Each month, we bring together a selection of the best tutorials and articles from across the whole Tuts+ network. Whether you’d like to read the top posts from your favourite site, or would like to start learning something completely new, this is the best place to start!
Psdtuts+ — Photoshop Tutorials
Create a Surreal “Parting of the Sea” Photo Manipulation
Water, by its very nature is difficult to convincingly incorporate into a composition. In this tutorial, you will discover how to combine advanced masking techniques, blending modes, adjustment layers and clever use of filters to part the sea and create a surreal photo manipulation. Let’s get started!
How to Replace a Woman’s Lipstick With Artwork Using Creative Retouching Techniques
Creative retouching techniques are often used to enhance the photography that is being used for a particular project. In this tutorial, Stefka Pavlova will show you how to replace a woman’s lipstick with artwork using some creative and effective photo retouching techniques. Let’s get started!
Ways to Make Your Portfolio Friendlier
As the editor of Psdtuts+, I look through a lot of portfolios. A big part of my job is to find talented artists and recruit them to become authors for the site. Over the years, I have developed some strong opinions about the ways in which artists present their work online. In this article, I wanted to share a few easy ways that you can make your online portfolio a bit friendlier to people that hire artists. Let’s take a look!
Nettuts+ — Web Development
Speaking With the Ember.js Core Team
Single page apps are the new hotness; everyone’s trying to figure out the easiest way to build them. But it’s more than just finding a couple of controls to slap together and sprinkling Ajax pixie dust on it. Building scalable and maintainable apps is serious business, which requires serious tools.
Testing Like a Boss in Laravel: Models
If you’re hoping to learn why tests are beneficial, this is not the article for you. Over the course of this tutorial, I will assume that you already understand the advantages, and are hoping to learn how best to write and organize your tests in Laravel 4.
How to Write Code That Embraces Change
Writing code, which is easy to change is the Holy Grail of programming. Welcome to programming nirvana! But things are much more difficult in reality: source code is difficult to understand, dependencies point in countless directions, coupling is annoying, and you soon feel the heat of programming hell. In this tutorial, we will discuss a few principles, techniques and ideas that will help you write code that is easy to change.
Vectortuts+ — Illustrator Tutorials
What is Anime/Manga and Why should you Create it in Vector?
Today we will be looking at exactly what makes a drawing "anime styled", the general theories behind drawing in this style, and why vector is a fantastic medium to work with when creating anime/manga styled artwork. This is a great introduction for those who aren’t familiar with the style and wish to know more.
How to Create a Colorful Stylized Portrait in Adobe Illustrator
This tutorial focuses on creating a vibrant, poppy portrait in Adobe Illustrator. Using bright colors, transparent gradients, and a sense of whimsy, you’ll be constructing facial features and candy hair in no time.
How to Create Multiple Frames with One Image in Adobe InDesign
It is possible to create cool image effects not only in Photoshop and Illustrator but also in InDesign. In this tutorial we will learn how to place one image into several randomly placed frames. We will use Effects, Object Styles, special Paste features and learn some very useful techniques on the way. Let’s get started!
Webdesigntuts+ — Web Design Tutorials
A Web Designer’s SEO Checklist (Including Portable Formats)
As you might have noticed from our previous articles; there are many factors which need to be influenced to optimize a website for search engines. After a while you might not see the woods for the trees. To help you bring some order to this chaos, weve compiled an SEO checklist.
Making the Most of Photoshop Layers
The way web designers are using Photoshop is changing; pixel perfect comps are less relevant than they were a year or two ago. However, Photoshop is still an invaluable design tool and using its features properly is as important as ever. The following tips will help you master working with layers.
Designing for Performance
Designers have a tremendous impact on site performance based on how they design for the web, before a single line of code is written. This article will cover how performance can be designed and what it takes to make it happen.
Phototuts+ — Photography Tutorials
Comparing Effects in Lightroom and Photoshop
Do you need Photoshop if you own Lightroom? This is a question that is often asked, and which there is no definite answer. In this video, we take an existing image manipulated in Photoshop and set out to attempt to create a similar style of image using only Lightroom 3. Let’s see how it turns out.
How to Shoot a Mysterious Levitation Photo
If you’re looking to bring some magic to your next photograph, today’s tutorial is going to help you do just that. With some creative planning and easy post-production, we’ll create a levitation photo that seems to break the laws of physics.
Quick Tip: How Does Shutter Speed Affect Video?
When talking about video, many people refer the “cinematic” or “videoish” looks. Cinematic is in. Everyone wants to make sure their videos look like they came from a Hollywood backlot. One of the most basic methods of changing the look is by controlling the shutter speed.
Cgtuts+ — Computer Graphics Tutorials
Create a Stylish Earth Cross-Section Animation with Cinema 4D – Part 1
In our latest Cinema 4D tutorial, Aleksey Voznesenski will walk you through the process of Modeling, Texturing, Lighting and Animating a cross section of planet Earth. You’ll learn a whole bunch of techniques for adding materials and using alpha channels to modify only certain parts of the texture maps. You’ll also learn how to animate the cross section using booles and make everything look sexy with materials and lighting.
Create a Classic He-Man Action Figure using Maya: Part 1 – Tuts+ Premium
Today we’re kicking off a brand new tutorial series covering the creation of an awesome He-Man Action Figure using Maya. This unique series will walk you through the entire process of modeling your very own action figure inspired by the iconic 80′s character.
Global Illumination vs Photometric Lighting in Maya
When working with Mental-Ray, many times we would use final gather almost exclusively. In this tutorial I would like to explore two less commonly used methods of illuminating our scenes, Global Illumination and photometric lighting.Throughout this tutorial we will explore these two methods, and compare their positive versus negative virtues.
Aetuts+ — After Effects Tutorials
Advanced Spill Suppression Methods
This tutorial shows how to use sophisticated channel operations to achieve a more accurate spill suppression result than is attainable with AE’s default plug-ins.
Keyframing Tips for Adding Weight to Basic Shapes
There are some tiny tricks when animating moving graphics and in this tutorial we will go through some of them. We’ll be examining the movements of some basic shapes as they are repositioned from point A to B. I will show you how they should react the force based on their given weight, both in rotation and position. And of course, as a bonus we’ll be creating bouncing ball.
Introduction to the New Features in Newton 2
This is an introduction to the new features of Newton 2. Newton is a 2D physics simulator that allows users to apply various simulations like gravity, collision, and bounce to their layers in After Effects. We’re going to work through a few scenarios to see how to set up and execute a simulation.
Audiotuts+ — Audio & Production Tutorials
Quick Tip: Creating a Drum Sequence with Just One Sample
Today I will show you a new technique which you can use to create interesting drum patterns. My last article was about modulation. Modulation techniques can turn your samples (in our example a ride sample) into a glitchy tom supported drum sequence. All you need a sampler or an impulse, and a ride sample.
Check Out the New Recommended Resources on Audiotuts+
We’ve added a new page to the site, which will help audio professionals grab top quality software, tools and gear. It’s filled with our favorite resources that we recommend for audio junkies. You can jump straight over to our Recommended Resources page here on Audiotuts+ or read on for further information.
A Beginner’s Guide to MIDI Recording
In this is a beginner’s tutorial on MIDI we cover how to record and edit MIDI, and create your own MIDI parts. Just getting into using more advanced audio software? Never done any MIDI recording? Then this tutorial is for you.
Wptuts+ — WordPress Tutorials
Improving Blog Discussions With Disqus Comments
In the first part we discussed how we can use the default WordPress comments system to engage users into effective discussions. Today we are going to talk about how Disqus can help you to create effective discussions and how you can choose between default WordPress comment system vs Disqus systems.
Strategies for Supporting WordPress Plugins
As a WordPress developer – specifically for plugins, in this case – determining the best way to provide support for your work can be a challenge. In fact, I’m currently in the process of evaluating what may be the best route for my current set of plugins, so this topic hits close to home.
How to Create a WordPress Avatar Management Plugin from Scratch: Getting Started
Avatar Manager for WordPress is a sweet and simple plugin for storing avatars locally and more. Easily.
Mobiletuts+ — Mobile Development Tutorials
iOS SDK: Previewing and Opening Documents
Sandboxing on iOS makes the platform much more secure and this ultimately benefits every user of the platform. However, because of the strict rules inherent to sandboxing, sharing data between applications is not trivial. An often overlooked class that helps with sharing documents between applications is the
UIDocumentInteractionControllerclass. In this quick tip, I will show you how you can use this class to preview documents as well as opening documents in other applications installed on the device.
Create a Hundreds-Like Game – Interface Creation
In this tutorial series, you’ll learn how to create a game like the popular Hundreds. The objective of the game is to reach 100 points without the circles touching while you raise the score. Read on!
Windows Phone: Connecting with Facebook
In this tutorial, we will talk about how to interact with the Facebook API, and all the tools you need in order to connect with it. Specifically, the app that we are going to make will be able to connect with the user’s Facebook account and update their status. Lets get started!
Gamedevtuts+ — Game Development
Making Your First Game: A Walkthrough for Game Developers
When you get stuck in a video game, you might head to GameFAQs to find a walkthrough to help you get through it. When you get stuck making your first video game, what can you do? That’s where this article comes in: think of this as a walkthrough for developing your first game.
Portal 2 Level Design: Creating Puzzles to Challenge Your Players
Portal was one of the most distinctive puzzle games of the past few years, and its sequel Portal 2 showed us that lightning can strike twice. A little less than a year ago, Valve made waves once again by introducing a simple yet powerful level editing tool in Portal 2 itself. In this article I’m going to discuss how to design great puzzles that will challenge your players.
How We Dealt With Cheaters in Our Turn-Based MMO Game
Cheaters, griefers and trolls can ruin your game. The bigger your game, the more likely you are to face them. Although they are just trying to have fun like everybody else, they do that by negatively affecting the whole game. Suddenly your creation becomes a living nightmare. Read on to find out how we dealt with this problem in our turn-based MMO.
Mactuts+ — Mac & OS X
Use Your Phone to Automatically Lock Your Mac When You Walk Away
I’ve got a couple of applications that can help you out, and well go a bit further and look at how you can use AppleScripts to really tweak what your Mac does when you come and go. All you need is a phone or other Bluetooth device and we can get your Mac locking itself up in no time!
How to Move Your iTunes, iPhoto or Aperture Library to an External Drive
As Apple moves towards solid state drives for their portable range, users are having to be more frugal with their storage requirements. In this tutorial, well show you how to keep your large media libraries on an external drive and keep your portable Mac from filling up!
Master TextExpander With These Helpful Tips & Tricks
If you’re a TextExpander user, then you know that it can have a drastic positive impact on your productivity. But are you using TextExpander to its full ability or are you barely scraping the surface of what it can do? This tutorial takes a deep dive into this incredibly versatile tool and teaches you everything you need to know to become a TextExpander master.
Crafttuts+ — Craft & Handmade
Make Your Own Perpetual Calendar With Blackboard Paint
A perpetual calendar is a nice spin on a traditional calendar, as it’s super-practical and means you don’t have to shell out for a new one every year. In this tutorial, we’ve combined the practicality of a perpetual calendar with the awesome functionality of chalkboard paint, to create a stunning organisational tool that can be updated time and again – with little fuss, or mess.
Make a Beautiful Paper Polyhedron Mobile
If you thought mobiles were just for kids’ rooms, think again. This mobile of polyhedron paper shapes is a beautiful sculptural addition for any room of your home. Choose colours to suit your space and hang it from the ceiling – or even on a wall.
Create a Stunning Combination Coptic Long-stitch Archival Book
This tutorial will show you how to make a good quality, archival book from beginning to end. Book binding requires a lot of patience and practice, but the result is a beautiful work of art that you can give as a gift, or fill with your own drawings, notes and photos. Let’s begin!
FreelanceSwitch — Freelance Jobs & Information
How to Find Freelance Clients on Twitter
I’ve often heard freelancers say “I don’t use Twitter for marketing”. That’s like saying you don’t use networking events to meet people (Well, perhaps you enjoy the free food, but really?).
Like it or not, if you’re on Twitter, you use it for marketing. Twitter is a public platform, and potential clients will look at your Twitter account when they’re deciding whether to hire you.
The Differences Between Marketing Yourself Solo and Marketing an Agency
When you’re first marketing yourself as a freelancer, you have to make sure that your clients trust you. The entire point of your marketing is to convince each prospective client that you, personally, will do an awesome job on their project. But that approach doesn’t work when you won’t be personally doing every piece of work that passes through your agency.
10 Best Mobile Apps for Easier Social Media Marketing on the Go
I have found that one of the best ways to take advantage of my time – while waiting in the drive-thru line, waiting for an appt., or watching my kids at sports events – is to get some social media marketing done. This helps with efficiency when I am sitting down at my computer trying to get some writing done.
Tuts+ Premium — Creative & Technical Skills
What’s New in Laravel 4
The coding world moves pretty fast. Since my last coverage of Laravel, Laravel Essentials, much has changed for the better. While plenty of that course still applies, a variety of adjustments and additions have been made to the framework. This course will get you up to speed on those changes as quickly as possible.
Please note that this is a live course. Check back each week for new lessons!
PSD to HTML for Designers
Have you ever tried to take a nice PSD design for a web site and tried to translate it to HTML? Not always easy, is it! Here is Adi Purdila to help us learn this sometimes tricky art, where you will be taking an already designed web page layout and developing it into a functional, working web page using intermediate and current techniques.
Digital Drawing Fundamentals
Whether you’re an ambitious illustrator or an experienced designer, almost everyone wants to improve their traditional drawing skills. Kirk Nelson is here to do just that! As an experienced digital painter and designer, Kirk walks you through the building blocks of digital drawing, shapes and shading, composing and perspective, and much more. Grab your tablet or stylus and let’s get started.
