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Took the CS2 plunge...

gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
Hey, I just bought CS2 premium having barely worked in any Adobe software at all with the exception of Acrobat Professional.

I need to get up and running with this as quickly as possible, specifically on the photoshop side and being able to use the Adobe effects in Flexi.
Can any of you walk me through the Adobe-effects-in-Flexi part in short order? That will help me getting things going until I have the spare time:Big Laugh
to study up on the rest of what the suite can do.

Related:

When I blew up my old scanner, the new one I bought came with Adobe Elements. It had some stuff that would show up in Flexi when installed but the things that showed up still wouldn't work. I understand from GiveMeHelp.com that I'm supposed to be able to access these effects from within Flexi but when I installed CS2, nothing in Flexi changed in the Bitmap drop down menu.

Thanks for the help,

George
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
I appreciate it OAD and Schultz,

I went through the tutorial and the thread, both suggesting the file path solution. I set that up and was able to see the names of the filters under the Adobe pull down but once I rolled over one with my mouse, the individual effects themselves were grayed out.:help:

Is there something else I need to do? Incidentally, I'm in Flexi 7.6.

George
 
O

OADesign

New Member
not sure but a reboot always helps. or just close both apps and restart. some plug ins need to initialize in what ever app is calling them to work properly...
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
I'm probably not understanding the specific tasks you wish to complete...

but if you would rasterize flexi drawings... just to do cool photoshop effects on them... I would suggest you learn photoshop as the ideal place to perform those embellishments. You will have many features in Photoshop that I don't believe would ever be as good, or available at all in Flexi, like maintaining various layers during the design process, having elaborate bitmap editing selecting & masking tools throughout the design process... impressive "layer styles" that can be imposed, edited, copied & pasted from layer to layer... viewed on demand, or not viewed through the design process... & a final copy can be flattened to a high res rastor image to import into flexi when all the photoshop tweaks are done.
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
mwoodson44, I'll check that out. I don't recall if my sample was set up that way. Seems like though I recall none of the bitmap editing tools in Flexi are available when the picture is converted to CMYK anyway.

Doug,

Sorry, man. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my initial post. I WANT to learn CS2 in the most expedient manner possible; if I could plug in a cable into the back of my head (like the Matrix) I'd do it in a heartbeat. But, as that particular method is still a ways off, the next most practical and expedient thing for me is to try and make the PS plugins available to myself in Flexi, while I learn CS2. Does that clarify things?

Everything you described; it's all what I want to learn how to do, but just as quickly as possible to make my CS2 purchase an asset virtually immediately.

George
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
It's working now...

I opened up PS CS2 and opened a new document. While I was in there, I made something really simple. For kicks, I went ahead and minimized PS,
opened Flexi, went to a practice document, imported the thing I'd saved in PS, went up to the Bitmap dropdown and sure enough all the filters were there and available, none were gray.

I tried closing PS completely, the filters were still availabe in Flexi.

I closed Flexi, and reopened; the filters are still there. Who knows. Bottom line, it's working and I'm in PS heaven. Now I get to look forward to everyone here saying, George, dude, you got to lay off the PS effects, you're using them on everything!!

Thanks again you guys for all of your help, though I'm still looking for ideas on how to learn the CS2 faster. Feel free to make more suggestions.

Thanks,

George
 
P

Pro Signs & Graphix

New Member
George,

Get the book by SAMS Publishing. "Learn Photoshop CS2 in 24 hours". This will give you a real good understanding of how Photoshop works. They are easy to read and understand, unlike many factory manuals. A person could really read the book, cover to cover, in a day - on the toilet!

Then follow Doug's advise by working in Photoshop and exporting your completed files to Flexi. This will make for a much smoother workflow.
 
Geary

Geary

New Member
"It's Working Now"

gcljlamb said:
.........I closed Flexi, and reopened; the filters are still there. Who knows. Bottom line, it's working and I'm in PS heaven.

Thanks,

George
Click to expand...


Actually George, you need to thank Morpheus. He came into your office a bit ago with a red and a blue pill.

And as the Oracle says, now you have to make up your own mind.

The more important question now is......"Are you the One?"

~Gear
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
Interesting....there is no spoon...therefore, there is no Montana or Wyoming...hmmmmmmmmmm

Is it me or is this thread unravelling?

:Big Laugh
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1
1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1
I F Y O U ' R E S T I L L
R E A D I G T H I S , Y O
U ' R E N O T W O R K I N
G H A R D E N O U G H ! M
E ? T H I S I S M Y P O S
T , I C A N D O W H A T I
W A N T ! :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh :Big Laugh
 
gROUND cHUCK

gROUND cHUCK

New Member
Hay George.

A good resource for learning CS2 and many other programs is: http://www.lynda.com/
You'll learn fairly quickly with their video training tutorials.

I used there videos to learn 3DS max, and it only took me random hours over a few days to have a good understand on how to use it......

You could also use the Adobe site and their tutorials: http://www.adobe.com/products/tips/
Also there are many sites with simple tutorials to try out, just Google it.

If you were thinking of getting a few plugins for Photoshop and Illustrator, I recommend,

For photoshop:
Alien Skin Bundle: http://www.alienskin.com/ec5bundle.html
along with Alien Skin's - Image Doctor
Vertus Fluid Mask: http://www.vertustech.com/
Power Retouch Pro plugins: http://www.powerretouche.com/

I've never used Alien Skin's BlowUP but I have used Shortcut PhotoZoom Pro and love its capabilities: http://www.shortcutinc.com/cms/index.php?id=56&sl=

And for Illustrator:
HotDoor CadTools or Perspective: http://www.hotdoor.com/index.html

These are some of the plugins that I use and find very useful, check them out.......
 
gcljlamb

gcljlamb

New Member
ground Chuck,

Thanks for all the information!! All of that should come in very handy as I'm diving into CS2.

George
 
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