Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Mysterious Color changes when saving for web in photoshop

I was going crazy again today trying to sort out color spaces in photoshop CC.  I kept saving the file with various color differences, and when I looked at the final jpg the color was different to what was on screen.
So much for WYSIWYG.  Anyway... This solution worked for me:
I Skipped step 3 and 4 (I couldn't figure out how to find them! Yes I am a noob).
If you're saving PNG or GIF images from Photoshop, they can't contain colour profiles. If you're saving JPEG images from Photoshop, they can contain colour profiles.
If you'd like Photoshop to match what you're seeing in your browser, and you're designing user interfaces, and you'd like colours in images to match colours in PNGs and GIFs, then here's how to set up Photoshop:
Step 1 — Choose Edit > Color Settings and set the working space for RGB to Monitor RGB.
Step 2 — If you’re using Photoshop CS6, click More Options and turn off Blend Text Colors Using Gamma, because it changes how non-opaque text is rendered. It should already be off, but if it’s not, turn off Blend RGB Colors Using Gamma as well.
Step 3 — Open a document and choose Edit > Assign Profile, then set it to Don’t Color Manage This Document. This must be done for every single document you work on.
Step 4 — Ensure View > Proof Colors is turned off.

Step 5 — When saving files with Save For Web, ensure Convert to sRGB is turned off. If you’re saving a JPEG file, then also turn off Embed Color Profile (there are some cases where you might want this on for photos, but chances are you’ll want it off for interface elements and icons).
This answer provides way more detail: http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/a/9241/3901
Sanity restored :)  Thanks Marc Edwards for your answer. 

Monday, September 23, 2013

View active keyframes only in After Effects

Click on the layer you want and hit: U

That is all.

Mapping Tools for Cinema 4d (if you want to get DEM info into Cinema)



Have you ever tried to create realistic terrains by sculpting them?  If you are like me, you are wasting your time.  Here are some epic pluggins that take all the effort out of making terrains, by simply taking the data from google earth automatically.  (no I'm not joking.. if you are like me you have spent a lot of time trying to find GeoTIFFs or DEM files, or whatever of the earth to bring them into Vue or Cinema.. or whatever... and to no avail.  This will require cinema 4d.  I have studio, but I'm guessing it will work with the version that comes with after effects CC.

These plugins cost money.. but so does all the time I wasted doing this manually!!

If only I had this site a year ago... but anyway.  Here is one for getting textures:
http://www.lizard-labs.net/ultimate_maps_downloader.aspx

Here is an awesome plugin for getting the elevation data (imports it directly into cinema with simple copy and paste of coordinates from google maps. (not joking)
http://www.cinemaplugins.com/c4d-plugins/demearth/

And here is a tutorial (not by me)
https://vimeo.com/68479957


Reboot.

Ok.. time for a new type of blog.  From now, I am going to be posting useful things I find while building Daniel & The Revelation.  This is mainly because I have a horrible memory and forget all the useful stuff I learn along the way.

Software I use:
Cinema 4d r15,  Adobe CC, Eon Vue 11.5, Protools 10 & 11 (native instruments)