Bexology

Okay, to be honest - this blog is momentarily dead. I'm working full time - I'm also in school full time. I wrote and passed the Photoshop CS2 certification exam 6 months ago and am now working on the Illustrator CS3 certification exam and thinking up a MFA thesis. Life it too crazy. I promised someone at work I would do another serendipity template over the winter break with a "sys admin" look and feel. So until I get around to it (probably November/December) I won't be posting.

Spent some time answering a question posted on a discussion board - so thought I would post the answer here as well. Question was on how to add a copyright on multiple pictures without typing it in over and over.

There are 2 ways of doing this. I've also explained this using Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop CS.

************ DOING THIS VIA THE BRIDGE AND/OR ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS2 *************
The first way is to save you copyright information as an xmp file in Adobe Bridge or save you copyright information as an xmp file via Adobe Photoshop CS2.

What will happen is that in Bridge you can click mutliple pictures/or entire folders and instead of having to retype the information, you can simply apply the saved xmp file.

How to do this via Bridge:
Open Bridge. Go to File --File Info
Under description type in your copyright information.
Don't hit save --instead click on the advanced tab.
In the advanced menu look for the XMP rights management properties. Click on it and then hit Save. Put is somewhere where you can find it and name it appropriately like copyright.xmp

To Test and Apply - in Bridge - select a picture. You will notice that nothing appears under the Metadata panel. Go to File--File Info and then click on Advanced. Choose Append and choose your xmp file.

The cool thing, as I mentioned above, is you can select entire folders of images and apply it all at once.

The other way is via photoshop CS2.
Open Photoshop CS2 --Go to file --File info
Under description type in your copyright information.
Don't hit save --instead click on the advanced tab.
In the advanced menu look for the XMP rights management properties. Click on it and then hit Save. Put is somewhere where you can find it and name it appropriately like "copyright.xmp"

To Test and Apply - open an image in photoshop. Go to File --File info and then click on advanced. Choose Append.

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I had absolutely no idea when I started this blog early this past spring that my life would take such a 360 turn in such a short time. Since the last post -

1) I wrote and successfully passed the Adobe Photoshop CS certification exam
2) I was accepted into the MFA program at Savannah College of Art and Design with a graduate fellows
3) I'm in school now full time and I'm working full time
4) I'm writing the Adobe Photoshop Certification CS2 exam in January
5) In December I'm taking the CompTia CTT+ exam which makes me a certified technical trainer and I then officially qualify for standing as an Adobe Certified Trainer.

I'm scheduled to write a book review of Bruce Fraser's book on Photoshop CS2 and Scott Kelby's DVD "Power Sessions for Photoshop CS2" by January for O'Reilly books as part of the user group program. Yep, I still run the User Group at work in my, ummm, spare time.

I sort of remember what sleep was. Boy do I miss it.

Anyhow, as I was surfing the web tonight in search of grid systems - I found an amazing
website /

It is a four part series on grid systems and if you design for either print or web it is definately worth taking the time to visit and read this series.

Anyhow, gotta run.

Yes, I wrote and passed the Adobe Photoshop CS Certification exam on September 5. No I won't tell you the questions I was asked. To be honest, I don't really remember them specifically Do you want the honest truth? The test is hard. I'm glad I studied as much as I did. I scored in the 80's. Several sections I scored perfectly on, and in others, I passed barely or outright failed. This was the first certification exam I have written in a test center environment and did not know what to expect.

A test preparation tool is absolutely essential. Just don't take it so often that you memorize the answers. You have to really know the reasoning behind the answers. The questions in the test preparation tool are worded very differently from the test questions in the formal exam. Sometimes they are backwards - for example - one of the exam aid questions had to do with specifically saying what would cause a layer comp to generate an alert triangle. On the test, the question could be saying which item from below would NOT cause an alert triangle. So you have to read the questions carefully.

I used 2 tests - one from Boson and one from ExamAids. The Boson one asked questions that were too "easy/obvious" - the ExamAids was the other extreme. I think by scoring high on both saved my butt. I really kept being thrown on the formal test in terms of how the questions were asked - I felt like they were in "marketing speak". So re-read the questions outloud (quietly) and if needed try to rephrase them in your head to make sure you really understand what they are asking. Don't just quickly pick the most seemingly obvious one - some of them are tricks.

The additional plus with the examaids are that they tell you what areas you are weak in.

Do go to AdobeElementK and invest $40 in online training in Photoshop. It is official Adobe training and I swear that every question I was asked was in one of those videos. Just be prepared to fall asleep while watching them - the woman's voice puts you in a lull everytime. Be able to answer the questions at the end of each video without cheating and clicking on the answer and then thinking "yeah that's right".

Do work through the Adobe Classroom in a book series. Be able to answer the questions at the end of each chapter. It builds on the video stuff you nodded off on.

Do buy a good book like Deke McClelland's One on One - or get your hands on the Total Training Series by Deke. On the day before the test - I kicked back and re-watched the color management sections over and over till I knew the differences between all those color profiles cold. Unlike the Adobe series, Deke is funny and engaging and you won't fall asleep.

The One on One book helped me because at the end of each chapter was another section on terms and meanings and his book is thorough.

Good luck if you go for it. I learned so much about Photoshop that it has become a completely different experience for me everytime I use it now and the sense of accomplishment I received when I hit the "score" button af the end of the test and knew immediately that I passed was amazing and made it all worthwhile.

Yep, I admit I've been really lame in adding entries lately - so consider me off the radar for a bit. I'm still studying for the Adobe Photoshop ACE exam. It's a very strange experience. I'm learning about some of the most obscure stuff I swear I didn't know even existed! My studying tools have become: 1) the actual help that ships with photoshop (which is much less dreary than the classroom in a book). 2) the classroom in a book (which is unbelievably dry) 3) the total training series 4) element K. I also have two practise exams - and they help me identify the areas I'm weak in. It is slow moving because I've discovered an interesting thing - I don't use a lot of the keyboard shortcuts because I'm left handed and the keys are positioned differently on the left and right side of a keyboard. Consequently, I'm striving to memorize these shortcuts asap and in photoshop, dont ya know - there are a lot of them.