Multimedia Builder

 

Interface of Mediachance

Multimedia Builder

For those of you interested in making an interactive, self executing standalone application, my suggestion is to check out Multimedia Builder by Mediachance. When I first viewed this program I was making a comparative analysis between programs like Authorware and Director to see which would be the easiest to learn with enough functionality and flexibility to meet my intended program. Now Director and Authorware are powerful programs that allow you to create a lot of fantastic self running programs, however, they also come with a hefty learning curve. MMB (Multimedia Builder) had me clicking and creating in a matter of moments with an easy to use, WYSIWYG layout format to your items, simplistic parameter adjustment and support to most major formats of visual, audio and electronic coding to help you make great presentations, games...I was amazed at just what all you could create with this wonderful program. The program allows you to gather all your elements on screen and test drive your application before finalizing it. MMB supports text, text buttons, images, rollover images, animation, HTML, Flash, scripting and various little effects to make your presentation come alive-it even allows you to create your own custom GUI (Graphic User Interface). The combination of versatility and ease of use-along with a very reasonable price tag-makes Multimedia Builder a must have. You may want to check out some of the other fine software programs Mediachance offers at their website.

Comic Life

 

interface of Comic Life 1.5

For those of you out there who have always wanted to make your own comic book, Comic Life by Plasq is a fun, easy way to make nice looking comics in no time. You can certainly spend the time to set up templates in various programs like CorelDraw (retail CorelDraw Suite cost: $429) or Illustrator (retail cost $599) to pull this off, but (taking it from personal experience) the time involved to set up something like that usually leaves one bored with the whole process. Comic Life takes the grunt work out of creating page after page of comics by using their easy drag and drop interface to structure pages, add your own images, create sidebar text or text balloons, then save the whole project for print or email. The preloaded style boxes and font options are customizable, or you can rely on the pre-made shapes, colors and fonts provided. I was amazed at how fast you can stick something together and at a price of $29.95 ($24.95) Standard Edition) you won't be wasting your money. If you want to try it before you buy it, visit their website and download a 30 day trial version. This is so low-end to use, I would suggest it for almost any age user.

Silver Efex Pro; True Power for Black and White

 

The problem a lot of projects have when trying to use black and white images is the lack of control over the contrast within an image. Most of the standard settings to desaturate an image in popular photo editing programs, like Photoshop, give you very little control over your contrast without having to venture into the channel settings, creating a lot of feathered masks and taking more time than you had anticipated.  Nik Software has come up with an ingenius little plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture called Silver Efex. This, like all plugins from Nik, offers a variety of presets to change a color image into a dramatic black and white composition, or, allows you to create your own customized settings. You can set control points within an image, adjust the radius of the area affected, work directly on color channels and have the output placed on its own layer so as not to disrupt the original image. This plugin is not so much a time saver (although it does work fast, if all you want to do is change a pic from color to black and white, the standard filters can do that just as quick) but more for fine adjustments to photography. I have taken images and greatly enhanced specific areas within the image while leaving the secondary subject matter untouched. You can download a demo of this great plugin at their website.

Blue Vertigo

 

home page of Blue Vertigo

Many designers develop a list of their favorite resources and tab them for quick reference. Certain sites are great for stock images, (like IstockPhoto), there are great free resource sites (like Dafont.com for free fonts), or even small utilities online like a color wheel generator to help you choose complimentary colors for website design. You can spend a good deal of time developing a refining your list of favorites on your web browser but sometimes you just feel like parusing the web for great new images to use or different looking textures. One site I have run across that has provided me with numerous resources for graphics is Blue Vertigo. This site has links full of stock photos, commercial photos, video footage, vector clipart, fonts, great corporate logos (when you need to hunt down a good vector copy of Visa/Master Card), sound files, Photoshop brushes, Poser downloads, icons and other goodies. I like to go through and build up new resources to bookmark and believe me, this site has plenty to look and choose from. They even offer a newsletter that will keep you updated when new sites are posted. Some of the photo websites they show are a fresh search for me and allow me to place out of the ordinary images in my projects. Give this website a look and I'm sure you will realize the value of having Blue Vertigo listed among your favorites.