Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

Have you ever tried to set a single Ruler Guide across a two-page spread in InDesign– and been frustrated in the effort?  A Ruler Guide that extends across a spread is called a Spread Guide. To create one, set the view so you can see the Pasteboard and then drag the guide out across the pasteboard instead of across the printable area. Viola–it extends all the way across the spread. If you are zoomed in, hold the Ctrl key while you drag.

To place a copy of a Ruler Guide or Spread Guide on other pages, point to the guide and right-click when you see the cursor change. In the right-click menu, choose Copy. On following pages, from the Menu bar, choose Edit, and Paste in Place.

Remember also that you can only see Ruler and Spread Guides in Normal view.

Are there tasks you find yourself doing again and again in Photoshop? To spare yourself some time and exasperation, you can create a Photoshop Droplet. The Droplet is a little application consisting of a set of Photoshop tasks that  you create and which sits on your desktop. You run the application by dragging a file on top of the Droplet icon.

Here’s how to create a Photoshop Droplet:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-droplets-in-photoshop-cs6.html

For more complex chores, you can also create Photoshop Actions and run them on batches of files.

First, create an Action:

http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/post-processing-articles/100-free-photoshop-actions-and-how-to-make-your-own/ (This set of instructions includes some free predefined actions for optional download)

Then, run your action on a batch of files:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-batch-process-actions-in-photoshop-cs6.html

A contact sheet is a grid of thumbnail images that may be used for a lot of things: yearbooks, calendars–anything in which you would like to post a thematic group of pictures. Adobe offers this automated function in some of its Creative Suite applications and in Lightroom.

In InDesign, creating a contact sheet is an easy process.

1. From the Menu bar, choose File, then Place.
2. Select multiple images by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking. If you want to include captions with your images, check Create Static Captions.
   
3. Click Open.
4. On the InDesign page, start dragging. You will see a grid forming as you drag.
   - Press the arrow keys to set the number of rows and columns you want.
   - To change the spacing between frames, press Page Up or Page Down or hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while pressing the arrow keys.
   You will see a preview result of your keypresses onscreen as you work.
5. Release the mouse button to place the grid of images.
6. At this point, you can replace captions and resize at will.

If you are ready to break out of the PowerPoint mold and infuse rich design features with multimedia into your slide shows, create an interactive InDesign document for your next presentation. Adobe InDesign offers Presentation mode with buttons, transitions, and all interactive bells and whistles.

You can watch how to to do it here:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-and-your-voice/creating-your-personal-brand-episode-creating-a-slide-presentation/

And you can check out all the features with written step-by-step how-to’s here:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/WS328f5ee33f08f77d1e63e3d120f2667a4c-7ffe.html

An Ad Hoc Video Conference at IU is a videoconference connection you establish on the fly with a central multimedia server. You identify your conference code using four numbers of your own choice and then adding “22″ to the beginning, and distributing that information to people whom you want to join.

Users can join your conference in three ways: using point-to-point videoconference equipment (such as that found in conference rooms); using UniCom with an optional web cam; and by calling in via telephone. All methods may be used simultaneously in a conference.

For instructions and more information, see:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/ause.html

There are myriad ways to remove red eye from a photograph.

First, see how to use the Red Eye tool in Photoshop:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-get-rid-of-red-eye-in-photoshop-cs6.html

While this technique works, I tend to use methods other than the Red Eye tool because a) it can result in overkill, and b) the tool actually changes existing pixels– and I almost always use nondestructive editing in Photoshop. On the rare occasions that I use the Red Eye tool, I first select the pupils and copy them to a new layer before using the tool.

If this tool is unsatisfactory–as in the case of animals–here are some other ways to remove red eye:

• You can use the regular Brush tool with a Color blend mode. Make sure that the foreground/background colors are set to the default black/white. (To set default with a keyboard shortcut, press the D key.)

• To keep it nondestructive, I would advise a modified approach to the same Blend Mode process above: add a new layer and set its blend mode to Color, then use the brush in normal mode on the new layer. Again, foreground/background colors must be set to default.

• You can use the Color Replacement tool with a black foreground.  This tool is in the Brush tool family; press and hold Brush to activate it. Note that the higher Tolerance settings in the Options panel will result in stronger effects.

What about animals? The Photoshop Red Eye tool responds to only the color of reflections in human eyes–so that particular tool won’t work on animals. Following is a terrific article that includes animals plus a couple of other methods–including the Sponge tool, which is one of my favorites.

• Other ways to fix red eye: http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=988  .
  This article offers a terrific way to achieve luminous eyes, too!

For some of us, a computer is everything. It’s your repository for every major achievement of your life, your gateway to much larger world for news and interacting with friends and family, some next door and some on the other side of the world.  It’s your amazing tool for being productive when deadlines approach or your escape when you just need to laugh or unwind.

Without the Internet, your computer is a typewriter at best and a paperweight at worst.  You need to protect this amazing asset, but how?  You need to be on the network to figure out how to protect yourself from the network.  What do you do?  You need to Get Connected.

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In July 2012, UITS Identity Management Systems team estimated that there were about 160,000 computing accounts at IU with “stale credentials.” Stale credentials mean a passphrase or password that is at least two years old. When I tried to visualize 160,000 stale credentials, all I could picture was a big pile of moldy bread. Obviously, I needed some help understanding that figure. So, I exercised my Google-fu and found some interesting facts:

•    $160,000 recently bought a piece of controversial DC Comics memorabilia
•    The oldest human fossils found we know of are about 160,000 years old
•    An annual salary of $160,000 works out to about $80/hour

I’m a Bloomington townie, so the statistic that really brought it home for me was the 2010 census population in Bloomington of about 80,000 people. So, the number of IU accounts with stale credentials was about twice the population of Bloomington. That’s a huge pile!  And some of that bread is *really* moldy…

At IU, passphrases were introduced in October of 2006 (see Passwords and passphrases for details). After six years and several awareness campaigns (requesting users to voluntarily update), there were still approximately 81,761 IU accounts that had not been changed. Faced with the growing pile of evidence, UITS recognized that folks at IU apparently needed stronger incentive to clean up that pile and announced that passphrases older than 2 years would start to expire during the fall, 2012 semester. In order to prevent a massive lockout event, passphrases will initially expire in batches of a few hundred each week, starting with the oldest credentials first. So, what does this mean for you? (more…)

On this week’s episode, we’re telling you all about our new initiative to offer free workshops to faculty and staff at Indiana University! Listen in and hear all about it!

it2go – The IT Training Podcast

On this week’s episode, we’re talking about the IT Training Conference again. This will be your last chance to register before the conference on Wednesday, September 28th.

it2go Episode 23 – The IT Training Conference Part 2