Review http://pixveritas.com/taxonomy/term/27/atom/feed 2007-08-06T17:57:12-04:00 Trillix - Eltima's Excellent Flash Decompiler http://pixveritas.com/trillix_eltimas_excellent_flash_decompiler 2007-10-23T23:12:15-04:00 2007-10-23T23:12:15-04:00 Gene A small departure from my usual Photoshop/Lightroom/Photography posts but I have to tell you about Trillix!

The latest version of Eltima Software's Flash Decompiler, dubbed Trillix 3.0, is a powerful and useful tool to have in your Flash arsenal! If you are a Flash developer you may shy away from decompilers. Perhaps you see them as the tool nefarious people use to steal your designs. But wait! Here is a tool that you can really sink your teeth into!

Trillix UI

All it takes is a lost computer or a forgotten backup and you will be glad you have this tool. If you can get to your SWF file you can save yourself hours (or days) of work.

The interface is elegant and very reminiscent of Microsoft's Office 2007 interface. You can set this up the way you like to work. If you like to see all of the information at all times the various panels can be locked in place. If they are unlocked then they will gracefully glide in and out of sight as you hover your mouse allowing you to see more of your player area.

There are five main tabs that lead you to the five major working areas of the
program:

  • Manage: allows you to manage Flash files, preview them, see their properties, add/remove them from My tasks list, etc.
  • Extract: to export every single type of objects which the selected SWF/EXE files consist of into a separate file for further analysis.
  • Convert: to convert your SWF files back into FLA.
  • Edit: allows you to change the way Flash files are created and edit them on the go without the need to recompile into FLA.
  • Search: gives you the unique ability to search the necessary information in ActionScripts used in SWF/EXE files.

In each of these areas you can set a multitude of parameters to yield the result you want. On top of that you can set up batch decompilations!

All in all, Trillix is an excellent tool! Eltima says they are still working on version 3.0 to resolve some minor bugs and glitches. Compared to it's next best competitor SoThink from SourceTec Software it shines! You can download a free trial at Eltima's
site.

]]> Sharpening Your Images http://pixveritas.com/sharpening_your_images 2007-09-01T12:59:16-04:00 2007-09-01T22:29:21-04:00 Gene Perhaps the biggest complaint I hear when photographers first venture from the comfortable world of JPEG shooting into the unknown territory of RAW is "my pictures just aren't as sharp as when I shot in JPEG! I thought RAW was suppossed to be better?" Better is a moving target. What is better depends greatly upon the circumstances surrounding your shoot. But, if you really want to capture the maximum information your camera can give you and YOU want to make the processing decisions about that information then RAW is the ONLY way to shoot.<!--break-->

The first of such decisions centers around sharpening your images. Yes, RAW images do look "fuzzier" than their JPEG cousins. That's because when you shoot JPEG your camera is making those sharpening decisions for you before it serves up the already baked image. With RAW you now get to decide what gets sharpened and how it gets sharpened.

There are three main sharpening stages:

  • Input or Capture Sharpening
  • Creative Sharpening
  • Output Sharpening

In the simplest of terms sharpening looks to find those areas where light and dark edges meet and enhance that contrast without generating edge artifacts (such as halos). Capture sharpening will adjust the image as it comes in from the camera to a point where you think the image should be. Capture sharpening should be applied as a first stage before you do anything else to your image. Once you have the sharpness you desire on input you can make better decisions about where to go from there.

Both Lightroom and Camera Raw offers excellent capture sharpening functionality. Make sure you've upgraded to the latest versions - Lightroom 1.1 and Camera raw 4.1 . If your workflow starts in Photoshop you can also achieve excellent capture sharpening. There are many third party plugin applications out there to make your Photoshop sharpening tasks easier but by far the best is Photokit Sharpener from the folks over at Pixel Genius . This plugin covers all three sharpening stages excellently.

Capture sharpening is arguably the easiest of the three stages but a necessary step in the creative process if you are cosidering output of any significant size. We'll talk more in future articles about creative and output sharpening.

For you Lightroom users, I've included a zip file of four capture sharpening presets that mimic the capture sharpening from Photokit Sharpener. Just unzip the file and place in your Lightroom presets directory.

]]> Adobe Audition 2.0 http://pixveritas.com/adobe_audition_2_0 2007-04-27T23:32:39-04:00 2007-05-06T13:42:41-04:00 Gene A Great Audio Application Gets Even Better!

Adobe Audition 2.0 represents a major upgrade to the product. Going back to its roots in Cool Edit Pro, Adobe has enhanced and improved nearly every aspect of the program. Considered by many to be the best audio editing application around, Adobe has done much to keep Audition well ahead of the competition. Some of the new features include:

  • Low-latency mixing with unlimited tracks
  • ASIO support
  • Recordable parameter automation
  • Hardware controller automation
  • Audio mixing sends and inserts
  • Real-time input monitoring
  • Quick Punch
  • Plug-in delay compensation
  • Effects chain on all channels, buses, and master
  • Improved recording performance
  • Unlimited number of tracks in Multitrack View
  • Up to 80 live inputs
  • Broader video format support
  • Intuitive user interface
  • Custom workspaces
  • Ready-to-use music beds
  • Thousands of uncompressed 32-bit music loops
  • Improved video sync
  • Adobe Bridge
  • XMP metadata support
  • Audible scrubbing
  • Analog-modeled Multiband Compressor
  • Mastering Rack in Edit View
  • Spectral Frequency Display tools
  • Lasso tool in Spectral Frequency Display
  • Spectral Pan and Phase displays
  • Spectral color bar and resolution settings
  • Logarithmic Spectral Frequency Display
  • Ability to save CD layouts
  • Broadcast Wave support
  • Improved performance for editing
  • Phase Analysis Histogram View
  • Ogg Vorbis format support
An impressive list of new features. Audition has moved closer to the look and feel of the other members of the Production Suite making it more intuitive when working in multiple areas of the suite. Perhaps the most welcome change is the new user interface. Gone is the confusion of multiple overlapping palettes and windows that plagued previous versions. The new interface allows multiple palettes and windows to be “snapped” together into a manageable workspace. In fact, once you arrange your workspace to fit your workflow you can save it. Multiple workspaces can be saved to fit different workflows. Multi-Track ViewMulti-Track View Audition now handles plugins much better than before. Organizing and finding files is a breeze with its integration to Adobe Bridge. Natively handling of ASIO drivers brings a significant performance boost and allows for real-time, low-latency editing. There are many applications that will allow you to edit audio, mix audio, or burn CDs. Audition, however, is one of a very few that handles all of this with ease. Audition can be a simple editing application when that is all you need and it can be a very powerful multitrack mixing environment if your project calls for that. Versatility sets Audition apart from the rest. Unlike other computer based audio applications Audition does not try to reinvent the workflow and terminology of the audio professional. Its roots are well grounded in the industry and Audition uses terms and methodologies familiar to the audio tech used to working in the studio. For example, Audition now includes a mastering rack. This presents an elegant interface for adding effects to tracks or the Master Bus that has a counterpart in the studio. Similar to adding effects processors to a physical rack, Audition allows you to add effects and see what is present in the rack. In nearly every area of Audition you can save presets. In addition to the various presets that come with Audition, this give you maximum creative control. Once you find, for example, a combination of effects and have tweaked them to your liking you can save a rack preset. The next time you want that combination just pull up that preset and all of the effects and settings will populate the rack. Very Nice! The mixer provides you the flexibility to create additional buses. Effects can be associated with each bus. Multiple sends are also available for each track. By combining sends and buses you have virtually limitless editing capability. Add to that the fact that all of these edits in the mixer are non-destructive. Non-destructive edits give you maximum flexibility and peace of mind. Knowing that you are not changing your source files allows you to experiment and play. Want to do some permanent edits to your source files? No problem! Audition’s Edit view will let you work on your original source files and make edits, apply effects, and save these. New and enhanced capabilities to edit the sound tracks in video files and export them without impacting the video tracks further expand this application’s flexibility. Adobe has continued to integrate its applications into the various flavors of the suite without sacrificing any functionality. Whether you are looking for a standalone audio application or a powerful segment of a complete suite workflow, Adobe Audition 2.0 is the program for you. ]]> Logitech Cares! http://pixveritas.com/logitech_cares 2007-01-04T13:16:53-05:00 2007-08-06T17:54:17-04:00 Gene After my recent post about Logitech's NuLooq Navigator I was contacted by the Product Manager. Despite some initial telephone problems we finally managed to connect.

We spent quite some time talking about the reasons for Logitech's decision to stop development on ToolDial and some more esoteric concepts about interface design. I am both encouraged and glad that there are still some companies left that do care about what their users think. The fact that Logitech took the time to contact me about my concerns is proof that service isn't dead yet!

Anyway, it seems that they have received far more negative feedback about the ToolDial software that is reflected in the public arena. Comments as diverse as "I just forgot about it" to "circular menus are so old-school". This coupled with an unenthusiastic reception from software and hardware companies to co-develop functionality led to Logitech's decision. I told the Product Manager that they should make more of this public so it doesn't look like they abandoned users. He agreed it was a difficult decision and a dilemma.

However, ToolDial isn't necessarily dead forever. I still think that the concept of bringing tools and commands to where the cursor is remains brilliant and would really set this device apart. Logitech really wants to hear from all you NuLooq users! They are particularly interested in hearing from those of you who were lucky enough to work with ToolDial. What did you like? What didn't you like? What suggestions do you have?

From all NuLooq users in general, what do you think can improve the product? If another application like ToolDial were to resurface what would you like to see?

You can either post to the NuLooq forum on Logitech's site or you can email the Product Manager with your feedback.

After talking with Logitech I am convinced that this is a company that cares about what you think.

]]> Logitech Leaves Users Stranded! http://pixveritas.com/logitech_leaves_users_stranded 2006-12-28T12:54:47-05:00 2007-08-06T17:57:12-04:00 Gene Logitech has made a new and innovative piece of equipment (its NuLooq Navigator) virtually useless by deciding to discontinue the development of ToolDial. Mac users are left with a dead product and Windows users never even got a chance to install it since Logitech abandoned the technology before releasing a Windows version.

The NuLooq Navigator promised to be a fresh way to access content and give your non-dominant hand something to do. The concept behind ToolDial allowed you to call up frequently used menus and command wherever your mouse pointer was. This saved an enormous amount of time by freeing the user from travelling back and forth from task to toolbar. Each of the eight section of the dial could have eight more underlying sections and each of those eight had eight more. The combinations and uses were phenomenal!

Sadly, it remains on the development floor leaving those of us who acquire the NuLooq device with a hockey puck that does no more than an enhanced scroll-wheel mouse.

Logitech needs to wake up on this one and get ToolDial back in development!

For more information on Logitech's marketing blunder go to http://forums.logitech.com/logitech/board/message?board.id=general_design&message.id=186

 

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