Enjoy!

ULTIMATE BRUSH PACK NO.4

by Axeraider70

Ultimate Brush Pack No.4 by Axeraider70

Scratch Brushes

by xALIASx

Scratch Brushes by xALIASx

41 Grunge Brushes

by KeepWaiting

41 Grunge Brushes by KeepWaiting

Blurry Light Brushes

by LurkerPatrol

Blurry Light Brushes by LurkerPatrol

Dirt Brushes

by leboef

Dirt Brushes by Leboef

Genisis Brushes

by Axeraider70

Genisis Brushes by Axeraider70

Light Brushes

by Rubina119

Light Brushes by Rubina119

After shooting over 300 or so photos, I figured I had the right shots in there and could use them to create some new graphics for his website. When I got to my studio to start working –and after an hour of updating– I couldn’t load any of the .CR2 raw files from the camera into Adobe Photoshop! Yes, I was surprised since I thought Adobe would already read these files.

After doing some research, I figured out Adobe does support these files, I just needed to update. So I began to download the new RAW plug-in by Adobe. Didn’t work. I tried another plug-in. Didn’t work again! I saw my brother open these files without a problem on his machine, so I was confused.

Doing more research, I found out Adobe Photoshop CS3 does NOT support these new files from Canon. Even after updating the Camera Raw Plug-in 4.6 (the 5.3 plug-in won’t work on CS3, it is only for Lightroom 2  and Photoshop CS4) it wouldn’t load. So I figured out that I had to use the latest DNG converter to convert the RAW file to read in Photoshop CS3.

After spendnig another hour of researching all this, it was a breeze to work with. Just posting this information up hoping that it might help others quicker than taking nearly an hour of testing and googling the web.

Keep up the work!

Recently, I ran into a page that was stating that there are some designers that haven’t heard of contrast. (The difference in tonal values between light and dark.) It’s brought up that the new trend of using a softer black on websites for their content is an annoyance, and then they bring up images to compare the contrast of the text from Black (#000000) compared to Grey. It’s also stated and brought up that computer screens emit light, and that browsers were originaly displaying black text with a grey background for a reason–less strain on your eyes.

I’m not going to agree with this completley with the writer of this article, but I can understand their point of view. The new use of what he considers grey text is a softer black in my opinion. (On this site, my opinion is what matters!) I don’t see the softer black as annoying and I do think it helps readers read easier along with applying some basic knowledge of web typography to the content. So I’ll list a few…

1) Body Width: The width of the body content makes a difference on whether your reader will easily read through the content. If you’ve noticed, I’m using a narrow width for the content compared to a wider or full screen width. The reason is that the eyes will move less and the reader won’t feel eye fatigue, making it less strainful for their eyes to read the text.

*Try this out: Compare 3 different widths of your content. Try a wide body, a narrow body, and then a width in between. You’ll notice a difference in trying to read a long article.

2) Font Size: For a while web designers were using tiny the tiny font size of 11 pixels or even 10 pixels! I admit I’ve been guilty of that myself a few times, but over time I’ve realized that tiny font isn’t awesome. Larger fonts above 12 pixels are easier to read, even on a published project. Even though we sometimes reduce the font size on paper to try and fit as much infomation as possible, the web is much more flexible!

If you’re creating a site with a tremendous amount of content or large articles, I suggest implementing a tool on your site to adjust the font size for your viewers to read at their preffered text size. If you need help with creating a script for this, you can visit Dynamic Drive for a Text Sizer script.

3) Font Treatment: Try using different fonts or font treatments for headlines or navigation. You can even use a different font for links, or important information. Don’t over do this though, I wouldn’t use more than two fonts at a time on a web site, unless you can fit a third without making it look horendous.

You can also work with the font size and line height to make your text more legible. Don’t be afraid to work with the letter spacing either, or with the alignment. Even though you might notice I have a Justified alignment on my blog, I usually try to use Justify on a web site for clients but make sure there aren’t any rivers or gaps through out the content. (Not so much yet on the blog, I’m too busy!)

4) Colors: Applying colors in a manner to make your text stand out if it’s a URL, Visited URL, or even when you hover, or something of importance, is something a few web designers might get carried away with. (Here’s an example of what not to do.) Use your intuitive designer’s eye and understanding of color theory to make your text stand out. Also try different background colors to contrast your text in different area to seperate the content from the rest of the page. For instance, a white page using a soft black might have a navigation with colorful imagery, so you might want to use dark black or darker colors for the navigation.

In conclusion, soft black text (or grey text) isn’t horrible. Black text without any smoothing applied is really annoying to read when it’s bunched up. It sometimes has a wierd glow coming from behind it because of the screens light being emitted. So too much contrast could be a bad thing, and if grey text were so annoying, then why is it used so much now through out the web?

Have a good weekend!

Cheers.

First off, I went browsing on iStockPhoto for a good stock image to use on this project. I wanted a girl with headphones on, and after a few searches I found an image that I thought would perfect for the wallpaper.

I first started by masking the image in quick mask mode and since I had just bought my new Wacom tablet, I went in depth with getting the details of the hair with the brush tool. You can also use the pen tool without being in quick mask mode to do this, but I’ll be using this method.

I went in an touched up some of the details from the hair and her body before I imposed her into the background I am going to begin building. I’ve adjusted any highlights that I won’t want, added or erased some hair, and so on.

Here I’ve placed her into my background which I’ve made black and added an oval shape which I end up rasterizing and blurring until I get a nice glow effect from it.

In Photoshop, I end up using some textured brushes to erase some of her body. I did this by first creating a layer on top of the image, using the Brush to paint on top so I can see what I was going to erase, then selecting everything I painted and erasing away some of her skin.

I then threw this image into Illustrator and began to draw out some skin as if it’s melting away, and added some splattered effects. After I created enough details to where I’m happy, I then drag the layer where I’ve created all my vector shapes, I drag this into Photoshop as a Vector Object.

So I’ve begun finalizing the image, the effects I used were created by first adding a Pattern Overlay to the glow behind her of thick bidiagonal stripes, then painting some splatter over that layer using some vector objects from Illustrator.

The colorful smears flying out were made by first creating a layer behind her and painting some white blobs which I end up smearing using the Smudge tool at about 96%. I used liked the effect I got from this using the Wacom tablet, and after enough smeared lines exploding out, adjusted the fading smears by desaturating the white and adjusting the levels until I got a nice clean fade into black and then slapping a Gradient Overlay.

To get the white glows from her arms, I painted some white spots with the Brush and Blurred them out. You can get a nice effect after blurring them, by using the Rectangle Marquee tool to select half of the circle, then using the Motion Blur effect to stretch out some blurry lines. Apply a few to them for a nice effect, and then add more paint on top while continuing to blur until you get a nice blur.

After I’m done with all that, I create a layer on top of everything and then fill it in with black. Once it’s filled in, apply a Lens Flare and make sure it’s centered. You can use this Lens Flare, set the Blending Mode to Screen, adjust the levels until you reach a desired level of flare, and place them over the image where desired. I’ll end up merging these flares and then painting white at about 7% or 10% to adjust the brightness of them, or use black to lower their brightness while still using the Screen Blending Mode.

I’ve added a few more details, adjusted colors and levels, and touched up the image before my final. So now I’ve canvas to the dimension I want, and since I started out using a huge image, I can resize it down to any dimension I want.

Give it a shot, might take some time, and next time I’ll take a few more snapshots so you can follow along better. Maybe I’ll do video too, but we’ll see what you all think.

 I took a trip to the Northridge mall’s Apple store and purchased the economically priced Bamboo tablet by Wacom. Was debating whether to get this model, or the Bamboo Fun, or an Intuos. Well since it is my first purchase, and I have a collection of 5 different mice, I didn’t need any extras, so I went with the Bamboo.

It’s got a nice clean look to it, and 4 light up buttons on the tablet. Nice soft feel on the pen and the surface, and a touch sensitive scroll/zoom pad. I wish the pad lit up too, or maybe if the pen had a glow tip, maybe like the pen would glow more intense the harder you press on it? Just something cool!

Anyhow, it’s a great product, the pen is very precise aside from getting used to it, and I’ve been testing it out in Photoshop and it’s an awesome tool to use while creating masks with a brush. So far I’m pleased with it, few drawbacks would be double clicking on things with the tip, it’s made my MacPro act funny dragging in the wrong areas, and you really got make sure u click the buttons on the side. Could just take some getting used to, but I’ve been using the eraser end to navigate around…or my trust mouse!

All in all I think it’s a pretty neat product, at the price of about $75 after tax, why not get one! Fun to use, and precise too!

A bit tricky, because Dreamweaver and Flash produces this “twice-baked” method which I read about at A List Apart, and reading more into including some other sites, I’ve decided to use a script that write the object or embed tag dependent on what browser you are using. Pretty neat, I didn’t come up with it, but it’s cool because it works! It just writes over a Div and if you don’t have Flash or Javascript enabled, you can set the Div to pull graphics or content you’d want to replace instead of the Flash file.

Anyhow, this seems to validate and works. The bad part is I also tried creating a dynamic background using Flash and CSS by positioning everything Absolutely, which isn’t being very consistent so I’ve given that up. (Dangit!) I’ll continue looking for a few different methods, but until then…regular plain gradient background and pattern.

Designing the site has been quite a project, since I haven’t produced anything for myself in a while. I still have to produce all the content, but I’m being so picky with every little detail for now. I’ll have to drop that attitude, and develop everything and come back in later to clean it up if I want to finish soon.  (or chug a few redbulls and stay up late nights!)

Okay, well I hope everyone is a having a good week so far, and I’ll be posting up some of my own artwork soon that I’ve started.