A Quick Photo Editing Tutorial: Creating a Dreamy Effect on Photoshop

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

Welcome to another tutorial from youthedesigner.com. In this photo editing tutorial, we will be turning a regular photograph into something dreamy. The effect is also called artistic blur. In traditional photography, this is made possible by adding special filters to the lenses of the camera, thus simulating a blurry effect.

In photoshop (or any other similar image editing applications), we can achieve this effect in just a few steps. So sit back and relax as we tour you through the process. And at the end of this tutorial, we hope to see what you have done with your photos by posting a link to the image in the comments section below; we’d love to see what you have made!

Our final image will be similar to the image below:

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PREREQUISITES:

Adobe Photoshop
Photograph

STEP 1: LOADING THE IMAGE

The very first step that we have to do is to load up our image on Photoshop. There are two ways of doing this: 1) you can browse the image with your file manager then right click and open with Photoshop or 2) you can start Photoshop and load it from there by going to File > Open and then browsing for the image. Either way, it’s your preference, whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Opening Image in the File Manager

Opening Image in Photoshop

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STEP 2: RENAMING LAYER/S

After successfully loading the image in Photoshop, it’s a good practice to rename the layer/s that corresponds with it. This is also true to any project of arbitrary scale, since renaming your layers makes you keep track of your changes easily and can easily point out which does which on some extent.

Rename the layer present in our Layers Dialog labeled Background by double clicking on the layer name. A dialog window will appear enabling you to input the name of the layer. Let’s call it “base layer”.

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STEP 3: CREATING THE DREAMY EFFECT

And finally, we’re on the gist of the tutorial. With base layer still active, duplicate it by right clicking on the layer entry then choosing Duplicate Layer.

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A dialog window will appear again asking you for the layer details. Type a new name for the layer – “small blur”.

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With layer small blur active, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

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On the dialog window that appears, type in a value (in pixels) which would correspond to a small blurring effect on our image. We had ours set to 15 pixels.

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Next step is to select again the base layer, then repeat the step that we did to layer small blur, except this time, we’ll name it large blur, with a blur value of something between 50 pixels to 100 pixels. Move layer large blur above small blur.

photo-editing-09

And now comes the fun part: adding layer effects. Select “small blur” layer and switch the layer blending mode to Overlay. Next, select “large blur” layer and switch the layer blending mode to Screen. Immediately, you’ll notice the effect appear on our image, making it “artistically blurry”, which is the effect that we want.

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To further enhance the look of our image, we will emphasize the eyes of the model by doing some quick techniques with sharpening and masking.

Select again “base layer”, duplicate it and label the duplicate layer as “sharpen layer”.

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With the “sharpen layer” active, go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. And on the dialog window that appears, drag the preview such that the most important part of your image that you want to add sharpening on is focused on the preview. Tweak the settings as you wish. You could also refer to the settings we have used below.

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STEP 4: CREATING LAYER MASKS

After applying the Unsharp Mask filter, you’ll notice a considerable sharpening applied to our image. However, we don’t want to sharpen the whole image, instead we only want the eye parts to be sharpened, creating an even more dramatic effect.

To non-destructively do this, we will be using layer masks to mask out parts of the image other than the eye.

We’ll begin by selecting “sharpen layer” and clicking the “add layer mask” button at the bottom of the Layers Dialog.

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You will notice a black square added beside the original “sharpen layer” and is currently active. This is our layer mask. Currently, what it does is it makes the whole layer visible, as indicated by the plain white color. We do not want this, we only want the eye parts of the layer to be white. To address this issue, we have to fill our layer mask entirely with black then paint the whites later.

Change your foreground color to black then press shift + F5 to invoke the Fill command. On the dialog window that appears, choose Foreground Color as the usage option. This will use black to fill the entire layer mask.

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You’ll notice the effects of the sharpening gone already since we have entirely filled the layer mask with black which literally means erasing all which is present on that layer. To bring back the sharpness only on selected areas, we’ll manually paint on the areas which are of interest to us, in this case, the eyes. Be sure that up to this point, the layer mask is still active and not any other layer/s.

Enable your Brush Tool (B), make your foreground color white, and then choose an appropriate brush from the brush options above. After you’ve done that, paint over on the eyes and you’ll notice the sharpness coming to life.

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Here is our final image:

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and here is an image comparison:

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And that’s about it! We hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial and we’re hoping to hear what you have done so far! If you have any comments and suggestions, please drop us a note below. See you next time!

The Importance of Historiography on the Web

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

The topic of history immediately draws to mind a dusty classroom in which professors tell stories of war, royalty and civilizations lost to the sands of time.

While traditional history is expressed as a vibrant tapestry of events, dates, people and places, we often forget that the web has its own rich history and a legacy to leave future generations that needs both preservation and recognition.

By examining current problems in how we preserve our digital heritage and through a significant change in our attitude towards web content, we can hope to leave future Internet users with something tangible and useful.

History doesn’t exist separate from our actions; it is built up over time in what we write and record, allowing those in the future to analyze and improve upon our work. Addressing our current perspective of web content as "disposable data" is critical at this time.

Evolution of Knowledge-Sharing

The passing on and recording of knowledge is a time-honored tradition. This practice has spanned generations, ranging from mankind’s early cave paintings to the industrious storage of information, such as can be found in the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.

Yet, while so much emphasis is placed on preserving our rich analog history, our digital past seems to be rapidly disappearing around us; and like the great Egyptian library that was lost to fire, we are now left with large gaps in our understanding of how much of our present web culture came to be.

Creative Commons, freeing content from the claws of copyright and loss.

The average website exists in a single form for a period of time before being reinvented when it goes through a website redesign, but if we value published content, then the need to preserve it should be immeasurable.

Today, many argue that if it does not appear in search engines or if there’s no clear link to it to the web, then it no longer exists. By law, the famous Library of Alexandra preserved any scroll it acquired, yet with the web, we throw out useful old content if visitor numbers are not high enough or because certain copyright laws prohibit us from preserving knowledge soon to be lost.

Digital Curators and Librarians

It would be unfair not to mention some present-day schemes to protect valuable web content from being discarded, such as the Internet Archive and, to a point, Wikipedia and Google.

However, if we look to Geocities being shut down, we can see the damage that a web service’s disappearance can cause to our web culture. With the bookmarking service Delicious being threatened into extinction, we might see valuable bookmarks of its users lost as well.

The knowledge and imprint of our history serves to teach others about the development of the web, and we must accept our role as curators and librarians of this modern digital world.

The Internet Archive is like a museum of old websites, but it hasn’t saved everything.

As a web professional, seeing web content disappear makes me sad, even if its relevancy and accuracy changes over time.

As we produce more and more content, finding true treasures on the web is becoming increasingly difficult. While the average blog may only have fragments of gold, it still reflects the diverse world we inhabit. The purpose of owning a website is to increase visibility, but so many still leave their creations unattended, creating dead, broken links, orphan pages and poor navigation and archival systems.

We should do more to improve our websites and showcase the good content in our archives, even if only to revisit an article or subject from a present-day perspective.

The Danger of Disposable Data

We have bred a society in which information and opinion aren’t valued over the long term. As a result, we are left with no infrastructure to ensure the sustainability of that content.

For example, little exists from websites created in the 1990s, and what can be found is often disjointed and scattered; imagine the state of our web content 20 years from now!

Quite paradoxically, we value our own work so highly, often spending hours upon hours creating beautiful websites and amazing content, and yet we forget them after their 15 minutes of fame.

The BBC archives old information, but even that’s not safe forever.

To wake up from this mentality of waste, we have to be critical in our evaluation of modern web history. We must recognize that as the web changes, formats will shift and media consumption will alter, and we will need to maintain some level of control over the effects of popular trends.

Missing Links and Lost Empires

As a web professional or website owner, you can do plenty to reduce the disappearance of your content on your website. Certain practices have profound benefits and could give users additional reasons to return to your website. If we can expose a website’s history, we provide a more enriching experience full of quality content.

The first thing to do in promoting a healthy archive is to weed out the dead links that accumulate over time. This waste is easy to spot with tools like Xenu Link Sleuth (freeware), which scans every piece of content on a website.

Chronicling a website with thousands of pages can be quite complex, but maintaining an effective website navigation scheme and an up-to-date site map is central to good information architecture.

Automated tools can poke around your website and report dead links.

Next, we can ensure the survival of our content by connecting every page to the rest of the website and listing them all on a site map (as well as creating a robot-readable Sitemaps XML file). Disconnected pages — pages that have no remaining active links to them — are orphans. Orphan pages rarely index well, which negatively impacts the findability of your content and its usefulness to future generations.

Site maps can be easily produced using an app, but you might want to code one yourself.

If you’re the kind of person who shudders at that thought of their earlier work, consider making active revisions of your old content visible on your website; do, however, preserve the original using some form of version control system.

If you redesign your website regularly and change content often, keep older pages available for nostalgic users or those interested in seeing previous versions. Exposing revisions (like a version history file) can also be very beneficial in tracking the progress and evolution of websites.

Some people allow users to revisit previous versions of their website’s layout as a way to showcase their evolving talent.

Donating published content is another practice to consider. While republishing old material ad infinitum is not sensible (because it would create duplicate content for search engines to index and perhaps be regarded as spam), there may come a time when you close down, change direction or overhaul your website.

In such cases, consider donating your posts to other websites (think of it as content acquisition); you could make a bit of money from it and free up useful data.

Certain interest pieces might be useful for Wikipedia or could be donated elsewhere.

While donating outdated or useless content could help you clean up your web presence, the websites or services that receive this old material might not be able to manage it effectively, especially if it comes in at an unsustainable rate; this could, in turn, lead to dead image links, stale content and an increase in 404 errors. Instead, try to use your archived material in other ways, perhaps by promoting earlier articles, as a retrospective of sorts.

This is the first article published on Six Revisions, and yet it could still help a number of readers today.

Finally, the most important precaution for ensuring the survival of your content is to back it up. To this day, many websites still have no substantial process for archiving and backing up their content. What happens if your website is hacked? What if your computer crashes? If the history of computing has shown us anything, it’s that data increasingly disappears as a result of both computer failure and a website or web technology aging.

Historiography for the People

The web is ever-changing, and its history is being erased, written over and lost in poorly maintained archives.

High-quality content — even an individual’s personal reflection on the world on his or her blog — never loses value. Of course, drowning out the spam and fluff helps, but if we value a healthy digital ecosystem, then we will focus on producing things that contribute to our evolving worldwide virtual library.

The content we produce will give future generations a fascinating look at how the web has evolved over time and how web professionals and ordinary folks have carried out their daily tasks.

We should not build websites solely for the here and now, forgetting the mistakes and successes of those who have come before us. By preserving the past and documenting the development of the web, we are immortalizing ourselves, ensuring that we don’t become yet another people who simply fade into oblivion.

About the Author

Alexander Dawson is a freelance web designer, author and recreational software developer specializing in web standards, accessibility and UX design. As well as running a business called HiTechy and writing, he spends time on Twitter, SitePoint’s forums and other places, helping those in need.

How to Make a Textured 3D Spray Can

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

In today’s tutorial we will demonstrate how to combine Illustrator and Photoshop to create a 3D, textured spray can. This tutorial requires some basic understanding of Illustrator and Photoshop as well as the pen tool. Let’s get started!

Step 1

Open Adobe Illustrator. Create a new document. The first step is to create all the materials and elements that will appear on the can. Most of them are basic shapes and text. I created the spatter and the shield for this tutorial. You can use them or you can find free similar vector elements over the Internet.

Note that I included measurements for you to have an idea of the size and proportion, but you don’t have to be exact. You can always resize things later if you need to.

Step 2

In the menu, go to Windows / Symbols to open the Symbols Window. Drag each of the elements you just created to the Symbols Window to convert them to symbols.

In the Symbols Window open the menu from the top right corner and select "Large List View.

Select the Symbol Options button at the bottom of the window and rename each of the Symbols as seen in the following image. Finally you can delete them from the stage.

Step 3

With the Pen Tool (P) create a shape like in the image below. Try to respect the amount of anchor points.

Step 4

Go to the menu and click Effect > 3d > Revolve. Enter the values of the following image.

Step 5

On the 3D Revolve Options Window click the Map Art button. Check Shade Artwork and check Invisible Geometry. For now we will only use the Red and Grey boxes that we converted to symbols. Use the arrow buttons to navigate through each surface. Following the Image in Step 6, apply the corresponding material, selecting it from the Symbol list menu.

Note that the wireframe turns red on the surface that is selected. If the material/symbol is too small for the surface, click the Scale to Fit button. Finally click OK on the Map Art Window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 6

You should have something like this.

Step 7

Now open the Layers Window if it is not already open. Rename the <Path> to MAIN.

Step 8

Select your main shape; duplicate it by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new MAIN path to WHITE BIG.

Step 9

Hide the MAIN path. Select the WHITE BIG path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button.

Step 10

First remove all the Symbols from all the surfaces. If you created exactly the same amount of anchor points you have to select Surface 5. If not, don’t worry, just find the surface that matches the one in the following image and position the White Big symbol as seen in the following image.

Step 11

Now we will repeat steps from 7 to 10 several times to position all the different elements. You may be asking: What is the advantage of placing the elements in several overlapping paths over making only one symbol with everything inside?

You can copy each individual element to Photoshop as individual layers.
This allows for a more efficient use of computer resources because you can hide all unused elements if you need to.

Duplicate the WHITE BIG path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new WHITE BIG path to WHITE SMALL.

Select the WHITE SMALL path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces. Find the surface that matches the one of the following image and position the White Small symbol as seen in the following image. Finally click OK on the Map Art Window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 12

Duplicate the WHITE SMALL path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new WHITE SMALL path to SHIELD.

Select the SHIELD path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

Find the surface that matches the one of the following image and position the Shield symbol as seen in the following image. Finally click OK on the Map Art Window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 13

Duplicate the SHIELD path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new SHIELD path to PRESSURIZED.

Select the PRESSURIZED path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

Find the surface that matches the one in the following image and position the Pressurized Smoke symbol as seen in the following image. Finally click OK on the Map Art window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 14

Duplicate the PRESSURIZED path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new PRESSURIZED path to BRAND.

Select the BRAND path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

Find the surface that matches the one of the following image and position the Brand symbol as seen in the following image. Finally click OK on the Map Art Window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 15

Duplicate the BRAND path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new BRAND path to NOZZLE1.

Select the NOZZLE1 path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

Find the surface that matches the one of the following image and position the Nozzle1 symbol as seen in the following image. Finally click OK on the Map Art window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 16

Duplicate the NOZZLE1 path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new NOZZLE1 path to NOZZLE2.

Select the NOZZLE2 path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

Find the surface that matches the one in the following image and position the Nozzle2 symbol as seen there. Finally click OK on the Map Art Window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 17

Duplicate the NOZZLE2 path by dragging it to the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Rename the new NOZZLE2 path to SPATTER.

Select the SPATTER path. Open the Appearance Window and select the 3D Revolve (Mapped) Link. Click on the Map Art button. Remove all the symbols from all the surfaces.

This time I am going to apply the Spatter symbol to 3 of the surfaces; in this example, it will be surfaces 10, 11 and 12. Take the following image as a guide to identify the surfaces in your case. Finally click OK on the Map Art window and on the 3D Revolve Options Window.

Step 18

Reveal all paths, and by now you should have something similar to what is seen in the image bellow.

Step 19

Now open Adobe photoshop and let’s make a new 600 px x 1000 px file. If your "background" layer is white press Command/Ctrl + I to invert it. The background must be black. Duplicate the background layer by dragging it to the Create a New Layer button. Rename your new layer to "MyBg". Double click your "MyBg" layer and apply the Inner Glow and Gradient Overlay Styles with the settings of the following image. Press OK

Step 20

Go to your Illustrator file and copy (Command/Ctrl + C) your MAIN shape and paste it (Command/Ctrl + V) on your Photoshop file as a Smart Object.

Step 21

Go to your Illustrator select WHITE BIG and WHITE SMALL shapes and copy them (Command/Ctrl + C). Paste them (Command/Ctrl + V) on your Photoshop file as a Smart Object. And rename the layer to WHITE.

Do the same for the rest of the shapes one by one. Rename all the layers as seen in the following image.

Step 22

Hide all layers but MAIN. Go to the PATHS window (Window /Paths) and press the Create New Path button at the bottom of the window. Select the Pen Tool (P) and make a path surrounding the red part on the body of the spray. Press Command/Ctrl and click over the thumbnail of the path to make a selection out of the path.

Step 23

Go to the Layers Window and press the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Select Gradient Map. Double click on the icon of the gradient map to bring out the Adjustments Window. Click over the Gradient Map of the Adjustments Window and edit the gradient as seen in the following image. Press OK

Step 24

Now you need a grunge texture, you can use the one I provided with this tutorial. Open it and paste it on your file, over the WHITE layer. Rename the layer of the texture to TEXTURE. In the menu, go to Image > Adjustments > Black and White. Press the Auto button and press OK. In the menu, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Press the Auto button and press OK.

Step 25

With the WHITE layer selected, click the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Go to the Channels window and press Command/Ctrl + Click over the thumbnail of any of the channels Red, Green or Blue to make a selection out of it. Go back to the Layers Window and hide the TEXTURE layer. Select the Layer Mask thumbnail of the WHITE layer. Press Command/Ctrl + H to hide the selection. Paint the parts of the WHITE layer where you want the scratches to appear color black. You can paint with color white to hide the scratches.

Step 26

Press Command/Ctrl + H again to reveal the selection. Now let’s save the selection because we will use it later. In the menu go to Select / Save Selection and enter "SELECTION" on the Name field. That will create a new channel named SELECTION. Press Command/Ctrl + D to remove the selection.

Now that we have saved our selection we can go and delete the TEXTURE layer selecting it and pressing the Delete key or dragging it to the little trash can at the bottom of the Layers Window.

By now you should have something like this on your Layers and Channels window.

Step 27

Let’s make some scratches to the shield. Reveal the SHIELD layer. Add a layer mask to it by clicking the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Go to the Channels window and Command/Ctrl + Click over the thumbnail of the SELECTION channel. Press Command/Ctrl + H to hide the selection. Go to your Layers Window again and select the Layer mask of the SHIELD layer. Paint with color black over the shield to make some scratches appear. Remember, to erase scratches, just paint with white.

With a layer mask selected you can toggle from black to white and vice versa by pressing the X key.

If you finished with the scratches, remember to remove the selection. You cannot see it because we hid it, but it is there; so press Command/Ctrl + H to reveal the selection and Command/Ctrl + D to remove it.

Step 28

Repeat Step 27 for the PRESSURIZED and the BRAND layers.

Step 29

Reveal the NOZZLE 1 Layer; turn its blending mode to Color Burn and its fill to 40%. Reveal the NOZZLE 2 Layer; turn its blending mode to Linear Burn. Reveal the SPATTER Layer; turn its blending mode to Color Burn and its fill to 90%.

Step 30

Now let’s add some more shadows to the entire spray can. In the Layers Window, select the SPATTER layer. Press the Create New Fill of Adjustments Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Select "Hue/Saturation…" Select the Layer mask of the Hue/Saturation 1 layer and press Command/Ctrl + I to invert it. Change the blending mode of the Hue/Saturation 1 layer to Color Burn. Go to the Adjustments Window and turn the Lightness to -50.

Now with the layer mask of the Hue/Saturation 1 layer selected, start painting with white on the sides of the spray can to add more shadows. Remember, you can always remove what you painted, by painting with black over the layer mask.

If you finished adding shadows to the spray can, you will notice that the background also darkened. We will remove that now.

Go to your MAIN layer and Command/Ctrl + Click on its thumbnail. This will make a selection of the spray can. Press Command/Ctrl + shift + I to invert the selection, because we want a selection of the background, not the spray can. Select the layer mask of the Hue/Saturation 1 layer, make sure that in your Tools window the background color is black, and press the Delete key.

Step 31

Now let’s add some more Texture to the entire spray can to make it look dirtier. Go to the Channels window and select your SELECTION channel. Press Command/Ctrl + A to select all. Press Command/Ctrl + C to Copy.

Go to the Layers Window and with the Hue/Saturation 1 layer selected press Command/Ctrl + V to paste your selection channel as a layer. Rename the layer to TEXTURE. Press Command/Ctrl + Click on the layer mask of the Hue/Saturation 1 layer to make a selection out of it.

Select the TEXTURE Layer and press the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Change the layers blend mode to Multiply and the fill to 50%.

Step 32

Now we have finished with the spray can, so we can make a group with all its elements. Select TEXTURE layer, and with the Shift key pressed, select the MAIN layer. Press Command/Ctrl + G to group all of the spray can layers and rename the group to SPRAY. Your Layers Window should look like the following image.

Step 33

Let’s create the Smoke. Create a new layer over the SPRAY group and name it SMOKE. In the menu, go to Filter > Render > Clouds.

Press the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Press Command/Ctrl + I to invert it. With the Layer mask of the SMOKE Layer selected, paint with white to reveal the smoke.

We will turn the smoke a little green. Press the Create New Layer or Adjustment layer button. That creates a new layer named Hue / Saturation 2. Select the Hue / Saturation 2 Layer and in the Adjustments Window enter the values of the image bellow. Note that the Colorize option is checked. With the Layer mask of the Hue / Saturation 2 layer selected, press Command/Ctrl + I to invert the mask. Paint with white to reveal the green color.

Step 34

Go to Illustrator and create a spiral with the settings of the following image. To pop up the spiral window click on your document with the Spiral tool selected. Go to the menu, press Object > Expand Appearance. Press Command/Ctrl + C to copy the spiral.

Step 35

Go to back to Photoshop and press Command/Ctrl + V to paste the spiral over the MyBg layer. Rename the layer to SPIRAL. Press Command/Ctrl + T and the Transform Handles will appear; then press Command/Ctrl and drag the handles to distort the spiral as seen in the following image. Press Enter/Return when done.

Step 36

Press the Create Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Press the G key to select the Gradient tool and make sure you have a black and white gradient. With the layer mask of the spiral layer selected, drag diagonally to hide the backside of the spiral in the distance.

Final Image

Best of the Web – February 2011

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

As you know, each month, we round up some of the best Photoshop-related content from around the web. This month, there were some excellent Photoshop tutorials and articles to choose from so please take a moment to review our favorites from February 2011.

Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Tutorial: Create an Abstract Figure From Circles

Often, beautiful artwork can be based from the simplest of geometric shapes. In this tutorial from Digital Arts, author Mart Biemans demonstrates how to create a stunning composition using basic circles and effects.

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Milk Monster and Chocolate Splash

There are a lot of tutorials that demonstrate how to use splashes in your work to create a cool effect. This tutorial from Alfoart however, stands out. It shows how to manipulate a splash to create your own milk monster.

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How To Paint Mustache (Video)

Just about ever guy has wondered what they would look like with a mustache. Some have tried, others have lied about trying. This tutorial from Cute Little Factory will demonstrate how to paint a cartoon-style mustache on a character. Really fun!

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Incredible Horror Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Horror is an incredibly popular genre of art. In this tutorial from Creative Fan, they will demonstrate how to turn a bright, sunny stock photograph into a scary scene straight out of a horror film.

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Create an Intricate Mythological Statue Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Turning a photograph of a person into a statue is one of those projects that seems easier than it actually is. This tutorial from Creative Fan will demonstrate how to turn a photograph into a mythological statue.

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Create a Realistic Vintage Ticket Stub in Photoshop

Making something look vintage, old, or worn in Photoshop can be tough if you don’t know where to start. This tutorial from Design Instruct will demonstrate how to create a vintage and realistic looking ticket stub in Photoshop.

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Burnstudio: Create An Amazing Personal Website From Scratch Using Photoshop

Photoshop is the industry-standard app for creating web designs. This tutorial from 1st Web Designer will demonstrate how to create a personal website from scratch using our favorite design application.

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Look Under The Hood: Photoshop Color Settings

Understanding Photoshop’s color settings is an important part of creating fantastic designs. This tutorial from 1st Web Designer explains these settings in detail and is an excellent resource for those of you who need to brush up on your knowledge.

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Articles and Inspiration

In Defense of Advertising

Ads may be annoying at times but let’s face it, they aren’t all that bad. In fact, ads are often celebrated for their creativity and the success of the products that they promote. This article from Design Shack defends advertising and explains why we should appreciate it more.

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Eye-Catching & Clever Print Ads

Speaking of ads, this showcase of clever print ads from Noupe displays some excellent examples of eye-catching print ads for your inspiration.

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Simplify and Improve Your Designs with the Bonsai Tree Method

Sometimes the best design inspiration comes from outside the field of design. This article from Spyre Studios explains how you can improve your designs with the bonsai tree method.

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Business Design Advice to Keep You Sane and Prosper

Let’s face it, design can make a person crazy if you let it get the best of you. This article from The Design Cubicle shares some lessons and thoughts on the business of design.

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Ethics in the Design Field

Every profession has its own set of ethical guidelines most of its members adhere to. And while the design industry’s code of ethics might not be as crucial as, say, the medical industry, there are still some important ethical considerations every design professional should think about. This article from Web Designer Depot explains some of the most prominent ethical considerations that designers must deal with.

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How Old-Fashioned Marketing Can Supercharge Your Design Business

Studying history is often the best way to understand the present and future. While new technologies have developed in recent years, it doesn’t mean that the old way of doing things is complete obsolete. This article from Web Designer Depot explains how you can supercharge your design business with some old-fashioned marketing techniques.

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Video: How to Run Your Design Business W/Emily Cohen

Running a design business is more than just about making great designs. It’s also about organization, book keeping, writing proposals, budgets, and much more. This speech given by Emily Cohen at a Creative Mornings event in New York City gives some great advice about how you can run your own business.

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Digital Artwork Inspired by Geometry

Great designs are often the result of the combination of simple shapes and effects. This article from Noupe showcases some excellent examples of artwork inspired by geometry.

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Useful Analytics Tips and Resources for Designers and Marketers

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

The success of a website is far more dependent upon performance than it is on looks and appearance, although design certainly has an impact on performance. Being able to use analytics programs proficiently will make a designer more effective and more valuable to clients. In this post we’ll feature tutorials and articles from across the web that will show you how to improve in this area.

The resources in this post focus on Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, two of the most popular tools of the trade. However, there are many other tools and programs that can be used for these purposes, and while the specific steps of some of these tutorials may not apply outside of Google’s products, the principles will.

Educating Web Designers on Google Analytics

Pro Blog Design has a post that serves as a good intro to analytics. It covers the basics of what you should be paying attention to and how you can act on the information that you obtain.

The Complete Google Analytics Power User Guide

VKI Studios has a 12-part series that goes through the basics of Analytics, as well as instruction on some more advanced uses.

Google Analytics In Depth: Goals and Funnels

Dave Sparks takes us step-by-step through the process of setting up goals in Analytics to help measure the most important details of your website’s performance.

A Guide to Google Analytics and Useful Tools

This detailed article from Smashing Magazine provides plenty of information on setting up Google Analytics for powerful results, and it links to a number of other useful articles from Google and from other sites.

Configuring Google Analytics: A 12-Step Guide for Marketers, Designers, and Site Owners

Dave Chaffey breaks down the important steps that will help you to get more out of Analytics.

Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips

Search Engine Journal has compiled a helpful post of tips with links to some other resources.

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking:

Part One – How it Works
Part Two – Installation and Setup
Part Three – Why Everyone Should Use It
Part Four – Tracking Lead Gen Forms

This is a four-part series that covers the process of using Analytics with an e-commerce site.

AdSense Reporting in Google Analytics

If your site is monetized through AdSense, Analytics can provide a wealth of information that will help you to maximize your AdSense income. This video shows the type of data you can get from integrating AdSense and Analytics.

Fundamentals of A/B and Multivariate Testing

This post from Pro Blog Design explains A/B testing and explains the process for using Google Website Optimizer.

Google Website Optimizer 101: A Quick-Start Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion Rate Experts have a great guide for using Google Website Optimizer that includes 108 ways to improve your conversion rate.

55 Google Website Optimizer Tips and Tricks

ConversionRate.net provides this post that covers a lot of information related to improving performance with Google Website Optimizer.

Google Website Optimizer Case Study: Daily Burn, 20%+ Improvement

Tim Ferriss presents a case study that shows the real world value of Website Optimizer.

How to Segment Google Website Optimizer Tests

This article from Search Engine Land shows an example of how to segment your tests to see how they perform for different kinds of users of your site.

14 Free Tools that Reveal Why People Abandon Your Website

Knowing why visitors are leaving your site can help to make improvements that will improve conversion rates. This blog post from Conversion Rate Experts features 14 tools that can help.

70 Creative Business Card Design Inspiration

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

Business cards bearing main business information about your company or yourself as a freelancer. These cards are necessary part of business kit and gives first impression about your business deal. Business card purpose is to tell what you do and give the recipient a way to contact you. Typically most of the business cards are simple black text on white stock, but you can choose other way. You can use very creative business card design with unusual colors or shapes that reflect what the person does. Especially for designers it is very important to used unusual business cards from unusual materials and design elements to show your creativity. As you will notice in this article, business cards are made even of metal, chocolates and biscuits. To inspire you we gives you 70 creative, fresh and unique Business card design ideas.

I Am Tiago

Plexiglass

Marietomeoki - Artist Business Card

TasteThis!

Silk Business Card by PremiumCards

Versátil. Diseño Estratégico

Black Heart Brewery

Wood Business Cards

M1 Business Card

LOBO Design

Dots Business Card

Black Businesscards "Famepix"

Sophie's Business Cards

Consultoria Doublethick

Lethal Dose Design

Nebula Design Card

Bokeh Flame Card

Tattoo Business Card

Coolest Holographic BusinessCard

Rda Business Card

Metal Steel Business Cards

Clear Transparent Business Cards Architect Group

Metal (Stainless Steel)

Wildlabs

Pirate Treasure Map Cards

Carleton Creative Cards

Alessandro Gugliotta Business Card

Derek Powazek Business Card

Distillery

Justinas

Hrj Business Card

Eleven 2

eleven 2 70 Creative Business Card Design Inspiration

Thomas Wood Products

Googleame

Perle Creative Business Card

Rhino Studio

Musical Comb Business Card Modhair

Dreamten Business Card

Grass Texture Business Card

Logeen Metal

Uno Design

inspiration/uno"> uno 70 Creative Business Card Design Inspiration

Robby Cornish

Sgnl

Elements

Daves Makes

Six Speed

Penelope Jones

Steve Bargas

Alan Valek Business Card

Colorburned

Shiradivi

S.Mohd Business Card

Jake Mates Business Card

Simon Laszlo Business Card

Broke Bike Alley's Metal

Letterpress Business Card

Sidebar Creative

Cookie Business Card

Chocolate Business Card

BC Adventure Meat

Clear Plastic Business Cards

Transparent Business Card

MOSS Business Cards

Negativity Business Card - Back

Albert Hwang's Business Card

BigPackMedia

Mark Johnson Business Card

Laser Cut Business Card

Ups Business Card

Photoshop for Beginners

Posted on February 27, 2011 by admin

For a designer there is nothing as important as adobe Photoshop. Photoshop can do anything, from a simple drawing to complex layered effects. This software is the most widely used designer tool out there making Adobe Photoshop very popular and at your fingertips for graphic manipulation.

The internet world has opened up many doors not only to specialist designers, but also many others who take an interest in things like doctoring photos and creating banners for their friends. Photoshop is a simple program, but many people find it a bit intimidating upon first use. It is best if you are attempting to use Photoshop for the first time, you familiarize yourself with some of its primary functions before trying to go any further. When there is a hurdle, it is easy to become frustrated but this program can virtually do anything, and all you need are a few practice sessions.

Let’s go back to the beginning of how Photoshop came about. Adobe Photoshop CS4 was release officially on October 15th 2008 with significant graphics and functionality. The primary function of Photoshop is photos made up of pixel images. But, this software is packed with technology such as lines, points, shapes and curves which are centered on mathematical equations. These equations are what represent an image. These tools allow any Photoshop user to display or print graphics from a billboard to a business card without a smudge. While, beginners need not fully comprehend these advanced features, remember it will help in the years to come for any individual following this path.

Adobe Photoshop offers a variety of functions including a pencil, paintbrush and color palette, you can even add text to your picture. Many of these functions are found on the toolbar. Users can also experiment with different colors and font sizes for texts. Adobe Photoshop is not only used to manipulate graphics, but also plays a significant role in other fields. One such field is advertising, which uses Photoshop extensively in its daily work. This tool has made a number of tasks so much easier, that commercial artists around the world worship Photoshop. Photoshop is also popular because it gives so many hours of enjoyment when experimenting with an array of options offered by this fantastic software package.
M.A.H.

Paper vCard: Free PSD Web Page Template

Posted on February 27, 2011 by admin

This professional single-page paper vCard PSD template is an exclusive Six Revisions freebie. The design aims for a clean, minimalist paper theme. It’s perfect for web designers, graphic designers, and creatives.

This package includes 3 beautiful color variations and is easy to customize in Photoshop.

Paper vCard was designed by iBrandStudio and exclusively released on Six Revisions.

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Terms of Use

This package is free for commercial and personal use. You are not required to attribute the work, although it is very much appreciated. You may not redistribute or resell this package without our expressed permission.

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paper-vcard (ZIP, 3.4 MB)

About the Author

iBrandStudio is a design related blog focused on brand identity design. There, you’ll find tutorials, high quality freebies and inspirational resources that make your brand identity process easier. Subscribe their RSS Feed, follow iBrandStudio on Twitter and join them on Digg to get exclusive updates.

Announcement: Winners of 1-Year Subscriptions to AceProject

Posted on February 26, 2011 by admin

In a recent giveaway, AceProject, a collaboration-oriented project management web application, offered up five subscriptions to their Standard package for one year (worth $240 each). This post announces the five lucky winners.

The Winners

The winners are:

Congratulations to all the winners! You all should have already received an email with information about your 1-year subscription to AceProject.

Results of SQL query that selected 5 comments randomly.

About AceProject

AceProject is a web-based application that will help you manage and organize your projects and tasks, as well as keep them on track and help you manage your time.

Sign up now for a free account, which gives you an account with 5 users, up to 5 projects, 0.25 GB of storage space, and more.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

Interview With Matei Apostolescu

Posted on February 25, 2011 by admin

Matei is another unique and talented artist that we have decided to interview. In our conversation Matei shares some interesting stories about why he prefers to add so much detail into his art. We also discuss why hobbies outside of graphic design can really enhance a designer’s eye and imagination. Matei’s hobby is clay modeling and you can check out some of his modeling work inside and in his web shop.

Q Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Thanks for having me. I’m Matei Apostolescu, I’m 27 and I was born in Romania EU. I am a full time freelance illustrator; I started out as a graffiti artist and migrated from web design to illustration and most recently clay modeling and animation.

Flippin Bits

Q You incorporate complex shapes and patterns into most of your illustrations, what exactly draws you to use this type of style?

I drew from a very early age, and detail has always been one of my favorite things. When I was a kid my mom used to bring home from her work place huge blueprints of all types of machinery from mining equipment to aircraft engines, I copied quite a lot of them and even colored some and ever since then I remained hooked on very detailed stuff.

All Your Base

Q On the side you also create these amazingly detailed polymer clay models, do you believe designers should take up hobbies like this and not always focus on digital art?

Modeling clay has really opened my eyes to a new dimension of art and taught me quite a lot of things about perspective and form, I feel it is a great way to enrich a designer’s experience with digital art, I recommend everyone to give it a go. I want to create even bigger models and take modeling beyond a hobby level.

Fleet

Q You work with a lot of traditional art tools like pencils, markers, and even spray paint. Is it a challenge to mix these traditional tools with digital art?

Not at all digital art actually adds new dimensions to the traditional art and I think they complete each other. A small challenge is to capture the stuff done traditionally and implement them into the digital environment, for that you need good digital gear (I have had problems in the early stages of my career because my computers were slow and working with 600dpi scanned artwork was quite a
challenge). I am very concerned with quality.

Angry God

Q Illustrations like “Flippin Bits” & “Silencer” feature some amazingly intricate patterns, how difficult it is to create them? And please walk us through making the pieces.

With Flippin Bits I wanted to illustrate self repairing technology, for the background part I tried to create a futuristic vision of a huge multi-processor motherboard, I used Illustrator to assemble it from various shapes and brushes and then some minor shading tweaks in PS along with the repair robot which is also drawn in illustrator using a
Wacom tablet. Silencer was a bit trickier as I had to make the character and its moves more obvious in all those patterns, so I broke the symmetry by shading the hand and killing off some of the color surrounding the
skeleton’s hand. Both of the pieces are using one of my favorite color combos red, white and black, they were created for Depthcore 40th chapter Mythic (I encourage everyone to check out this release it is full of amazing artwork).

Silencer

Q You have a pack of 27 amazing wallpapers that you are currently giving away for free, which one would you say is your favorite wallpaper and why? Walk us through how you created it as well.

When I started working as an illustrator I was confronted with an obvious problem: who will see my stuff? How will I be able to enter peoples homes so to speak. The answer was creating this collection of wallpapers and trying to expand it all the time just updated with HD versions for all wallpapers!), I was amazed when I saw my wallpapers on peoples desktops, so I included icons and a small set of brushes too, I intend to keep it free forever. My favorite wallpaper is Battle 13,(my current desktop) it started as a practice sketch in illustrator, I then pasted it in PS, ditched all the coloring (it was quite vivid) and went for a deep underwater tone. It took me a while to get it to where it is, but after some fighting with the burn and dodge tool I was happy with the result.

Battle 13

Q In your portfolio you state that you will be opening up a web-shop soon, what can we expect to see in it once its up?

Yes I am trying to open it for quite a while now, but I’m happy to announce it will be online in about two weeks. The main reason for the delay and hopefully one of the highlights of beaucoupzero (up
now) will be a collection of shoulder bags and laptop bags featuring my illustrations. The bags design and development was quite slow as we had to find the right materials and especially the right people to assemble them and I can say now that they turned out awesome. I will be also selling limited editions huge sized prints of my illustrations and some of my best polymer clay toys.

Nuclear Winter

Q Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Thanks again for having me. Good luck to everyone, and remember “there is no style like freestyle!” Peace!

Flow My Tears

Where to find Matei on the Web

Interdimensional Currency

PREREQUISITES:

STEP 1: LOADING THE IMAGE

STEP 3: CREATING THE DREAMY EFFECT

STEP 4: CREATING LAYER MASKS

Evolution of Knowledge-Sharing

Digital Curators and Librarians

The Danger of Disposable Data

Missing Links and Lost Empires

Historiography for the People

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About the Author

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Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Tutorial: Create an Abstract Figure From Circles

Milk Monster and Chocolate Splash

How To Paint Mustache (Video)

Incredible Horror Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Create an Intricate Mythological Statue Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Create a Realistic Vintage Ticket Stub in Photoshop

Burnstudio: Create An Amazing Personal Website From Scratch Using Photoshop

Look Under The Hood: Photoshop Color Settings

Articles and Inspiration

In Defense of Advertising

Eye-Catching & Clever Print Ads

Simplify and Improve Your Designs with the Bonsai Tree Method

Business Design Advice to Keep You Sane and Prosper

Ethics in the Design Field

How Old-Fashioned Marketing Can Supercharge Your Design Business

Video: How to Run Your Design Business W/Emily Cohen

Digital Artwork Inspired by Geometry

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking:

Preview

Terms of Use

Download

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About the Author

The Winners

About AceProject

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About the Author

Q Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Q You incorporate complex shapes and patterns into most of your illustrations, what exactly draws you to use this type of style?

Q On the side you also create these amazingly detailed polymer clay models, do you believe designers should take up hobbies like this and not always focus on digital art?

Q You work with a lot of traditional art tools like pencils, markers, and even spray paint. Is it a challenge to mix these traditional tools with digital art?