Make the_author only echo once in the loop

basically I have my site setup to display the title of each page/post in the header of my theme. I also have it setup to display the name of an author on my author pages(I did this using a conditional). The problem I'm having is that the name of the author is echoed for the number of posts the author has written and I only want it to echo once. Is there a way I can do this? I realize that its doing this bec开发者_Go百科ause the_author has to be in a loop(I have a loop in my header to do this). Is there anyway to be able to display the_author outside of the loop?

My site is http://www.imagineitstudios.com . you can see what I'm talking about if you click on the "Posted by Abel" link on the first post of the home page

Thanks for your help.

Here's my code:

<div id="title">
    <?php //Check to see if this is an author page ?>
    <?php if(is_author()): ?>

    <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?><?php //Creat a mini loop to display the author ?>
    <h1><?php the_author();?></h1>
    <?php endwhile;?><?php //End of Mini Loop ?>

    <?php else :?>
    <h1><?php the_title();?></h1>
    <?php endif ;?>
</div>

---

You can use the following code:

<div id="title">

        <?php //Check to see if this is an author page ?>
        <?php if(is_author()): ?>
        <?php 
        if(get_query_var('author_name')) :
            $curauth = get_userdatabylogin(get_query_var('author_name')); ?>
        <?php else :
            $curauth = get_userdata(get_query_var('author')); ?>
        <h1><?php echo $curauth->first_name; ?> <?php echo $curauth->last_name; ?></h1> 

        <?php endif; ?>

        <?php else :?>
        <h1><?php the_title();?></h1>
        <?php endif ;?>
    </div>