Author: Arianna Valentini

Built Olympus Tough. Review of the Olympus Stylus Tough.

| Arianna Valentini

For a photographer one of the biggest challenges is picking a point and shoot camera. Believe me when I say you are spoiled by interchangeable lenses and a 5,000-dollar body. However, that being said I am a big believer in that it is the photographers eye and not the camera that makes a great picture. So when it came time to pick a new point and shoot, I think there couldn’t have been a harder decision for me! What did I settle on? The Olympus Stylus Tough…let me just say it lives up to its name!

 

Exposure Modes

Night Mode
Sand Mode

The one important thing when going from a DSLR to a point in shoot is that sudden feeling you have lack of control of your exposure and the type of lens you use. The Tough makes up for this by

giving the user multiple scene modes, lens simulation modes (think pin hole, fish eye), a fully automatic mode and finally a P mode, which allows for control of all the fine details of a shot.

So how did these handle? Well on the beach for my vacation, I used the Sand/Snow mode, which actually gave me a great tonal range – sand looks sandy and the clouds actually have detail. I was impressed with the way the camera handles high dynamic range. However, at a concert in Ithaca with a lower dynamic range it still handled like a typical point and shoot no matter the mode. Everything was slightly blurry – so you really need a tripod to capture anything with low light levels (yes I realize you would need a tripod on the DSLR too but what could have easily been a ISO or f-stop adjustment setting the camera stumbled). P mode was also good and where the night mode failed, the P mode did take up some slack.

 

Noise

So having in the past a Nikon Coolpix (never buy this camera if you want pictures that don’t look like an early vector rendering), one main selling factor to me was the noise levels on the camera.

Noise Levels

The Tough handled the noise levels like a champ, I did end up correcting a bit of noise in the night scenes but that is to be expected for a small camera sensor. In the high key scenes noise and chromatic aberration was virtually non existent, which was nice since most of the time I am using the camera for day pictures of random things.

 

 

Video

Before buying this camera, I asked around about video quality from different people. Overall, everyone told me the Tough would be a good camera for random HD video needs. When I was at the concert in Ithaca a girl asked me to video tape her playing with the band but her camera died. Thankfully, I had the Tough to step in and after looking at the video on my computer was surprised at the dynamic range captured and sharpness of the video. It does better capturing dynamic range in low light settings with video over the picture; one caveat is that kills the battery life.

 

Color Balance

The color balance of the camera really depends on the scene mode you are in. Some have great color balance like the settings for Snow/Sand and other such as the night scene…not so much. Overall the camera leans towards a red/yellow shift the most but it is very slight.

Similar Shot - Auto WB
Shot Color Balanced in Photoshop

HCI

So how is the maneuverability of the camera? Not so great, I’m not sure what it is about Olympus but they love to make their buttons small and tight. I find myself hitting record instead of review or needing to bring the camera right on top of my face to see the buttons I am hitting. I really have trouble with remembering what to hit when and don’t feel like you go intuitively to where the buttons are placed on the camera. The user shouldn’t have to feel like the need to remember were to go they should just be able to go.

Other Cool Things

So, you may be wondering why is it called the Olympus Tough? Because it can go under water AND be dropped from a distance of 5 feet!!! I haven’t tried the underwater feature (I’m scared haha) but I did drop it on the beach, at the concert and in a street so yes it does live up to its name

 

Small buttons aside – this camera is awesome and lives up to its name. Wait…oops! I just dropped it into water! And would you look at that! It is just fine.

Why freebies are a good thing.

| Arianna Valentini

Everyone loves free stuff. Some though have more of an enthusiasm for it than others, take for example my friend Laura. Laura is a printer’s dream. She not only loves the medium but also appreciates a good freebie. Recently, I had a chance to travel with her to Ithaca, NY and got to see this tiny obsession for myself. When we went to lunch, she immediately pointed out the stickers at the cash register and when the cashier said they were free, well I think I have never seen anyone so happy to get a sticker. As we made our crawl through the famous Ithaca Commons I noticed as she grabbed postcards, stickers and business cards. Anything free and printed was her gain. Laura – the printing industry would like to thank you for increasing the amount of printed material in the world.

 

This small act of collecting printed material may be an underestimated art form for printers everywhere. There is a constant pressure for printers, especially the small shops where it is a necessity, for you to have the ability to push the email or app to the client. However, the digital trend setters in a way are under estimating the power of print. The USA Government of Labor even predicts that the need for the short run printing will cause a large opening within the printing job market, as those who retire step down to allow the young blood in. Or take for example, a recent exhibit by the School of Print Media at RIT for their Innovation Festival which turned out to be voted a top exhibit in which people could come see all different objects around them that were printed.  Even though those of us in the industry speak darkly of the decline within our field we have to remember the passion the public has for print. Many offices that go digital or companies that move to online billing actually report more printed material since people feel some comfort in print, in its permanence (Chianello pg. 16). It may be changing, yes we use inkjet now not litho but we are still printing out material for the public aren’t we?

 

When we become melancholy about our industry we should remember those like Laura who still pick up the print. Free or not someone printed that material, made some sort of a profit and continued a tradition of making something of permanence in our industry. As I go off for vacation this week, I think I am going to pull a Laura and start picking up some free print. What could be better? Print and free!

I’ll stick with Caslon until I die. A Brief Evaluation.

| Arianna Valentini

The Italian Renaissance saw the rebirth of the arts within Italy and so the typography from there also evolved. This category of fonts based off of the handwriting of the Italian Renaissance is known as Oldstyle.

Oldstyle types have been evolving since 1470, first starting with the Venetian Oldstyle. Nicholas Jenson of France designed this typeface. Jenson was a successful foundry owner and when he served in the court of King Charles VII of France was sent to Maintz, Germany (identifont.com par 1). Jenson’s type was copied throughout the 1500s creating such typefaces as the French and the Aldine Oldstyle (identifont.com par 2). The descendents of these humanist Venetian fonts can be found within the work of William Caslon.

Caslon, born in 1693, was an English font designer. During Caslon’s early career “English printing was at a low ebb and was dependent on Holland for its types. Caslon changed all this and stopped the importation of Dutch type. Thus, Caslon heralded a turning point for English type-founding” (identifont.com par 1). A group of printing firms in London asked to use Caslon’s new type when making copies of the New Testament to be sent on ships to the new world of America. It was the publisher’s hope and also that of the English government to convert the natives of America to Christianity.When his work reached the new world, the taste for the typeface spread across America. It’s most famous use was in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was printed and distributed among the people of the new world. The author “George Bernard Shaw insisted that only Caslon be used for all his books” (identifont.com par 3). The Caslon font became one of the most used fonts of the 18th century.

The Caslon typeface has undergone many revisions during its existence and continues even today. Most commonly, the font referred to as Caslon Old Face is the truest example of the font designed by William Caslon. The “Caslon Letter Foundry” currently owns this font. During the revival of Caslon, the American Type Founders created the Caslon 471 font based off of a book sample found dating back to 1865 (typophile.com par 1).  The American Type Founders have continued to create variations of the font throughout the years.

With in the Oldstyle font there are general classifications that can be found within any of the families. The first is the minimal variation of thick to thin strokes with the letterforms. Also the x-height of the letterform is very small. The small compactness of the letterform continues with its small serif often causing a concave looking base of the letter. Since the design of the Oldstyle font is to emulate handwriting, there is a small oblique shift within the round curves of the letter causing a stress to be on the diagonal. The ascending line of the letterform and the capital line are always almost nearly separate from each other (graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu par 2). The Caslon typeface does keep with many of these attributes but does vary as well. Caslon was revolutionary for its day so it does contain some unexpected variations.

When William Caslon created his type it was said that he used Dutch letterforms as inspiration for his work. Many compare his work to that of early Dutch typographers, Van Dijck and Janson (Bigelow Class Lecture). His font shares the characteristics of Dutch forms in that short ascenders and descender characterize the font, serifs are short and the text is of high contrast. There is a modulation of the stroke and the “A” contains a concave curve within the apex (graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu par 12). The capital “G” does not contain a spur. In the style of imitating handwriting Caslon’s italic forms are in the style of calligraphy and contain a stroke with movement. Lowercase italic letters, especially the p, q, v, w, and z “all have a suggestion of a swash” (Wikipedia par 1).

The Caslon typeface has fallen in and out of favor over time, with its most recent revival in the 1980s. Caslon, since it has so many variations, can have many different uses. For example, Caslon 540 is a bold typeface that is mostly used for advertisements and large posters. More recently, a custom version of Caslon 540 is used for Vogue Magazine for their cover headings (typophile.com par 2). During the 1700s the Caslon typeface was so popular it was used for all the British newspapers. This theme continues today in magazines and newspapers that use Caslon typefaces. The magazine, Boston, uses the Williams Caslon Text, a modern version of Caslon developed by William Berkson (Boston Magazine par 1).

People really love Caslon, as George Bernard Shaw once said; “I’ll stick with Caslon until I die.” The Caslon font family is a very readable and legible font family. It contains strong contrasting letterforms that allow the typeface to be easily read. “To the question, ‘What is the best type for all purposes which has been designed from the beginning of printing until the present day?’ there can be no uncertain answer. The type is that designed and cut by William Caslon. It can be used for years for all purposes without palling on the taste” (McMurtrie).  Its success as a display and body text shows the versatility and staying power of Caslon.There are those who believe that the Caslon font family is a predictable choice: “I am not a great enthusiast over Caslon. It is at most a safe type for general use and moderately picturesque” (Rogers).

William Caslon passed away in 1766, and with his death his font family fell out of style. Yet almost a hundred years later his font has undergone a revival, most recently seen in the Adobe Caslon typeface. Caslon continues to be a readable functional choice for any printed material.

Works Cited

“Nicolas Jenson – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Adobe Caslon.” My Fonts. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

Bigelow, Charles. “Email.” N/A. N/A. Gmail, Utica, NY. 21 Dec. 2009. Web.

Boston Magazine. “Issue Archive – Boston Magazine.” Boston Magazine – Boston’s Guide to Restaurants, Shopping, Nightlife, Arts & Entertainment and Culture. – Boston Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Caslon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Caslon 1776.” Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

Christensen, Thomas . “Typeface: Caslon.” Rightreading.com, Presented by Thomas Christensen. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Families of Type.” SFCC Graphic Design. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

Gretchen, Smelter. “Boston Pops: A Conversation with Patrick Mitchell – Grids – SPD.ORG – Grids.” SPD.ORG. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Identifont – ITC Caslon 224.” Identifont – Identify fonts by appearance, find fonts by name. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Identifont – Nicolas Jenson.” Identifont – Identify fonts by appearance, find fonts by name. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Identifont – William Caslon.” Identifont – Identify fonts by appearance, find fonts by name. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“The Dutch Font Scene.” Carleton. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2009.

“Type, Typography and Fonts.” Graphic Design & Publishing Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

“Typographic Collaboration | Typophile.” Typographic Collaboration | Typophile. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

US Goverment. “Declaration of Independence.” ushistory.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.

XML Authoring Environments & Content Creators

| Arianna Valentini

Recently I had a chance to take a class on XML and print publishing workflow. When I looked around the room on the day of our first lab, all I saw was straight fear of the XML authoring environment. I found that more people had trouble with the interaction of the authoring environment than was expected which leaves me to wonder about is out there in terms of XML authoring.

Ways to Improve on XML Authoring

In order to solve such issues, of non XML centric users interacting with authoring enviroments, several of the bigger names in software have created semi-solutions to the interface problem. The first of these companies is Woodwing Software. A company based in the Netherlands, Woodwing utilizes plug-ins for designers to work within XML. Wooding’s solution is Smart Catalog, a solution for publishing structured data within InDesign.

Smart Catalog allows for three panels within InDesign. The first is Smart Catalog panel that shows any records associated with the content. The second is a Formatting Rules panel that allow for XML elements to appear as “rules” for the content. Lastly is a Smart Catalog Fields panel, which allows for the individual fields to be edited once they are placed in the document. It is through these three panels that the designer can edit content in a environment with which they are familiar, without actually seeing the XML code (Woodwing 2011).

Adobe also has a solution for XML publishing that is called the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Currently, Condé Nast, Martha Stewart, Reader’s Digest and many more use the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. This software is used mainly for e-reader and tablet publishing and allows for XML components to be integrated into InDesign through the use of overlays. The files are saved in a proprietary format of “.folio”, which is said to be cross platform allowing for exportation across multiple formats. Adobe also has a product called Adobe Digital Editions that allows for the organization “to view and manage eBooks and other digital publications” (Adobe 2011).

Finally, the most interesting solution may lie with the publishing software vendor Quark. Quark XML Author is created for integration with Microsoft Word. Within the Quark XML Authoring program, “authors can create information components that feed directly into the Quark Publishing System, which can automatically combine these components, create high-quality print pages, and generate digital versions for the Web and other formats”. This method requires no knowledge of XML from the author and gives no indication to the author they are using an XML backed product. It is an ideal solution to adoption, as it allows the content author to use the tool s/he is already familiar with, requiring no extra steps of XML implementation.

The Quark software also utilizes DITA for its flexibility for “map creation and editing” and emphasizes that, with the use of Word in the front end, DITA mapping is more intuitive (Quark 2011). “DITA can be modeled for both static and dynamic publishing” which is most likely why Quark has chosen to go with this method of authoring. Using DITA with Word helps to enforce the idea to the content creator that “it’s not about the tools; it’s about the process” (Day 2010).

Ways to Improve on XML Authoring

While the solutions offered by Adobe and Woodwing are definitely an important step in the right direction, they seem as though they are not complete. For an authoring environment to be truly successful, there needs to be a next step. We need a better solution than add-ons. Even though DocBook and DITA are a step in the right direction, they are not intuitive without some programming background to begin with, or some sort of training. Developers need to take a step back when creating authoring environments and begin to think of the everyday worker.

Solutions for this problem maybe closer than one would think. In an ideal world, there would a software program that combines both the editing capabilities of Oxygen (sorry to purposely misuse capitals when writing this name but it spelled so strangley) and the design ability of InDesign. This program would allow for the XML to be visible if the user wishes, but allow for design templates to automatically format themselves to the XML hierarchy as necessary. Instead of saving a single file within this program, the content would be packaged and allow for the XML to be stored with the output design.  It would allow for the user to choose multiple output formats and adjust the content accordingly. This program would not be impossible to make, but it is asking a lot for people to rethink and abandon the programs they use everyday.

A clearer, and potentially much easier, solution would be for companies such as Adobe, Quark and Microsoft to rethink the way their current authoring programs work. For example, InDesign does have an XML feature. However, it is clearly not user friendly, nor is it robust enough to be effective in the long-term world of cross media publishing and XML authoring. Microsoft may also have to look at the way in which they allow access to XML within their files. Currently, it is an arduous task to extract XML from Word Documents, and writers like Word, so moving them is not an option. Microsoft could easily adjust the back end of Word to allow for XML hierarchies to be more easily accessible through files.

In the case of current programs such as InDesign and Microsoft Word, the author has the freedom to create documents in whatever order they choose. Should XML authoring in these programs continue to develop, creative jobs may not appreciate the idea that they must be forced to think within a hierarchy. This may be the reason that the current processes of XML and creative work is separated. However, as we put more demands on publishers to use XML backed software and applications, it will eventually feed into the jobs of writers and designers – they will eventually have XML as a skill set. However, just like photography’s change from digital to film, there needs to be a change in the way processes are thought of, and this may take a while to occur. When this change happens, the vendors of the software creative workers need have to ensure that they allow for an ease of transition.

Conclusion

Before a mass standardization of authoring environments occurs, there must be an overall acceptance from the content creators (I recognize it is a two way street, even though we were all scared as designers to touch XML that first time, you kinda have to) that XML and the cross media workflow is here to stay. When looking at the content community today, we are beginning to see this happening. However, hindering the development of XML are the companies who create the ­­­­­authoring environments. These companies are correct in developing the tools for the content creator within programs they are already familiar, but the current add-ons only add to the frustration of understanding for the content creator, as they are not user friendly. It is not until XML is truly integrated into the interfaces of common programs that the content creator and development companies will see a push forward in XML authoring.

In the future, there will hopefully be a content creator that has a full understanding of XML along with companies that answer this need with XML authoring environments that allow for a stre­amlined creative process.

References

Adobe. (2011). Adobe Content Authoring Solutions.

Beaudoux, O., Blouin, A., &, J.-M. (n.d.). Using Model Driven Engineering Technologies for Building Authoring Applications.

Boiko, B. (2002). Content management bible.

Brun, C., Dymetman, M., & Lux, V. (2000, July). Document Structure and Multilingual Authoring. COLING ‘00: Proceedings of the 18th conference on Computational linguistics – Volume 1.

Cagle, K. (2008, May 21). Dita, DocBook and the Art of the Document [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.oreillynet.com/‌xml/‌blog/‌2008/‌05/‌dita_docbook_and_the_art_of_th.html

Dawson, L. (Speaker). (2011, February 18). Webcast Video: Essential Tools of an XML Workflow – O’Reilly Radar [Audio podcast].

Day, D. (2010, October). Everyday DITA; connecting content beyond tech pubs. PowerPoint presented at XML 2010 eMedia Revolution, A Conference of IDEAlliance, Philadelphia, PA.

DITA XML.org  [The official community gathering place and information resource for the DITA OASIS Standard]. (2011).

DocBook. (n.d.). What is DocBook?

Healy, M. (2009). An Introduction to StartWithXML. PowerPoint presented at Presentations from the StartWithXML Forum.

Jacob, I. E., & Dekhtyar, A. (2005, June). xTagger: a New Approach to Authoring Document-centric XML. JCDL ‘05: Proceedings of the 5th ACM/‌IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries.

Koong, C.-S., Lee, C.-M., Chen, D.-J., Chang, C.-H., & Shih, C. (2009). The Visual Authoring Tool of Flash-based Component for Interactive Item Template.

Meredith Corporation. (2010). Meredith Corporation and XML. Powerpoint presented at XML 2010 eMedia Revolution, A Confrence of IDEAlliance, Philadelphia, PA.

O’Keefe, S. (2009). Structured authoring and XML (Monograph). North Carolina, USA: Scriptorium Publishing Services, Inc.

Quark. (2011). XML Authoring.

Quint, V. (2004). Techniques for Authoring Complex XML Documents. DocEng ‘04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM symposium on Document engineering.

Stewart, J. (2010). Structured content creation and the future of Cross-Media publishing of c. Powerpoint presented at XML 2010 eMedia Revolution, A Conference of IDEAlliance, Philidelphia, PA.

Téllez, A. G. (n.d.). Authoring Environment for E-learning Production Based on Independent XML Formats.

Walsh, N., & MarkLogic Corporation (Speakers). (2010). What’s new in DocBook V5?

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Young, D. (2009). XML–Why Bother? PowerPoint presented at Presentations from the StartWithXML Forum.