Skip navigation.

Log in | Sign up

Linux for Designers

a blog by Eckhard M. Jäger

Posts tagged with "print"

Getting famous with GIMP :)

, , , ...

Ok, i'm getting not really famous but as i read my CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp script is now in Debian SID and Ubuntu Karmic. That means many, many, many people can enjoy my work :smile:
BTW : You can enjoy that and a lot of other stuff now too, just download the liblqr-1-0_0.4.1-1_i386.deb and the gimp-plugin-registry_2.1-1_i386.deb package and install them. This will update the packages of Jaunty.

Scribus 1.3.5 Release Candidate 3

, , , ...

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.

Scribus 1.3.5 Release Candidate 2

, , , ...

The Dev team released the 2nd RC of the desktop publishing software Scribus 1.3.5. All details about the changes over RC 1 can be found at the release post. Scribus now requires the QT 4.4.0 libraries or higher.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can easily install it by adding the additional sources lists.

Grid Design

, , , ...

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.

Adobe Reader 9.1 now for Linux

, , , ...

After the last security updates 8.1.3 and 8.1.4 now the new Adobe Reader 9.1 is available for Linux too. Like ever it isn't the fast PDF viewer for daily usage (like Envince) but it is the best PDF viewer for prepress.

CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp update

, , , ...

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...

New Ubuntu DE flyer

, , , ...

Last year at the Ubucon'08 i'm getting involved designing a new flyer for Ubuntu Germany. After Julius Bloch poked us again and again, end of last year Thomas Keup and me was thinking about the message. Based on the workshop of the Ubucon'08 and our brainstorming Thomas created a really cool text for it. And so it was now on me creating a really cool design that fits to this superb text.

...and i did well »

All work is based on Inkscape, Gimp, Seperate+, Dejavu Sans & Ubuntu font, Moonshiner and CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp.

Thanks to all the people give us feedback and hunting for typo bugs.

UPDATE:
Here is the web optimized PDF of it.

Scribus Manual available for Preorder

, , , ...

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.

Color Profiles

, , , ...

Color profiles are usefull for prepress, image and video editing. Besides the package "icc-proflies" (contains ECI-RGB.V1.0.icc, ISOcoated.icc, ISOuncoated.icc, ISOuncoatedyellowish.icc, ISOwebcoated.icc, LStar-RGB.icc, PhotoGamutRGB_avg6c.icc, Fogra27L.icm, sRGB.icm) that ships with Ubuntu there are other free and professional color profile available:

Adobe
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/iccprofiles/win/AdobeICCProfiles_end-user.zip
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/iccprofiles/win/AdobeICCProfilesCS4Win_end-user.zip

ECI European Color Initiative
http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=en:downloads

ICC profiles are a standard of color management. All of them are platform independent and can be used with Gimp, Scribus, Inkscape and F-Spot & Co. To make the profiles available system wide (including Windows applications running on Wine) copy the downloadad profiles to
~/.color/icc

Myself prefer the Euroscale V2 profile for print and the Adobe 1998 profile for image editing.

CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp final

, , , ...

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...

Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 update

, , , ...

Envince and a lot of other PDF viewers are great for the daily usage. But working with PDF documents for prepress the best at all is always the Adobe PDF Reader. Due some security issues Adobe updated it now to version 8.1.3.
The Adobe Reader is available in various languages as a Deb and RPM archive too, so its easy for you to install it. You can get it via the Medibuntu Repository too.

CMYK Tiff 2 PDF for Gimp

, , , ...

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...

Beautiful Examples of Moleskine Art

, , , ...

For those that loving funny sketches and art: Beautiful Examples of Moleskine Art. Another goody of the Smashing Magazine.

50 Beautiful Movie Posters

, , , ...

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 :smile:

Gimp plugin Seperate+ 0.5.3

, , , ...

Seperate+ for Gimp, a plugin that sepeartes color channels to layers and allows you to attach color profiles, is now available as version 0.5.3. This release adds a lot of interesting color device features:

* profile selection button : shows profile class icon
  - Digital camera : input device class
  - LCD monitor : display device class
  - Desktop printer : output device class(RGB)
  - Color LBP/copier : output device class(CMYK)
* profile selection button : minor fixes
It seems i have to update my Ubuntu Deb package of 0.5.1 soon :wink: Check out the new screenshot gallery at the bottom of the Seperate+ page too!

Gimp plugin Seperate+ 0.5.2 available

, , , ...

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.

Stuff for Scribus

, , , ...

Font Conference: When Fonts were People

, , , ...

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

Scribus 1.3.5 SVN builds

, , , ...

Gimp & Seperate+ = CMYK

, , , ...

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 :smile: but not longer as a Linux binary :frown:.
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 :smile:
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".