Alpha, Masks, Shapes in Apple Keynote
I am having a lot of fun with Keynote recently, and the coolest feature in Keynote ‘08 is the instant alpha tool which I show above. What makes it so good is the UI representation. You are basically pinching the areas that you want to make transparent, and as you go in and out you get an instant feel for what you are doing. It is as close to tactile feedback as you can get. Compare this to the magic wand in Photoshop, which is a nice precise tool, but doesn’t give me the same feedback and often drives me nuts. Now, don’t get me wrong, the alpha tool sometimes does an amazing job, but often comes up short, as you see in this video.