Keyboard Shortcut to Reset Photo Settings in Adobe Camera Raw

It took me longer than I would’ve like to find this answer, so I’m posting it.

I just downloaded some Free ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) pre-sets/settings from OnOne Software.  If you click through the presets in ACR, you will find that things get “additive” (pre-sets combine), so it’s important to reset your photo before checking out the next pre-set.  Having to select “reset everything” from the pre-set collection, or even selecting “reset camera raw defaults” from the tiny menu (upper right) drop down in the preset pane becomes a major inconvenience.  Obviously a keyboard shortcut would help, but like with so many things, Adobe doesn’t give you a keyboard shortcut hint in the drop down, so you have to figure it out on your own.

With ACR, it’s even more tricky (using a key to toggle button functionality).  The answer is: click your “alt” key on a PC (“option” on a MAC) and the “cancel” button at the bottom right corner of the ACR window will toggle to “reset.”

Important and useful functionality –hidden by Adobe as usual.

EXTRA TIP: You can actually apply ACR presets from Adobe Bridge without even opening ACR… just right click the thumbnail in Bridge, then select “Develop Settings” and you have all your ACR presets (plus some other basic ACR functionality) in the popup menu.  The major bummer I’ve found with this method is that only the pre-sets that will fit on your screen can be selected (there is no ability to scroll to the bottom of the list to use the pre-sets that might be “off the bottom of your screen”).

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Colorado “Roads and Bridges” Fee

I recently received a renewal notice for my trailer in Adams County Colorado.  The trailer cost $300, but my license renewal is $44 (that’s 15% of the value of the entire vehicle –and I have to pay it EVERY year!).

I called the Title and Registration office to see if this was a mistake, and the nice lady told me this is one of the cheapest renewals she’s seen in quite some time. (!!!)

Evidently several years ago the legislators put a tax in place called the Roads and Bridges Fee.  It’s a straight $30 fee for all trailers.

What the what?

I have a very small trailer that I use every once in a while to pick up something from Lowe’s that doesn’t fit in my car.  Most of the time the trailer is folded up (yes FOLDED UP) and stored behind my garage.

I can understand charging someone with a good size trailer for the extra damage/wear/tear that is happening to roads and bridges, but a blanket fee to everyone with any kind of trailer, even people who use their tiny, tiny trailer three or four times a year?  That’s crazy.  There should be weight/size categories for different levels of fees.

I’m all for pulling my weight (check out THAT pun), and I have no problem paying a little extra if I’m using something more than others (like extra wear/tear to the roadways), but this is absolute nonsense.

Vimeo “Hide this video from Vimeo.com” Problems

Sometimes you need to share a video with people without making it available to the entire internet community, and password protection is not the preferred method.  I recently had this issue come up when I needed to post a music video that was being shopped around to various online outlets (blogs, new agencies, etc.), but the client’s PR firm didn’t want the people to have to use a password.

Anonymity is your friend in these situations; a link that is published nowhere is often as “secure”  (at least as inaccessible) as a published link that is password protected.  If people don’t know where to look, they can’t find/see the video.

Vimeo has recently added this functionality to their Pro accounts (YouTube has had it for a long time), but I was having a heck of a time getting it to work.

When I ticked “Hide this video from Vimeo.com” in the privacy settings of my video, the video was marked with a “private” sash/label in my video listings.  When I sent the link to people to view, accessing the page simply returned a message stating:

Permission Denied

Sorry, there is no video here.

Either it was deleted or it never existed in the first place. Such are the mysteries of the Internet.

Very frustrating.  The whole point of an unlisted link is to be able to send it to people so they can access the video.

Turns out Vimeo’s unpublished functionality ONLY works with embed.  So a video that returns the above message when you send the link IS visible to others, but ONLY when embedded.

The work around (to send a link), is simply to place the word “player” at the beginning of the link and to make sure “video” is in the path.  So, “http://Vimeo.com/hiddenlink” can be accessed as “http://player.vimeo.com/video/hiddenlink”

Why Vimeo has it set up this way is beyond me, and they need to fix it so you can share your hidden video with links more easily (without having to figure out this workaround on your own since it is posted NOWHERE on their site).

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Some Motion Logos I Like

It’s time to create a more permanent Teahm Beahm motion logo, so I spent a little time today cruising through the work of others.

I’ve always really dug the Focus Films logo, and though I’m a little embarrassed to say I watch his films, I think Jerry Bruckheimer’s motion logo is one of the best out there.

Village Roadshow

 

Rankin Bass

Stephen J. Cannell

Sit, Ubu, Sit

Production Logo

Motion Logo

Vanity Logo

Splash Logo

Logo Bumper

Production Ident

2014 Colorado Lift Tickets (King Soopers vs. The Web vs. The Mountain)

This post is for reference only (prices will not be current after tomorrow).

I’ve had a HELL of a time finding any specific prices for King Soopers lift tickets, but I just called the service desk (9:30pm) and here is the run down.  Bear in mind, lift ticket prices change all the time (especially depending on time of the season), so these prices are only good for January 9, 2014.  I’m just posting them to give people an idea of how prices might differ from the ticket window on the mountain (most places I couldn’t find any online information regarding what the ticket costs at the window).  These are prices for adult, full-day lift tickets.

• Loveland: $56 ($61 at the ticket window)
• Monarch: $56 ($65 at the ticket window)
• Grandby Ranch: $52
• Cooper: $40
• Copper: $86
• Eldora: $69 ($79 at the ticket window)
• Keystone (night only): $49
• Keystone, A-Basin, Breck: $124
• Keystone and A-Basin: $109

I actually ended up buying my lift tickets for Copper Mountain for tomorrow from Liftopia.  They were $72.  The Copper Mountain web site lists tomorrow’s price as $118 via the web (I assume this is the window price on the mountain, as all the other upcoming days are listed as $72 via the website).  What I learned from this is that Liftopia has the best “night before you go” price for Copper Mountain (better than King Soopers and better than the restort’s website).

Lift tickets have gotten crazy.  I normally buy an Epic Pass, but didn’t this year.  If you go more than five times, the Epic Pass has paid for itself.  In my opinion, Keystone, Vail, Breck, etc. are just too expensive to purchase a day of (or night before) ticket.  I guess that’s good news for places like Monarch and Loveland, which I will be visiting more often (if it snows the night before)!!!

Why Quickbooks Pro 2014 Sucks

There is no question that Quickbooks is an AMAZING tool.  If I had to do everything manually that is offered through Quickbooks, I’d be dead in the water with tracking work, billing clients, doing taxes, etc.

That said, I am constantly ASTOUNDED by the basic functions that are not addressed, or the horrible, horrible hoops one so often has to jump through to get things to work.

Several months ago, Intuit “sunset” my version of Quickbooks (2010).  This is to say, they wanted more money from me, so they cut off some basic services (like being able to e-mail invoices) so I could no longer get by with a product that is only three years old.  I can understand sunsetting products because you can no longer keep up support on ancient software (i.e. Microsoft shouldn’t be expected to still be actively supporting Windows ‘95), but to cut basic functions (that require NO direct support to the customer) is tantamount to gouging the customer.

I got another e-mail from Intuit this week that stated “Oh, by the way, if you want to generate 1099’s and you have anything older than Quickbooks 2013, you’ll be doing that BY HAND because the IRS slightly changed the formatting and we’re not going to make the minor changes in your ONLY THREE-YEAR-OLD PRODUCT that would address the situation.”  Pretty douchey, Intuit.  But since I have many, many 1099’s to generate, I decided to pony up the cash for the newest version (2014).

Be aware: Intuit sends out e-mails stating “we’ll give you a 20% discount on our product!” but the product sells for $20 less than that “20% discount” on Amazon every day.  This is to say, Intuit often tries to sell suckers their product for $249 when they (Intuit) are also selling it for $178 on Amazon.

Anyway, I just set up Quickbooks Pro 2014.  On the upside, everything seems to have transferred over without issue.  Again, this is huge, and serious kudos are in order for Intuit getting this part right.

However, the first thing I wanted to do was invoice a customer.  The new setup required me to associate a new e-mail account with the company file, but they WILL NOT let you use an e-mail address that doesn’t have it’s own outgoing SMTP server.  I realize this could be justified by saying they are trying to minimize spamming, but who in the world would use QUICKBOOKS as their spam vehicle (especially when there are so many other FREE and EASIER ways to do it)?!

Like millions of people, I use Gmail to filter all my e-mail (the spam tools and search tools are just so much easier than maintaining your own e-mail accounts on a web server).  It’s great that Quickbooks has updated their software so that you can use Gmail directly from their software, but you can ONLY use your main Gmail address.  In other words, even though I have an account called “info@mybusiness.com”  that I use from Gmail, I can only use “mymaingmailaddress@gmail.com” to send e-mail from Quickbooks.  The only way to use my business address (info@mybusiness.com) would be to actually set up the address on my web server, and this would require setting up a program to check that address (rather than just having e-mail addressed to that address forwarded to my Gmail account).

ANYWAY, this was not made clear until I was asked to enter my e-mail password when sending an e-mail/invoice to my client.  The send failed.  But here’s the kicker… the e-mail window has ONLY two options “send now” or “cancel.”  Thus, there was NO WAY to save the rather lengthy e-mail I had composed to my client!  What kind of freaking nonsense is THAT?!  You have an e-mail composer that doesn’t have the option to SAVE.  Come on, Intuit.

Intuit also now has the Intuit Payment Network.  I’m not going to go into what I think about Intuit getting into banking, but I do think that it’s INCREDIBLY annoying that they have the e-mail composer defaulted to placing ALL THE INFORMATION about how to use the Intuit Payment Network right SMACK DAB in the middle of your e-mail!!!  Why isn’t this information at the end of the e-mail?  Luckily there are ways to turn it off, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to MOVE the information (I actually would like to let my clients click the link to pay me by credit card, but I don’t wan that message RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FREAKING E-MAIL!).

What Intuit needs to fix with Quickbooks:

• Make it so you can SAVE THE FREAKING E-MAIL YOU JUST WROTE in the compose window (add a “save” button to the “send now” and “cancel” options)
• Make it easier to edit/move the “Intuit Payment Network” default text  (--I get that you want me to use your service, but putting this text in the MIDDLE of my damn client e-mail isn’t going to get me on board!)
• When I search for help, don’t direct me to ASTOUNDINGLY STUPID POSTS FROM IDIOTS in your “Community Help,” especially when those posts contain NO ANSWERS
• Make it so when you view “sent e-mail” from the customer information panel, you can actually READ the e-mail (not just that you sent it)!

What’s the Difference between Preset Bins and Custom Bins in Adobe Premiere Pro?

This question was kind of driving me crazy, as there didn’t seem to be any clear cut answer anywhere on the web.  So here it is…

Custom Bins simply store shortcuts to presets.

Preset Bins actually store the presets.

I mean, they’re both containers for data stored elsewhere, but this is how they function within the Premiere interface: one holds links, the other holds the actual presets.

Thus, Custom Bins allow you to organize presets while leaving them in their original location, which is useful when setting up a bin for commonly used presets.

Preset Bins are great for holding presets that are project specific.  For instance, I’m currently working on a project with some pretty bizarre color balance and level settings.  It’s not likely that I’ll ever use them on another project, so I’ve set up a Preset Bin named with the title of the project.

On the other hand, I use things like Cross Dissolve, Reverb, Brightness/Contrast, Colorista, and Exponential Fade in most of my projects.  Thus, I’ve set up a Custom Bin named “COMMON” with those effects in it.

And now you know.

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