Designers At Large Blog » Graphic Design

Free Photoshop Brush Sets #1

Erick Brian — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:17:52 +0000

Every great designer has their own arsenal of tools handy to create their artwork. As should you, and that’s why I’m going to help you build your own arsenal of tools! Here are a few great sets of brushes for Photoshop that you can use in your work to get that new edge look. Brushes will make a difference when trying to apply a specifc theme, texture, or look to your image. So experiment new styles and use them to their fullest extent.

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

Adobe Photoshop CS3 + Camera RAW Support

Erick Brian — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:40:56 +0000

Recently during a photoshoot with my brother (Michael Matthews) I used a new Canon 5D Mark ii (or Mark 2) for the shoot, and it was a great camera to play with! Now, I’m no pro in photography. I’m a professional graphic designer and web/multimedia pro, but I’ve still got an eye for lighting, composition, and getting the shot I need to compile some nifty graphics. So we went out and shot him in front of a green screen since he’s a great photographer and has all his own gear. (Michael’s photography website)

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!

Update: April 1st, 2008

Erick Brian — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:28:39 +0000

Still building the website. Most of the flash components being used are almost done. The fun part about this project is I’m building everything to w3 standards, and there really isn’t a specific standard on embedding Flash files into a site.

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.

Building weareatlarge.com

Erick Brian — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:48:00 +0000

So I’m currently in the midst of designing the website for Designers At Large. For those of you unaware, that’s my company. It’s a company based on design for web, print, and multimedia. Still starting up and in my first year, so hope I can bring as much good to those reading as my clients.

Anyhow, designed out the website and finishing up all the mock-ups before I start developing the entire site. I’ll probably be integrating a lot of Javascripting and Flash, so I’m very excited! I plan to make this site kick ass and really show what I’m into and capable to produce. (but not limited to!)

Well, I’ll post an update as soon as I start doing the Flash, and I’ve also started documenting how I’m building it because I have a lot of friends that are interested in web design, and I’d also like to have some documentation of my process for my clients.

Thanks for reading.

-EB