In this Issue...
 INTRO
| 2007, Here We Come!...
Welcome 2007. We at PixelMill are looking forward to an
exciting year. With a growing collection of products and
services and an expanded management team, we will deliver
the most aggressive strategy for new solutions in our
history. We look forward to working with all of you in our
expanded effort to communicate and collaborate with PixelMill customers.
In this month's newsletter, Corrie Haffly delivers two
more excellent articles. Corrie starts with an overview of
"What's New in Expression". We also start a new series where
we will be looking at ways you can accomplish professional
techniques in some of the lesser expensive versions of Adobe
Photoshop and Premier. In this issue, Corrie will show you
how to simulate layer masks in Photoshop Elements to create
the popular fading image technique.
As a reminder, we're looking for
talented individuals that can help us with the
projects developing for this year. Here's your opportunity to pick up some extra
work, additional training, and more exposure in the
industry. Take a look through the We Need You!
section in the right column to learn more.
Thank you again for your continued interest in our
newsletter and for being a valued customer. We look forward
to delivering you more of what you expect from PixelMill in
the coming year!
by Jason Reckers, President & CEO -
PixelMill Inc.
 FEATURE
| What's New in
Expression Web
If you are a long-time FrontPage user, you may be
wondering what the major differences are between FrontPage
and Expression Web.
First, let's talk about the similarities. The interface
is very much the same: The Design/Split/Code views are the
same, as is the placement of the Folder List. The normal
toolbars for formatting, saving, copying, etc., are very
much the same. The Web Site tab allows you to access Remote
Web Site Properties for publishing your web.
As we start to talk about the differences, first be aware
that Expression Web is mostly backwards-compatible. So if
you have FrontPage Components in your web site, most
of them can still be modified in Expression Web by
double-clicking on them.
No more Navigation View - Expression Web no longer
has Navigation View... and related to that, FrontPage Link
Bars, Page Banners and Table of Contents component (site
maps) can no longer be added. Furthermore, these components
are the main exception to the backwards-compatibility rule;
while you can double-click on a component to modify the
properties, since you can no longer build your site
structure in Navigation View, these components are
essentially useless! You can't add new pages to link bars,
rename buttons on link bars, or update your site map
component. This major change, while seemingly inconvenient
at first, is actually pretty easy to get around -- see last
month's issue for a tutorial on how to replace your Link
Bars with text links and include pages. Furthermore, not
using Link Bars and those related components will enable you
to have a validated and compliant web site.
No more Themes - If your site has a Theme already
applied, you can still use it and work with it in Expression
Web. (However, you can't use the button graphics for link
bars -- see the previous item!) Expression Web has removed
the ability to apply Themes to a new web to encourage the
use of cascading style sheets instead.
Nested DWTs - I'm really excited about this new
feature of Expression Web! If you haven't been using DWTs,
you should definitely start learning about them! If you
have been using DWTs, Expression Web now allows for
"nested DWTs." This means that you don't really have to use
Include Pages for common areas like the header, main menu,
and footer. Instead, you can have a "base DWT" that contains
those common areas, and then apply the base DWT to another
DWT that just has your two columns, or three columns, or
whatever other page layouts you desire. So instead of having
to modify your common information on three different DWTs,
you could have those common areas on a separate DWT that is
then applied to the different layouts. We'll be adding more
tutorials about this on PixelMill so stay tuned!
Validation and compatibility tools - If you set
your DOCTYPE, Expression Web can help notify you if you have
invalid code. In Code View, the invalid code is highlighted
or underlined with a red squiggly line. In the status bar,
there are also icons that will appear if there is a coding
error or compatibility issue with your web page.
Fantastic CSS rendering - Users of CSS templates
will be ecstatic to know that Expression Web's WYSIWYG
Design View is infinitely better at displaying CSS-based
layouts.
.NET 2.0 support - You can have Master Pages (the
.NET version of a Dynamic Web Template) and .aspx pages
designed in Expression Web. Expression Web also has a
run-time design engine which renders the .aspx page as it
would look on a browser. Expression Web isn't meant to
replace a more robust .NET editor such as Visual Studio,
however; the idea is that you can design your .NET pages in
Expression, then pass them over to a programmer who can add
in the necessary code in an editor like Visual Studio.
Expression Web is a powerful tool that will definitely
help FrontPage users to move into the new era of web site
design -- design according to standards, web sites that are
accessible to a large range of users, making use of the
power of CSS, DWT, and .NET technology.
We're working hard on getting more resources on
Expression Web at PixelMill. Visit our growing support area on PixelMill for
Expression Web!
by Corrie Haffly, PixelMill Staff Writer
 TUTORIAL
| Fading Images in Photoshop Elements
The popular technique of using
Layer Masks in
Photoshop is one that isn't immediately transferable to
Photoshop Elements, because Elements doesn't have a layer
mask command. However, there is a way to combine a few other
features of Photoshop Elements to achieve the same effect!
This trick makes use of the fact that Adjustment Layers
come with their own Layer Mask. You can create an adjustment
layer (and make no adjustments), paint on the adjustment
layer mask, and then use the adjustment layer as a clipping
mask for the layer(s) that you want to "mask." Here's how:
First, this tutorial assumes that you have your photo in
its own layer, with the background (or whatever you want to
show behind it) underneath. In the diagram below, I have an
AbleStock image in its own layer above a solid blue
layer:
Now, create a new Adjustment Layer. You can really use
almost any of them; in this example, I went to Layer > New
Adjustment Level > Levels (or click the Adjustment Layer
icon in the Layers palette and select Levels). Click OK
without making any adjustments. The new layer (called
"Levels 1") shows up with its own layer mask.
Move this layer underneath the layer that you want to
apply the masking effect to.
Now, in the Layers Palette, move your cursor between the
two layers and hold the Alt (or Option) key down until the
cursor changes to two circles with a little arrow. Click
once. This makes the adjustment layer a "clipping layer" --
the layer above will only show in the same places that the
lower layer does. Right now you can see the whole picture
layer because the lower layer doesn't have any masking
applied to it.
Following the concepts in my other article,
Layer Masks in
Photoshop, paint in
black/white/grey on the layer mask to hide or show the
different areas you wish to hide or show.
You'll notice that the upper layer, while being
untouched, also gets hidden as you paint on the layer mask.
You're done! Save your document with your new "layer
mask" effect. Note that if you move the layers around, the
layer may get "unclipped." If that happens, just move the
adjustment layer beneath the picture layer again, hold the
Alt or Option key down, and click in between the layers to
reapply the clipping mask.
by Corrie Haffly, PixelMill Staff Writer
ANNOUNCEMENT
| New Product Landing Pages
In our effort to make it easier for you to find the
specific products that fit your needs, we have created two
additional landing pages for Expression Web Templates and
CSS Templates. These two pages will make it easier to find
products that have been tested for compatibility in
Expression Web and ones built to the highest CSS and
Standards-based requirements.
Expression Web Templates:
Our Expression Web templates have been built and/or tested
to work with Expression Web. These are compliant web
templates that have been tested for W3C compliancy and make
use of CSS-based layout for the most up-to-date templates
you'll find for Expression Web.
CSS Web Templates:
PixelMill CSS Web Templates rely on a cascading style sheet
for creating the visual layout. They are "tableless" web
templates because they do not use tables and nested tables
to define the layout. CSS Templates follow today's
recommended web standards for separating content from visual
presentation, and make it easier to make global design
changes and provide multiple visual layouts for different
types of users and devices.
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