At last, a class for enthusiastic learners who are ready to dive into the world of Adobe Photoshop. Working on individual Mac computers, you’ll spend a fast-paced weekend exploring the fundamentals of this powerful image editing application. In this class, you will learn how to:

• Fix images by removing what’s not wanted and adding what wasn’t there before
• Apply quick and easy techniques to brighten, sharpen, and improve the color of your images
• Combine images in creative ways, replacing backgrounds and warping and reshaping image elements
• Enhance your images with silhouettes, vignettes, and drop shadows
• Understand color modes, file formats, and resolution

Ready to learn? This class, taught by Mara Sachs, will be held Saturday, September 6 & Sunday, September 7, 10 am-4 pm in Midtown West, NY. Visit the site to learn more and to register.

The top entrant, as chosen from the publicly voted shortlist, will have the Sackboy or Sackgirl included in the nationwide marketing campaign for LittleBigPlanet on the PlayStation 3. Don’t Panic also offering a copy of the game and a PlayStation 3 to sweeten the deal. There are 185 entries with 243 votes tallied. The top 10 designs will qualify to be judged. Go to Don’t Panic (bottom of page) to view the entries and to vote.

Discover the Fine Art Galleries of California

Previewing art galleries online helps visitors select the right galleries to visit

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17, 2008 — The Radiante Guide has announced their new Website and print versions of their guide to the premier art galleries of California.

There are over 4,000 art galleries and private art dealers in California. The Radiante Guide provides residents and visitors to California with information (including pictures of art) on the foremost 250.

The Radiante Guide is published online –
RadianteGuide.com — and also in print versions (Northern and Southern California editions). Organized by cities and counties within California, the guide is useful for California residents as well as visitors to California from all regions of the United States and internationally. The guide is read by those just becoming interested in art as well as knowledgeable collectors, art dealers and artists.

The Radiante Guide provides art gallery/art dealer descriptive information, including: gallery/dealer history, special interests and areas of expertise, artists represented, contact information, addresses, telephone numbers, and more. The online version additionally includes images of gallery artwork, hyperlinked e-mail addresses, hyperlinked Website addresses and interactive maps and directions.

The Radiante Guide spans a wide range of art galleries and art dealers who are remarkable in their interests, expertise and art inventory. You will discover emerging artists just starting their careers as well as mid-career and established artists. You will find Egyptian art from 716 BC, early Asian
art, Albrecht Durer engravings, Rembrandt etchings, 18th century Russian religious icons, Pierre Auguste Renoir prints, Nadar photographs, Eadweard Muybridge and Ansel Adams photographs, early California paintings, Pablo Picasso prints, Marc Chagall prints, Robert Motherwell paintings, leading-edge installation art, and much, much more.

The guide includes galleries and dealers specializing in:
African Art, African American Art, American Art, Art Nouveau, Asian Art, Book and Printing Arts, California Art, California en plein air artists, Chinese Art, Classicism, Contemporary Art, Crafts, Decorative Arts, Early
Civilization Art, Eastern Art, Egyptian Art, European Art, Folk and Outsider Art, French Art, Greek and Roman Art, Impressionism, Indian Art, Japanese Art, Latin American Art, Mayan Art, Middle Eastern Art, Modern Art, Native American Art, Near Eastern Art, Oceanic Art, Persian Art, Postmodern Art, Renaissance Art, Pre-Columbian Art, Religious Art, Romanticism, Russian Art, Surrealism, Tribal Art, Vintage Art, and more.

Examples of media displayed at the galleries includes:
drawings, engravings, woodcuts, wood engravings, linocuts, etchings, mezzotint, aquatint, drypoint, monoprints, monotypes, lithography, screen-prints, serigraphs, digital and Giclee prints, foil imaging, collage, oil paintings, reverse glass paintings, pastels, watercolors, photography, photograms, Le Tirage Au Charbon method photographs, sculpture, masks, paper cutting and paper sculpture, ceramics, glass, textiles, mixed media, livres d’artistes books and portfolios, murals, new media art, computer art, multimedia art, video art, holograms, graffiti and unauthorized signage art, robotic art, interactive art, installation art, and more.

The Web site can be viewed at: www.RadianteGuide.com

Press contact:

Marie Thompson, 815-346-2503

Things are looking rosy around here lately. As of tomorrow (10th), I’ll be without cigs for 3 months. The worst is over! Plus, I’m now going to manage my personal trainer (trying to recoup my costs for her training!). Now I’m thinking I might need a vacation. I know Pinky is ready to take flight.

Heads up: Renovation of The Center for Fine Art Photography’s new facility is almost complete and the target date for opening is Friday, 1 February. The Center’s new home is contiguous with the Poudre River Art Center, home of individual artists’ galleries as well as the F-stop Cafe and an outdoor pavilion all furthering the artistic enjoyment for visitors. Visit the site to learn more, see the new floor plan, and to remember their shows.

Hey! Have a great weekend.

What fun. I was in my blog’s back end when I happened to notice a link to my feed from an outside source. It turns out that some silly dog had subscribed to my feed and then posted it on his blog.

Now, I’m not that concerned about copyright issues, as just about everything I post on this site has been retrieved from Web sites and from press releases with little to no changes (unless they come from third-party sites, in which case I credit those sites). So, copyright - meh.

But, I did punish the dude, simply because he was foolish enough to post a graphic blog on a snowboard site. I simply unsubscribed him at the bottom of his post. Then, I received a note from Feedburner that gave me the dude’s email address. Then I wrote him an email to tell him about his problem.

So, what’s his problem if it’s not about copyright? You figure it out. Have fun. And, have a great weekend while you’re at it.

The Three Stooges above are visiting from Love Like a Dog. Right.

Hey Folks - I apologize for the link, connect, and otherwise widespread confusion on graphic:DESIGN:basics today. I upgraded to WordPress 2.3.2, which is said to fix some security issues. However, that version created more problems on this site than I dare to count. I did fix the redirect from www.graphicdesignbasics.com to graphicdesignbasics.com, and I fixed the backend (wasn’t able to log in, nor could I reach any backend pages). Now I have to figure out how to get my tables back in order. Obviously, the new upgrade messed with my databases, even though they’re backed up from the previous version (which could be the problem).

If you have any solutions, please let me know. I’ve already followed Bob Sutor’s advice and did a table repair, but that seemed to do next to nothing to resolve the issues. Anyone else?

UPDATE: Out of frustration, I decided to go to the “update.php” page (thanks to an insight provided by a WordPress Codex forum thread at http://wordpress.org/support/), where I was informed that my databases had been updated. Instead of listening to that sage advice, I clicked on the “continue” link, and voila! Life is good. So, if you’re having the same problem with your site and you’ve already upgraded, you might try to visit the upgrade page again to make sure that this false message isn’t the problem. Go to http://www.your-site-here.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php, and if you see the message, “No Update Required. Your WordPress database is already up-to-date!”, ignore it. Click “continue” to see if that helps everything fall into place.

See you in 2008!

Party Dog is visiting from some strange place.

It’s difficult to see Booger’s eyes in the image at left, but he appears downright sad. It’s as though his last shred of respect for humanity has disappeared along with the polar ice caps.

But, it is that time of year, and folks will dress up their dogs, cats, and even the local squirrels if they have a chance. Materialism run rampant, I say.

Since Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, I’m going to provide a break from the commercialism inherent in cutthroat contests for a day. I’ll be back the day after Christmas with another batch of wonderful and exciting new design competitions for you to enter.

Be joyful (if possible), be safe (if you can), and stay healthy enough to join me next week. Cheers!

Booger is visiting from Doctors Foster and Smith (If he really were visiting, he wouldn’t be wearing that silly outfit).

I have a pipeline straight to Colorado’s western slope, and I happen to know that the snow bunnies out there are shivering with goosebumps. Why? Because they finally got a good dump of snow! Ski season may be saved after all. Snow Puppy is happy, that’s for sure!

Russell Ossendryver has once again shown his fanaticism for open source with his 3-part compendium about Microsoft’s antics during the OOXML scandal - definitely worth a read!

I’m pleased to add FigDig.com to the list of “accoutrements” in the middle column - this is a great site to post your portfolios and more - go take a look!

Snow Puppy is visiting from Lab Rescue. Have a great weekend!

And I’m ready for summer. No huge news here this week, other than the fact that I’m somewhat intimidated by small women who drive monster trucks and who try to park those trucks front-end-forward in parking lots barely large enough for two small cars.

it wears me out just thinking about it.

Have a great weekend!

PS - This beautiful labradoodle named Bella is visiting from producer Tim Tyler’s site.