGE: The graphic displayed on on the device itself, used to select which book will be read.
“I side-loaded this damn thing so many times, trying to work around WebKit, that now my whole library is nothing but twenty-three instances of the same library image.”
PUBLICITY COVERS: Resized e-cover graphics used by the author or publisher in online publicity.
“I already made her three different sizes of publicity covers, and now she says she needs one that’s smaller than 4K. Considering sending her a pixel and telling her to run it really big.”

TITLE PAGES

TITLE PAGE: A page containing the name and title, possibly some graphic elements or other variations. Generally much less flashy than the cover and occurring soon after it. “E-title page” and “P-title page” are self-explanatory.
TITLE GRAPHIC: The graphic displayed on the title page. (eg, title_graphic.jpg is displayed on title.xhtml.)
“I did the title graphic, but then they changed the cover, so first I have to do it all over, and then I have to change my fee from flat to hourly.”

source: http://keithsnyder.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/dont-judge-a-book-by-its-jpeg/

USB flash Drives

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:20:06 +0000

Remember never to use flash drives as storgae for the only copy of a file. Flash drives are easily damaged (physically, or by magnetic fields or electrical peaks) or easy to lose. Use them only to keep copies of files to hand or for transferring files about.

Considering how easy they are to lose, consider encrypting your drive if using for personal files: instructions for encrypting your USB flash drive.

If for are looking for a USB flash drive, SanDisk are reliable and are good value when comparing quality, design and price.

Some Amazon.co.uk links for connivence
SanDisk 8GB Cruzer Blade USB flash drive
SanDisk 16GB Cruzer Blade USB flash drive
If you are working across Mac/PC and need to format to FAT32, you need to stick to 4GB max: SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Blade USB flash drive

Slade Knowledge Base » Digital Print

Adobe Kuler: Explore, create and share color themes

DID YOU KNOW…

Adobe Kuler is now available as a tablet app

Kuler is available online at no charge

Kuler is accessible from your favorite Creative Suite 5 software

An atlas of modern risography

Apple iBooks Author review and how-to

Book printers

Colour Laser Printing at UCL

Colour Printing

Dealing with grids in Photoshop is a pain

Grid Tab

Sets Tab

Digital Print Costs

Documenting your work

eBook conversion tools

Ebook Cover Design and Optimum Size Specifications for Amazon, Kindle, B&N, Nook, iBookstore, and iPad Formats

QUICK AND HANDY GUIDE

Enlargement software for digital images

Epson inkjet cartridge recycling

Free alternative to Microsoft Office

free seminars on web development and digital publishing

Hahnemühle Photo Rag

instructions for converting all of your DRM’d Kindle books into a non-DRM format that you can read on any number of devices.

Migrating from Kindle to iBooks

Learn HTML and CSS – book – Jon Duckett

ManyBooks.net – catalogue of free eBooks

Photo Rag Baryta

Photo Rag Baryta

315 gsm · 100% Cotton · white high-gloss

Photoshop colour settings for print

Pressbooks – make ebooks, webbooks, and printbooks

Printing Ink

Quotes & Accents

Quotes & Accents

(& Dashes)

These are dumb quotes: ’ “

These are smart quotes: “ ” ‘ ’

This is how you type smart quotes:

Left double quote:

Right double quote:

Left single quote:

Right single quote:

This is how you type accented characters:

Any letter with ˆ above it:

Any letter with ´ above it:

Any letter with ` above it:

Any letter with ¨ above it:

Any letter with ˜ above it:

To type an å:

To type a ç:

This is how you type (and when you use) different sorts of dashes:

A hyphen: -

An en dash: –

An em dash: —

Scribus is a free and open-source alternative to InDesign.

Software at UCL Clusters

Standard book sizes

types of book cover in epublishing

USB flash Drives

315 gsm · 100% Cotton · white
high-gloss