Denver InDesign User Group Home Meeting Summary Archive

Meeting Summary

Denver InDesign User Group: InDesign CS4 Unveiled
Tue, Oct 7th, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Front Range Community College: Westminster Campus
Event Details

A. Meeting Business
Don't forget about the Denver ID User Group Web site www.idugdenver.net for announcements, job searches, a community forum, and more. This is where you can get the most up-to-date information about anything going on in our group.

Our auction to raise money for Scott Citron was a success! We raised almost $500 from our group. We worked with the NY ID User Group on their online auction and they raised over $6000! Thank you to everyone who participated in this special auction.

Money raised in our auctions helps pay for the venue, food, and any special guests. Items in the next auction will be available for preview at our new auction site: auction.idugdenver.net. Get $5 in Auction Bucks for every friend you bring to the meeting.

We need to work to get the word out about our meetings. If you would like to help form a marketing committee to promote our User Group, please contact Erica Gamet.

Don't forget, we meet after the meeting at The Exchange Tavern to keep the discussion going. The Irish pub is equipped with Wi-Fi throughout and it's a great way to get to know other members and relax!

Have a meeting topic that you are dying to know about or would you like to do a presentation? Please send an e-mail to: admin@idugdenver.net.

B. Presentations:
1. New Features of InDesign CS4!
Presenter Information: Lisa Niday (Adobe Systems)
Lisa Niday is an Adobe Systems representative. She is the Adobe host for the western half of the U.S. for the InDesign User Groups. Lisa lives right here in Denver!

Presentation Summary:
If you didn't get a chance to see the CS4 preview on www.adobe.com September 23, here's a snapshot of what you missed.

Adobe Bridge CS4
Some of the highlights of Bridge include:

-"Bread crumbs" on your top toolbar so you can quickly see where your files are located.

-If you are working on a Mac, you can work in the new application framework, which works the way Windows users are already familiar with.

-The workspace has moved to the top and it is consistent with the other applications.

-Task-based workspaces. Quickly access task-based workspaces at the top of the Bridge CS4 window to move efficiently among common tasks, such as previewing assets, looking at images in a light table, assigning metadata, preparing output, and more.

-Set up smart collections. You can set criteria and it searches and groups whatever photos that fits into your criteria.

-You can output photos as an HTML or Flash Web gallery or contact sheets directly through Bridge.

-In Camera Raw in Bridge you can now nondestructively dodge and burn your photos, sharpen, and more.

-You can preview your 3D images.

-There are many more features in Bridge that can make your user experience more intuitive.

Adobe InDesign CS4
Some of the highlights of InDesign include:

-There are now tab windows like a browser that can help you jump between multiple documents.

-New spring-loaded panel.

-Prioritize your color swatches—not static any more.

-Live preflight. You can now see automatically if there are any potential errors on your page, check your color space, image resolution, and more without having to go to the preflight option under the File menu.

-Links panel. You can customizing the Links panel to view image thumbnails, scale, resolution, metadata, and more.

-You can now export your file into Adobe Flash and keep your file's layout integrity.

-Tables. You can edit the text in tables in story editor and tell which rows the text is in.

-Smart Guides and proportional place. You can quickly align, space, and rotate images based on other images in the document. The smart guides will give the user a visual placement cues.

-Spread rotation. No more turning your head sideways to view type at angles.

-Smart text. InDesign will now add text frames on-the-fly as needed.

-Interactivity. There is a library of buttons with actions (states) already attached. The ability to export your files as SWF or SFL files (Flash CS4 will maintain the appearance of your document). Can set up page transitions in your document that can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat and Flash.

-Cross-referencing. Dynamically updating content if it is moved or changed within a document.

InDesign has a lot of really great new features that will help with productivity and interactivity!

Highlights of other Creative Suite 4 applications:

-Illustrator now features multiple pasteboards. The multiple pasteboards can be printed together (like a contact sheet) or separately (like pages).

-Photoshop now has Content Aware Scaling, which recomposes an image as it's resized...this is amazing!

-Smooth panning and zooming around your image keeps the image clear and features distortion free rotating of images.

These are just a few of the new features and much more has been added. Check out www.adobe.com to find out more about the features of the new Creative Suite of products.

Thank you

Dan Mulligan, Yellow Dog Printing, for the awesome banner
Erika Barnard for taking the meeting and auction notes
Julie Geary for being the greeter at each meeting
Robert MacLeay for taking the great photos
Lisa Niday, Adobe, our guest speaker
All of our members for making our little InDesign community great and for helping us raise $300 this meeting!

Upcoming Industry Events

Adobe MAX: Explore the future of design and development!
November 16-19, 2008, San Francisco, California, USA

MAX is Adobe's annual event for forward-thinking designers, developers, and decision-makers. Join thousands of other Adobe users and experts for three unforgettable days of education, inspiration, and community.

New this year is a dedicated Design track. If you plan to design websites, create rich interactive content, or use print and web together more effectively, join us to expand your skills and be inspired.

To register now for Adobe MAX or get more information, go to www.adobe.com/max.

Comments from attendees

"Everyone is friendly and open to sharing ideas - it's a great forum. Love the auction!"

"This was my first meeting and I am very pleased that I came. The presenter was extremely knowledgeable and very tuned in to what the audience was looking for."

"Great as usual. I always learn something useful."

"Presenters were enthusiastic and informative."

Next Meeting

The next meeting is set for Tuesday, December 2nd. Networking starts at 6 and the meeting starts at 6:30. It will be our holiday/meeting combo. Stay tuned in for the latest meeting information. If anyone has meeting feedback, questions, or just wants to pass along some useful information that might benefit the group, go to our chapter's website at: www.idugdenver.net/forum and post away!

Photos From This Meeting
Photos are available from this user group meeting.
See the photos