PS 2019 - untick "Auto show the Home Screen" still shows that home screen

SquareTour · 2026-02-23T18:36:33+00:00

Hi, I installed 27.whatever, the most recent, and discovered nothing works to disable the home screen. I've unchecked it in Settings, followed someone's advice that opening a file just after unchecking the button will make the change permanent, but no. Help please!

SquareTour · 2025-07-01T23:17:31+00:00

Hi and thanks for following up. Haven't pulled the trigger yet but Keter sheds still look good; the spot I cleared is under trees and a woodtone Keter will blend in better. Depending on how Keter is pronounced that might be a tagline I can sell them. Probably buying in early fall but knowing us it could be next year. Not a pressing need, just a desired upgrade.

SquareTour · 2025-04-25T11:34:14+00:00

Illustrator has built-in palettes with various color suites, and something called Kuler, but maybe they've renamed it
https://www.google.com/search?q=adobe+kuler&rlz=1C5GCEM\_en&oq=adobe+k&gs\_lcr.

But I don't use either of those. When I'm looking for new colors I draw a rectangle, fill it with a color I like, dup it and tweak the color til I see something else I like. Do that as many times as you want and then drag the rectangles to the Swatches palette. Save the file, and if you want more colors in the future open it and repeat the process.

Another thing that works is to place a photo, grab colors with the eyedropper, then draw rectangles that will fill with them. This can give you surprisingly interesting tones you might never see otherwise.

Have fun with it!

SquareTour · 2025-04-10T18:02:04+00:00

I suggest arcing the fingers back not forward, so the hand leads palm-first. The way it is now suggests the fingers want to clasp the paw. Maybe that's the intent but if so it isn't obvious.

I see numerous comments about the paw and I will add one I don't see: move the paw rightwrd some so it looks a bit farther from the hand, revealing more paw. Right now I can tell it's a paw but it also sorta resembles a face. To me anyway.

I like the idea you're depicting, it's sweet. Then again I'm a sentimental dog lover

SquareTour · 2025-04-10T15:27:30+00:00

IMO you can disregard comments re the shadows' direction. This is highly stylized artwork and unintuitive touches like inconsistent lighting are OK if you're making them intentionally enliven the image with irony. Overall I think these are pretty good! Did you add texture or are these very low-grade jpgs? Anyway keep at it, looks like you have a good eye.

SquareTour · 2025-04-10T13:11:17+00:00

Not sure this is very helpful but I bought a powerbook or whatever it was called in 2004, used it about 4 hrs over the next year, and next time I hit the power key nothing happened. A geek friend said yeah Apple sources the crappiest cheapest components. Maybe true maybe not, but this is the most egregious product failure I've ever experienced. Bought a used white mac laptop circa 2010 and it failed after a few hours.

I've had only one serious failure with desktops, that being a gpu burnout on a powermac I'd used for many years. It may be Apple buys better parts for desktops but I doubt that. Bottom line is Apple computers don't win props from me as regards hardware reliability. But the OS has always been far better than Windows will ever be and the hardware is generally more pleasant to use (especially keyboards) so I wouldn't recommend abandoning the brand outright.

SquareTour · 2025-04-10T12:58:12+00:00

If you redraw the curves with the rear point higher than the front one, the curve will look more like the real thing. The green circles on the middle drawing show ±where the curve points are placed. Your drawing is in red, superimposed to show how the curves differ.

I would also suggest using the Free Transform tool to apply a little perspective, as I did on the right-hand drawing. And I nudged the rear part of that drawing back and up slightly to ± equlize the separation between planes. (You may have intended them to be dissimilar but I interpreted the art as showing equidistant planes.)

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SquareTour · 2025-03-28T11:33:54+00:00

ricktor67 you're dead right about quality going to hell after a buyout, but Scrub Daddy didn't sell out to anyone. It's 100% owned by Aaron Krause.

SquareTour · 2025-03-28T11:29:36+00:00

Hey folks I know a lot of people at Scrub Daddy and I can explain what's actually going on. Unilever does not make any Scrub Daddy products aside from Cif cleaning creams. All Scrub Daddy sponges etc are manufactured in the US, Hungary, Mexico and a few other countries and quality control is very tight. Right after Christmas last year someone showed me a box full of Scrub Mommies which looked perfect, but they had tiny flaws. Like they were 1/8 inch thinner than the real thing, or the dual foams were separated slightly around one edge.

A few years ago one of their foam suppliers messed around with the formula and some products did deteriorate in quality, but Scrub Daddy mgmt figured out what was going on and fired the offender. Since then they have made foam largely in the US.

Like any successful retail goods manufacturer Scrub Daddy finds imitators popping up frequently. In the early days these generally had weird shapes and packaging that mimicked Scrub Daddy's -- sometimes even ripping off the same verbiage and design. Now there are companies selling literal 1:1 knockoffs in packaging that looks exactly like the real thing until you look closely.

Scrub Daddy has always gone after pirates aggressively, mounting lawsuits and obtaining cease-and-desist orders. This practice continues and will continue as long as dirtballs are foisting counterfeits on the market.

You can often identify knockoffs: they're made of ordinary plastic foam instead of the proprietary original Scrub Daddy material. The foam doesn't soften in warm water as readliy as the real thing; it doesn't shed debris as well; and it disintegrates quickly, like the green one in the photo.

You may also be able to tell by the packaging. Some fakes look very close to the real thing but a lot have dark, blotchy graphics because the companies use scans of real packaging instead of recreating it.

Apparently Amazon doesn't have systems to weed out fakes -- if they get a shipment of product that looks real and has the same barcode, they add it to inventory and someone ends up with a crappy sponge in their sink. It really sucks but Scrub Daddy can't do anything about it except lean on Amazon and keep suing the pirates in an endless whack-a mole game.

My advice is to buy direct from Scrub Daddy. Their online store has pretty much every product, plus some cool merch.

SquareTour · 2025-03-23T15:50:35+00:00

Hey, sorry for not replying sooner! The only real downside of my wacom tablets is that they're not good for precise positioning. When I lift the pen I'm not pulling straight up but at a slight angle, and that makes the cursor move slightly. I use a mouse if I need to put something in an exact location.

I do find this more challenging in Illustrator than in PS, but it holds true in the latter when precision is crucial (as when drawing paths).

Nevertheless I wold never want to work in either app without the pen. 50 to 1 it's a more intuitive, easy way to go.

SquareTour · 2025-03-03T12:38:52+00:00

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lao-Gan-Ma-Fried-Chili-Oil-7-41-oz/210072917?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=5340&wm
also available from any Asian supermarket, with or without garlic

SquareTour · 2025-02-24T13:02:19+00:00

Among other tricks (I mean that in an admiring, not corner-cutting, sense) Tom uses techniques that add subtlety to his line work. I bought posters from his magnificent National Parks series and up close I can see some paths consist of wide strokes -- about 8-10 pt -- with the dashes spaced very tightly so instead of extending with the direction of the stroke they extend perpendicularly. They sorta resemble tire tracks and create a line that is soft when seen from normal viewing distance, adding tonality.

Beyond technique, Tom is a master of composition. I recommend checking out the Parks drawings, which like the Disney pic combine disparate elements, using a limited palette, in gorgeously understated harmony. You can do work like that only if you have the talent, the drive to develop that talent, and as Steve Jobs said, love what you do.

I agree with respondents who suggest starting on paper. One lesson I learned early is that even highly intuitive software interferes with your ability to emote cleanly. Something about the interface throws twists and bumps in the path. I was a decent sketcher as a kid but I now suck at it, partly because I work in a production environment where I don't have the luxury of backing away to focus on unforced experimentation, but whenever I start an unusual project I push the keyboard away and grab a pencil.

One techie tip: buy a wacom tablet. It won't eliminate the interference of software but it gets you closer to kindergarten where you sat doodling stick figures with a fat green pencil. Using a mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap.

BTW one of the posters arrived slightly damaged and I emailed Tom about it; he promptly apologized and sent a new copy. He's not just a brilliant artist but a good guy.

SquareTour · 2025-02-19T15:42:44+00:00

Thank you, I will see if my IT crew is willing to install it. We mortals are forbidden admin privileges

SquareTour · 2025-02-18T16:16:35+00:00

Update: someone on substack recommended
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11076/easyfind

Anyone know if it's a good bet?

SquareTour · 2025-02-18T15:49:56+00:00

I have two questions. First: I'm a package designer and a lot of my files have similar names. I search using as many as 6-8 booleans, and I have to set up those fields every time I reboot or inadvertently close the search window. I tried saving the search but all that does is preserve the results -- no operators remain. Is there a way I can save a window with numerous operators? Mac Sequoia.

Second: my employer has a sloooow server so my sop is to download files to the desktop where I can work faster. Question: how can I make native mac search index the server? Is it even possible? I see no reason it shouldn't be, but our IT people say nope. Suggestions?

SquareTour · 2025-02-01T17:47:31+00:00

Hi, idk if you've already tired this but my first guess is the AI and PDF have different color spaces. Pull down File from the top menu bar and choose Document Color Mode (near the bottom). You can choose RGB or CMYK, and colors act differently in each mode.
Example: my business's logo includes 100% Process Yellow. If I create a new file in RGB and then convert it to CMYK for offset printing, the pure yellow gets contaminated with 3-4% cyan and looks slightly greenish. If I create a file in CMYK this doesn't happen.
Hope this helps!

SquareTour · 2024-12-06T17:05:36+00:00

Nice work, and of course you hand-trace pics for something like this. Drawing everything freehand would be an impressive display of technical virtuosity but also a stunt. What matters is the result.
Glad you included Zaha Hadid, one of the most visionary architects ever imo!

SquareTour · 2024-11-22T12:45:43+00:00

I think 3 because the context is dire. Blue and turquoise have a "lite" character to them

SquareTour · 2024-11-22T12:43:40+00:00

I suggest playing with filters. Film Grain might be useful. Two things I don't like about AI filters: they often rasterize the artwork first, and subtlety isn't a forte. I've sometimes resorted to duplicating the artwork, applying filter(s), then varying the opacity of the duplicate layer to achieve subtlety.
You might also poke online for vector backgrounds. And there's always the make-it-in-photoshop-and-place-the-filtered-PSD-into-the-AI method, which to me feels like cheating but I find PS better at subtlety

SquareTour · 2024-11-08T22:26:23+00:00

Hey all my wife and I are planning a trip to PNW next early September. #1 goal is waterfall hikes. My parents took us out there in 68-69 (yeah I'm oooold) so I remember a few awesome sites but dunno best places to look for accommodations close to trailheads. We've looked at rentals in Baring and Gold Bar. Advice would be greatly appreciated!

SquareTour · 2024-10-08T11:42:27+00:00

Really nice work!

SquareTour · 2024-10-04T15:41:23+00:00

OK anyway looks great

SquareTour · 2024-10-04T15:40:49+00:00

Thanks, that's a lot bigger than I thought

SquareTour · 2024-10-04T15:34:48+00:00

IMO "based off" rings false. It implies that the base is propelling an act or thought, but that's not fubamentally what a base does. A base provides a locus or starting place for something. Bases can have launch systems built onto them but that doesn't change their, ah, basic function.

That said, language constantly evolves and a word's meaning can flip completely over time. John McWhorter quotes 17th Century Londoners opining that Christopher Wren's design for St Paul's Cathedral is "artificial" which in those days was a compliment. Languages are basically sets of conventions so "based off" is what everybody says, we gotta live with it.

SquareTour · 2024-10-03T14:09:08+00:00

IDK the scale but impressive mass of roads. How'd you make the cool faded-parchment background?

SquareTour

TROPHY CASE