Linux for Designers

The Dev team released now the 3rd RC of the desktop publishing software Scribus 1.3.5. All details about the changes over the last RC's can be found at the release post. Scribus 1.3.5 requires the QT 4.4.0 libraries or higher and will be the base of the 1.4.x brunch.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can easily install it by adding the additional sources lists.

Using a grid for your design is one way to keep it smooth and clear. The Smashing Magazine wrote interesting articles about what grid design is and how to use it.
Meanwhile the standard resolution for web pages is 1024x768px and Nathan Smith developed the perfect 960 Grid System. On his website he shows all the beautiness of it and made templates for various programms available. The 960 Grid System is now available for Inkscape too.

After using my CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp in real life by creating the prepress PDF of the german Ubuntu flyer and the chance to get it bundled in the Debian package "gimp-plugin-registry" i updated it again and fixed some bugs:
* added license information about GPLV2
* now compression modi "Zip" and "JPEG 95%" are working
* a creator sign "GIMP CMYK Tiff 2 PDF" in the meta informations of the PDF document will be added

» Read more...

If you like to get detailed informations how to use Scribus for layouts and prepress then you can now preorder The Official Scribus 1.3 Manual at Fleskbook.
A sample chapter can be found at the Scribus website.

I updated my CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp plugin besides minor fixes i added new features like:
* Exporting two images as on PDF
* Start Acrobat or Evince after export
* Delete CMYK TIff images after PDF creation

For myself it sounds like feature complete but i'm interested in your feedback too.

» Read more...

To complete my workflow using Seperate+ that generates CMYK Tiff images inside of Gimp i wrote a small Python plugin for Gimp that allows you to convert the saved CMYK Tiff image into a PDF for prepress.

Read more...

The Smashing Magazine didn't get tired of collecting artwork. This time they collected 50 beautiful movie posters.
My favorites are:
* Walk aline
* The Thing
* The Nightmare Before Christmas
* Unforgiven
* Man With One Red Shoe
* Perfume
* Mean Streets
* Sweeney Todd
As you see it isn't easy to pick just one in such a good selection

With some minor changes Seperate+ 0.5.2 is available:
* enabled dragging ICC profile onto profile selection buttons
* profile selection button : (Mac OS X only)fix crashing when checking primary language
* updated Japanese localization messages
* added Polish (from Zbigniew Małach) and Korean (from Dust) localization messages
If you looking for a Ubuntu Deb package you can download my 0.5.1 binary.

I discovered this funny video on Planet Gnome. If you are a font fanboy this is a "Must have seen" http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

Once i reported about the further development of the Seperate plugin: Seperate+, a nice addon to export Gimp images into the CMYK color space. After my Ubuntu Graphic Workshop i renembered the plugin (many people asked about Gimp & CMYK) and i revisited the site again: Taa-Taa Seperate+ 0.5.1 is available but not longer as a Linux binary .
So i tried to compile it and for the first time i did it successful. Then go step by step of this Deb-Making-List (thanks to Simpsons-Fan) and created a Deb Archive of it:
gimp-seperate+-0.5.1-i386.deb
The plugin can be found at the menu of the image windows: "Image > Seperate".
You can get nice CMYK color profiles by installing the Ubuntu package "icc-profiles" and download color profiles of Adobe (copy them into ~/color/icc).

How its works:
* Open your RGB image in Gimp via "File > Open"
* Start Seperate+ "<Image Window> > Image > Seperate > Seperate"
* Setup the profiles, may as source "Adobe 1998" and as destination profile "Euroscala V2"
* Press OK, an image with 4 layers is created
* Each layer represents a color channel of CMYK
* Now save the image as CMYK Tiff at "<Image Window> > Image > Seperate > Save..."

Update:
Check out my Sepearte+ addon "CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp" to and read the post about color profiles too. The Seperate+ plugin is bundled with Ubuntu 8.10 and higher, just install the package "gimp-plugin-registry".