Chuch wrote; "I want to upgrade my s900 to perform graphic design and burn CD's. Are some of you in the graphic business? If so , what hardware/software, printer set ups do you have? I would like to mimic this to get up and running to teach myself graphic design.
Thanks for your advice. Chuck Columbus, Ohio" Mark wrote; "My preferences (for illustration) are: Photoshop, Painter, Freehand, and iView MediaPro (for cataloging). I use others, including a little 3D, but those are the most important. If you're going to be designing you can go a very, very long way with Freehand (supports multiple pages, pretty good typographic control, etc.) before you need to take the plunge into either Quark or InDesign. If you find one of those is necessary, I would suggest InDesign over Quark." I find it easier to use one companies suite of programs for learning. All the controls are simular so many things will be self evedent in all programs as you gain knowledge in ny one of them. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. But if you want to save a bit you can get a copy of Adobe Pagemaker. I found Pagemakers learning curve a little less daunting than Indesign, but the later is definately supperior. Never liked Quark-company has an attitude problem and are slowwwww to release a newer version. Still not one for OSX. You will probably be staying in OS 9.1 for now so you can get a version back of all these programs on ebay for less than $100 each. I picked up one of those Adobe Web Collections with Illustrator 9, Photoshop 5.5 (w upgrade to 6) and Go Live 4 for about $80 then got upgrades as I went to OSX. You may find Adobe Design Collection better as it will include Indesign 1.5 (or 2 for OSX) or Pagemaker 6.5 (or 7 for OSX) instead of Go Live. One other point to make about Adobe is that their software full versions and education versions are identical in almost every case. I have yet to discover a missing feature in any educational version. If anyone knows of one please email me the info off list. If you are serious you will also need Stuffit Deluxe and Acrobat (full) to create PDFs and stuff em small to email to clients. You will also find MacLink handy for format conversions. (Graphic Converter for OSX) Again if you stay in OS 9 all can be had for a song on ebay (with some patience). Just Make sure you are getting the programs MANUALS and KEYS with your purchase. You will find the manuals indespesable. Microsoft Office is almost unescapable. Office 98 in OS 9 or Office X for OSX. Make sure you update them immediately after the install. So many files come in in Word or Powerpoint and you need to open them. Other programs can open some, but you need to remember most material comes from Windows platforms and you need to open it on your Mac. And they may want to read the text again so they need to open your files on a Wintell Box. Office solves some of this along with Acrobat (PDF) and MacLink (or other conversion programs). Printing; If you are working for serious customers they will look at your printed proof and see colour. It saves lots of agony if the colour they see is the colour they get from the press. I highly recomend Acrobat to make PDF-it has accurate colour on any computer and a PostScript level 2 (or 3) printer. These printers cost a fortune new but can be had on ebay for a couple hundred or less. I use a Tektronix Phaser 350. It gives good accurate colours and can be had cheaply. But the ink is expensive (black is free from xerox) and laser colour printers are heavy-shipping is a bitch. Also this model only prints 8.5X11. Bigger print sizes would be a great thing to have -at least foolscape if not full 11X17. I also use an old Apple LaserWriter to proof with. It's way cheaper per print. Before you buy check on the web for driver availability Get a friend or take a class to show you the basics of how these programs function. That way your learning from a base instead of groping in the dark. And as the previous reply mentioned learn about widows, orphans , line-breaks and a bunch of design dos and don'ts. You will find knowledge of leading and kearning are your good friends. If you want some free tutorials, there are free lessons/projects every week on BarnesandNobles.com that you can follow and do. This will help you alot and give you many skills to begin with. Also Adobe.com has some free tips. And Apple.com can direct you to some tips and tricks too. Good luck. JJ -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
