Graphic Design Software & Skills: You The Designer’s 1st Infographic from the Graphic Designer Survey!

If you were with us back when we first launched our Graphic Designer Survey, we’re glad to let you know that we’ve just released the first of a series of infographics we’ve made from the survey’s results! This one is about popular graphic design software we use today, and statistics on skill sets and specializations we tend to have. Check it out below!
 

Show off your graphic design skills with business cards from UPrinting!


If you’d like to share this on your blog too, get the embed code here! Stay tuned as we release the rest of the infographic series within the next few weeks!

Announcing Windows AppStorm!

We’re immensely pleased to announce that, after months of waiting, a new member of the AppStorm network has landed: Windows.AppStorm! Read on to find out more about what this fantastic new site has to offer…

Complimenting Mac.AppStorm, Web.AppStorm, iPhone.AppStorm, iPad.AppStorm, and Android.AppStorm, our new Windows site will be offering reviews and roundups covering the entire Windows ecosystem, including Windows Phone 7, and games, along with tips and tricks to get the most from Windows.

We know that many Tuts+ readers use Windows devices every day and want to provide you with a fantastic resource for everything Windows related. We’re incredibly excited to bring you excellent Windows content of the high quality you’ve come to expect from AppStorm – daily reviews, how-to’s, roundups, news, and opinion.


Subscribe and Stay Up-to-Date!

We have some absolutely fantastic posts lined up over the coming weeks, and we’d hate for you to miss out… There are a few different ways to subscribe to Windows.AppStorm – hopefully one of the following options will work for you!


Get Stuck In

Windows Reviews

As a treat for all newcomers to Windows.AppStorm here are a some links to articles published in the interim, you won’t be disappointed!

Head over to Windows.AppStorm…



The Best Premium WordPress Theme Providers

WordPress is an amazing platform, with its 5 minute install and easy customising. It is perhaps the most widely used open source platform for making clearn and simple corporate websites or blogs. Themes for WordPress are readily available that are free, but if you want high quality then you need to find premium theme designers and providers. We have put here 5 brilliant theme websites for finding themes with that little bit extra of professionalism.

For those of you looking for a great design at a cost effective price, we can now offer theme customization and simple wordpress websites based on any of the themes from the suppliers below.

Theme Forest

Graph Paper Press

Elegant Themes

Woo Themes

Templatic

Other Posts


Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create A Basic Business Logo

In this photoshop tutorial I go through the steps of how to create your very own custom company logo. In this tut we will be creating actual shapes and adding effects to them while also incorporating text. This is for people who are looking to get a little more serious with photoshop. Hope you guys enjoy!



Photoshop Action Scripts

www.photoshopactionscripts.com Check out this cool spiral notebook I made using the action scripts from the above link! Want to create high definition 3D ecover graphics? If you want the best graphics for your products, or if you are a graphics designer looking to make some extra money by starting an ecover design business, then you need to check out Photoshop Action Scripts from www.photoshopactionscripts.com They have a bunch of 300 DPI ecover designs you can use, along with 40 pre-made layouts / templates as a bonus. These are the highest quality / cheapest 300 DPI action scripts you can find. I own 4 different ecover action script sets, and these are by FAR the best. Hope you enjoy the video, and make sure to check out the site! Evover action scripts for Photoshop 7.0 CS, CS2 CS3 CS4 ebooks, cd cases, dvd software boxes and much more -ASD



Web Based SEO Applications and Online SEO Tools

As we move more and more into doing things via ‘clouds’ and online web based applications; one of the few things that I have yet to find is a truely comprehensive intermediate web application for search engine optimisation.. I soon came across one that seemed to fit the bill.

Thus, I went off on a journey and in short, I found no web based SEO applications. There are hundreds if not thousands of fairly good individual tools for various tasks associated with SEO. Some of the more popular web based tools include for instance website grader. There is a previous post I made on such tools here: 10 Great Free SEO Tools and Resources

However, after a few tweets (@AcuityDesigns) I came across Sheer SEO.

Sheer SEO

SheerSEO is an SEO software to track and analyze your SEO campaign. Also helps you with link building.

Sheer SEO is a basic to intermediate tool that offers comprehensive link tracking, and automation and an intuitive UI to help speed up tasks such as directory submission to hundreds of free high PR directories. It couldn’t definitely work as a tool to help a freelance web developer offer basic to intermediate SEO campaigns to his clients.

Have any of you had extensive experience with Sheer SEO? Any negatives?

Related Posts:


70 GigaPixel Photo of Budapest

Whilst going through my RSS reader, I came across this amazing achievement of tech and photography via Photography Blog. An amazing 70 Gigapixel 360° panoramic photograph of Budapest.

The photograph was taken from a 100-year-old observation tower built on the highest point of Budapest, the stitched panorama is over 590,000 pixels wide by nearly 121,000 pixels tall. The young Hungarian photographers used two Sony A900 bodies – each outfitted with a Minolta AF 400mm f/4.5 APO G lens and 1.4x teleconverter – on a sturdy tripod complete with a custom-designed robotic head. The image capturing stage of the project took over three hours to finish. The source images were then stitched with Autopano Giga software  and this process took two full days and resulted in a 200GB file!!

Click the image below to see the panorama on their website ( you will need microsoft Silverlight installed)


Related Posts:


5 New & Amazing Features in Adobe Illustrator CS5

The other day we blogged about the amazing things we liked about Adobe Photoshop CS5. Today it’s Illustrator CS5’s turn. As keen illustrator users ourselves, any new features is a party in our minds!

The Perspective tool is genius! Getting angles of perspective right has always been a somewhat tedious task with endless reference drawings needed etc. Now Illlustrator pulls up a great interactive grid for use. Go Adobe!

The Bristle Brush is a great addition and another step towards removing illustrator and photoshop from intermediary steps in work flows. No more switching the file into photoshop and spending hours creating a huge painted version of a file to import into illustrator as you can now get similar effects in vector format from within Illustrator itself. Great stuff.

Enjoy the video! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFXJY0a8NiU)

Related Posts:


Compositing and Selecting Hair in Photoshop CS5 – Amazing

With all the talk about the content-aware features in Adobe Photoshop CS5 – I think the following feature has been somewhat over shadowed but for me its ridiculously intuitive. I love it! I am already imagining the hours of time it is going to save me when retouching photographs.

The tool makes use of various different techniques which have been seen before such as not removing edges – but removing colours to define edges – but has condensed them into a simple to use and effective little tool which has an amazing amount of accuracy and control.

I honestly haven’t been this excited about Photoshop since CS2.

Enjoy the video!

Related Posts:


A Collection of 30+ Useful Maya Tutorials

Maya is a high-end 3D application that enables the user to create highly realistic images using the various tools provided by the software. The software allows you to create images in 3D format. Several designers in the web are into using this software to design the ultimate image. Throughout the web, several tutorials on using this software have been released by professionals whose main aim is to educate beginners and experienced users alike.Here in this post, we bring you A Collection of 30+ Useful Maya Tutorials to give you more knowledge in the appropriate usage of the software. Enjoy reading and have fun learning!

Making of the Rider

rider maya tutorial
The tutorial is on creating a maya image using brail tools.

Making of Varga In MAYA

varga maya tutorial
Here is a summary on the workflow used for a character with lots of images and some print-screens directly from the applications used such as Maya, Mudbox, and Photoshop.

High Polygon Realistic Character Creation

high polygon may
This tutorial is an overview of creating high polygon realistic 3D characters.

Making of Quiet Room

quite room maya
Learn to use Autodesk Maya in modeling the objects and use Photoshop in texturing by following this tutorial.

Texture Map NURBS Dragon

dragon texture maya
Here is a tutorial that will guide you in converting NURBS to polygon, and then export the polygons to 3D paint program.

Revolution

revolution maya tutorial
In this tutorial, you will be guided in creating a highly revolutionized image with Maya.

Street Cop Workflow

street cop maya
Create a highly realistic street cop image using Maya by following through this tutorial.

Making of Gladiator

gladiator maya tutoria
Learn to use preset effects like grains, light color enhancement, epical environment mood in creating your image with this tutorial.

Making of Fatjon’s Performance

fatjon maya tutorial
The tutorial is on sculpting details for images and creating a mysterious atmosphere in Maya.

Character Walk Through

dobby maya
The tutorial is on creating one of the characters for the phenomenal hit movie, the Harry Potter series using Maya.

Using Sun and Sky in Mental Ray

sun and sky maya
This tutorial will guide you in using one feature in Maya’s mental ray.

Making of Cheese Platter

cheese platter maya
Here is a tutorial using Autodesk Maya 8.5 and Adobe Photoshop in creating a food-themed image.

Making of Skullhead Mobster

mobster maya tutorial
In this tutorial, you will be guided in creating a skullhead image using Maya.

Making of the Joker

joker maya tutorial
This tutorial uses Maya for the base model, ZBrush for details, and Photoshop for texturing and matte painting, shave and haircut for the hair and mental ray for rendering in creating the famous character, Joker.

Create a Gear and Render it Realisticly with Mental Ray

light mental maya
The tutorial mainly focuses on rendering using Mental Ray, an HDRI map, and Maya 6.0.

Facial Animation Rig for Delgo

rig of delgo maya
Learn to use NURBS curves to influence objects on a poly mesh through this tutorial.

Making of The Last Elf

last elf maya
Create a highly realistic character using Maya.

Making Of Balcón Mediterráneo

 balcon maya tutorial
Here is a tutorial on creating a 3D version of the Balcón Mediterráneo in Maya.

Model a Spitfire War Plane

spitfire maya tutorial
Create your own war plane using Maya in this tutorial.

Making of the Fruit Tarts

fruit arts mayas
This is a tutorial on food using Maya, Photoshop and rendered with Mental Ray.

Creating CG Nature

nature maya tutorial
The tutorial will guide you in creating terrain, trees and grass using Maya.

Breaking Subsurface Scattering into Render Layers in Maya

scatter maya tutorial
In this tutorial, you will be guided in the process of breaking the subsurface into render layers and compositing them in post.

Making of Sohrab

sohrab maya tutorial
Here is a tutorial in creating one famous character in Maya.

Maya-Mentalray Studio Lighting

studio lighting maya
This tutorial is on the proper utilization of studio lighting in Maya and mental ray.

Making of Tiger Zoo

tiger zoo maya
Create a realistic wildlife image using Maya in this tutorial.

How to Create a Model of a Sport Car – Nissan 350-Z

nissan maya tutorial
A step-by-step tutorial on creating 350Z’s body using polygonal modeling in Maya is illustrated in this tutorial.

Making of Portrait of a Troll

troll maya tutorial
The above tutorial is on creating a troll image using Maya and its various tools.

3DnuTTa’s Rim Design Tutorial

rim design maya
Here is a tutorial on creating another Maya image using a different set of tools.

Creating Optimized Caustics in Maya Mray

maya mray
Learn to create the caustics effect in Maya using this tutorial.

Modeling Morgane

morgane mayya tutorial
Create another realistic character in Maya by following the techniques in this tutorial.

Making of Ingrid Bergman

ingrid maya tutorial
This tutorial is on re-creating a famous person through the use of Maya.