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Adobe 13100771 - Photoshop w/ ImageReady Reviewer's Manual

Windows 95/windows nt 4.0/power macintosh

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Windows
95/Windows NT
®
Adobe
Streamlined image
processing for the
Web professional
®
4.0/Power Macintosh
®
ImageReady
®
Reviewer's Guide
We're introducing Adobe ImageReady software to provide Web professionals with a comprehensive environ-
ment in which to refine and prepare Web graphics. This program delivers a number of innovative features
that you'll want to know about, so we've prepared this inside tour of Adobe ImageReady to show you how
things work. The examples we've selected are brief and to the point because we know your time is limited.
You can follow the examples through in order, or focus only on the features that matter most to you (this is
not a tutorial that locks you into an entire sequence of lessons). You can even skip the steps and just focus on
the accompanying illustrations and screenshots. You'll quickly see how approachable Adobe ImageReady is.
This guide is divided into eight sections: A Look at Web Graphics Production (pg. 2), Familiar Adobe Inter-
face (pg. 3), Realtime Image Compression (pg. 4), Superior Colour Control (pg. 8), Animation and Other Web
Features (pg. 10), Superior Image Editing (pg. 13), Automation and Batch Processing (pg. 16), and Seamless
File Support (pg. 17). All of the features described apply to both the Windows and Macintosh versions, so feel
free to work on your platform of choice. You can use the files that we provide for this tour (locate them in
Adobe ImageReady 1.0\Images\Images on the reviewer's CD) or substitute your own Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
files.
®
Quick Reference List: Top Twelve Features in Adobe ImageReady 1.0
Familiar Adobe interface—Retains the award-winning look and feel of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe
Illustrator, letting you get to work more quickly. For details, see page 3.
LiveView window—Helps you balance image quality and file size by displaying the original version and the
compressed version of the file in a dual-document window. For details, see pages 4–5.
Optimize palette—Presents interactive control over all the compression options for GIF, JPEG, PNG-8, and
PNG-24 files. For details, see pages 4–8
Colour palette management tools—Lets you view, edit, and manage image colours in 8-bit GIF and PNG files
for optimal on-screen display. For details, see pages 8–10.
Previewing capabilities—Provides two commands (View Browser Dither and Preview in Browser), which let
you simulate browser dither or preview an image in your choice of browsers. For details, see pages 10 and 13.
The Animation palette—Provides an integrated tool that makes it simple for you to create and edit animated
GIF files using layers. For details, see pages 10–12.
Client-side image maps—Lets you easily assign URLs to layers to create image maps. For details, see page 12.
Core set of image-editing tools—Delivers a subset of Photoshop image-editing capabilities, including key
tools, resizing commands, image adjustment commands, and filters. For details, see page 14.
Editable type feature—Lets you enter, format, move, and edit text easily. For details, see pages 14–15.
Multiple undo—Provides a History palette for quickly undoing or redoing steps. For details, see page 15.
Batch-processing Droplets—Provides an innovative, easy-to-use approach to batch-processing images for
the Web. For details, see page 16.
Actions palette—Lets you record a sequence of editing steps using simple VCR-like controls and then apply
that sequence to another image. For details, see page 17.
version
1.0
and
®

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Summary of Contents for Adobe 13100771 - Photoshop w/ ImageReady

  • Page 1 Web graphics. This program delivers a number of innovative features processing for the that you’ll want to know about, so we’ve prepared this inside tour of Adobe ImageReady to show you how Web professional things work.
  • Page 2 Let’s look at an example of this problematic workflow. To create an animated GIF file today, you might create elements in Adobe Illustrator. You could then switch to Photoshop to convert the elements to pixels, build frames using layers, and save each frame as a file. You might then use a different program to optimize the frames (color reduce them to indexed mode for Web display);...
  • Page 3 Familiar Adobe Interface Now that you’ve seen where Adobe ImageReady software fits in the Web production process, let’s take a look at how the program operates. After you start the program, the first thing you’ll notice is that it looks like Photoshop and our other professional graphics programs.
  • Page 4 Realtime Image Compression Image compression is one of the most important Web production tasks that designers perform. Adobe ImageReady provides innovative support for this task with its LiveView window. This window lets you look at the original image and the final compressed image at any time in the production process, and preview how the compression settings affect the display quality.
  • Page 5 Choosing a file format for an image depends in large part on what type of image it is. As a rule, full-color photographs look best with JPEG settings because this file format was designed for compressing photo- graphs. Adobe ImageReady software can import photographic images in a variety of formats, including native Photoshop format, TIFF, Photo CD , and more.
  • Page 6 Try it: Choose File > Open > banner.ai. ImageReady rasterizes the Adobe Illustrator EPS file on import, so this step may take a minute. Crop the image to remove the edge transparency: Select the marquee tool, and drag a selection marquee around the image.
  • Page 7 Reduce the colors in the image to see how that affects the illustration’s quality and file size (if necessary, choose Window > Show Optimize). Choose 32 from the Colours pop-up menu in the Optimize palette. Note that the optimised file size drops significantly. Choose Web from the colour palette pop-up menu and Auto from the Colurs pop-up menu in the Opti- mize palette.
  • Page 8 Web pages. Superior Colour Control Adobe ImageReady lets you exercise exact control over the colour palette for each 8-bit (indexed) image, so that you can make fine tradeoffs between image size and image quality. As you’ve now seen in the previous section, you can choose among four types of colour palettes for these images: •...
  • Page 9 Editing a Colour Palette When you open an 8-bit original image, the palette for that image displays in the Optimized Colours palette in ImageReady. You can then choose a palette type in the Optimize palette and switch to the optimised view of the image to check the effects of this palette.
  • Page 10 In the past, this meant having to switch to 8-bit display mode to check out every image. Adobe ImageReady solves the problem by providing a Preview Browser Dither feature, so you can instantly simulate browser dither in the LiveView window and make appropriate colour adjustments.
  • Page 11 Try it: Open 3Circles.psd. Choose Window > Show Animation. The move tool in ImageReady includes an Auto Select Layer Choose New Frame from the Animation palette pop-up menu (or click the New Item button on the feature that makes it a snap to select the top layer at any palette).
  • Page 12 14. Close the file without saving it. Creating Image Maps Adobe ImageReady software makes it simple for you to produce client-side image maps—navigational graphics with URLs embedded in them for linking to those sites (or to pages on those sites). You can assign a different URL to each layer in an image.
  • Page 13 Preview in Browser submenu. Superior Image Editing While Adobe ImageReady is not the primary creative tool in the Web graphics process, you may need to edit images or make subtle adjustments to them. That’s why ImageReady includes a subset of Photoshop tools, commands, palettes, and plug-ins.
  • Page 14 Editing Text In Adobe ImageReady software, you can create and edit text easily—just select the type tool, click an inser- tion point, and enter text in the Type Tool dialogue box. You can preview the text from this dialogue box, or close it to see your text in place.
  • Page 15 Web graphics production is both repetitious and labor-intensive, so Web developers look for any tools that can help them automate and streamline their processes. One of the finest innovations in Adobe ImageReady is the new Droplets technology, which lets you instantly create automation scripts without doing a lick of programming.
  • Page 16 Collect any images you want to use to test this feature into a folder, and then drag the folder on top of the Droplet. The Droplet automatically launches Adobe ImageReady and starts compressing the images. Using the Actions Palette to Automate Steps The Actions palette is a simple, but powerful tool for automating repetitive, multistep processes.
  • Page 17 Adobe Type Library. 345 Park Avenue Adobe, the Adobe logo, Illustrator, ImageReady, PageMaker, and Photoshop are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Apple, Macintosh, and Power Macintosh are registered San Jose, CA 95110-2704 USA trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the United States and other countries. Photo CD is a trademark of Eastman Kodak Company. PowerPC is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Europe Limited International Business Machines Corporation.

This manual is also suitable for:

Imageready 1.0