Kim Cavanaugh

It is not so much what is behind the mask that matters - just as Yeats so famously describes - as is what is revealed. This is certainly true of graphical masking techniques in general, and particularly in the case of Fireworks masks where you have so many options for hiding and revealing your creations to the world. A mask is simply a graphical object that is placed on top of another image and given instructions on how it should interact with its partner. Masks are always a pair of objects - the masking object and the object that is being masked. The beauty of masks is that they allow you to change a design or image without ever changing the image below the mask. You decide how much to reveal or hide based on your choice of masking object and the way you apply it. Fireworks allows you to create masks with either a bitmap image or with a vector object that you've ... (more)

Adding Flash Video to PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint has been capable of accepting and playing back videos for quite some time, at least as far back as Office 97. In most cases the process is quite simple. Go to the Insert menu, click on Insert Movies, and away you go. At least in theory. The reality of the situation is that your success with video in PowerPoint may vary wildly. Sometimes things will play back absolutely perfectly, especially if you use the same computer with the same operating system to create and encode the video, create the PowerPoint file, and play back the slide show. When a single machine is used,... (more)

Uncovering Fireworks Masks: Masking with Bitmaps

In last month's article I led off with the same quotation from Yeats. At the risk of seeming culturally challenged, I'll lead off with it again for the second treatment of how masks function in Fireworks, simply because it is so apt. A mask in a graphical editor like Fireworks (or Flash, among others) has the same function that Yeats describes ­ to control how much we can see of the object behind the mask. The interplay between the mask and the mask wearer is what makes our hearts beat. And of course, when we're dealing with art in any form we do want to get the hearts of our vi... (more)

Reflections on the State of Almost Everything

I've had a few days now to recover from and reflect on my experiences at this year's TODCon (a.k.a. "The Other Dreamweaver Conference"), held this year in Orlando. I'll talk about the personal and fun side of TODCon near the end of this article, but for now I'd like to run through those things I learned while attending sessions, hanging out in the hallways with some of the smart people in attendance, and in late night conversations at dinner and the hotel pool bar. All of those add to the experience of TODCon, and you can learn a lot by simply keeping your ears open and making y... (more)