21 Tools Every Shop Should Have (ok…22)...Cracker Jacks Facts •1872 It all began –Caramel...
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21 Tools Every Shop Should Have (ok…22) Cracker Jacks for the Sign Shop Copyright 2017 Givemehelp, Inc. & Mark A. Rugen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a presentation of 21 tools that have made my own design and production life better, easier and more fun. I hope you will take advantage of these great tools I have collected over the last 30 years. Many are free to download and use, some have a small fee, so be sure to hunt for the best price online, but all of them have saved hours of time in design and production of images for print. 1
Transcript of 21 Tools Every Shop Should Have (ok…22)...Cracker Jacks Facts •1872 It all began –Caramel...
21 Tools Every Shop
Should Have(ok…22)
Cracker Jacks for the Sign Shop
Copyright 2017 Givemehelp, Inc. & Mark A. Rugen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a presentation of 21 tools that have made my own design and production life better, easier and more fun. I hope you will take advantage of these great tools I have collected over the last 30 years.
Many are free to download and use, some have a small fee, so be sure to hunt for the best price online, but all of them have saved hours of time in design and production of images for print.
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Remember Cracker Jacks?
Remember Cracker Jacks? Not only was the popcorn and peanuts good, but everyone wanted to find the prize. Well, this presentation is the popcorn and peanuts and the prize will be better production in your shop! So enjoy!
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In case someone here does not remember Cracker Jacks, here’s a reminder…..
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Cracker Jacks Facts
• 1872 It all began – Caramel covered popcorn invented.
• 1912 Prizes added to the box. Cracker Jack baseball card worth tons.
• 1918 Mascots Sailor Jack and Bingo introduced.
• 1941-1945 Supplied field rations for the Allies during World War II
• 1964 Columbus, Ohio-based Borden, Inc. purchases the Cracker Jack Company.
• 1997 Frito Lay purchases Cracker Jack brand from Borden.
• 2016 Prizes replaced with QR Codes for video games.
Think about this brief overview of the company behind the product. They still exist. They have made some good moves and some not so good, but they keep on going, now over 140 years old. They are not afraid to try something new while keeping the basic product solid.
Isn’t that so much like our own businesses. We have to keep moving forward, trying things that work and things that don’t while maintaining a good product and service.
I will be shwing numerous ways to solve some issues we face daily in dealing with customer artwork and other issues in our shop. The question is, will you be willing to try something new?
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What if you could…..
• Print better images even if you start from crap?
• Convert low resolution images into crisp, vector artwork?
• Remove complex background with ease?
• Make small, low resolution images printable even at larger sizes?
• Remove, objects in a complex image?
• Identify find fonts from a photo in seconds?
What if….
Let’s add some cracker jacks to your business!
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Adobe Plugins
• SmartCurves
• C3C Color Wizard
Use these two plugins with Photoshop or FlexiSIGN a commercial sign and print software to adjust and enhance images for maximum impact! They can change the way you deal with images and design. Let me show you some examples.
1. SmartCurves – makes it easier to adjust poor color in images to bring them to a more natural gray point or even to add to shadows, highlights etc. All of this could be done in Adobe Photoshop perhaps, but adding this plugin allows for more precise adjustments and it can be used in any plugin aware system.
2. C#C Color Wizard – will allow you to add enhancements to an image. Anything from enhancing a single color channel to desaturation, adding vividness and much more. It almost has too many options!
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PhotoZoom Pro 7
If you need to enlarge a photo, then PhotoZoom Pro 7 is the way to go. Fastest and best quality when enlarging bitmaps. This program can be used as an online choice or downloaded as a desktop application. It is great with low resolution images as well as those full color photos. Tools included with the program allow for slight editing, but many times that is not needed. Take a low-resolution image and then enlarge it hundreds of time if needed to a good quality result.
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Find My Font
Search your hard drive AND the internet to find just about any font using just a bitmap or photo. This program is the fastest method for finding fonts as well as identifying where to get them.
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VectorMagic
https://vectormagic.com/?atk=QrKo8P6Rv2
Need to trace a really low-resolution bitmap accurately? Save time with VectorMagic. This is by far the best and fastest way to go from bitmap format to vector format.
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Stardock Fences
Organize your desktop and use multiple desktops if needed. Really speeds up finding things and organizing and keeping you organized.
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RocketDock
https://rocketdock.en.softonic.com/download
A MAC like quick access to apps. For the most used apps, this is great and can save time trying to start a program. https://rocketdock.en.softonic.com/download
Give your desktop a Mac-like feel with RocketDock, an animated quick-launch bar.RocketDock allows you quick, convenient access to your favorite programs and most commonly used folders. Setting it up is quick and easy and results in a really impressivenavigation bar that you can position anywhere on the screen and customize as much as you like. There are 13 RocketDock skins to begin with and you can even create you own if you are feeling creative.Adding shortcuts is a breeze. Either choose “Add” from the context menu and browse for a file or, more simply, drag and drop files directly onto the bar. If you want you can change any of the RocketDock icons, rearrange them by dragging or adjust the animation speed to your liking.RocketDock a pretty slick addition to your desktop, so if you're looking to spruce up your desktop a bit while keeping your favorites close at hand, RocketDock is definitely worth a try.Bring a Mac feel to your desktop with quick launch bar RocketDock.
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ClearClipBoard• Save Crashing
• http://clipdiary.com/clear-clipboard/
A tiny little utility that will save the hassles of RAM crashing When you copy and paste the copied file remains in the RAM memory. This lowers the amount of RAM that can be used for other purposes and if you need that for RIPping and printing, it an cause issues. This program has just one purpose and that is to clear the clipboard and release that RAM.
lear Clipboard instantly deletes the clipboard contents. You might want to run Clear Clipboard to make sure that the clipboard is empty.Clear Clipboard is freeware - no need to pay for such a simple application!
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Color Palette Inspirations
https://blog.snappa.com/color-palette-inspiration/
13 sources for creating some cool color palettes and then use them in Adobe, Flexi or anyprogram where you need them. This isprobabaly the easiest way to define harmoniouscolors and then create custom pallets.
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FilterForge
FilterForge
Make some creative textures. This system allows the user to not only make custom textures and effects, but they can draw from the over 400,0000 effects and textures gallery as well as contribute to it. It is a stand alone as well as a plugin for Photoshop and other photoshop plugin compatible programs.
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Picosmos Tools
http://www.picosmos.net/
Can you say cool! Remove complex backgrounds or remove individual parts of an image, add effects, screen capture, shall I go on? This is the swiss knife of graphic adjustments software, and the best part is that it is free to use.
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InPaint
• Inpaint will magically fill the selected area with intelligently-generated textures pulled from the surrounding image data.
https://www.theinpaint.com/
Inpaint will magically fill the selected area with intelligently-generated textures pulled from the surrounding image data. Go to our Tutorials page and see for yourself how easy it is for anyone to do with just a few simple steps. Download our Try-Before-You-Buy demo and use it on your own photos!
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Photoscissors
• PhotoScissors saves the day when you quickly need to cut out a person or an object to paste it to another picture, or to remove background from a photo. You don't need any specific skills or professional software for a perfect image clip: few mouse strokes produce an accurate clipping path that can be further enhanced with fine brushes.
https://www.photoscissors.com/
PhotoScissors saves the day when you quickly need to cut out a person or an object to paste it to another picture, or to remove background from a photo. You don't need any specific skills or professional software for a perfect image clip: few mouse strokes produce an accurate clipping path that can be further enhanced with fine brushes.
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Mockup Generator
• PlaceIt – Placeit.com
• Mockup – Printful.com
• SmartMockup
Mockup Generators allow you to see a marketing image of the final product you intend to produce. While they are designed to also allow you to place an order and let other companies generate the product, they are great for producing a marketing pieces and then using your own machines to produce the product.
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Royalty Free Images
• Pexels.com
• Pixabay.com
• Publicdomainpictures.net
Three great ways to get completely free to use as you choose images. It’s important to respect copy rights, but these sites have thousands of images that you can draw from and use completely royalty free.
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www.signelements.com
Trust me, this is THE resource for art, vector, templates a much more!
www.signelements.com
Come on…seriously? This is the resource of resources! Signelements.com is probably ultimate resource for anything from fonts, to images, to vehicle templates. They are so popular that the FlexiSIGN folks even get 5 elements for month.
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www.signelements.com
Trust me, this is THE resource for art, vector, templates a much more!
www.signelements.com
Come on…seriously? This is the resource of resources!
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www.signelements.com
Trust me, this is THE resource for art, vector, templates a much more!
www.signelements.com
Come on…seriously? This is the resource of resources!
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File Conversion with XnView
http://www.xnview.com/en/
We all get those files that just wont open or need to be in some format to use in a program, this one will get it done. Plus great way just to see your images. Really fast!
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Q-Dir
https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir
Q-Dir is an alternative to the Windows File Explorer. It instantly can open 4 separate file management windows, but also has numerous options and features to make managing files faster.
What explorer should have been, plus all kinds of other tools. We move lots of files from one place to another and this program does that as well as much more.
Why alternative file manager!
Q-Dir is a great alternative file manager for Windows with an amazing Quadro-View technique.
You don't have to give up your usual work habits, Drag'n Drops, view types, and other standard functions of your current file manager.
No! Q-Dir gives you extra useful functions to make you happy. Save time by reducing mouse-clicks and hand movements . Q-Dir does not have to be installed and can be executed easily from any location, such as the Desktop, and can be carried on a small USB-stick or other memory device.
Q-Dir's file management is based on MS Windows Explorer, but 4x plus Explorer Tab Views and with more functionality! More and more data makes for a larger file management challenge on you Windows OS.
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Q-Dir allows you to save folder combinations as a favourite to open any time. Up to 64 folder combinations can be saved in a favorite, since each of the four windows is equipped with tabs (ie 4 x 16 tabs 4 x Tree View plus 4 x Address Bar), different colors for different file types ...
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FotoSketcher“Turn your photos into art with FotoSketcher – 100% freeware”
https://fotosketcher.com/
FotoSketcher is a 100% free program for Windows (there is also an experimental version for MacOS) which converts your digital photos into art automatically and in just a few mouse clicks. Over 20 different styles are available from pencil sketches to watercolor or oil paintings, pen & ink drawings, abstract art and cartoons. From photo to painting (landscapes, architecture, portraits, etc.) in seconds!
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Viewer – The Alternative to TeamViewer
Free ability to access shop computer from anywhere.
https://www.remoteutilities.com/buy/free.php
Remote Utilities® is highly configurable and secure remote desktop software for IT professionals. You can view screens remotely, send keystrokes, control the mouse pointer, transfer files and do any other operation just as if you were physically sitting in front of the remote PC.
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WinDirStatA quick way to find large files and move or clean up a hard drive to save space.
https://windirstat.net/
The treemap represents each file as a colored rectangle, the area of which is proportional to the file's size. The rectangles are arranged in such a way, that directories again make up rectangles, which contain all their files and subdirectories. So their area is proportional to the size of the subtrees. The color of a rectangle indicates the type of the file, as shown in the extension list. The cushion shading additionally brings out the directory structure.
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