Technology. Journalism. Tea

There are lots of ways to create an image cut-out in InDesign and one way, a very flexible way, is to use the clipping path method. This method uses the image itself to create the cut-out.

Below is a (1) before and (2) after example of an image cut-out:

There are two main ways we can use the clipping path in InDesign:

1. Detect edges
2. Alpha channel

Access the clipping path options by:

• Selecting the image
• Use the menu - Object > Clipping Path > Options

Detect edges

This method works best with images that have a white background and a clear and defined subject, as in the image below.

But these kinds of images are difficult to find or often require manipulation in Photoshop anyway!

Alpha channel

An alpha channel is an invisible layer that is embeded in a Photoshop image. We can use Photoshop in many different ways to manipulate an image and create an alpa channel.

Example of an alpha channel:

You can see in the image above that the alpha channel is simply a mask which defines the background and subject.

In order to create the mask, we need to find ways of selecting either the background or subject: and there are many different methods depending on the image in question.

Method of creating alpha channels:

Selections..

Painting..

Magnetic lasso..

And now, what to do with these in InDesign..

By default, WordPress displays published post in chronological order i.e. most recent at the top. This is fine for blogs, but for news it isn’t what we want. Continue reading “Post ordering in WordPress” »

In order to create custom maps in Google, you need a Google account. If you don’t already have one then sign up for a Google account.

Sign in to Google and go over to http://maps.google.com

You’ll see a link at the top of the left column to My Maps.

• Click My maps, then create new map (or get started if it’s your first time)

Create a custom map

Continue reading “Mapping using Google Maps” »

If you own or  have a site on a WordPress Multiuser site, one of the limitations is that normal authors or editors can’t embed code into a post. You can get around this by installing the Embedit plugin.

You can embed code when you want to include any external data within a web page.  E.g. maps, slideshows and image galleries.

By default, unless you are site administrator, you cannot embed HTML code straight into a post. Don’t worry though, you just need to do it in a special way. Continue reading “Embedding HTML into your WordPress posts” »

I have just recovered from helping to run “convergence” for nearly 80 MA journalism students here at Sheffield University, all producing WordPress web pages with video, audio slide shows and images.

With 90 PCs, not one of them can do a good job when producing multimedia content! It’s silly, but despite the endless Windows 7 (that was my idea, by the way, to have an over-complicated operating system) and PC World adverts for multimedia PCs, I don’t think PCs and MS Windows are made for doing media. Continue reading “The iLife for multimedia journalists” »

Video is popular

There’s no doubt that video on the web is popular. Youtube is quite popular (a bit of an understatement!) and google have for a while had a video tab on their home page. News websites are also providing more and more video, some of it is pretty crap, but nevertheless it adds value to their content.

Setting aside the online broadcasters like iPlayer, Youtube (as a website) and countless documentary sites, I’m interested in looking at the use of video within content. In particular in online news. Continue reading “Video on the web” »

I’m not a web designer. I don’t pretend to be. But more and more I end up doing design as part of my projects, and I hate it!

I’m what some call a front-end developer, and what that means is that I can take a website concept, requirement and design and turn it into a functioning website. This might involve working out the best system (WordPress, Drupal, plain old html) and configuring it to suit needs. Then, taking a Photoshop design and cutting it up into bits, building a html and css frame and fitting the images into it. Continue reading “Design woes” »

I’m involved in teaching MA web journalism students how to make websites. The aim of the initial module is for the students to build a simple website of five or six pages using simple html, pictures, audio and video. In the second semester they build a bigger group website, then go on to do a web portfolio site.

In the past I’ve  taught the students  Dreamweaver with a bit of photoshop. This was ok in the days when layout tables were acceptable, but trying to teach css layout using Dreamweaver (in layout view!) is near impossible. It’s fiddly, annoying and certainly not WYSIWYG! And in the last year I made a real effort to emphasise code view and how important it really is. I was suprised at how many students actually got it!

So now my new approach is this: Ditch Dreamweaver and write some code! Continue reading “Approaches to teaching web building” »

A few days ago (December 8th, 2009), my good wife and myself attended the Derby Social Media Cafe at Deda in Derby. This event focused on hyperlocal websites and we had a talk from Will Perrin from http://talkaboutlocal.org and Philip John of The Lichfield Blog. Continue reading “Hype, hyperlocal” »