Design

A little nip-and-tuck has gone on at Google Search recently. As we mentioned yesterday in the Googleholic, Google has been testing a slight rework for their search interface and we had a Javascript workaround to see it.

The rework is now evident when visiting Google.com. Nothing too major has gone on and it still closely resembles your favorite search location, but with some added freshness. Along the top of the page when logged in, users are now presented with a list of Google services along with their Google Account services including Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Mail and a drop down to reach Calendar, Docs, Groups, Blogs, Books, Patents, Notebook, Web History and My Account.

A little freshness has been added to the styling of the page, where a few slight tweaks have been made. There is now a gradient box above the results for an added feeling of depth surrounding the Results numbers. Google has now also pushed the page listing on the bottom to align on the left instead of the center, and added a Google search box, again in a gradient box at the bottom under the results. It’s nice to see these subtle changes, they add a refreshing little perk to the Search site and give it a more polished feel.

Update : If you don’t see the redesign, you can try this fix. Paste this line into your address bar.
javascript:document.cookie=”PREF=ID=fddb01133a87d314:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1177334998:LM=1177334998:GM=1:S=OOg0FEVzpPplxe9J;path=/;domain=.google.com”
To revert back, clear your cookies. Warning, try at your own risk!

No doubt, Photoshop is an expensive and useful tool. Much like Microsoft Word, Photoshop is full of functionality that you may never use, and it’s also loaded with shortcuts, surprises and splendor. You could use Photoshop for years, and still barely scratch the surface of its full power.

This gem of a reference doc can be found deep within Scribd, the very Web 2.0ish online library. It’s brimming with all manner of tips and tricks you can use to become a Photoshop workflow god. For instance, did you know you can reset all your preferences to their box defaults simply by holding down Ctrl Alt Shift immediately after launching Photoshop? How about when using the circular Marquee tool, holding the Alt key will get perfect circles drawn from the center out, rather than those tedious egg shapes that drag from the corner?

[via Digg]

Let the fun begin! Adobe has released preview versions of After Effects CS3 and Premiere Pro CS3. This should give you something to play with until the final products ship “mid-summer”.

The After Effects preview is available to licensed users of After Effects 7, Production Studio, Video Bundle or Web Bundle. You will need to provide your AE7, Production Studio or Bundle serial number in order to get an After Effects CS3 preview serial number. If you don’t own any of the required products, you can check out the software for 2 days before it self destructs. The preview is available as a Universal Binary for Mac and XP/Vista platforms.

The Premiere Pro preview is available for Intel Macs and XP/Vista platforms. Sorry PowerPC users, there are no plans for a version of Premiere Pro for you. I don’t see any license restriction on this preview so it looks like anyone can give it a whirl. There is a big gotcha if you are running Mac OS 10.4.9. DV Capture will not be functional, and that’s kinda a big deal. Adobe is working with Apple to resolve this problem, but if you want to capture DV with the preview version, Adobe recommends you reinstall the OS using your original system discs, then update to 10.4.8. No thank you.

Remember, these are preview versions so if you get into trouble there is no tech support. As a Premiere Pro to Final Cut Pro switcher, I’m curious how Premiere’s entry back into the Mac world will play out.

Being a designer requires at least some degree of perfectionism, a fact which often boils to the surface when working with imperfect tools– such as when one needs to create a barcode for a package or book cover design. We know of more than a few designers who have gone so far as to attempt to re-create an authentic looking barcode in Illustrator– something that takes way too much time and energy to be practical.

Fortunately for us and others (who probably need barcodes to, you know, allow the scanning of things), Wolf Software provides professional quality barcode creation software free of charge for both Mac and Windows. In addition to the old standby’s of UPC and ISBN, users have the option to choose from a large variety of other barcode formats, including Datamatix (pictured here encoding “Download Squad”).

[Via creativebits]

Adobe says you’ll have to upgrade to new versions of popular (and really expensive) software like Photoshop, InDesign and DreamWeaver if you want them to run well under Windows Vista.

Current versions of many Adobe products won’t run flawlessly under Windows Vista, this announcement only confirms that they never will. So, if you’re a creative professional (who hasn’t already jumped ship to OS X) start getting out the check book. Adobe’s CS3 creative suite will be out next week, and it ain’t gonna be cheap.

We probably should have realized something was up when Adobe’s own document on Vista compatibility (which we wrote about almost a month ago) dodged the question by stating that Adobe would release free patches for “some of Adobe’s currently available products.” To our credit, it would have been much easier to spot if they’d said, “some of Adobe’s currently available products, but not the ones anyone actually uses or cares about.”

If you’re already tired of the look of Windows Vista now you can give your Vista desktop own special flair using WindowBlinds. WindowBlinds officially released version 5.5 yesterday, the first version of the program to support Vista. The program allows you to personalize Vista by applying and creating different skins for everything from your scroll bar to the Start Menu. There are literally thousands of skins to choose from or you can create your own using SkinStudio.

In addition to changing the way your desktop looks, you can also change how you operate it. Your skins can add shortcuts to different programs, link buttons, roll-up buttons, and media control buttons as well making your desktop not only look better but operate a little better as well.

WindowBlinds can be downloaded for $19.95, or purchased as part of ObjectDesktop which includes a collection of programs to enhance your desktop such as IconPackager, DesktopX, and Keyboard LaunchPad.

[Via WinCustomize]

In just over one week, on March 27th at 3:30 p.m. EST, Adobe will be hosting their special Creative Suite 3 launch event in New York City, and the entire event will be webcast from their website for all the world to see.

Alls you got to do is tune into their website at the prescribed time, and then you too will witness firsthand the launch of “the largest software release in Adobe’s 25-year history”. Their words, not mine, but this is indeed a much-anticipated event, seeing that specific details regarding CS3 have been on the down low, for the most part. So, tune in!

Tweaked the look of your XP system to the very edges, and left with nowhere to go? FrontMotion Login takes on the last frontier of XP uber-customization, allowing animated Flash-based login screen themes to be applied to XP/2000. Free for non-commercial use, FrontMotion Login comes with three pre-built themes.

For the Flash-savvy graphics pro, templates and docs are available for designing your own fully customized themes. Additional themes and support are also available in FrontMotion’s somewhat active forums.

I would like to announce a slight shift in how we handle our image and design-related tips here at Download Squad. As a multimedia student myself, and with all the new talent we’ve been so fortunately gaining over the past weeks and months, we realized that we have a lot of general design talent to share with you readers that quickly surpasses the boundaries of mere ‘imaging.’ So as of today, our Imaging Tips series has evolved into a new, twice-weekly Design Tips series that will allow us to stretch our mice and expand our minds into video, illustration, web, motion graphics and a whole lot more. Look for tips, techniques, apps, plugins and linkage surrounding the whole world of design from here on out.

With that said, I present you the first post in our new Design Tips series which involves Photoshop and filters that can give your images that oh-so-cool worn look. Machine Wash filters from Mister Retro are three separate volumes of 60 filters apiece, all with their own unique attributes, that can apply texture, age and weathered aesthetics to Photoshop layers.

These filter sets are now at version 2, which was a very nice upgrade from v1. The first series were actually PDFs that were applied with a somewhat clunky custom action. Version 2 of these filters introduces a full-blown filter GUI for optimum live-previewing and application. Mister Retro also supplies a sample gallery online, which operates as a testing grounds for each filter set so you can get a good idea of just what you’re paying for.

Speaking of money: as a happy customer, I personally recommend all three sets. They sell for $50 each, with volume licensing and bundle discounts available. The filters work in versions of Photoshop starting at 6.0 all the way up through CS2 (as well as Photoshop Elements 1.0 and above), with a free upgrade patch on the way for CS3 once Adobe officially releases it.

I’ve been tinkering around with the Mac version of that new Photoshop CS3 beta Adobe unleashed, and I have to say that so far it feels like a more significant and worthy upgrade than CS2. Adobe has packed a lot of new goodies in CS3 which we’ll be covering in our Imaging Tip series, and today’s tip praises the return of true memory management to Photoshop.

As you can see, the Performance tab of PS CS3’s updated Preferences display brings back complete control over how much RAM Photoshop gets to play with, and the scratch disk UI has received the steroid treatment as well. These are both great improvements for fine-tuning Photoshop’s performance, especially for those either on older, slower systems or those blessed with desktop powerhouses.