10 Cool Resource Web Sites For Graphic and Web Designers | Graphic Design This week I would like to show you 10 cool resource websites, each one of them offering various examples of images, links, wallpapers etc. Hopefully you will get inspired and can use those websites as a source for future projects. Now here are the 10 Cool Web and Graphic Design Resource Sites 99Percent This website is mainly about “ideas and how to make them happen”. Designbump This website is full of content, offering many Photoshop tutorials, information about Web Design, ideas and themes, comic book-art and fonts. Graphicmac Here you can find everything about Illustrator, InDesign, Mac, Photography, Photoshop and Fonts. Marcofolio How to make a rotating banner using CSS3, information about CSS3 for mac and hand-held devices, Photoshop, icons, CSS and Joomla for Web Design, and other useful tools, such as Cheat Sheets. Designreviver Tutorialking Fresh and free Photoshop tutorials, brushes, all this in various categories. Colourlovers Abduzeedo BigSpaceship Designmag Books About Web Design
50 Stunning Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials - Smashing Magazine Photoshop’s text and layer tools can be used to create some really awesome effects. We’ve put together a list of 60 of the best tutorials we could find to help you stay up to date on the latest trends and techniques. You’ll find some really cool grunge and glass styles (plus a few surprises!) Courtesy: LemonDesign1 Instead of listing 100 plus tutorials that you’ll bookmark never to come back, we’ve decided to take you through the basics of typography, hopefully inspiring and then teaching you. You may want to take a look at the following related posts: Introduction to Typography Link Typography is the art of arranging type, designing type, and modifying type glyphs. Here are some resources to give you further insight: The Wisest Mind Has Something Yet to Learn Link And we, too, never stop being inspired, learning and creating: How to Choose the Right Type Link Guess if you can, choose if you dare. Resources to Live by Link Here Come the Tutorials Link Go Crazy with 3D Link Chunky 3D letters33
A Slick Supernatural Text Effect In this tutorial we'll be creating a smoky night effect on text to give it an eerie supernatural sort of feel. It's a good exercise in using the Wave distortion filter... Step 1 The first thing we need for our image is a background. We're going to use a quick star-sky background. There are lots of tutorials around for this effect, and it's actually a simple two-step process: clouds + noise. So on a new blank canvas, start by choosing a dark blue color - #18323a - and black and then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Step 2 Now create a new layer, fill it with black, and go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use values roughly as shown below. Step 3 Now that is way too much noise, so go to Image > Adjustment > Levels (or Ctrl+L) and bring those sliders together until you see most of the 'stars' vanish as shown. Step 4 Now set the stars layer's blending mode to Screen so that the black vanishes and just the stars remain. Step 5 Step 6 Now we add our text. Step 7 Step 8 Step 9 Step 10 Step 11 Step 12 Step 13
Playing with Displace Filter in Photoshop I have been playing a lot with the Displace filter in Photoshop and I still get impressed with how powerful it is. Even though I have written some tutorials using it, I decided to try to recreate a different effect that I saw in one of the images submitted for the Daily Inspiration. It was a brick wall deformed like it was made of cloth. So in this tutorial, or a quick-tips I will show you how to create a curtain made of bricks or how to deform a brick wall as it was a curtain. Step 1 Open Photoshop and create a new document. Step 2 Let's import another image, now of a girl opening the curtains. Step 3 With the Lasso Tool (L) or the Pen Tool (P) select the empty white. Step 5 Now select the hands/arms of the girl and the curtains. Step 6 Move the brick wall layer so it will be in front of the girl layer. Step 7 Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide Selection. Step 8 Duplicate the girl layer and delete the girl using the mask of the bricks wall for reference. Step 9 Step 10 Step 11 Step 12 Step 13 Step 14
Useful Photoshop Tips And Tricks For Photo Retouching - Smashing Magazine Advertisement When it comes to designing in Photoshop, there is a myriad of ways one could use to achieve a certain result, especially when it comes to photo retouching. Designers use technique they are most confident as well as comfortable with, which is great because it’s always useful to peek into the workflow of our colleagues and learn new design approaches. I’ll be covering some of the useful techniques and tricks which I’ve learned from my experience. Here is a short overview of the techniques we’ll be covering: Naturally Increased Light The light of the sun creates texture. Increase light on a separate layer. Then use the brush tool with a soft brush, and hold the Alt/Option key to pick up colors from the area that you want to brighten. The blending mode “Color Dodge” creates realistic results. Simulate Infrared Images Trees and bushes should now shine in the typical white, and the sky should appear almost black. It’s almost like an infrared image. Levels Controlling Mid-Tone Contrasts
Quick Grungy Poster In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a sort of grunge poster. We will learn how to make some elements look a bit dirty, create textures, and add some depths to the elements using shadows and blend modes. Step 1 Create a new document. Step 2 Set the background color to black and the foreground color to white. Step 3 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type PSD. Step 4 Rotate the group like the image below. Step 5 Using the Pen Tool (P), create some shapes to fill the gaps before the P, the S, and the D. Step 6 If you use Photoshop CS3 convert the yellow, red, and blue shapes to Smart Filters and go to Texture>Texturizer again. Step 7 Now select the white lines and using the Layer Styles, select Drop Shadow. Step 8 Double-click on the PSD text layer and in the Layer Style box, select Drop Shadow This time let's make a bigger and stronger shadow. Step 9 Create a new layer and name it "dirty." Step 10 Step 11 Select the white objects again and create a new layer. Step 12 Step 13 Step 14
10 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples Keeping It Simple Page layout is equal parts art and science. Creating something that’s visually attractive and unique takes an artist’s eye. However, there are several very easy to follow guidelines that you can use to create solid layouts that work for any number of cases. Designers often stress out far too much about the layout process. In this article we’re going to take a look at ten very common layouts that you can find on countless sites across the web. If you’re a web designer, bookmark this page and come back the next time you get stuck laying out a page. Three Boxes This is probably the most simple layout on the list. The three boxes layout features one main graphic area followed by two smaller boxes underneath. The silhouetted shapes along the top are areas that can be used for logos, company names, navigation, search bars and any other informational and functional content typically on a website. In the Wild Simple, effective and attractive. 3D Screenshots Advanced Grid Five Boxes
Photo Editing - Faces Tucia Photo Enhancements I love editing photos, but when you have the photos say from a wedding, a reunion or a graduation you might want a professional touch. The tools I describe in this article are great for improving photos, but Tucia can add a person into a family portrait or remove an unwanted stranger from your photo. Tucia's photo editors can digitally open up closed eyes or fix hair. They can also offer glamorize and digital cosmetic enhancement options - get a tan, clear acne or remove braces. Simple touch-ups such as digital camera mark or red eye removal and cropping are also available. How To Take Better Pictures With A Digital Camera Use the following tips to help make your digital photos go from just okay to great. 1. You don't want to find trees growing out of people's heads or a passing vehicle to draw attention from your subject. 2. 3. Also don't shoot just face on to the person, try a little to the side, a three quarter view, so that you see more of their face. 4. 6.
Give a Medieval Game Logo a Rough Stone Look Designers are often asked to take a pre-existing one or two-color logo and give it dimension. In today’s tutorial we will take a black and white logo and give it a rough stone look in just a few short steps using textures and layer styles. Let’s get started! Resources The following resources were used during the production of this tutorial. Step 1 Create a new document that is 1200x750 px and download the Caribbean font. Once you are done, rasterize both layers and duplicate them. Step 2 Now merge the layer with the stroke with an empty layer to rasterize the stroke and get rid of the layer style. Step 3 To add texture to the word “medieval.” place the Stained Concrete texture over the text. Step 4 Select the new texture Medieval layer and go to layer style then check "bevel and emboss" and enter the values like its shown below. Step 5 To make the bevel effect more prominent, dodge and burn it as shown below. Step 6 Use this Concrete Texture to add to the word “game.” Step 7 Step 8 Step 9 Step 10
100 Free High-Quality XHTML/CSS Templates - Smashing Magazine Photoshop Actions: How to Use them, and how to create your own by Adrienne Cleveland (all rights reserved) This Tip is intended to be a very basic introduction for people wanting to learn how to use actions in Photoshop. We offer Photoshop actions, including some freebies, and this tip will tell you how you can record your own. Using Photoshop actions can make your life easier and help you edit your photos more quickly. Basically, actions are nothing more than a series of normal Photoshop operations recorded so you can run them in sequence quickly, without having to remember just what steps to do, and in what order. The Actions Window Loading Actions There are several methods of loading actions, but we'll talk about two: Using the Photoshop Actions Menu (Windows or Mac) Drag and drop (Windows) Drag and drop (Mac) Running Actions Let's assume that we want to run one of the frame actions from ACsFlexibleFrames. Recording/Creating Actions Re-recording a Step to Change the Default Values A Simple Example