Digital Design Cottage

Digital Design Cottage Blog Has Moved!

2007-05-03T14:42:00.000+01:00

I've moved the blog over to wordpress and it's new address is;

blog.digitaldesigncottage.com

You'll find all the old tips and tutorials there and TONS of new stuff coming each week.

Photoshop Resources : Photoshop Mosaic

2007-04-27T11:07:00.000+01:00

Photoshop Mosaic is a new site dedicated to Photoshop tutorials, brushes, plugins and lots more. It has tons of great links to all things Photoshop. I found some brushes there that I really like. You can check it out here.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using the Metallic Gradients

2007-04-24T12:21:00.000+01:00

You’re probably well aware of the “regular” gradients that come with Photoshop but did you know that there are lots of other gradients that come with the program that are just waiting for you to load them up. In this short tutorial, I’m going to show you how to add extra gradients into the Gradient Picker and how to make a super quick “silver” pipe.

1. Open a new RGB document, 300 x 300 pixels.

2. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the toolbox and draw a long skinny rectangle, similar to the one I’ve drawn below.

In the toolbar, select the Gradient Tool .

3. On the tool options bar, click on the down triangle next to the Gradient thumbnail to open up the Gradient Picker. In the right-corner, click on the triangle to open up the Gradient Picker pop-up menu. At the bottom of the menu you’ll see a list of all the other gradients that come as presets with Photoshop. Cool or what?

4. Choose Metals from the list . Photoshop will ask you if you want to replace your current gradients with the new set or if you want to append (or add) them to your current set. I usually choose Append.

5. Now that the new gradients are added, you can run your mouse over them and you will see that they have names such as Silver, Gold, Brass, Steel Blue and so on.

6. To make the Silver pipe, choose the Silver gradient , then using the gradient tool, click and drag from one side of the rectangular marquee to the other.

7. Ta Da! You now should have one nice looking “silver” pipe, made literally in seconds. Press Ctrl + D (Windows) or Cmd + D (Mac) to deselect the new pipe.

As well as the "metallic" gradients there are quite a few more to choose from so take a look at those ones too.

Design News : Kate Moss - The Font

2007-04-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

Some of you font lovers may be interested (or horrified) to hear that Kate Moss now has a new brand. Created in conjunction with typographer Paul Barnes, it looks like this:

You can read more about Brand Moss here on creative review.

Photoshop Quick Tip: How come my Colour Picker looks funny?

2007-04-19T16:02:00.000+01:00

This morning one of my trainees was having a problem with the Colour Picker in Photoshop. Normally, when you click on the Foreground or Background Colour Swatch (at the bottom of the Toolbox) it looks like this:

However, this morning it seems like the Photoshop elves had been at the whiskey and the colour picker looked like this instead:

If this happens to you, you can get your normal Photoshop colour picker pop-up back by pressing Ctrl + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac) to open up the General Preferences dialog box. To make sure you get the one you want, under the Color Picker pop-up menu, set the chosen Picker to "Adobe."

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using "Lock Transparent Pixels"

2007-04-17T14:33:00.000+01:00

Changing the colour of an object that is semi-transparent or has faded edges in Photoshop is easy when you know how! In this short tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use the “Lock Transparent Pixels” button on the layers palette to do just that.

Let’s start off with a yellow blob. As you can see from the image below, it is definitely yellow in the middle but then it starts to fade out at the edges.

If you try to use the Paint Bucket tool on this faded edge, you will just end up with a circle with very rough edges, as seen below.

To get over this problem, click on the “Lock Transparent Pixels” button near the top of the layers palette in Photoshop.

Note that you cannot use this on the background layer only on layers with transparency.

By locking the transparent pixels, we can now only manipulate the opaque areas of the layer.

Now when I use the Paint Bucket on the yellow blob, the fade is preserved.

Obviously this is a very simple example, but as you can imagine this would be extremely useful when you are designing things like t-shirts or print work where you may need to change an objects fade colour.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using Filters and a Quick Mask to Create A Border

2007-04-13T12:46:00.000+01:00

In this Photoshop tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a border using a quick mask and a couple of filters. It’s quick and easy and you can get all kinds of cool results by using different filters.

1. Open up the image that you want to apply a border to.

2. Using the lasso tool , draw a rectangular(ish) marquee around the area of the image that you want to keep. It doesn’t matter if the edges look a bit rough, that all adds to the, ahem, “character” of the piece.

3. Press Q on the keyboard, or click on the Quick Mask mode button on the Photoshop toolbar.

4. Now we’re going to apply some filters to the area we have Quick Masked. You can play around here and try out several filters to get different effects. For this example, I chose Filter > Brush Stokes > Sprayed Strokes. This opens the Sprayed Filter dialog box.

Here I set the stroke length to 18, the stroke radius to 14 and the stroke direction to left diagonal. Click OK to close this filter.

5. At this point you might like to use this jagged edge as your border or you can go on and try out more filters. Again, I chose Filters > Distort > Glass.

6. The settings used here were Distortion of 7, Smoothness of 3 and Texture set to Frosted. Click OK when you’re happy with the effect.

7. The Quick Masked area will now look quite different than when you first selected it. Press Q on the keyboard to return to Standard Mode. You’ll see the dancing ants indicating the selected area.

8. Invert the selection by choosing Select > Inverse.

9. Create a new layer and make sure that it is selected. Set the foreground colour to white and then using the Paint Bucket tool, click anywhere on the selection to fill the area. Your border should now look something like this:

By adding the white border on a new layer, you haven’t damaged your original image. Now save your masterpiece and impress friends and loved ones with your new found border-making skills.

Free Photoshop Brushes : High Resolution Tattoo Style

2007-04-12T14:58:00.000+01:00

I've created five high resolution Photoshop brushes for your viewing pleasure! They are in Tribal Tattoo style and were created in Illustrator and then brought into Photoshop to become the fine upstanding brushes you see today. The brushes are all about 2500 pixels wide or high and have nice smooth lines. You can download them as a zip file below.

Download Zipped Brushes

I'd be delighted to hear from you if you find them useful or like them.

Back from holidays ...

2007-04-11T14:37:00.000+01:00

I'm just back from a really nice (and desperately needed!) break from work and commuting. Went to Tunisia for a week to recharge the batteries and get some sun, although the weather has been brilliant here in Ireland - sun is splitting the stones at the moment. Tunisia is lovely, particularly the south with the troglodyte dwellings and the Sahara desert. I've attached a picture I took of the sun coming up early in the morning in the desert. Can't decide if this is depressing to look at now that I'm home or that I'm delighted I was there ....

Photoshop Quick Tip : Exporting your layers as separate documents

2007-03-29T13:00:00.000+01:00

This is a very quick tip today, but a handy one. If you are working on a document in Photoshop with multiple layers, it is possible to export each of those layers as separate documents. An example where I use this is if I have made up a document with several of my photos to work on, when I'm finished I can just shoot them out.

All you need to do is choose File > Scripts > Export Layers to Files.

Photoshop Quick Tip : Find your layers fast

2007-03-27T13:03:00.000+01:00

When you’re working on a large document in Photoshop with many layers, a quick way to jump to the layer you want to work on is to:

Select the Move tool by pressing V on the keyboard.

Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on a portion of the image.

A menu will appear when you click and will list all of the layers underneath your cursor.

To make a particular layer active, just click on it in the list of layers. Now, you’ve got your active layer.

If you click Right-click or Control-click on a part of the image where there are no layers or if the layer is transparent in that area, then only the Background layer will be listed in the menu.

Book Review : Digital Photography by Scott Kelby

2007-03-26T14:49:00.000+01:00

I bought this book a couple of months ago and read it cover to cover, thoroughly enjoying it. I've recently gone back to the book again and more importantly I've been trying to use and apply some of the excellent tips contained within.

I would consider this a must-have reference book for digital photography fans. It's written in the humourous but fact-filled Scott Kelby style and covers a wide range of photography subjects. The full title of the book is : "The Digital Photography Book: The Step-By-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros'!" and that's literally what the book offers. Step by step instructions over eleven chapters on Landscape photography, Flower photography, Portraits, Travel, Sports photography and more.

I've read a lot of photography books and this one is without question one of the easiest to understand and immediately apply to your own photography. Also it's not too expensive and is well worth the money.

Digital Photography by Scott Kelby

5 stars out of 5.

Check this book and other's like it in the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf.

Photoshop Tutorial : Creating an Ansel Adams Style photograph

2007-03-23T13:34:00.000Z

Here's a quick photoshop video tutorial showing you how to use the Colour Mixer to create a very "contrasty" black and white image.

Creating An Ansel Adams Style Photograph In Photoshop -

Photoshop Tutorial : How to create a simple logo using Photoshop

2007-03-22T14:53:00.000Z

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a simple logo. Many professional logos are created in Illustrator or Freehand or other vector drawing programs. However, it is possible to create logos in Photoshop either as a raster image or using Photoshop’s own vector tools including the Pen, Shapes and the Type tools. Vector tools are used most often for logo design because once the design is created there is no loss of quality when making the problem making the logo larger or smaller and so that’s what we’ll used.

A good logo has the following qualities:

Logos are simple. They need to be practical and work in both colour and black and white.

They communicate an idea, a principle or a description.

They are aesthetically pleasing.

That’s what we’ll aim for.

I’m going to create a logo for a fictional company called “The Iron Mongers” who create unique iron work gates. We’ll also add the words “Iron Boutique” as the tagline.

Start with a blank document size 5 in x 5 in with a resolution of 300 ppi.

It’s important to have a high resolution document in case you want to print your logo rather than just use it on the web.

Select the Type tool and in the Control Palette, set the font to Bernhard Modern, size 36, set the anti-aliasing to Strong and the colour to Black.

Click on the document and add the text “The Iron Mongers”.

With the Type tool still selected, go back and highlight the word “Iron”. Click on the colour selector on the Control Palette and change the colour to red. (I used RGB values 204, 0, 0).

Click on any other tool to commit the text.

Select the text tool again, and in the Control Palette leave the Font as Bernhard Modern but set the size to 14pt and the colour to black. Underneath the words “The Iron Mongers”, add the text “Iron Boutique”.

In the layers palette, select the Iron Mongers text layer and Shift + Click to also select the Iron Boutique layer.

On the Control Palette, select the “Align Horizontal Centers” button to line up the two layers of text.

Click on the Line Tool (it might be hidden under the Rectangle Tool) and in the Control palette, set the weight of the line to 2 pixels.

Draw a straight line (hold down the Shift key to keep the line straight) from under the capital T till it just meets the I in Iron Boutique. Draw another line on the other side of the Boutique to just underneath the small s. (See illustration below).

Lines are a very effective design tool and can elevate a design to another level.

Now we’re going to add a shape as an embellishment. Select the Custom Shape Tool (it will be hidden beneath the line tool).

On the Control Palette, click on the Custom Shape Tool drop down box. I chose a shape called Hedera 2.

Drag out the Hedera 2 shape. Drag the shape so it is approximately the same height as the letters in the “The Iron Mongers”.

When you drag out the shape you are creating a path. You can see the outline of the work path on the image but to add actual pixels by filling or stroking the path, you must click on the paths palette.

Create a new layer, then in the paths palette, click on the workpath to highlight it. You will see the two lines that you drew with the line tool as well as the new shape you created.

Make sure the foreground colour is set to black (press D on the keyboard to set the colours to their default of black foreground and white background). Click on the Fill path with foreground colour button at the bottom of the paths palette. When you click this button black pixels are added to the new layer you created.

The new shape looks pretty fuzzy around the edges, this is only because the path is still selected, click anywhere on the grey area of the Paths palette to deslect the path.

Back on the new layer you created, click on the new leaf using the Move tool and drag out holding the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key. This will create a duplicate of the leaf. Drag the duplicate to the other side of the logo, then choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal to flip the leaf to the opposite direction.

That completes the logo.

Always save your file as a .PSD file so that you come back and edit it in the future if necessary.

Photoshop Quick Tip : The best Photoshop keyboard shortcut!

2007-03-21T15:37:00.000Z

Ok, this is probably a matter of personal opinion (and perspective) BUT, the first keyboard shortcut that I insist my trainees know in Photoshop is ...

Ctrl + Z (windows) Cmd + Z (mac).

This very simple shortcut will undo your last action/mistake.

If you need to undo more than one action then the other shortcut you will find invaluable is ...

Ctrl + Alt + Z (windows) Cmd + Option + Z (mac).

Photoshop : Tutorial - Usint The Art History Brush

2007-03-20T15:06:00.000Z

Rather than using the filters to create a watercolour or painterly effect, you can use the Art History Brush in Photoshop to create a nice looking "painting". And it will make you feel like you're part of the process of making something because with this tool you need to make decisions about how the effect will look.

1. Start by opening the image you want to paint in Photoshop. I’m using this close up of a flower. This is a large, high resolution image.

2. Select the Art History brush from the toolbox. It may be hidden underneath the History Brush.

3. On the tool options bar, click on the Brush options. Choose a “Dry Brush Tip Light Flow” brush from the list of brushes available. Depending on the size of your image you may need to change it from the default of 66 pixels. For this image, I’m going to leave the brush size as 66
pixels.

4. Open the brushes palette and click on the Shape Dynamics under Brush Tip Shape.

5. Drag the Roundness Jitter to about 50%

6. Click on the Color Dynamics. Drag the Hue Jitter to about 10%.
That’s all the brush adjustments that we need to make.

7. On the Tool Options bar, set the style of the Art History Brush to Tight Short.

(You may want to try out different styles depending on the effect you want to achieve). Set the area to 50 pixels.

8. Start painting on the image. It’s a good idea to paint over large areas of similar colour to get a feel for how the art history brush works.

9. Continue painting into the more detailed areas of the image. Reduce the brush size where required on the intricate areas.

10. Keep working on the image until you have painted the whole area and you have what should look like a nicely painted watercolour image.

Design Resources : Picfindr

2007-03-19T08:57:00.000Z

This is a new free service that I heard about at the weekend. It's a search engine for free stock photography that you can use commercially. There are already several free free stock sites such as Image:After , MorgueFile and the great SXC.hu, but Picfindr should make it that little bit easier and quicker to find images.

As it mentions on the site, the service is neither "alpha" nor "beta", it's just not finished yet. I found it already works really well. I typed in a couple of terms and off it went searching on 4 different sites and coming back very quickly with thumbnail results.

As part of your search you can specify if you want to give credit for the image, not alter it in anyway or ask permission to use the image. Depending on your choices, the search engine will return different results. I know that I'll be using this service regularly.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2007-03-16T13:07:00.000Z

Well Happy St. Patricks Day to you all! I'm looking forward to a few days off work - one of the best things about Paddy's Day in Ireland is that you get a day off work, even if it's on a Saturday! Also looking forward to a few of these babies ...

Free Photoshop Brushes : Book of Kells

2007-03-16T12:56:00.000Z

The set of free photoshop brushes that I'm offering you today are based on the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an ornately illustrated manuscript of the gospels created by monks in about 800 AD. The books were found in a town called Kells here in Ireland and I live about 7 miles from there. The manuscripts are now held in Trinity College in Dublin and you can go and see them in the wonderful library there.

You can find out more about the book of Kells here.

The photoshop brushes consist of some of the images found in the book and some of the ornately decorated letters. I hope you like them.

You can download a zip of the brushes here.

Photoshop Plugin : Virtual Photographer

2007-03-15T15:47:00.000Z

As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of plugins available for Photoshop. Some are excellent and some not so hot. I'm generally of the opinion that most of the things you can do with a plugin, you can learn how to do using just Photoshop and I like to try to figure them out myself.

Having said that, the Virtual Photographer plugin is one that I have had for over a year and one that I really, really love. It allows you to add styles to your photographs that could take quite a bit of time and effort to achieve in Photoshop alone. But most importantly the results are very professional. There is everything from sepia to ultra-contrasty cold steel styles. Very cool.

The plugin is free from the optikVerve Lab website and there are lots of samples and a forum over there too.

B.T.W. I have absolutely nothing to do with the company, I just really like this plugin.

Photoshop Brushes : Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

2007-03-13T15:43:00.000Z

Here's another set of free photoshop brushes from the Digital Design Cottage downloads section. These are the bug brushes.

You can download the brushes as a zip file here, and let me know if you like them!

Colour Models in Photoshop : What they are and when to use them

2007-03-12T14:53:00.000Z

When you’re working in Photoshop, it’s important to understand that there are different colour models and colour modes available. I'm going to to briefly explain the theory behind models in Photoshop and why you would choose one particular model over the other.

What is a colour model?
A colour model is simply a way to define colour. A model describes how colour will appear on the computer screen or on paper. Three of the most popular colour models are:

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black)
RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
Lab Colour

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

1. The CMYK model is used for print work and it describes colours based on their percentage of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These four colours are used by commercial printers and bureaus and you may also find that your home printer uses these colours too. These four colours are needed to reproduce full colour artwork in magazines, books and brochures. By combining Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black on paper in varying percentages, the illusion of lots of colours is created.

2. The RGB model is used when working with colours destined for TV screens or computer monitors. A value between 0 and 255 is assigned to each of the colours – Red, Green and Blue. So for example if you wanted to create a purely blue colour, Red would have a value of 0, Green would have a value of 0 and Blue would have a value of 255 (pure blue). To create black, Red, Green and Blue would each have a value of 0 and to create white, each would have a value of 255.

In this situation, when we talk of “value” of colour, we’re referring to the strength of the colours in relation to each other.

3. The Lab colour model is a slightly more complex beast. It is made up of three components – the lightness component (L) ranging from 0 to 100, the “a” component comes from the green-red axis in the Adobe Color Picker, and the “b” component which comes from the blue-yellow axis in the Adobe Color Picker. Both “a” and “b” can range from +127 to –128.

When Photoshop is converting from one model to another, it uses Lab as the intermediate colour model.

So, after all that which model should you use?
If you know that your work is being sent to a commercial printer, then it’s a good idea to start your document in CMYK mode. Otherwise it’s safe to say that you can work in RGB for almost any other project. Even if you’re printing at home on your own inkjet printer then RGB is the one to go for. For any screen-based work such as websites or web graphics or DVD’s, you should always work in RGB. Your monitor works in displays in RGB so in terms of colour, what you see is what you get. If you do need to convert from one colour model to the other, it’s just a matter of choosing Image > Mode and then picking the one you need.

Photoshop Link : PhotoshopTalent.com

2007-03-09T11:43:00.000Z

I've been having a bit of fun entering the contests on Photoshoptalent.com. I only joined about two weeks ago and haven't won anything yet but ... Victory Shall Be Mine! (Eventually I hope.)

It's a great place to try out your photoshop skills and I've found that there are lots of experienced photoshoppers there who are willing to give advice. The skill levels for the contests range from beginners which is open to all, to more advanced contests which can only be entered by photoshoppers who have built up "talent" points by winning contests.

If you're interested in developing your skills and can't think of things to do in Photoshop this site is great for getting you thinking.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Eyecatching Text Effect Using Layer Effects

2007-03-08T09:11:00.000Z

Here’s a very simple and quick way to create some eye-catching text. It’s all based around one Text layer with three layer effects added. Let’s get started.

1. Create a new file with dimensions of 500 x 200 pixels.

2. Select the Type tool and add some text. I’m using the Cooper Black font, size 72, anti-aliasing set to smooth and colour set to red.

3. Make sure the text layer is selected then click on the Layer Effect button on the bottom of the layers palette.

4. Select Drop Shadow from the Layer Effect drop down menu and choose a Distance and Size of 5 and Spread of 0%.

5. Don’t click OK, yet. Click on the words “Inner Shadow” on the left hand side of the Layer Style dialog box. This will change the options available in the dialog box. Again, set a Distance and Size of 5% and Choke of 0%.

6. Don’t click OK, again! Click on the word “Stroke” on the bottom left of the dialog box. Set the Size to 3 pixels, Position to Outside and the Colour to white.

7. Click OK. The final layer set-up and the text below:

Book Review : Graphic Design For The 21st Century

2007-03-07T12:41:00.000Z

This heavy book will be of interest to graphic designers at the start of their career but also of interest to experienced professionals. Throughout more than 600 pages, the authors show us the work of 100 designers from around the world. You may recognise some of the designer names, whilst others are not so well known but it's fair to say that the authors did a great job making their selections.

The book opens with an essay on design culture which I found interesting and informative, but probably more interesting AFTER I had gone through the book and looked at the designs.

As mentioned already, there are 100 designers included in the book and each one has been allocated a decent amount of space with pictures and some text about the work. It's easy reading and some of the designs I found quite inspirational.

Graphic Design For The 21st Century: 100 Of The Worlds Best Graphic Designers

I would rate this book 4 out of 5. Don't forget to visit the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf to see a wide range of Photoshop and Design related books.

Photoshop Tutorial : Create an electrical current effect

2007-03-02T13:14:00.000Z

This short tutorial shows you how to create the effect of arcing current in the air. Because it uses the “Difference Clouds” filter, the effect can look different every time you try it.

1. Open a new file. Make it 500 x 500 pixels.

2. Set the foreground colour to black and the background to a light grey.

3. Select the gradient tool and in the tool options bar, set the gradient to Foreground to Background.

4. Drag the gradient tool diagonally across the image.

5. Choose Filters > Render > Difference Clouds.

6. Now Invert the colours in the image by pressing Ctrl + I.

7. Choose Image > Adjustments > Levels to open the Levels dialog box.

8. Drag the black slider to the right to dramatically darken the image. At this point the effect of “electrical currents” should become apparent.

At this stage the current looks pretty cool but if you would like to add some extra colour to the image. choose Image > Adjustments > Variations. From the Variations dialog you can add colour by clicking directly on any of the preview images. Each time you click , the colour will change.

Photoshop News : Online version of photoshop available in six months.

2007-03-01T15:35:00.000Z

A story on news.com is revealing that an online version of Photoshop will be up and running in six months. Apparently the online version will be free but supported by ads (quelle suprise). It also sounds like it will be "Photoshop Extra-lite" and will be a stripped down version of grown-up Photoshop.

It's hard to imagine how a program which uses such large files could run smoothly online but then there are so many mind-boggling things that Adobe products can do, I'm sure they'll work something out.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Copy Layer Styles and save time

2007-03-01T14:22:00.000Z

Let’s say that you’ve added a layer style, or even several layer styles to a layer in Photoshop. Now you find that you need the same look on another layer, so is there a quick way to do this or do you have to go through the layers dialog box all over again? Well, yes of course there is a shortcut!

All that’s required here is to click on the layer style you want to copy to another layer and hold down the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key and drag the effect onto your layer of choice. By holding down the Alt/Option key you simply duplicate the layer effect whilst dragging the effect to another layer.

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Change the colour of an object using Hue & Saturation

2007-02-28T13:55:00.000Z

In this video tutorial, we’re taking a look at how to change the colour of an object by first of all selecting it and then using one of the image adjustment options to completely change the hue and saturation values.

Learn To Change The Colour Of Objects By Adjusting The Hue & Sat

Photoshop Tutorial: Transforming text

2007-02-27T12:18:00.000Z

Some of my trainees are surprised to find that they can apply many transformations to text in Photoshop without having to rasterize the layer. You can Scale, Rotate, Skew, Warp, Flip Horizontal and Vertical and STILL go back and edit your type without any problems.

To apply transformations, make sure the Text layer is selected in the layers palette and then choose Edit > Transform. From there you can choose from all of the transformations listed above.

After you’ve made the transformation, you can edit the text again if necessary. Just select the type tool and click on the type you want to change.

If you want to use Distort or Perspective transformations, however, you will need to rasterize the layer first. Rasterizing means that you are converting vectors to a bitmapped (made up of pixels) image. To rasterise text, choose Layer > Rasterize > Type. Once the text is rasterized you can transform to your heart’s content.

Photoshop Brushes : The Simpsons

2007-02-26T09:56:00.000Z

I've just added a new set of Photoshop brushes to the download page of the main Digital Design Cottage site. This set features Springfield's finest characters, over 20 different brushes - just in time for their movie debut later this year.

You can also download the zip file here.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Save time by making your own custom document sizes

2007-02-25T09:07:00.000Z

When you create a new document, Photoshop offers you a pop-up list (the Preset option) of the most commonly used document sizes in terms of width, height, resolution and colour mode. This includes sizes such as A4, Letter and the more popular web page sizes. However, you will often find that you use other sizes over and over. So rather than type in the details each time, you can just enter the size and resolution you need, give it a name and then save it as a preset using the Save Preset dialog box.

For example, I sell t-shirts on CafePress. The size required for T-shirt designs is 10 inches by 10 inches and requires a resolution of 200 ppi. So I saved this as a preset called T-shirts and now it appears at the top of the list. You can make as many custom document sizes as you want, so save yourself some time and make some custom document sizes.

Photoshop File Download : Reusable Magnetic Poetry

2007-02-23T09:28:00.000Z

Here's a PSD file I created that you may like to use. It's one tile based on the idea of magenetic fridge poetry. You can reuse it as much as you want and just change the text layer on the tile.

You can download a zipped version of the file here. Let me know if you find it useful.

Photoshop News

2007-02-22T08:49:00.000Z

News reports about the release of Creative Suite 3 are mentioning a release date of around the 27th of March.

Betanews quotes an expert from Merrill Lynch:

"Jay Vleeschhouwer, the analyst who wrote the report disclosing the release date, says he expects about six different CS3 product suites, and 14 individual products overall. Core CS3 products would include Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign."

As an instructor in New Media Creative Design, this is very exciting but also means lots of hard work learning the new programs. (Although, realistically, it's not tooooo hard, having to play with Photoshop and checking out its new features).

Design Inspiration : DesignersWhoBlog.com

2007-02-22T08:36:00.000Z

This is a super blog that I've only just discovered and it's fair to say it's bursting with inspiration for anyone with an interest in art, design, advertising and more.

DesignersWhoBlog.com is a jumping off point to (what seems like) hundreds of cool blogs from designers all over the world.

Photoshop Tutorial : Make a badge for your website

2007-02-21T08:21:00.000Z

Badges or flashes are a bit of fun decoration that you can add to your site and they are appearing more and more on the web. They're also very useful for drawing attention to specific parts of your page. It's a good way to set up a call to action like "Buy Now" or "Join Here". So in this tutorial I'm going to show you how to make a badge using one of Photoshop's vector tools.

The Vector tools in Photoshop allow you to create all kinds of lines and shapes and their advantage over raster images is that you can scale the Vector paths up as much as you want and there is absolutely no loss of quality.

Create a new document - 400 x 400 pixels.

Select the Polygon Tool from the toolbox.

On the tool options bar at the top of the screen, select the Shape Layers option.

Again, on the tool options bar at the top of the screen, click on the down arrow for Polygon Options.

Check the Star check box to ensure that you draw a star rather than a polygon shape with lots of sides.

In the “Indent Sides By” field enter a percentage. To get a very pointy star enter a high number such as 60 - 70. For a less pointy star enter a lower number, say 20%. You will get very different effects with these numbers. I’m using 50% for this example.

In the colour picker, choose a foreground colour. I picked a red for mine.

Click and drag out a Star shape to the size you want.

When you release the mouse you notice that a new shape layer had been added in the layers palette. This new layer consists of a red fill linked to a star shape mask.

Don’t worry that the edges of the star appear jagged. This is because the path around the star shape is selected. Click on the background layer to deselect the shape and you will see the nice sharp edges of the star appear.

Now it’s time to add some text to your badge. Select the Type tool, set the font colour to white and choose a solid, heavy-looking font. I used Arial Black, size 30. After you have typed in some text, commit it by clicking on any other layer on the layers palette.

Select the type layer again by clicking on it in the layers palette. Press Ctrl + T (windows) or Cmd + T (Mac) to free transform the text. Run your mouse over one of the corner handles so that the cursor changes to a double-headed arrow and drag to rotate the text. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac) to apply the transformation.

The last thing to do is to add a drop shadow to the badge. Click on the star shape layer to select it, then click on the layer style button at the bottom of the layers palette.

Leave the blend mode at multiply, the shadow colour to black and set the angle to 90 degrees. Adjust distance, spread and size to your own taste or use the values I used in the Illustration below.

Click OK and Voila!

Photoshop Quick Tip: Time Yourself!

2007-02-20T15:31:00.000Z

Photoshop can tell you how long you are spending on different commands as you work. To find out (if you really want to know how long you play with each toy, I mean tool), then click on the right-facing triangle at the bottom of the document window. Usually you will see document info here, such as the file size but when you click on the triangle, choose Show from the menu and then choose Timing. This is effectively a stop-watch which times your actions on each tool or command.

So now you can start working towards your personal best, painting a circle in under 0.5 seconds.

Photoshop Tutorial: How To Create A Vignette or Soft Fade Edges in a Photo

2007-02-19T12:40:00.000Z

A vignette is a photograph or illustration in which the background fades gradually away until it blends into the paper on which it is printed. In this short tutorial, I'm going to show you one method (because in Photoshop there is nearly always more than one way to do things) to create this effect.

Open your image. I'm using a stock image of a family out skiing.
Double-click on the background layer to convert it to a “normal” layer. You can rename your layer in the New Layer dialog box that opens and I named mine “vignette”.

In the toolbox, select the Elliptical Marquee tool.

Drag out a circular marquee selection around the area of the image that you want to hold on to.

Click on the "Add layer mask" button at the bottom of the layers palette.

Click on the layer mask thumbnail in the layers palette.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and make sure the Preview option is checked.
Play with the radius values until you are happy with the amount of fade and then click OK.

You should now have a vignette with a transparent background. If you want to add a colour background, all you need to do is add a layer underneath your current layer and fill it with whatever colour you like.

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Setting a specific crop size

2007-02-17T14:24:00.000Z

In this tutorial you'll learn how to set a specific size for cropping and printing your pictures from Photoshop. In a previous video I showed you how to create a basic crop using the Crop tool in Photoshop. In this video tutorial we’ll take a look at how to set definite dimensions for your crop, rather than just using a freeform crop.

Cropping To A Specific Size For Printing In Photoshop

Design Inspiration : MagazineArt.org

2007-02-16T13:06:00.000Z

MagazineArt.org is a wonderful site featuring a huge database of magazine covers from the 19th and 20th century. It contains covers from magazines you probably never knew even existed - women's magazines, gardening, movies, pulp and the artwork is terrific. I particularly like the Adventure section with lots of fairly rough looking dudes or damsels in distress on the covers.

So if you're having a creative block, take a look at this site for some inspiration.

Photoshop Tutorial : Using the Sponge Tool to Adjust Saturation

2007-02-15T15:17:00.000Z

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to increase the saturation in selected parts of an image. When you change the saturation of a color, you adjust its strength or purity. The Sponge tool is useful for making subtle saturation changes to specific areas of an image.

I’m using an image of a bunch of roses on a wooden table. It is a slightly dull (in terms of colour) image of some red and pink flowers.

1. Select the Sponge tool (), hidden under the Dodge tool ().

2. On the tool options bar, do the following:

Select a large, very soft brush, from the Brush pop-up palette.

Choose Mode > Saturate. (Saturate increases the intensity of a colour, Desaturate decreases the intensity of a colour

For Flow , enter 50% for starters – if the changes are happening too rapidly, then decrease the flow.

3. Drag the sponge back and forth over an area of the image. The more you drag over an area, the more saturated the color becomes. In the image, I’m using the petals are starting to look much more colourful.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Minimise the Toolbox

2007-02-14T08:38:00.000Z

I'm in Spring Cleaning mode at the moment. Yesterday's tip was about getting rid of clutter in your Photoshop workspace by clearing away your palettes. Here's another quick one. Just double-click on the bar at the top of the toolbox and it is instantly minimised down to the bar with the feather image. To get the full toolbar back, double-click on the bar again.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Hide Those Unsightly Palettes

2007-02-13T15:33:00.000Z

The Photoshop work area can become a very busy place with the wide variety of palettes that can be opened at any one time. If you want to show someone your work without all the clutter, a quick way to get rid of them all is to press Tab on the keyboard. That gets rid of ALL the palettes.

If you want to keep the Toolbox and the Options Bar visible, press Shift + Tab.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Find the centre of your document

2007-02-13T15:14:00.000Z

Here's an easy way to find the exact centre of your image in Photoshop using the rulers and guides.

With your document open in Photoshop, make your rulers visible (Ctrl+R in windows, Cmd+R on the Mac). Make sure that Snap is turned on, you can check this by choosing View > Snap. Then click and drag a guide out from the left hand-side ruler towards the middle of your document. The guide should snap automatically when it reaches the vertical centre. Now click and drag on the ruler at the top of the document window and drag down towards the centre. Again the guide should snap when it reaches the horizontal centre. And there where they meet, you have the very centre of your document.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Flip those guides!

2007-02-12T15:50:00.001Z

Yesterday we saw how you can use the guides to help you find the centre of your document. Today’s Photoshop tip shows you how you can flip a guide from being a vertical guide to being a horizontal (or vice versa).

Let’s pretend you’ve pulled out a vertical guide when you really wanted a horizontal guide (I know, my mind wanders too). Well you don’t have to go back to the rulers and start again, all you need to do is hold down the Alt Key (in windows) or the Option key (on the Mac). This will flip the guide from horizontal to vertical or vertical to horizontal. A handy little time saver.

Design Resources: Kuler

2007-02-09T08:52:00.000Z

Kuler - From the Adobe Lab, this is a wonderful free application that lets you create colour themes and save them for your Creative Suite 2 applications. You can also share themes and save them on the site - you'll need an Adobe ID to this (that's free too, you just need to register).

So if you're a graphic designer, a web designer, a fashion designer, an interior designer or just someone who likes colours, this is a great site for ideas.

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Back to basics with the Crop Tool

2007-02-08T14:19:00.000Z

In today’s video we go back to basics as we look at how to use the Crop tool in Photoshop. A bit of careful cropping can elevate an ordinary photograph to something very special. Did you know you can rotate your cropped area? Do you know what a shield is? Watch this short video to find out.

Back To Basics With The Crop Tool In Photoshop

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Change eye colour using the Colour Replacement Tool

2007-01-30T14:12:00.000Z

Hidden underneath the brush tool in the Photoshop toolbox (and often ignored), you will find the Colour Replacement tool. In this video tutorial, we’ll look at how easy and quick it is to replace the green eye colour of a young girl with the blue eye colour of another girl.

How To Change A Person's Eye Colour In Photoshop

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Speed Up Your Post-Scan Editing

2007-01-15T13:51:00.000Z

If you scan in photographs you will often find that they appear slightly crooked when scanned in, or if you scan multiple photographs in one go they will sometimes appear skewed on the scan. In this video tutorial you will see how to use the Automated Crop and Straighten option to very quickly and easily get around these problems.

Speed Up Your Scanned Image Editing With Photoshop And The Autom - The most popular videos are a click away

Free Photoshop File Download : Reusable Post-It Note

2007-01-15T09:37:00.000Z

Here's a free Photoshop file for you to download. I made it for a poster I was working on and I think it's a handy file to have around to reuse.

You can download a zipped version of the file here.

Let me know if you find it useful.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Displaying Image Size Information in Photoshop

2007-01-12T08:14:00.000Z

Rather than choosing Image > Image Size to open the Image size dialog box, a really quick way to find out Image size information in Photoshop is to press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and then Click and hold down the mouse button over the file information box at the bottom of the document window.

A little box appears telling you, the width and height of the image (in pixels AND in the currently selected unit of measurement), the number of channels and the image resolution. Rapid!

Design Inspiration : Michael Elins

2007-01-08T16:36:00.000Z

I'm always on the lookout for inspiration for both myself and my class and there is no end of incredible talent out there working in our beloved Photoshop.

Michael Elins is a photographer and illustrator whose work has graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine numerous times. I first came across his work when I read an excellent tutorial on retouching in Computer Arts magazine a couple of years ago. As well as photographing celebrities he also takes his work into Photoshop where he works some extra magic.

Check out his website at www.michaelelins.com

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Add more canvas to your image using the crop tool

2007-01-07T11:23:00.000Z

Here's a short video tutorial which shows you how to use the Crop tool in Photoshop to ADD more canvas to your image, rather than cropping away.

Add More Canvas To Your Image With The Crop Tool In Photoshop -

This video is also available in a larger size and better quality when you sign up for the Learn and Master Photoshop online course.

Photoshop Video Tutorial : Use the colour match adjustment

2007-01-01T12:27:00.000Z

In this short video tutorial we look at how to apply the look and feel of one photograph to another photograph.

How To Match The Colour Of One Photograph With Another Photograp -

This video lesson and many others are just some of the bonus material that is available to members who susbscribe to the Learn and Master Photoshop online course.

Happy New Year from Digital Design Cottage

2006-12-31T09:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all. Let's hope it will be a happy, healthy and prosperous one for us all!

Jennifer

Take the mouse and back away from the tool bar!

2006-12-08T09:34:00.000Z

When I'm teaching Photoshop, or any of the other design software I always tell my students to make a concious effort to learn the shortcuts for the tools on the toolbar. Most of them are pretty straight forward as the shortcut key is the same as the first letter of the tool, for example E for Eraser, B for Brush.

When you're using the Zoom tool there are a few really handy shortcuts that you can get into the habit of using. First hit Z on the keyboard instead of bringing your mouse over to the toolbar.

Once your Zoom tool is selected, you can click once to zoom in by a preset amount. Each time you click you will zoom in again by that preset amount.

Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) to zoom out.

By using these sorts of shortcuts your workflow speeds up enormously and it will really become second nature to you after a while.

Book Review : 100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers

2006-12-07T14:27:00.000Z

Unfortunately (for some of us, others thrive), being a designer means having to do so much more than just designing. We need to deal with clients, create an efficient workflow and stay up to date with technology. This book looks at how successful designers manage to deal with all of the above and more.

The business of design is divided up here into categories which include Education, Self-promotion, Partnerships and Dealing With Clients. Within each of these categories. designers explain their approach and sample of their work illustrate the process.

The aim of this book is to give advice about how to integrate the business world with the creative process (and not go mad). I found this book to be extremely helpful and also inspirational in terms of "pulling up my socks" and getting out there.

100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers: Insider Secrets from Top Designers on Working Smart and Staying Creative
I would rate this book 4 out of 5.

Don't forget to visit the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf to see a wide range of Photoshop and Design related books.

Design Inspiration : Derek Bacon

2006-11-23T08:53:00.000Z

I came across Derek Bacon's work in Computer Arts magazine a couple of years ago. He is a photo montage artist and Photoshop is one of his tools of choice.

I imagine that many of the pictures start out as fairly mundane scenes of ordinary life but they are transformed into something very special in the hands of this artist. Bright colours light up drab scenes and give a whole new meaning to the image. Check out his portfolio here for some design inspiration!

Photoshop Quick Tip: Adjust your selection size

2006-11-16T08:21:00.000Z

When you have made a selection in Photoshop, you can easily make that selection a few pixels larger of smaller by choosing Select > Modify. To make your selection bigger choose Expand, to make the selection smaller, choose Contract. It works best if you Expand or Contract by only a small number of pixels at a time (i.e. 4 or 5 pixels at most). Otherwise the edges of the selection won’t stay sharp, they have a tendency to look quite bumpy.

Photoshop Brushes : Birds

2006-09-21T12:57:00.000+01:00

I have a new set of free Photoshop brushes for you to download. These are a collection of bird illustration images. There are 12 in all and they include a gull, a cormorant, an eagle, a jackdaw and a few others whose names I can't remember.

Download a zip file of the Photoshop Brushes here .

Let me know what you think.

Photoshop Quick Tip: More Tips For Your Tools

2006-09-14T08:24:00.000+01:00

I’m sure you are well aware that when you roll your mouse over any tool in the toolbar in Photoshop, you’ll get a little tooltip letting you know the name of the tool and it’s shortcut key.

What you might not know, is that in the Info palette, you can get further hints about how to use any particular tool. Choose Window > Info if the Info palette is not already open. If you don’t see a tip at the bottom of the palette then go to the Info palette menu and choose Palette options, from there click on the checkbox for Show Tool Hints.

Now try picking a few different tools and check out the extra tips in the Info palette.

Photoshop Tutorial : Warping Type

2006-08-22T15:14:00.000+01:00

It’s easy to add a bit of flair to your text using the Warp dialog box. Warping lets you distort type into a wide range of shapes, such as a flag, a wave or a fisheye. The warp style you select is an attribute of the type layer - you can change a layer’s warp style at any time to change the overall shape of the warp.

1. Open a new file or open an existing image file that you want to add some text to. I’m using an image of some running legs.

2. Select the Horizontal Type tool (), and in the Character palette, choose Century as the typeface, 72 pt as the size and white as the colour. (make sure you don’t have a white background or you won’t see your text!)

3. Click anywhere on the image and type some text. Then click the Commit Any Current Edits button () on the tool options bar.

The words appear on the image and a new layer appears in the Layers palette. The new layer will be name whatever you typed in. In this example, I typed the word Running, so the new layer is automatically called Running.

4. Click on your new text layer in the Layers palette to make sure it is selected and then click on the Create Warp Text button on the tool options bar.

The Warp Text dialog box opens.

5. In the Warp Text dialog box, choose Style > Flag and click the Horizontal radio button. For Bend , specify + 25%. Then click OK.

The words you typed will appear to ruffle like a flag in the wind. Easy as that!

I repeated steps 4 and 5 with the words “Away” layer, to create the image below:

Free Photoshop Brushes : Fish

2006-08-17T12:29:00.000+01:00

Some more free Photoshop brushes for your photoshopping pleasure. These brushes all feature fish or underwater animals like seahorses.

You can download the zipped file here.

Let me know if you find them useful.

Photoshop Tutorial : A visual overview of the toolbox

2006-08-01T15:25:00.000+01:00

Just like an artist’s work table, the toolbox - the long, narrow palette on the far left side of the work area in Photoshop - contains the tools you'll use to draw, paint, erase, and do a myriad of other things whilst working on your image. There are several distinct categories of tools in Photoshop's toolbox:

• Selection tools

• Painting and editing tools

• Vector drawing and Text tools

• Foreground and background colour selection boxes

• Viewing tools

When you let your mouse hover over any tool in the toolbox, you will see a tooltip which lets you know the name of the tool and the tool's keyboard shortcut. It's worth making a concious effort to learn the shortcuts as it speeds up your work enormously. Some of the shortcuts are really easy to remember such as Z for the Zoom tool or E for the Eraser.

Whenever you see a little arrow on the bottom right of a tool in Photoshop (or any Adobe application for that matter), it means there are other “hidden” tool choices. Hidden tools are accessed by clicking and holding on any tool that contains a small black triangle, located in the lower-right corner of the tool. It can sometimes be hard to find that one tool you're looking for because it's hidden under a fly-out menu icon.

The illustrations below show an overview of the toolbox, with each tool available and its shortcut key

Selection Tools

Retouching Tools

Painting Tools

Vector drawing and Text Tools

Annotation, Measuring and Navigation Tools

Colour Tools

Other Tools

PhotoshopTutorial : Create Lomo Style Photographs

2006-07-12T15:45:00.000+01:00

Accidents such as over-saturated colors, lens artifacts, and exposure defects are just some of the wierd and wonderful effects acheived using a Lomo camera.

What's Lomo?

"In 1991 a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo Kompakt Automat when on holiday in Prague. This mass-produced Soviet camera was so cheap and easy to use that they shot rolls of film, ignoring the established rules of "good" photography. The resulting snaps were often odd to look at, out of focus and, due to the character of the Lomo lens, garishly coloured. But they were wonderfully fresh."

- From the BBC 4 website

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create an image in Photoshop that looks like it was taken using a Lomo camera.

1. Open the photograph that you are going to work with. We’re going to start by making a vignette.

2. Select either the Elliptical Marquee tool (), or the Lasso tool (). In the tool options bar, set the feather to 90 pixels.

3. Draw a circle around the photograph.

4. Now that you’ve made a selection, you’re going to invert it. Do this by choosing Select > Inverse or pressing Shift+Ctrl+I (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+I (Mac).

5. Add a new adjustment layer by clicking on the “New Adjustment Layer” button on the bottom of the Layers palette. Choose Levels from the pop-up menu.

6. Drag the left arrow (representing the dark pixels) towards the centre of the histogram. You will see that the selected are becomes very dark, producing a vignette. How dark you want to go is up to you, so you can try out various settings, but there should be a definite dark edge around your photograph.

That’s the vignette created.

Now you’re going to fake the effect of cross processing. Lomo pictures tend to look bright, blurred and extremely colourful. Like an old TV that’s starting to go on the blink.

7. Flatten the image by pressing Shift+Ctrl+E (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+E (Mac), or choose Layer > Merge Layers.

8. Add another adjustment layer, this time choose Curves from the pop-up menu.

9. In the Curves dialog box, add two points and create a slanted S shape, as illustrated.

10. Add a new layer (just a normal layer this time) on top of the Curves adjustment layer and fill the new layer with solid black.

11. In the Layers palette, make sure the new Black layer is selected and change the blending mode from Normal to Hue. Reduce the opacity to around 40%.

And that completes your “Lomo-like” photograph.

Optional Step:

At this point, you could, if you want, sharpen the image using Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Lomo photographs tend to be blurry – that’s part of their charm – so I’m just leaving my image alone at this point.

Other examples:

Before	After

Photoshop Tutorial : Fake InfraRed !

2006-07-10T16:27:00.000+01:00

In this tutorial, you'll see how to use the Channel Mixer, Gaussian Blur and Film Grain in Photoshop to create the impression of an photograph which has been taken using a camera with an infrared filter.

The effect works really well and can completely change the look of a photograph.

1. Open the photograph that you want to work with.

2. Make a duplicate of the background layer (in the layers palette drag "background" over the new layer icon at the bottom of the palette next to the trash can).

3. Select the new duplicate layer and rename it “Infrared” by double clicking on the layer name.

4. Create a new Channel Mixer adjustment layer by clicking on the New Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the layers palette. Choose "Channel Mixer" from the pop-up menu.

5. The Channel Mixer dialog box will open.

6. Make sure the “Preview” option is checked so you can see how your photo will change. Then check the "Monochrome" option on the bottom left of the dialog box. (Leave it unchecked for a bizarre color effect.)

7. Set Red = + 100%, Green = + 200% and Blue = - 200%

8. Use the slider on the Constant option to reduce the brightness. I set this picture -10%.

9. Click OK. Your image will now start to have a hint of infrared about it.

10. Merge all the visible layers by choosing Layer > Merge Visible.

11. Create another duplicate layer on top of the existing layer.

12. On the document window, click on the corner of the window and drag out until there is at least one inch of gray showing all around your image window.

13. With the topmost duplicate layer selected press Ctrl + T to Free Transform the layer. With the Shift key held down, drag out each of the corner adjustment handles until the image expands out equally into the gray area by about 1/4 to ½ an inch. Hit Enter on the keyboard to apply the transformation.

14. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and move the slider up to around 4.5 and clickOK.

15. On the layers palette go to the layers tab and change the blending mode from normal to Screen. Now adjust the opacity slider down to approximately 50%, or what ever suits your image best.

At this point you should have a nice glow or halo around parts of the image.

16. Choose Filter > Artistic > Film Grain. Drag the slider to between 4 and 6 to add a visible level of graininess to the photograph. Click OK to exit the Filter dialog box.

Your image is now complete and you will have achieved a good if not perfect impression of a photograph taken using an Infrared filter.

Other examples: The beautiful west coast of Ireland.




The Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin

Illustrator: Quick Tip - Gaps & Live Paint

2006-07-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

When you create an illustration in Illustrator CS2, you will find that not every path will line up perfectly and you will see gaps. If you want to fill in a region with colour, these sort of gaps can sometimes cause problems and you end up with a blue face when you were actually just trying to fill in an eye colour. To get over this, with a Live Paint group selected, you can choose Object > Live Paint > Gap Options to specify that gaps of a certain size (which you define- small, medium, large or custom size) will close filled areas.

Photoshop Tutorial : Make a Text Clipping Mask

2006-07-04T16:04:00.000+01:00

Here's a new tutorial - all about how to use text as a clipping mask in Photoshop. Many people avoid clipping masks because there is a perception that they are difficult or that you need to be some kind of Photoshop master to use them. As you'll see in this tutorial there is nothing to be afraid of, they are straightforward and produce great effects.

To briefly explain what's happening here: You can use the content of one layer to mask the layers above it. The transparent pixels of the bottom or base layer mask the content of layers above it that are part of a clipping mask. The content of the base layer clips or reveals, the content of the layers above it in the clipping mask. It's like looking through a stencil.

Open an image in Photoshop. I’m using a snowy scene, but you can use a picture of anything at all.
Select the Horizontal Type Tool and in the tool options bar at the top of the screen, choose a font (heavy, solid fonts work best for clipping), and a fairly large font size.

(I used the following settings: Font Family – pussycat, Size 250, Text aligned Centre and Anti-aliasing set to Strong. )

Click on the image in the document window and type some text.
Use the Move Tool, to centre the word in the middle of the image or over an area of interest in the image.
Click on the background layer in the Layers Palette to select it and then click on the Create A New Layer button.

A new empty layer will appear in the Layers Palette.
Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill the new layer with white.

You now need to rearrange the stacking order of the layers to create your clipping mask. If your image has a ”background” layer, it will probably be locked.

Double-click anywhere on the background layer to open up the New Layer dialog box. Rename the layer and click OK.

Click on the layer you have just renamed in the Layers Palette and drag it to the top of the layers so it is hiding the words you’ve typed.

With the topmost layer selected, click on the Layers Palette menu (the little triangle in the upper right corner) and choose Create Clipping Mask.

The clipping mask, kicks into action and you will see the letters forming the word Snowfall are filled with the image of the snowy trees.

Adding A Drop Shadow

To complete this image add a drop shadow to the text. It adds a little extra impact!

Select the type layer to make it active, and then click the Add a Layer Style button () at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Drop Shadow from the pop-up menu.

In the Layer Style dialog box, change the Opacity to 100%, the angle to 180 and the distance, spread and size to 3 (or choose whatever options you like best).

The final image should look something like this:

Illustrator : Tutorial - Envelopes

2006-06-30T13:36:00.000+01:00

I put a new tutorial up, which describes how to use the Envelope in Illustrator to create a banner like effect. This is just one of many uses of the envelope, but the idea is just to give you a taster for using it.

The tutorial is over here.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Using the dimensions of one image to crop another image.

2006-06-29T21:25:00.000+01:00

In Photoshop, you can use the dimensions of one image to crop another image.

Open two images in Photoshop.

Select the image with the desired crop size to make it active.

Select the Crop tool from the toolbox and click the Front Image button on the tool options bar. This enters the image's height, width, and resolution in the respective fields on the options bar.

Switch to the image that you want to crop, and drag out with the Crop tool. The tool will be constrained to the previous image’s aspect ratio as you drag. When you release the mouse button and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac) to apply the crop, the image will be resized to the desired height, width, and resolution.

Photoshop: Quick Tip – Image Processor

2006-06-28T16:07:00.000+01:00

The Image Processor in Photoshop CS2 is a new tool which allows you to process multiple images. Unlike the Barch command, you don't have to create an action before using the Image Processor to process your files. It can do lots of cool stuff that would normally be quite time-consuming, such as:

Convert a set of files to either JPEG, PSD, or TIFF format; or convert files simultaneously to all three formats.
Resize images to fit within your specified pixel dimensions.
Include copyright information.
Process a set of camera raw files using the same options.
Embed a color profile or convert a set of files to sRGB and save them as JPEG images for the web.

To use the Image Processor choose File > Scripts > Image Processor

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Removing a Colour Cast

2006-06-27T15:48:00.000+01:00

Some images contain color casts (imbalanced colors), which may occur during scanning or which may have existed in the original image, particularly older photographs. You'll find that some of your images look very cold - they have a blue cast, or often photographs taken indoors will look too warm - they have a yellow cast. You can remove a colour cast very quickly in Photoshop.

1. Open an image with an obvious colour cast.

2. Choose Image > Adjustments > Auto Color

Voila!

Illustrator : Tutorial - Using The Scribble Effect

2006-06-26T16:11:00.000+01:00

The Scribble effect in Illustrator CS allows you to take a shape or path and make it look like it has been sribbled with a pen or pencil. You can also create interesting painterly effects by combining the scribble effect with different brushes. This tutorial shows you how to do just that.

Photoshop : Quick Tip - Changing the size of the font preview

2006-06-23T11:52:00.000+01:00

If you find that the size of the text in the font preview is too small, or too large, you can change this setting in Photoshop CS2. Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K Mac OS) to open Photoshop’s preferences and choose Type from the pop-up menu. Make sure that the checkbox for Font Preview Size is selected, you can then choose, Small, Medium or Large in the pop-up menu.

Photoshop Tutorial : Using Solid Colour Layers

2006-06-21T15:09:00.000+01:00

In this tutorial you'll learn how to generate a solid colour layer in Photoshop. This is a special layer which allows you to quickly and easily change the background colour of images with the colour picker.

Publish

In this tutorial you'll learn how to generate a solid colour layer in Photoshop. This is a useful way to change backgrounds on images. I'm using an image of a purple car which has areas of transparency which lets the yellow background layer show through.

In Photoshop, click on the Layer1 layer in the Layers palette to select it.

Click on Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer menu.

Choose Solid Color from that menu.

This will open the Colour Picker.

I chose a blue colour and clicked OK.

A new layer called Color Fill 1 has appeared in Layers Palette. This layer has two thumbnails and a link symbol associated with it. The thumbnail on the left is a solid color fill. The white thumbnail on the right is a layer mask. You can see the solid color fill through the mask because the mask is set to white. The reason for using a solid color layer is that it gives you the flexibility to easily change a solid fill.

Click on the new Color Fill 1 layer and drag it down below the Layer 0 (the car layer).

Now the car is at the top of the stack in the Layers Palette and the background appears blue. Using this new layer it is now extremely easy to change the background colour easily and quickly.

In the Layers palette, double-click on the thumbnail on the left side of the Color Fill 1 layer. This will open the Color Picker again. Choose a new colour and notice the live preview of the colour changes to the layer. This is what makes it so good. Click OK when you find a colour you like.

Web Design: Inspiration - Design Observer has a new look

2006-06-20T11:03:00.000+01:00

The Design Observer has recently been redesigned (in fact a lot of re-designing seems to be happening around the web at the moment). The new design is simple and elegant.

On the new design the editors say:

"We've stuck with this design for over two years, despite many complaints that we were 1) not being designers, and 2) that reversed-out type is difficult to read. However, when we started, we were determined to focus on the content first, and the form second, and this default template has served us well."

Very nice, it is too.

Photoshop : Tutorials - Create a simple 3D logo

2006-06-19T08:49:00.000+01:00

This tutorial shows you a quick and easy way to create a simple 3D logo using the Distort Transformation in Photoshop.

Create a new document – 500 pixels by 500 pixels. Click on the Foreground Colour Swatch and pick a dark green colour. (I chose a green with the RGB value #336633).

Fill the background with the colour you selected by pressing Alt+Backspace (Windows) or Option+Delete (Mac).

Press "d" to set the Foreground and Background colours to their default of Black and White.
Press "x" to set your Foreground colour to white.
Select the Horizontal Type Tool () and select the following settings on the tool options bar.

Font Family – pussycat, Size 250 (you will need to type this into the Size field and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac)), Text aligned Centre and Anti-aliasing set to Strong.

Add some type to your image.
Click on the Create A New Layer button in the Layers Palette.

A new empty layer will appear in the Layers Palette.

Select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the toolbox.

Press Shift and drag out a circular selection that's larger than your type (illustrated below).
Click on the Edit menu and choose Stroke. In the Stroke dialog box, choose 20 for your Width, set the Location to Centre and set the Colour to white. Click OK. This puts a white stroke around the circular selection you made.

Press Ctrl+D (Windows) or Cmd+D (MAC) to deselect the circular marquee.

Click on the type layer in the Layers Palette and then Shift+click on the white circle layer to select both layers at the same time. Click on the Link Layers button at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Now that the layers are linked you can merge them together by pressing Ctrl+E (Windows) or Cmd+E (Mac).
Press Ctrl+T (Windows) or Cmd+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box.
Hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd(Mac) key and click on the bottom-right corner point of the Free Transform bounding box, and up and to the right. (Holding down Ctrl causes the contents of the bounding box to distort.) The logo will appear to tip forward. Do the same thing with the upper left handle of the bounding box until you get a sense of perspective on the logo. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (MAC) to commit the transformation.

(Optional) For an extra effect, add a drop shadow. In the Layers Palette, click on the layer with the merged text and circle to make it active, and then click the Add a Layer Style button () at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Drop Shadow from the pop-up menu.

Play around with the Drop Shadow dialog box to see which settings work best. I used the following settings:

Your final logo should look something like this:

Photoshop : Quick Tip - See RGB and CMYK at the same time

2006-06-19T08:44:00.000+01:00

When you’re working on an RGB document in Photoshop, that will eventually be converted to a CMYK document for printing, it’s possible to see both versions at the same time and see the changes you make on the RGB image appear simultaneously on the CMYK image. Follow these steps:

1. Open an RGB image in Photoshop.

2. Choose Window > Arrange > New Window.
This opens another view of your existing document.

3. Press Ctrl+Y (Windows) or Cmd+Y (MAC) to see a CMYK preview of your image.

4. Click on the original RGB image and start editing. Your changes will be updated on the CMYK image as your work.

Photoshop : Quick Tip - Increase and Decrease the size of your Selection

2006-06-19T08:40:00.000+01:00

When you make a selection, you can easily make that selection a few pixels larger of smaller by choosing Select > Modify. To make your selection bigger choose Expand, to make the selection smaller, choose Contract. It works best if you Expand or Contract by only a small number of pixels at a time (i.e. 4 or 5 pixels at most). Otherwise the edges of the selection won’t stay sharp, they have a tendency to go round.

Photoshop: Tutorial - Vertical Type Tool & Character Palette

2006-06-16T11:34:00.000+01:00

The Vertical Type tool is used for typing text (surprise!!)vertically on your image. But did you know that you can also rotate the vertical text using the character palette? Here's a short tutorial to show you how to use the tool and also how to change the orientation of the text.

This short tutorial, shows you how to use the Vertical Type Tool in Photoshop and how to rotate the Vertical text using the Character Palette menu.

Open an image file. I'm using a portrait shaped picture of two boats.

Choose the Vertical Type tool from the tool box.

Select any font you like, preferably something that looks quite heavy, choose a large size and set the anti-aliasing to strong. It's also a good idea to use capital letters when you're working with Vertical Type because each letter is the same height and therefore there won't be large gaps between the bottom of one letter and the top of the next letter.( I selected Arial Black, size 72)

Type some text onto your image.

Your typing will appear vertically on the screen.

Click on any tool on the toolbox to commit the type OR click on the Commit Any Current Edits button () on the Options tool bar to commit the type.

Change the orientation of text by 90 degrees with the Character Palette

Select the Vertical Type Tool again and highlight the words you have typed on your image.

Choose Window > Character to open up the Character palette menu

Click on the small triangle in the upper right corner of the Character palette menu and then click on Standard Vertical Roman Alignment. (It will initially have a check mark beside it indicating that the option is selected).

When you release the mouse button, the text will change direction.

Illustrator: Quick Tip - Rotating

2006-06-14T15:21:00.000+01:00

When you're using the Rotate tool (R), you might find that when your mouse is too close to the rotate bounding box, that you're getting strange results. To gain more control over rotation, move your mouse cursor a little bit away from the bounding box and you should find you have more control over its positioning.

Photoshop & Illustrator : Quick Tip - Get more from your Zoom

2006-06-13T10:53:00.000+01:00

It's important when you are editing an image in Photoshop or Illustrator that you can zoom in (to work on a pixel by pixel basis if necessary) and then zoom out again to see how your changes look. To speed up your workflow enormously, try using keyboard shorcuts rather than clicking on the Zoom tool in the tool box or using the View menu.

Here are some keyboard shortcuts to try:

To quickly view your image at 100%, double-click the zoom tool in the toolbox.
With any tool selected, press Ctrl and + (Windows) or Cmd and + (Mac) to zoom in, or press Ctrl and – or Cmd and – to zoom out.
Press Ctrl+spacebar (Windows) or Cmd+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom In tool from the keyboard. When you're finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
Press Alt+spacebar (Windows) or Option-spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom Out tool from the keyboard. When you're finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) to change the Zoom In tool to the Zoom Out tool.

Design: Most Commonly Used File Formats in Digital Design

2006-06-09T10:56:00.000+01:00

When you are creating designs digitally, you will come across many file formats. Here’s a brief explanation of what they all mean.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Probably the most common of all file formats. It is used extensively on the web for photographic images. It has a small file size and can be good quality, but the downside is that it’s a “lossy” format – quality is lost when image compression is used to decrease file size. Repeated editing of JPEG’s results in a softening of the image and loss of detail. JPEG format supports CMYK, RGB, and grayscale colour modes.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
Again, this is a very popular format for web graphics. It is limited to 256 colours (8 bit palette). They are more suited for images such as logos or images using blocks of colour. They do not work well with photographic images but their advantage is that they use lossless data compression, thus reducing the file size is possible without a large loss of quality.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
Often pronounced “PING”, this is probably the third most popular file format for web graphics. It uses a lossless data compression method known as deflation. Like the GIF format, images can be edited without many of the problems linked with “lossy” file formats.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
This format produces excellent results and offers “lossless” compression. However the problem with TIFF’s is that they produce a very large file size. Some digital cameras are now shooting TIFF files, which are favoured over JPEGs by professional photographers. This format is often used when sending artwork to printers. TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all paint, image-editing, and page-layout applications.

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)
This format is closely associated with desktop publishing programs. EPS files can contain both vector and bitmap graphics and is supported by virtually all graphic, illustration, and page-layout programs. When you open an EPS file containing vector graphics created in another application, Photoshop rasterizes the file, converting the vector graphics to pixels.

PDF (Portable Document Format)
This is used widely both for print and internet distribution. It is a flexible, cross-platform, cross-application file format. PDFs are device independent and resolution independent. PDF files accurately display and preserve fonts, page layouts, and both vector and bitmap graphics. In addition, PDF files can contain hyperlinks and even sound and video.

PSD (Photoshop Document)
This is the native file format of Photoshop. PSD is the default file format for newly created images inside Photoshop and the only format supporting all available image modes (Bitmap, Grayscale, Duotone, Indexed Color, RGB, CMYK, Lab, and Multichannel), guides, alpha channels, spot channels, and layers (including adjustment layers, type layers, and layer effects).

AI (Adobe Illustrator)
This is the native file format of Adobe Illustrator.

INDD (InDesign Document)
The native file format of Adobe InDesign.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Smart Objects

2006-06-09T10:36:00.000+01:00

Smart Objects are a new Photoshop CS2 feature. They allow you to perform non-destructive transformations (scaling, rotating, warping) of raster and vector graphics. You can select a layer and turn it into a “smart object”. This allows you to shrink and then enlarge a graphic without any loss of quality. Normally when you shrink a graphic, it is virtually impossible to return it to its previous size with losing quality. By creating a smart object you can “tag” a layer and it becomes immune to the damage caused by resampling and resizing.

To turn a layer into a smart object, highlight the layer and choose Layer > Smart Objects > Group Into Smart Objects. An icon will appear in the Layers palette indicating that the layer has changed.

This new feature seems to be somewhat overlooked but I think it’s a great time saver and gives you some of the advantages you’d have working with vector files.

Photoshop: Tutorial - Spot Healing Brush

2006-06-08T11:27:00.000+01:00

Using the Spot Healing Brush tool is a great way to quickly get rid of zits, blemishes and other imperfections from photos. It's a new feature in Photoshop CS2 and it works by painting with sampled pixels from an image or pattern and matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. The Spot Healing Brush doesn't require you to specify a sample spot, you simply click where you want to remove a spot and it automatically samples from around the retouched area. It is absolutely incredible.

In this example I'm using the Spot Healing Brush to remove some orange spots from a butterfly’s wing.

In the toolbox, select the Spot Healing Brush tool (J).
On the tool options bar, click the Brush pop-up menu and make the brush larger, about 32 pixels and set the hardness to 25%.
Using the Spot Healing Brush, click once over the orange spot at the top of the butterfly’s wing. When you press down with the mouse, the shape of the brush will appear black or dark grey

.

Once you release the mouse button, the area will be “healed” and the spot will disappear.

Here I've used the Spot Healing Brush to remove all four orange spots on the butterfly.

Photoshop: Tutorial - Removing Red Eye in CS2

2006-06-08T11:08:00.000+01:00

The Red Eye tool in Photoshop CS2 removes red eye in flash photos of people and white or green reflections in flash photos of animals. It's incredibly quick and easy to use.

1. Open an image of a person with red eye.

2. Select the Red Eye tool from the toolbox.

3. Click in the red eye area on the image. The eye should change to a dark pupil.

If it doesn’t work out as you expected, set one or both of the following options in and click in the red eye area again:

Pupil Size sets the size of the pupil (dark center of the eye).
Darken Pupil Sets the darkness of the pupil.

Severe Red Eye
Even when the red eye is severe, Photoshop still does a good job of removing it. Occasionally it will make the person look like they have cataracts but generally it's a huge improvement.

Even when the red eye problem is reminiscent of The Terminator, as in this photo, it still does a good job. The results can be seen below.

Design Inspiration : Photoshop in Action - Greg Apodca

2006-06-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

This site has some great before and after images of work done using Photoshop. Greg Apodaca is a digital artist in California who does some wonderful work as digital image retoucher. The portfolio includes many examples using rollovers which allow you to view the image before Greg works his magic and the results afterwards.

Illustrator: Quick Tip - Using the Effect Gallery

2006-06-01T14:25:00.000+01:00

When you are trying out different effects in Illustrator CS2, the Effect Gallery is a great way to see all the various effects using one dialog box instead of going up and down through the Effect menu to preview each one individually. It's also a great place for playing.

The effects gallery lets you apply Photoshop-like effects to your paths and bitmaps. Effects will ONLY work in RGB mode.

To use it choose Effect > Effect Gallery.

Web Design: Old School is Old

2006-05-31T14:54:00.000+01:00

This article on ITworld.com talks about three old school web design issues that used to be BIG issues in the day before broadband. The author talks about how, unless you are "building pages for your local Windows 95 user group" you need to move on from worrying about;

Limited Screen Resolution - the days of 640 x 480 pixels are long gone, the majority of Web surfers now use screen resolutions 1024 x 768 or higher.
The Browser-Safe Color Palette - also out the door are the limited number of colours you had to choose from. They were 216 colors that never seemed to include the colors you needed.
Multimedia Avoidance Syndrome - don't lose any sleep at night over whether your multimedia is going will fit down the phoneline. With many users connecting with broadband it's safer to add to Flash and video to your sites now.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Use a new layer for retouching

2006-05-30T13:44:00.000+01:00

If you are retouching a photograph, for the sake of safety (and your sanity if you accidentally erase something you didn't want to) , you should do all of your retouching on a separate layer above your image. By doing this you are only changing your new layer and won't damage your main image and you can play with blend modes and opacity to achieve different levels of retouching.

So if you are using the Clone Stamp tool (S) or the Spot Healing Brush (J) or the Healing Brush (J), in the Options bar at the top of the screen, turn on the Sample All Layers option. Now you will be sampling from your main image but painting onto the new layer you created above it.

Photoshop & Illustrator: Inspiration

2006-05-29T11:20:00.000+01:00

Bert Monroy is an unbelievably talented and dedicated digital artist who specialises in photorealistic artwork. He is also a writer and I've read a couple of his books - Commercial Photoshop and Photoshop Studio and they are superb.

I was looking on his website today and in the fine art section there are some wonderful examples of his work. This particular piece http://www.bertmonroy.com/fineart/text/fineart_damen.htm was created using both Illustrator and Photoshop and in total contains 15,000 layers and 250,000 paths. Take a look and be inspired (and a bit scared at the amount of work involved!).

Illustrator: Inspiration - Adobe Illustrator in Action

2006-05-26T11:58:00.000+01:00

I believe it's very important to look at how other people use design software - both in terms of seeing what the software can do in the hands of a pro and also for inspiration for your own work.

Todd Ferris is an artist and designer who uses Adobe Illustrator to amazing effect with his wonderful illustrations of classic cars. Have a look at http://www.warking.com/.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Get Rid of the Slice Numbers

2006-05-26T11:09:00.000+01:00

Although we love the Slice Tool and all it does for us, it can sometimes be a bit of a pain when the slice numbers appear on our images when we don't want them. For example when you accidentally select the Slice Tool, when you really wanted, say, the Move tool, you will notice that you have an unwanted number on your image. The good news is, it's really easy to get rid of them.

To remove the number, choose View > Show > Slices. Voila! the slice number has disappeared. If you want it back just choose View > Show > Slices again, and there it is.

Design Inspiration: Absolut Art

2006-05-25T15:29:00.000+01:00

Absolut vodka began its involvement with art and design in 1985 with ABSOLUT WARHOL - Andy Warhol's dramatic and colorful depiction of the well known vodka bottle. The ads are now as famous for their design as for the product they are advertising. Absolut Vodka´s advertising campaign is the world´s longest ever uninterrupted one and to date, it comprises over 1,450 original ads.

Absolut has worked with painters and artists in all fields, including sculptors, crystal glass designers, photographers, furniture designers, architects and jewelry designers.

The Absolut website has some cool downloads including wallpapers and movies and screensavers based around the designs. Other Absolut-related websites include absolutads.com and a site with a wonderful gallery of the ads absolutad.com (yes, it is different than the other site!)

Design Resources: Lorem Ipsum

2006-05-25T09:19:00.000+01:00

If you need some dummy copy (text) to slot into your designs while you are working on them, then use the classic Lorem Ipsum text that has been used by the printing and typesetting industry since the 1500s. Below you will find a "chunk" of Lorem Ipsum text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Although the text appears to be random latin gobbledegook, it is actually over 2000 years old and has its roots in a piece of literature from 45 BC - "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil).

OK, so that's all very interesting, but why is it helpful when designing?
Well, a person viewing a design or layout will be distracted by readable content and may miss out on elements of the design. Another reason for using 'lorem ipsum' is that it also has a fairly normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'This is dummy text, this is dummy text, this is dummy text" making it look like readable text.

So where do you get Lorem Ipsum text? Simply go to http://www.lipsum.com/feed/html.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Combining Two or more Paths

2006-05-24T16:03:00.000+01:00

This a question that I find comes up a lot in the classroom when we are covering the vector drawing tools in Photoshop. If you are drawing using the pen tool (P) and you have two or more paths that are completely separate, how do you join them and move them together?

If you want these paths to move as one unit — you can combine them. Click on the Path Selection tool (Shift + A to cycle through). Then on the Options bar at the top of the screen, click on the Combine button. All the combined paths will move together.

Web Design: Expression Web Designer - New Kid on the Block

2006-05-24T10:18:00.000+01:00

Microsoft are getting rid of Frontpage from their Office 2007 ensemble. Replacing it, is a new program called Expression Web Designer. Unlike FrontPage, it doesn't belong to the Office family and isn't found in any of the Office 2007 bundles. This new piece of software is part of the "Expressions" line, which also includes Expression Graphic Designer - a rival to Photoshop and Expression Interactive Designer - a rival to Flash.

You can download demo versions of all three of these programs at this address: http://www.microsoft.com/expression.

Web Design: Inspiration

2006-05-23T08:52:00.000+01:00

A great website for design inspiration is Netdiver - http://www.netdiver.net/. It is one of the sites I visit frequently and has wonderful portfolios covering Photography, Illustration, Web Design and Flash. It is updated regularly and highlights new talent with spotlights and interviews.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Push Your Pixels x 10

2006-05-22T15:48:00.000+01:00

When you have the Move tool (V) selected in Photoshop you can move an entire layer, or if you've made a selection, you can move the selection using the arrow keys on the keyboard Up, Down, Left or Right. Each time you press an arrow, your layer or selection will move 1 pixel in that direction. If you want to speed things up, you can hold down the Shift key and at the same time press an arrow and now the object will move 10 pixels at a time.

Dreamweaver: Quick Tip - Font Lists

2006-05-18T14:29:00.000+01:00

Dreamweaver provides a fairly limited default list of fonts in the Properties Inspector and the various dialog boxes. If you’d like to make your own font lists or rearrange the order of the Dreamweaver lists you can do this by selecting Text > Font > Edit Font List. This opens up the Edit Font List dialog box where you can choose from Available fonts on your system to create a new list. You can also type in the name of any font, even if you don’t have it on your system in the field below the available fonts list. It’s a good idea to finish your list with serif or sans-serif – this is basically a catchall so that if you’re unfortunate enough to make a specific list of fonts that NOBODY has, you can still determine what TYPE of font will appear on your web pages.

Once you create a font list, it will appear in the places font lists usually appear and even in the code hints for CSS.