kremalicious

I got quite a few mails in the last days from Aperture users asking for the best way to add your copyright information or any other so called watermark to your images in an Aperture 2 workflow. Especially new users to Aperture find it quite confusing why there isn’t something like a text brick in the Adjustments panel. So Aperture itself lacks the ability of quickly adding some lines of text to your images but nevertheless it has a watermarking feature.

In this article I will lay out every way I’ve found to add watermarks to your images in an Aperture 2 workflow and will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each solution. The goal of this article is to give you a brief overview about the various ways you can add watermarks to your images so you can easily choose the best one for different needs. In short these are the possibilities:

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In this article I present you the finest icons of the fuel of a lot of designers and students (and other people too) available on the web. I’ve just released my own coffee cup icon but this beverage seem to have inspired a lot of other beautiful icons especially for Mac OS X.

Now just get your next coffee, sit back and enjoy this little showcase. Just click on the images to get to the icon sources. At the end of the article you’ll find links to some nice high quality coffee tutorials. And remember you will have more control over time itself if you reach your 100th cup of coffee.

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Show your geeky love for extraterrestrial universities! This is a simple Futurama tribute wallpaper displaying the logo of the Mars University as seen in the first season (1ACV11/S02E02). But I’ve modified it a bit to get it out of the 2D. Including one high-resolution desktop version for widescreen displays (2560×1600) and one iPhone version (320×480). As usual you can grab the whole zip package from my Goodies page and have fun.

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Today some informations about Google’s new open source browser called Google Chrome came up. First published as a comic on Blogoscoped.com and confirmed by Kara Swisher, Google Chrome will be a WebKit-based browser with a new JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8 and with Google Gears included.

Google Chrome has a different UI-Design compared to other browsers especially regarding tabs. Google Chrome tabs will be on top of the address bar so every tab has its own address bar. Beside that every tab will run its own process to improve stability.

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Here’s my DeliciousLinks list with my favorite links from the past weeks.

Be sure to subscribe to my RSS- or Atom-Feed so you won’t miss the next DeliciousLinks. Read the rest of this entry »

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LightZone 3.6
This update adds expanded RAW support to the following cameras: Canon EOS 450D, Canon EOS 1000D, Fuji Finepix S100FS, Nikon D60, Nikon D700, Olympus E-420, Olympus E-520, Pentax K20D, Pentax K200D, Samsung GX20 Sony A200, Sony A35

Edit for Aperture 1.35
The 12 module Aperture edit plug-in comes with improved interface and speed.

Aperture Assistant 1.0.62
Aperture Assistant now works with Aperture 2.1.1 and adds numerous optimizations and bugfixes. The thumbnails are now exported up 50-100% faster and the whole Aperture Assistant now launches twice as fast.

Tiffen Dfx Digital Filter Software 2.0
This version features exclusive multiple masking and layering capabilities without having to exit the plug-in, plus more than 1,000 new filters and effects and local language menu. The exclusive EZ Mask feature, one of seven mask types, allows users to easily create precise multiple masks with just a few quick strokes.

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The successor of the EOS 40D is (almost) here: Canon officially announced the Canon EOS 50D along with the new lens Canon EF-S 18-200/3.5-5.6IS. The EOS 50D and the new lens will be both available in October 2008, Canon says.

The EOS 50D comes with an CMOS APS-C sized sensor (crop factor 1.6) with 15.1 megapixels. Being Canons first DSLR with the new DIGIC 4 image processor the EOS 50D can burst 6.3 shots per second with improved image quality.

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There’s good news for all you Mac OS X Leopard GUI Themer out there. While there’s Panic’s Candybar for icon customization in OS X there is no application to alter all the user interface elements of Leopard. In Tiger there was an application called ShapeShifter but since the whole GUI in Leopard changed it stopped working.

Architect and Façade to the rescue: SlightlyPretentious announced its “Theming made easy”-application Architect is coming as a public beta next sunday (is it 08/31 or 09/07?) on Wednesday, September 3rd. Icon Designer Laurent Baumann already posted a new sweet application icon for this app a while ago and we can expect a nice and good looking solution for theming and customization in Leopard. Head over to the Screencast and see Architect and its UI in action.

While Architect will help you customizing Leopards UI and building themes out of your modifications, Façade (Laurent’s icon of it) will help you switch (and manage?) the themes. But currently there’s no word on the SlightlyPretentious website about this application.

Slightly Pretentious made Architect available as a public beta while claiming Façade will be coming in october. But Façade already has its own nice website.

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A friend of mine asked me to craft an icon for his external hard drive case and I would like to share those with you too. These desktop icons show the the silver and black Icy Box external aluminium case with USB interface and are intended as a replacement for the generic external hard disk icon in Mac OS X Leopard.

As always these desktop icons are free for you personal and non-commercial use. All other usage of this copyrighted material require my written permission.

The whole package includes 7 icons either packed in a nice tagged iContainer for use with Candybar or in Mac + Win + Linux compatible formats. If you have such an Icy Box case grab the icons from my Goodies page. Have fun!

Update: I’ve corrected the wrong perspective of the text and added 4 more icons to the set including 2 different versions for a Time Machine volume and 2 blank versions without text.

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When on the road I always take a little mobile hard drive with me where all my referenced Aperture Masters from the past years and my mobile Aperture Vault (backing up the un-referenced Masters from the current year) reside. But being little and mobile also means the external hard drive can easily be lost or stolen exposing all my pictures to the thief. To avoid that you can use encryption so in the case of a lost or theft the data is not accessible by the thief. This can easily be done with sparse bundle disk images so you won’t have to encrypt the whole hard drive with additional software.

So in this quick tutorial I will show you how to create an encrypted Aperture Vault by using Sparse Bundle Disk Images and by utilizing tools built into Mac OS X. All this can be done in two simple steps. Read the rest of this entry »

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Phase One Capture One 4.1.2
A free update which offers the benefits of Lens+ and Focus+ lens correction support to Phase One digital back owners with Hasselblad H, Hasselblad V and Contax mounts.

Maperture 1.0.1
New plug-in for Aperture which lets you geotag your photos inside Aperture.

VueScan 8.4.82
Adds support for more scanners and improves infrared cleaning.

Aperture to Picasa Web Albums 1.4.2
This update adds support for exporting geotags, viewing album contents by double-clicking on an album cover and adds stability enhancements.

GalleryExport for Aperture 1.0.7b / GalleryExport for iPhoto 1.0.8b
Both new beta versions include stability and performance enhancements.

iMedia Browser 1.1.1
“Version 1.1.1 adds support for iPhoto events, multiple Aperture libraries, and the ability to manage custom folders in the source list. The application is now available in English, Danish, French, German, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese. There are also dozens of performance improvements and bugfixes in the release.”

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Here’s my DeliciousLinks list with my favorite links from the past weeks.

Be sure to subscribe to my RSS- or Atom-Feed so you won’t miss the next DeliciousLinks. Read the rest of this entry »

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Personally I blog everything with RedSweater’s awesome application MarsEdit. MarsEdit has a cool preview window included where you can see your writing live while you type. The formatting of this preview is based on simple HTML and CSS so the style is pretty customizable.

A while ago I’ve made a custom style for the blog on kremalicious.com and would like to share this style with you. The style is based on the colors used on kremalicious.com with a black background and light grey text on top of it. The links have the same blueish hover style as on my website:

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Earlier this month PictureCode finally released their noise reduction software Noise Ninja as an Aperture plug-in for Aperture 2.1 and above.

The results are just as amazing as they are with the Photoshop plug-in. But the Aperture plug-in uses a streamlined interface which differs from the photoshop version. But the functionality is the same.

You can download a trial version of Noise Ninja for Aperture (images are watermarked with a grid pattern when you save them) and give it a try. The Noise Ninja plug-in for Aperture is available as a part of the Pro Bundle (US$ 79.95) which includes the Photoshop and the Aperture plug-in. If you have an existing Pro Bundle license you can upgrade it for US$ 20 to include the Aperture plug-in license.

Interested in more Aperture plug-ins? Just have a look at my article First overview: Aperture 2.1 adjustment plugins have arrived to get an overview about what’s available at the moment or browse my blog by the Aperture plug-in tag. Additionally you can have a look at the brand new Apple website for all the Aperture plug-ins and ressources.

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Jingjing and Chacha are watching you

As you may know there’s a huge Internet censorship going on in China. Contrary to promises made by chinese authorities and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) this Internet censorship is active during the Olympic Games even in the international media centre. And the IOC shares the current ideas of censorship in China.

And as in every political system with totalitarian elements there’s a good chance you will meet some angry lackeys if you’re going to report about topics the chinese authorities don’t want you to report. But more important they will threat your sources if their identity gets revealed. So if you want to report about the water shortage in the villages around Beijing, the massive air pollution in Beijing or about all the forced resettlements going on in China you should consider some security precautions to protect you and your sources. Read the rest of this entry »

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Apple Aperture 2.1.1
MobileMe comes to Aperture with this update. As with every Apple software update this one “supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.”

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
Lightroom is now a native 64-bit app on Mac and Windows. John Nack has some highlights from this update and Tom Hogarty has every new feature and improvement.

Adobe Camera RAW 4.5
Along with Lightroom 2 a new version of Camera RAW was released which providesthe same rendering obtained in Lightroom 2.

Apple iPhoto 7.1.4
“Also addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues”. Beside that this update contains new holiday greeting card and postcard themes for use with Apple print products

Photoshop Automator Actions v3.7
Ben Long updated his Photoshop actions for Automator compatible with Photoshop CS, CS2 and CS3

Pixelmator 1.2.2
New features include a live gradient tools and you can draw a straight or 45° line with shift. Beside that many improvements and bug corrections are included. The release notes with all new features and improvements are available here.

GalleryExport for iPhoto and Aperture 1.0.7b
Both updates for Aperture and iPhoto just include bug fixes.

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Here’s my DeliciousLinks list with my favorite links from the past weeks.

Be sure to subscribe to my RSS- or Atom-Feed so you won’t miss the next DeliciousLinks.
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Since Wordpress 2.5 it was nearly impossible for me to log into Wordpress and quickly head over to the write tab. The Dashboard always wants to load a bunch of things in it but this always seemed to fail in my setup and slow things down. And not enough the Dashboard just locks everything up while loading which can take more than one minute.

I’ve searched for a simple way of disabling those feeds, plugins etc. stuff the Wordpress Dashboard tries to fill but it seems you can’t disable these from the backend. But there’s a quick way for doing this which involves editing your /wp-admin/index-extra.php and uncomment some lines there. This will leave your Dashboard intact while it stops Wordpress from connecting to various sources to screw your blog up when you just want to quickly write something.
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Beside a new version of Color Efex Pro for Capture NX, Nik announced a brand new plug-in for Photoshop and Aperture. Silver Efex Pro is a tool to create black & white images with the power and simplicity of the U-Point technology. You can easily fine tune portions of your black & white images. It’s also capable of emulating film grain and 18 different types of film while also providing 20 one-click preset styles. But Silver Efex Pro is also capable of color toning the image.

You can get a 15-day trial from Nik’s website. It can be purchased through Nik’s online store for US$199.95.

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I’m thrilled to announce that kremalicious.com now uses an iPhone optimized theme. When you browse this website with your iPhone everything will automagically switch to the new kremalicious iPhone theme which is simply called kremalicious{iPhone}. See those hip brackets?

How does it work?

When the website detects an iPhone or iPod Touch it will automatically switch to another freshly created theme which is absolutely seamless to the user. This detection is done by the wonderful slim iPhone Wordpress plug-in from ContentRobot which was slightly modified by me.

The theme itself makes heavy use of the -webkit-border-radius css option to display all the round corners. That’s why there are just four images at work in the whole theme which makes it load in no time even on EDGE connections. And because just the theme is switching all the content remain the same so you don’t have just a shortened mobile version of this website.

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