I used to think K100 could let me have the solid black. But after I worked with the print shop a couple time, I found that every print shop gave me different “solid black”. Some are even a bit brown.
I talked to the staff in the print shop and he told me if I wanted to get the real real black 100%K is not enough. Instead, I should mix other colors with black ink to produce the “rich black”. The setting would be C:50% / M:40% / Y:40% / K:100%. And he’s right. The artwork came out good!
There are a lot of plugins online so we can use any of them to build the sliding images navigation but jCarousel Lite is a simple one that easily helps you to make it work by just filling your own images and HTML content.
According to the tutorial, you just need to download jQuery and jCarouselLite and then put the HTML code to your file. After replacing the graphics, it’s done. I followed the instructions but it was not working correctly.
Luckily I found another tutorial helping me to correctly install the plugin and style it. It explained everything very clearly. It helped me to finally get it work even though the download link in this blog was not working and the <img> tag was not closed correctly. Comparing to the plugin instruction, it’s not a big deal at all.
And then I had another problem: I couldn’t use the Fancybox plugin with jCarouselLite at the same time! They broke each other. The solution is:
Call the jCarouselLite first and then call fancybox!
Thanks to Michael and Ben!! Very appreciate these people sharing their experiences! 
This is a small project at work. I needed to design a signature block for our company which includes:
1. Company’s logo (as letterhead on top of the email body) with a link to our website
2. Signature with name, address, title , phone#, Facebook and Youtube icon leading to our facebook page and youtube channel
I am not familiar with outlook so I checked online and see what other people do. I tried to create an HTML page and saved it in the stationery folder and then “select” it as a theme but the background image doesn’t show. Then I followed the instruction of creating a signature but couldn’t get the logo on top because the “signature” block is always below the texts. One day I just saw someone posted in a forum and his way is just so simple:
1. Create a new document in Microsoft Word
2. Design your own stationery (so you can put the logo, address, icons to wherever you want)
3. Save the file as “Web Page” then you will get an htm file and a folder with images and codes.
(You can edit it in Word or some HTML editors)
4. Save this htm file with the folder to the “stationery” folder. I am using win 7 so the “stationery” folder is located at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft
5. Go back to Outlook 2007–>Tools and Options–> “Mail format“–>”Stationery and Signature”–>”stationery”–>”Themes”, then you will see the file that you just created. Click OK.
There’s one important thing: ALL the images needed to be uploaded to an external web server. Can’t be located in your internal server. Otherwise, hotmail, gmail and yahoo will not be able to show your graphics.
I feel so terrible that I couldn’t find the original forum with that post and I am so thankful for that person sharing his info that’s why I wanted to share my experience too. Hope it helps some people like me and hope I didn’t miss anything here.
I have an animation video which is 320×240. I was wondering how I should choose the correct preset with high resolution when starting the new project. The original video is very clear I don’t want to downgrade the resolution or having some “shaky frames” when export.
I asked the specialist in Adobe forum. They told me I cannot use or create non-standard frame sizes in Premiere Elements. I was suggested to go back to my animation program, and export the animation as 720 x 480, use an NTSC DV Project with the matching PAR, edit as required, and then Export/Share from PrE to the 320 x 240 Frame Size.
Unfortunately, I was not able to get the setting of the original 3D animation movie from the former designer so I had to try different settings and looked at different forums and FINALLY I got the solution!!!
Here’s what I did:
I clicked on the clip that was shaky and blurry when output, then went to “clip” menu–> “Video Options” –> check “Reverse Field Dominance” and “Flicker Removal”.
(This step helps to prevent the shaky and blury frames)
Then it’s ready to “share”. I chose “Computer” in the “SHARE” menu–>”Windows Media” –>”Advanced”.
In the advanced setting pop up window, I went to the middle and chose “video”. I could set the size back to 320×240. (I checked the option of “scale to the frame size” when I edited the movie.)
After rendering, the movie’s resolution is almost the same high as the original one. I am not sure if it’s the correct way to do so but at least that achieved my goal! 
Now I am working with Adobe Premiere Elements 9 and would like to share with you another option to change the background besides using “keying effect”.
After you import a video:
Pretty simple right?
When a friend of mine shared this link to me, I loved it right away. It’s about how to use the color, the typography and the images.
We all know that the concept of the logo design from scratch is very important. Please follow this link and enjoy how the designers creatively used all these elements to design some outstanding logos.
Here’s the quote:
“There are thousands of logos, some of them are great, some really great and some of those have a “hidden” meaning in them that you might have missed. I’ve ran through lots of logos and chose the best ones with hidden details. Those artists are THE designers for they’ve been so creative and talented to come up with such awesome results.
Take a look at 20 best creative logos I posted here. You will like them! These logos inspire you to think more creatively and to give it all out when you’re making some brand’s “face” following all the rules and breaking them at the same time!”
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