Screen grab of Apple MacOS application Pages, which is an easy to use wordprocessor and layout tool

I’m using Apple’s Pages for some simple layout work. I became quite frustrated with it while exporting the “Quick Guide to Content Outsourcing.” The doc looked great in Pages, but looked like $#@* when exported to pdf. The text, graphics, and colored backgrounds, looked nowhere near as good as they did prior to export.

I searched for a solution, but I didn’t find an answer. So, I started experimenting on my own, and I came up with this little trick.

When your doc is ready to export, don’t use the export to pdf command. Instead, under the File menu click Print. In the print dialog box, click the PDF button in the lower left. Now select “Save as Post Script…”

Open the Post Script file in Apple’s Preview. Under the File menu click “Save As”. In the save dialog box, name the document and select PDF as the format.

The resulting pdf should look much closer to what it looked like in Pages. You might notice a slight color shift, but nothing compared to the color changes you’d get if exporting to pdf directly from Pages. Just as importantly, your type and graphics will be much cleaner.

Hope that helps some folks.

Photograph of Philip Bloom leading his DSLR workshop at Rule Camera taken from my front row seat.

There is no doubting that Philip Bloom has made himself a force in the DSLR world. Phil bills himself as a Director of Photograhpy, and his certainly is that, but he is also a leading advocate of the DSLR revolution currently changing the world of film making.

I first saw Phil’s work when searching for video that replicated the shallow depth of field look that we were using to photograph events. My editor found this movie, Piccadilly Furs, that Phil made using a 35mm lens adapter on a Sony video camera. We were blown away, and we’ve been fans of Phil ever since. So when Phil’s traveling workshop, Harnessing the Power of Your DSLR, came to Rule Camera, I made sure that I was in attendance. I’m glad that I did.

Piccadilly Furs was made right before the new HD video capable DSLRs hit the market. We knew that we wanted to recreate this look, but we were not fired up about having to invest in the clunky, finicky, expensive lens adapters, which made that look possible. Fortunately, at about the same time we were pricing adapter gear, Canon announced the first HD video DSLR camera. Great news for me, devastating new for folks selling lens adapters. Anyway, I bought one of the first Canon DSLR’s to come off the production line, and began making “digital films” with it the next day.

Phil was also an early adopter of the new cameras and new way of film making. He did a masterful job of positioning himself as the leading expert in the field through his very successful blog and training programs. Much of Phil’s success has to be due to his infectious creativity and enthusiasm for film making. Maybe it’s the English accent, but he shares his vast technical ability in a fun and reassuring manner. He delivers real value that makes  you want to follow him. Read the rest of this entry »

Screen grab of Pixelwiremedia's ustream channel during a live iPhone 3Gs broadcast. Notice the screen grab dialog box being captured by the iPhone camera during the broadcast.

We’re setting up a uStream channel to broadcast our how-to-series, “Practicing What We Preach”. Of course we had to do a little branding on the channel page’s background. Look for the series to begin in a week or so. Until then, the 1st Live Broadcast video is available to watch on the channel. It’s a minute or so. Just a little piece of history. -Jack

Thank you to the great bunch of folks who attended the HDSLR class at Calumet Photo Boston today. Calumet has made a real committment to training, and I was honored to be a part of it.

We did some filming of the class with our own hdslr’s, and I will post up an edit asap. If you attended the class, and are looking for more info, please send me an email. jack@pixelwiremedia.com

I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again! -Jack

Calumet's online registration page for Intro to HDSLR for filmmaking

I have had a long and successful relationship with the good folks at Calumet Photographic. I’ve been a regular customer ever since I bought my first professional digital SLRs there in 2003. I still have those cameras, but I don’t use them for work anymore. The picture quality isn’t even close to acceptable by today’s standard. Things change quickly in the digi camera world.

In case you haven’t heard, Canon’s added video capture to their DSLRs making them HDSLRs. The H stands for Hi-Def. I was an early adopter of Canon’s HDSLR technology. In fact, Pixelwiremedia has been using HDSLRs for client work ever since the first Canon HDSLR, the EOS 5D Mark II, hit the market in late 2008. Why are we so sold on HDSLR’s? Because, the pictures they produce are nothing short of phenomenal. The affordability and light weight doesn’t hurt either. Read the rest of this entry »