Fluid Mask 3

Fluid Mask is an easy way to remove/replace background images. People use this when they want to extract people or objects out of photograph.

This is a professional graphic tool that is more powerful than mask functionality that you may encounter in Pixelmator or Photoshop. This gives the user more power to strip out unwanted backgrounds. The net-net results is a cleaner cut with no ugly pixelated edges.

Some example uses:

• Change the background from a cloudy day to a nice sunny one.
• Add someone to a photograph to make it appear that they were at the family outing even though they couldn't make it.
• Take the 'Welcome to Boston' sign out of a picture and place it on your website header.
• Remove unwanted objects from your photos.
• An tool in your photography toolbox to create great images for social media.

From their website:

Good Tools have a Learning Curve

It takes a while to understand how to use this tool. Fortunately, there are plenty of video tutorials to watch and understand the fundamental ideas. Every image is different so learning the fundamentals can help tackle the toughest task.

I did find the layout to be a bit hard to understand but watching the videos and playing around with the software help with the learning curve.

Start off slow. I would recommend just doing a basic background replacement and slowly work your way to more complex masking.

Some Examples of Work

Here are a couple of images that I was able to extract using Fluid Mask.

A little touch up with Pixlr to keep the colors about the same.

Getting Fluid Mask

You don't need Photoshop to use Fluid Mask. It works perfectly fine as a stand alone application. The downside of the standalone version is you can't drag and drop images to open - you need to open the image via the File -> Open option within the application.

You can download a trial version from their website. If you find the tool to be a time saver you can purchase a license for $99.

This might seem a bit expensive for the casual photographer and blogger. However, the tool will save you a lot of time which could justify

Smartmockups

Smart Mockup makes it easy to display any image as if it was on a monitor/computer/displays. The application has 458 templates whereas the website only has 157 mockups.

The nice thing about using SmartMockups is that you can present a website in a different view. You simply pick out the design first and then add your image or enter a URL.

You have the option of exporting the image or simply use the 'Share' link to instantly share the image in Slack or Jira.

Some Notes about the application

• There is no glare reflection effect on the mockup image. (Instructions on how to add it in Photoshop.)
• In order to run the SmartMockups app you need to be connected to the Internet.
• Check out some of the designs and use the 'Favorites' feature on ones you like. This will save you time later.
• After you upload an image, you have the opportunity to resize it so that it fits in the placeholder template.
• There are four image sizes on export. If all the sizes are big, you can always resize the exported image to whatever you want.
• There a Suggestion box where you can add and vote on other ideas. You can also see what ideas that might get implemented soon.
• Keep checking the application once and a while, you never know when new designs come in.
• Smartmockups now support GIFs. However, they don't support GIFs larger that 8 MB.

This is a useful tool to have if you do any type of blogging or social media advertising. It can help make screenshot and photos look better than by themselves.

There is a one-time fee of $49 for the application. The software is available for Windows and Macintosh users. You can download the application from their website. Check around the Internet, you may find discounts from various vendors. I was able to pick up a license for $19.

Transmit 5

Transmit is a communication software that allows you to transfer files. This is a great tool to use for anyone managing websites.

I have been a long time Panic's Transmit customer. My first Transmit license was purchased on September 27, 2006 (Version 3). I upgraded to version 4.0 on March 15, 2013. ( Checkout my earlier blog post)

I have been a very happy customer of Transmit and pretty much every file that has been moved to the cryan.com server was done using Transmit.

Finally an Update

On July 18, 2016 Panic.com announced a major upgrade to Transmit. This is the first major update since 2010. I decided to take a look at what's new with my favorite software.

Panic's press release has highlighted three major changes:

• Connect to More Servers
• Faster Connection
• New UI

Here's a couple of things that caught my attention when I tried out the software for a few days.

More Servers

It's nice that Transmit can now connect to a lot more services. They went from supporting four to ten.

My file transfer needs are a bit basic. Currently, I don't have any account on the other services, but that may change. I basically use Transmit to copy from my own SFTP server.

I am pretty sure that it's only a matter of time before I'll be having accounts on Amazon S3, Blackblaze B2 or Microsoft Azure. Cloud storage is growing and you're better off storing files there than on a DVD.

Places Bar

The Places Bar is very cool. When you open up a connection there's a new bookmark type of bar on the top of the file listing. The bar stores all your favorite locations that you use for that location.

Now I can navigate between folders a lot easier. It's easier to zoom between folders - definitely a huge time saver.

In Transmit 4, I had set up different 'Favorite' locations on the same server. In version 5, I can simplify things and have my website as a favorite and then use the Places Bar to navigate around common folders. I can quickly move between the Template folder and my Includes folder.

Overall View

I am very happy that Transmit has gotten an update - even happier that they didn't go to a yearly subscription plan like other software vendors have done.

Right now I can't justify upgrading. But it's nice to know that when I get onto additional clouds solutions, that Transmit will be a solution that I can use.

If you're moving files between services, I would highly recommend checking out Transmit. The seven-day trial is plenty of time to see how it's a great time saver.

Apple Mail HTML Support

I encountered this paragraph in the Take Control of Apple Mail book By Joe Kissell. Google added the Book to a search I was doing for 'raw HTML apple mail'

It hard to believe that it took several versions of OS X before the default Mail application supported HTML in emails.

Save-As Dialog Boxes

Today???s post is about what makes a great Save dialog. This is going to be short because a good graphic 'Save-As' dialog box should be simple.

This is a comparison of the Save-As dialog box three main graphic applications that I use:

Omnigroup's OmniGraffle

Great Dialog Box, easy to use and very practical tools.

OmniGraffle gets it right with their version of the save dialog. The Omni Group puts in a nice preview and the option to export different sizes of the graphic. They also have the ability to have a margin around the graphic, which is perfect when the graphic border is a bit too close to the edge.

Nice to Have: A zoom feature in the preview area would be very useful.

Graphic Converter

The Before/After Preview feature is really good. I also like the ability to change up on the Codec and Subsampling. Deciding what metadata to include can help make the file size a bit smaller.

Nice to Have: Ability to add the margin around the image.

Photoshop Elements 13

Adobe Photoshop gives you a lot of control on how to setup the final output image. You can easily customize the Width/Height to whatever values that you want. The Preview section gives you additional information about how long a file will take to download, however, this seems to be a bit out of date as there are not many people with 56.6k internet connections.

Nice to Have Features: Ability to add a margin around the image. Ability to save different sizes in the same dialog.

Using the Keyboard in Dialog Boxes

Did you know that you can navigate various dialog boxes in MacOS using the keyboard?

Sample Save Dialog Box

If you look carefully in the above dialog box, you'll see that the 'Cancel' button has a blue glow around it. This is to indicate that this is keyboard actionable item.

Keys to Navigating the Dialog Box

If I click on the 'Space Bar' the dialog box will close and the file will not be saved.

If I click on the 'Tab' the blue highlight will move to the next actionable item, and I can keep clicking 'Tab' until I get the choice I want.

Keyboard Settings Adjustment

If this is not working as you expect, you may need to change the Full Keyboard Access Settings.

• Open up System Preferences
• Select the Keyboard icon
• Select the Shortcuts top menu
• On the bottom of the dialog you'll see the following information:

Make any adjustment that will work how you want to use the system dialogs.

Sips

Sip is cool utility when you need to track colors for design purposes. This is handy if you need to always have the corporate color pallet handy.

How Sips Works

On the side of the screen is a color bar that shows you the colors that you have in that pallet set. You can have as many color pallets as will fit on the side of the screen, and you can put the pallets on any side of the display. The color pallet is always available, except when an application is in full screen mode.

When you want the Hex value of a color click on the pallet, then the color you want. You'll see the color appear briefly in the menu bar. The color Hex value is now available to be paste into any application.

In the menu bar is a color selector magnifying glass. This makes it easy to grab a pixel color any time that you want - regardless of the application that happens to be open. This is handy when your browsing a website and see a color that you like to add to a design.

Sample color pallet that the Red Sox might use.

To change a color

• Open the Pallet
• Click on a color
• Change the Hex Color to something else
• Click Return

Overall Assessment

Sips is a pretty cool application. It works really well and found it very easy to use. I don't work with colors that much to justify spending $9.95 on it, but can see that this would be a great tool for anyone doing work for UI.

When playing about with the Sips application, I learned a lot about the various colors that I have on this website. I finally got a pallet of all the website colors. I did this by simply browsing the site and using the menu bar color magnifying glass to get the Hex value of the website.

I think it's very handy to know what colors that I am using, and can help keep things simple.

Check it Out

You can download a 14-day trial from their website.

Sip cost $9.99, and you can purchase it from their website. It's also available as part of the SetApp collection. SetApp is a group of applications that you can use by paying a simple monthly fee.

Screen Capture Help

I am using both Monosnap and Skitch for my screen capture. I decided to create a quick handy cheat sheet infographic to remember which key combination performs what actions.

Why two Screen Capture Apps?

Skitch integration with Evernote is great, but I don't want to capture every screenshot into Evernote, and that's when Monosnap comes in handy. Monosnap does have a few more tools for those shots that I need to touch up.

The key combination that I have in Monosnap is something I created. Use whatever works for you.

I kept this cheat sheet guide as simple as possible. I wanted something where only the critical functionality is shown.

Finder Search Techique

If you're a long term Macintosh User - i.e. before MacOS X. You may have some files on your computer that you can't use anymore as they only will work in Classic OS mode. Apple create a 'Rosetta Background Utility' that allowed Intel-based computers to read PowerPC applications.

Rosetta was discontinued in Mac OS X Lion, which was introduced in 2011 (5 years ago!) These PowerPC applications won't work on any computer less than 5 years old.

Finding the Classic Applications.

Using the Finder, change the Kind type to Other and type in: Application (Classic)

Example of some files on my computer.

These are all the applications that you can't use on your computer. You might be better off moving them to a CD and then removing them from your computer since they are just unusable files taking up space.

Keynote Slides for iMovie

iMovie comes with 48 different templates to display title in your video.

Did you know that you can create your own template design? Using software that you already have on your computer.

You can use Apple's Keynote to generate some professional looking text graphics.

It's very easy to do and can make your YouTube videos stand out. I suggest practice doing this a couple of times and before you know it, you'll be adding more text overlay to your videos.

Steps to create a Lower Third text box

• Open up Keynote
• Create a new Document
• Select 'Wide' Black Theme
• Change the Background to Blue

The background has to be blue because it acts as a Blue Screen in iMovie and will be transparent.

• Type in Command-A, to select all the objects. Then hit the delete key to remove it.
• Click the Text box in the Header to add some text
• Add some text, such as "My Cool Video"
• With the text field still selected, Change the Position of the Text by selecting the Format - Arrange - Position. I suggest 900 pt.
• Click on Animate, and then Click on Add an Effect Button.
• Choose whatever effect that you want, I suggest starting with Dissolve, and keep the basic settings

• Select File->Export to->Quicktime
• I recommend to change the Format to 1080p and Click Next
• Save the Name as anything you want, recommend saving to the Desktop for now.

In iMovie

• With your iMove Project in Edit Mode, Drag and Drop the Keynote Movie to a location in your timeline.
• In the Preview Header, change the Video Overlay style to Green/Blue Screen.
• If the Text appears to slow or fast you can always change the speed.

That's the basics to get this done. You can experiment with various Text/Font sizes, in addition, you can always add background shapes.

Download Sample

You can download the Sample Lower Thirds Keynote File as a starting point. The background box flys out from the left and a second later the text appears.