Take control of your imposition needs with MadeToPrint with Imposition

QuarkXPress 8 brought a plethora of new features and capabilities, the likes of which I had been dreaming about for years. Having worked in QuarkXPress since the version 3.0 days, I have been more than pleasantly delighted with each new version, but version 8 was greeted with great enthusiasm on my end as it actually added significantly to my design aresenal and that’s always a huge plus.

So, when I found out that my MadeToPrint XT was going to be updated with imposition capabilities, it was as though I’d won a lottery—one that gave me an intuitive addition to QuarkXPress 8 that would allow me to impose my own layouts/projects easily and quickly—two key requirements for me. Translation? I could move on to more design and layout work. Time and money savings? You bet. And I wasted no time installing the new MadeToPrint.

With the release of the brand new version MadeToPrint XT with Imposition for QuarkXPress versions 6.5 through 8, you can print fully imposed PDF files. The product ships with time- and money-saving preconfigured imposition schemes that will cover a comprehensive list of common imposition tasks, thus making it a snap to get started.  You simply activate the Imposition function and compose your imposition scheme with the entries under the categories provided. These include Runlist and Sheet configuration.

You will find a new item under the file menu in QuarkXPress—MadeToPrint—once you have loaded the XTension. To set up a MadeToPrint job (in this instant we will use a simple business card project and make them double-sided on one page) you just choose MadeToPrint from under the file menu and you are presented with a dialog. You start by creating a new MadeToPrint job, choose a job name and enter that name with the General settings option highlighted/selected in the MadeToPrint Settings dialog box.

Next, you select Printer in the Settings dialog box and select File (PDF) in the Destination pull down menu. Keep in mind that the imposition function isn’t available for PostScript printing, so if PostScript does exist, you can use the Distiller to create your PDF file.

Then, choose the Pages option in the MadeToPrint Settings dialog. With this chosen/selected, make sure to deactivate the Use Single Page Output option by unchecking the box (or leaving it unchecked if it’s not). This will allow for smooth operation of the imposition.
You then select/highlight the Imposition option in the same MadeToPrint Settings dialog box. Once selected, you are presented with two pull down menus: Runlist and Sheet Configuration. Using the entries available under these pull down menus, activate the Imposition function and compile the required imposition scheme. You will need to make sure that under both categories, the number of pages match.

For our business card project, selecting the 8 Business cards double-sided (under the Runlist pull down) and then selecting A4, 8 business cards under the Sheet Configuration pull down menu is what we need. Too, keep in mind that if the imposition schemes provided in the pull down menu doesn’t directly cover your particular task or project, you can adjust the settings file in a Script editor if you are knowledgeable in programming. To take advantage of this, the files are located in the directory QuarkXPress X.X/XTensions/pdfToolbox4/var/Actions/Impose.

Our business card configuration is now finalized. Then, we just save the MadeToPrint job and in the MadeToPrint Settings dialog, choose/specify the Business Card imposition. We are now ready to process our layout documents.

MadeToPrint offers the capability of standardizing the output of QuarkXPress documents. Many times, as you know, files need to be sent to different locations and with different file requirements. Or, if your jobs are like the ones thrown my way, one file can contain multiple language versions. MadeToPrint allows saving all these settings in one painless PrintJob for consistent hassle free output. MadeToPrint also allows for full file-naming control, offering you the capability to define the name on a set of variables such as Time, Machine Name, Language version, etc, which is extremely advantageous for all kinds of workflow environments.

Features include:
- Output fully imposed jobs, from booklets to N-up, choose between run list (e.g. 4 pages step & repeat) and imposition sheets (e.g. 2 pages A4 single sided)
- Add infobar with flexible, dynamic information on pages
- Create single page files from a multi-page document
- Output layers and layer combinations flexibly for comprehensive language or price version handling
- Get full control over file-naming
- Take advantage of advanced features like scripting
- Output PDF, EPS or PS files (this version adds the capability to output fully imposed PDFs to its feature set)

The MadeToPrint Auto version integrates seamlessly into publishing systems like vjoon’s K4 or WoodWing’s Smart Connection Enterprise and Enfocus’ Switch automation platform. As with the regular version, the new Auto release now adds the capability to impose anything from simple booklets to fully-fledged brochures and books. It is a powerful yet very intuitive imposition engine that is easy to use and is ideal for digital and conventional printers. MadeToPrint PrintJobs can now also be exported and imported for easier exchange of output settings among users or towards customers.

In summary? I, for one, am thrilled with the latest addition of the imposition feature to my already valuable MadeToPrint. In this economy, we are all looking for ways to save and earn more and obviously adding hours to the day isn’t realistic. So when a product like this comes along offering me even more productive options, I’m immediately on it. The update that includes the imposition functionality is free to existing MadeToPrint current version users and is available with new full product purchases now. Take control of your imposition needs with MadeToPrint.

Exposure 2 IS The Closest Thing to Film Since Film

Review - Exposure

Exposure is one of those awe-inspiring Photoshop-compatible plug-ins that makes digital images look like they were shot on film. With Exposure, you can imitate the look of a film stock, apply special effects like selenium/sepia toning, or do some basic image enhancement.

Exposure takes the form of two entries in the Photoshop Filter menu, one for colour film and one for black and white film. The Colour Film filter works on RGB images, while the Black and White Film filter can be used on RGB images or greyscale images. Both filters work with 8, 16, or 32 bits/channel images and can be used in Photoshop actions, making it easy to apply them to batches of images.

The product comes with a Help menu that leads to local documentation and online Web pages. Clicking Help>Filter Help accesses filter-specific documentation. The same assistance can be reached by pressing F1 (Windows) or Help (Macintosh). To access a Table of Contents for the online Help file, you can click Help>Contents.

Command menus are accessible when you launch any filter. Macintosh users will see the menus in place of their usual menu bar. Windows users will see the menus at the top of the filter preview window. The Edit menu provides an unlimited number of undos and redos. If you experiment with the sliders and find that you prefer a previous group of settings, you can simply select the Undo command from the Edit menu, or click Command+Z (Control+Z on Windows machines) to back up as many times as necessary. Handily, the Edit menu also lets you copy, cut, paste and delete values from parameter fields.

The Filter menu lets you switch between Exposure filters without leaving the user interface. The View menu lets you zoom the preview in and out. To display the preview at 100% magnification, just select Actual Pixels.

Colour Selection Tools

Using the Colour Picker, you can select colours based on several colour models (RGB, CMYK, etc.), and you can also specify colours by hexadecimal values or use Web safe colours. To launch the Colour Picker, just click the colour swatch next to any colour control. To the right of the colour swatch, you’ll notice a colour selection tool, which offers the following options: Eyedropper: Select the eyedropper to sample a colour from anywhere in the preview window.

Foreground or Background Colour: Choose either of the two.

Black or White: Choose either of these timeless colours.

Six Previous Colours: You can choose any of the six most recently chosen colours.

The Preview Window

Tabs with sliders, colour swatches, check boxes, and radio buttons appear along the left side of this window. These controls perform most functions in the filters and you can click on a tab name to switch to that subset of controls. Click and drag the movable red box to move the

preview to any spot in the selected layer. The Move (hand), Zoom (magnifying glass) and

Show Original buttons are found above the preview window. Double-clicking the magnifying glass at any time resets the preview window to 100% magnification.

The Show Original button toggles the preview between filtered and unfiltered versions of your image. You can click and hold the button to view the unaffected image and release the button to preview your effect. Also, above the preview area is a menu of options for split screen previewing. When enabled, this feature shows the original image in half of the preview. Clicking and dragging any corner or edge of the filter window resizes the preview area.

The Settings tab in each filter window lets you create, manage, download, share and back up your favorite filter recipes. To apply a setting, click the Settings tab and select the desired setting in the list. To save a setting just adjust sliders to your taste, click the Settings tab, click Save and then type a name for your new setting into the Save Setting window. Then, just click OK. You can also save a setting by pressing Command + S (Macintosh) or Control + S (Windows) any time while previewing an effect. The Save Setting dialog box will appear automatically. When you export a setting, Exposure packages the recipe in a tiny file that you can share with friends or coworkers. You can also use the export feature to back up settings that you cannot live without.

Applying a filter with the Create Output in a New Layer above Current option enabled renders your image in a new layer above the working layer in Photoshop and Elements. This checkbox is located on the Colour tab for both the Colour Film and Black and White Film filters. Note that switching filters within Exposure disables the output in new layer feature, so if you want to apply a filter in a new layer, make sure you start with the filter you plan to apply. Also, Create Output In New Layer Above Current is unavailable when recording actions in Photoshop. You just need to clear this checkbox when recording actions.

The most important settings are named after film stocks and begin with the word “Film.” Selecting one of these settings sets many parameters throughout the tabs. Each of these settings encompasses many effects that add up to a certain look. To imitate film stocks that were available during creation of Exposure, the manufacturer did test shoots with the film and with a Canon 20D digital camera. They shot a special chart, as well as scenes including flesh tones and colourful natural objects, and then measured differences between the film and digital images using custom software they created. This enabled them to create settings that mimic the look of these film stocks. Most of the film settings control warming/cooling (or sometimes filter colour), saturation (for colour films), RGB sensitivity (for black and white films), a curve in the Tone tab, and grain parameters.

The Grain tab is the most unique part of Exposure. The manufacturer put film grain under a

microscope, literally. There, they found that real grain can be larger than one pixel, has subtle colour characteristics, and often appears with different strengths in the highlights, midtones, and shadows.

If you want to use Exposure for specific image enhancement tasks rather than full-blown film simulation, then look for the settings that begin with “Modify.” These settings usually control a subset of parameters, making them much easier to understand than the film settings.

Special Effect settings are for creative work rather than accurate simulation of film stocks. These effects names begin with “Special.” This category encompasses a wide range of effects such as cross processing, selenium/sepia toning, and glamour shots soft focus.

Use the Filter Colour and Filter Density controls to simulate adding a coloured filter to the lens of the camera. This alters the hue of the scene. The farther the Filter Colour is from white, the stronger the effect will be. Increasing Filter Density also increases the filtering effect. Use these controls for odd colour casts, or if you simply want to warm or cool the scene then use the slider below. Changing the light temperature of a scene is the most commonly needed type

of colour filtering. Warm scenes appear more yellow, cool scenes more blue. Move the Warm/Cool slider to the right to warm the photo or to the left to cool it.

Enable the Preserve Luminosity option to ensure sure that the filtering operations do not darken your photo. When this option is off, colour filtering is more physically accurate. Preserve Luminosity affects both the Filter Colour and Warming/Cooling features. The Master Saturation slider simply increases or decreases the intensity of all colours in the photo. The Red, Green, and Blue sliders modify subsets of colour. The most common use of these controls is increasing saturation in nature scenes. However, you can also desaturate two colours to make an object of the third colour stand out.

The Color tab of the Black and White Film filter controls the conversion of colour images to black and white, as well as colourisation. The Red, Green, and Blue sliders control how much each colour channel affects the final black and white photo. In a portrait, the blue channel can be downplayed to de-emphasize wrinkles and blemishes. You can use these sliders to simulate a colour filter over the lens of the camera. For instance, a deep red filter will make skies darker. If your photo is in greyscale mode then these controls will be disabled. Both the Colour Film and Black and White Film filters have a Tone tab. The Tone tab includes a curve editor along with some sliders to make common tasks quick and easy. Use the Tone tab to address issues like contrast, brightness, shadows, and highlights.

The functional curve editor displays how input brightness is converted to output brightness. The horizontal axis represents input brightness, and the vertical axis represents output brightness. By default, black is in the bottom left corner and white in the upper right corner. The Colour Film curve editor has separate curves for the red, green, blue, and RGB channels. Changes made to the curve editor or the sliders below it affect only the selected channel. The RGB curve affects all channels and is applied after the individual channel curves. Switch between these curves using the Channel pop-up menu at the top of the Tone tab. The Black and White Film curve editor has just a single grey curve and does not include a pop-up menu.

The closest thing to film since film, Exposure brings the look and feel of film to digital photography. You can now digitally simulate the vivid colors of Velvia®, the rich blacks of Kodachrome®, or the sensitivity of Ektachrome®, as well as the warmth and softness of dozens of other film stocks, both colour and black and white. In summary, Exposure simplifies your workflow, collecting colour, dynamic range, softness, and grain controls in one plug-in. Correct a colourcast, soften a digital portrait, and tweak contrast with one, easy-to-use tool.  Or define your signature look and save it as a one-click effect.

Great new promo—Free Instant PDF with Quark 8 Purchases

ThePowerXChange.com announce new promotion including

Enfocus Instant PDF 08 with all purchases of QuarkXPress 8

ThePowerXChange.com, the source for extended technology worldwide, are pleased to announce a new promotion that includes a copy of Enfocus Instant PDF 08 at no additional cost with all QuarkXPress 8 purchases. From August 1st through December 31st, 2009, all purchases of QuarkXPress 8 full or upgrade versions will include a full version of Instant PDF 08—a $299.00 value. This offer was previously available only in the United Kingdom and Ireland through XChange UK, an affiliate company of ThePowerXChange.com. 

“We have had an exceptional response to this promotion in the United Kingdom and have found that many U.S. and Canadian users want to take advantage of the substantial savings this offer affords them. Many of our customers have heard about the offer through colleagues and other channels and continue to contact us with enquiries about the promotion,” offers Tami Stodghill, Press Relations Manager for ThePowerXChange.com and XChange UK. “We want to be able to accommodate our North American customers, especially in the current economy.”

QuarkXPress® 8 complements the way creative professionals work. QuarkXPress 8 lets users work faster and design more with fewer clicks using the modern, intuitive interface. Designers and content creators can produce stunning text and achieve the effects they want with designer-driven typography. Users can build on their existing expertise and share their print content across media with built-in Web and Flash® authoring tools with no additional purchase or coding required.

Enfocus Instant PDF 08 makes producing press-ready PDFs easy for creative professionals. Using award-winning Enfocus Certified PDF® technology, it’s the simplest and most reliable way to create PDFs that comply with print or advertisement vendors’ specifications. While working in their favourite creative application, users simply select “Save as Certified PDF...” from the File menu and let Instant PDF 08 take care of creating their PDF, preflighting it, modifying it where necessary, and even sending it to their print provider—all without leaving their application.

This exclusive QuarkXPress 8 including Enfocus Instant PDF 08 at no additional cost promotion is available now through ThePowerXChange.com for electronic delivery worldwide. To order, or for more information, users can visit www.thepowerxchange.com, or call on 877-940-0600 during U.S. business hours. Email address is sales@thepowerxchange.com.

ThePowerXChange.com are a leading supplier of workflow solutions, desktop graphic and publishing applications, QuarkXTensions® technology; Adobe InDesign®, Acrobat® and Photoshop® Plug-ins® and other design and publishing utilities. They offer extended technology products from across the world specific to the graphic design, print and publishing industries and make them available to an extensive user base online at their web site.

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