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Inspired by the Monster Engine (See previous post), I have taken a picture painted by Alison age 7, from the internet and put it through my Alien Factory.
I enjoyed the experience of playing with the painting to create an alien, my first alien.
Here is Alison's original painting, which is the picture of a glass of water with its shadow!
Dave Devrie has once asked a question? What would a child's drawing
look like if it were painted realistically? This question derived him
to create what he later called "The Monster Engine".
He worked with the painting of children to bring them to life and in the process, turned the drawings to monsters.
Obviously
we all agree that the intention of the children was not to draw
monsters, but their limited ability to create realistic drawings made
the creatures obviously less than perfect,. I personally think Dave
could have created an engine of creatures less monstrous if he wanted
to, but what he has done is fantastic and original!
Anyhow, you can see Dave's work here.
Create art using MS Power Point.
- Insert a picture or a photo in a new Power Point slide.
- Use freehand drawing tool to draw around selected areas.
- Use Fill In tool to colour the area.
- Add any optional back ground as desired.
- Delete the original picture if required.
- Save the slide as a png or a jpg file.
- Enjoy your power slide art.
- Take an ordinary photo
- Use Photoshop
- Use OptikVerve Labs Photographic Filter Plug In
- Use a bit of imagination
- Get a nostalgic result ....
There are many things that Google can do as well as search. Two of
them are calculation and unit conversion. If you are geeky enough to
know the Euler's identity, and consequently know what e and pi are and expect to see a -1 as a result, try this in Google search:e^(i pi)
you can get result for almost anything by typing the correct formula. Try some more:
Earth mass in pounds
Minutes in century
XXXX in decimal
Speed of Light
Light year in meters
((123456 ^ 2) / 5) + (sqrt 654321)
the answer to life the universe and everything
Have fun.
Digital cameras have a default naming convention for saving photos. By knwoing these naming, you can use Google Image Search functionality to see random personal pictures as many people do not bother to change the default name of the files.
Try finding images by for example typing img_***.jpg replacing the stars with numbers.
dcp******.jpg, dsc*****.jpg, dscn****.jpg, mvc_***.jpg, p101****.jpg, pmdd****.jpg, 11**-****.jpg, _mg_****.jpg, dscf****.jpg, pdrm****.jpg, im******.jpg, ex******.jpg, dc****s.jpg, pict****.jpg, p*******.jpg, mmdd****.jpg, yymdd***.jpg, imgp****.jpg, and pana****.jpg.
What are you waiting for. Go and see lots of odd pics!
Create something new by using Brushes and Styles
- Download a few fancy brushes, such as eyes, flowers, edges, butterflies, etc
- Use them to randomly create a saturated picture
- Add a transparent style to lift the overall effect, I used a Sapphire style here
Here is another fractal which I manipulated via Photoshop CS3.
- Save your fractal as Photoshop psd file
- Open the file
- Duplicate the background layer
- Desaturate the copy
- Select a circular section in the centre via circular marquee tool
- Select Layer > Distort > Twirl and twirl as you wish
- Change the layer blending mode until you get something amazing, I have selected Linear Burn
- Save as a jpg file and enjoy.
Create amazing Fractal Images using Fractal creator programmes.
Fractals are mathematical functions that repeat themselves infinitely giving the creator the ability to zoom in a selected corner and discover the next pattern.
Some natural events such as weather, that seem to be chaotic on the surface, follow a fractal function in reality that changes its parameter over time. The beauty of the fractals is in the way a slight change of one parameter would create a huge difference in outcome after only a limited number of repeats or mathematically speaking iterations.
World is not a machine created with linear rules; it is an organisation created with some rules, fractals. This means we leave in total chaos and there is no predictable future. To know the future, you have to be in the future and what you do today, will change the future, no matter where or who you are.
We are all here to play the game! Enjoy it and have fun.
designmaze.co.uk traffic rank has improved substantially! New traffic rank is 24161045 which is up by nearly 7 million in three months!
Thank you to all the visitors of the site.
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6,524,685
Create an artistic photo of yourself just by playing in Photoshop.
- Open a picture in Photoshop.
- Use Lasso Tool to select areas.
- Select Create a New Fill of Adjustment Layer by selecting the icon located on the bottom of Layer panel.
- Select Curves and reduce the details a bit.
- Double click on the curve layer and select Bevel and Emboss - Texture
- Select a texture and play with the scale and depth.
- Repeat for other areas.
- Save as jpg and Enjoy.
Create your own css flowery text with this easy to css file. Just change the text as you wish in the following html.
Use the following code in the body of your file(swap [ with < and ] with > in the code).
[div id="text"]
Design Maze
[/div]
[div id="flower"]
[/div]
And here is the css file you need:
/* This CSS file created by Anahita RainStar from http://wwww.designmaze.co.uk is copyleft.
Just use it as you wish. Enjoy */
#text {
font-size: 120px;
color: #660033;
font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", Verdana, sans-serif;
letter-spacing: -10px;
}
#flower {
color: #003300;
overflow: hidden;
background-image: url(../images/flower_txt.png);
margin-top: -130px;
background-repeat: repeat;
height: 100px;
background-position: center bottom;
display: block;
}
To see it in action click on the following link:
http://www.designmaze.co.uk/flower.php
Please download the png file flower.png 
Just right here click and select Save Link As, and save as flower_txt.png.
Travel galaxies with Google Sky.
It is amazing to sit at your desk at home with no spaceship or even a telescope and travel the dark and vast universe, hop between galaxies and meet unknown stars.
Tonight I just did that. While sightseeing the world on Google Earth, I discovered a feature I did not know about. The little icon said "Switch between Earth and Sky" on top menu bar of the Google Earth.
Once switched, I instantly travelled to a galaxy known as M101 or Pinwheel Galaxy. This galaxy is 27 million light years away from us, residing in Ursa Major.
Download Google Earth and travel the universe in no time.
These days, there is something open source for everything. And now Photoshop has an open source sibling called Gimpshop.
Gimpshop is a version of Gimp open source graphic software, written for users who are familiar with Photoshop.
You can find most of Photoshop basic functions such as layering and
layer adjustments alongside a variety of brushes, gradients and
patterns,
If you plan to invest in Photoshop, perhaps this would be a good entry
level starter step. If you do not plan to buy Photoshop, but you still
want to occasionally use a software that gives you functionality
similar to basic Photoshop, mainly perhaps Photoshop Elements, then visit http://www.gimpshop.com/,
download and play with the Gimpshop.
Something to get me from Autumn to Winter. This is done in Photoshop, using one of my photos, a gradient layer, and a creative brush layer.
Handheld mobile devices come with different platforms and operating systems, with new editions adding to the equation all the time. Here is a quick guide to the most used ones on today's handhelds.
Blackberry:
These devices were originally designed for push email support, but today they can do almost everything.
Symbian, UIQ 3:
These devices come with Symbian Operating System and touch screen support.
Symbian, S60 3rd Ed:
Updated version of Symbian S60, 2nd Ed specially for security and performance.
Symbian, S60 2nd Ed:
Smartphone with non-touch screen display.
Symbian, Series 80:
Operating System for Smartphone for widescreen devices.
WM5 SP:
Windows Mobile 5 for SmartPhone.
WM2003 SE SP:
Windwos Mobile 2003 Second Editions for Smartphones.
WM5 Phone Ed:
Wondowa Mobile 5 for phone-based devices.
WM5:
Windows Mobile 5
WM6:
Windows Mobile 6
New Version of WM5 which reduces the gap between Pocket PCs and Smartphones.
Palm OS Garnet 5.4:
Newest version of Plam OS.
We all sometimes use our mobile phone cameras to take that unplanned shoot. When doing so, depending to the lighting condition and the quality setting of the camera, we may end up with a very grainy picture.
Do not despair. There is an easy way to get rid of those grains, without having to own a photo editing software.
There is a tool called Neat Image, with the Standard Version available to download free. This tool is downloadable via www.neatimage.com.
Just open your photographs there and under "Device Noise Profile" tab, use the "Auto Profile with Regular Image. Then go to "Noise Filter Setting" tab an select Preview to see a sample of filtered image. You can play with the settings and once happy go to "Output Image" tab and save your filtered image.
I will be posting more about taking pictures with mobile phone cameras. Visit back or set a RSS link via Meta section of site right hand side navigation bar.
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Some Top Sites Rankings Top UK Sites (Source Alexa.com)
Yahoo! www.yahoo.com
Yahoo.com has a traffic rank of: 1
Google.com - www.google.com
Google.com has a traffic rank of: 2
YouTube - www.youtube.com
Youtube.com has a traffic rank of: 3
Windows Live - www.live.com
Live.com has a traffic rank of: 4
Facebook - www.facebook.com
Facebook.com has a traffic rank of: 5
It is amazing how shooting in raw can give the photographer the opportunity to create something that could not be achieved otherwise using the jpg picture processed by the camera.
I took a picture with my Canon Powershot G9 camera, both in RAW and JPG. Then I opened the RAW formatted file in Photoshop Camera RAW and played with it to get the desired picture obtained on the left above. (I have added the little hippo later via Photoshop)
I easily did get a chance to change the white balance, temperature, tint, exposure, brightness, contrast and other options, all from one single screen in seconds.
Shooting colour pictures in RAW also gives the photographer the opportunity to use the Gray Scale Converter in Camera RAW to obtain amazing Black and White photos.
Don't miss this feature if your camera comes with shooting in RAW option.
Have you ever wondered what colour mode to use in Photoshop? The answer is on what you want to do with the final product? Do you want to save it as a jpg or gif and use in on the web, or do you want to save it as a EPS for printing with higher quality?
Depending in your answer you can select your colour mode, via Image > Mode on the menu. For web use and presentations, use RGB mode, however if your plan is to print the final graphics, use CMYK mode.
RGB colour mode: This mode uses three colours, Red, Green and Blue to compose all other colours, which is capable of displaying nearly seventeen million colours on computer monitors via desktop or browser. RGB colours added together make up white, i.e. they act like light being added together, which is the complete opposite for CMYK colours.
CMYK colour mode: This mode uses four colours, cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Each colour is created by specifying the transparency level of each of these four colours. CMYK colures when added together become darker, and together with black, they support the attribute of ink being absorbed on the paper.
- Open a 12 cm by 8 cm new file with 72px resolution in Photoshop
- Create a new layer
- Add a layer mask
- Select a hard brush and change the spacing to 140% with a brush tip of 20 px
- Make sure the foreground colour is black and background colour is white
- Select the rectangle tool making sue it is in Paths mode
- Click on the mask layer thumbnail and then select Windows, Paths
- Select Stroke Path and select Brush
- Select Load Paths as a selection from the Paths window
- Go back to Layers window
- Fill the selection with white and then select it, inverse and delete
- Hide background
- Add a picture of a oak tree leaf to a new layer and stroke it with grey
- Create a text layer, 5P
- From the shape layer, in nature selection select wave and drop it as a fill layer
- Duplicate it and bring the duplicate down a bit to make 4 lines in the wave
- Merge the duplicate with the original
- Double click on this layer and reduce the opacity
- Select Free transform and rotate it a bit.
- Merge all layers
- Save as a stamp and enjoy over a postcard background
Here we go, another browser added to the world of internet browsing, but this time, i anticipate something of the "Take Over the World" nature, something of a great power waiting to happen and watch us all, everything we look at, all we desire to read about, all we love to watch, or see, all of our habits, such as shopping, reading, sports, arts and so much that I can say, even all our feelings and desires.
Google Chrome logo speaks to us, looks at us, and says in a very dark voice, "you are mine!". As we see in our dark rooms behind our cold desks, with the world going downward in a crazy spin, we tab into the internet for news, for friendship, for communication and for love! And "Google" gives it all to us for free: browser, email, chat, maps, applications made of many mash ups, films, pictures, games, shopping on line, calendar, documents, presentations, databases, video conferencing, ....
And we sit at our desks with the eye of our web cams connecting us to whoever is watching. There will be no privacy, no freedom in the future, We will be all prisoners of technology and brains who control them.
Happy Chrome folks. I love it as you do. We will all do, because it gives us what we want. It deserves to be the one and the only, and we deserve to be its slaves.
And by the way, read more about Google Chrome, technical advantages in my next post.
The above picture is a design by Florence Design Company. It amazed me to see Google used similar shape for the their new browser "Google Chrome".
Of course the colours are the same as the colours of the Google logo itself, blue, green, red and yellow. These have favourite with Microsoft Windows Vista and also ZOHO. It seems these colours are good for branding , together with the circle which brings out the concept of the openness.
But one more thing that comes to eyes straight away in Google Chrome logo, is a camera shutter. It does make me feel like being watched, but Google Chrome comes complete with an Incognito browsing mode, which destroys the history of the sites browsed for extra privacy.
To see more on "Google Chrome" come back for my next post.
Heat it up with this fiery layer style.
- Create a new black background layer.
- Take your Muse Brush, see http://www.designmaze.co.uk/archive/2008/jun/27/muse_brush.php.
- Select white colour for foreground.
- Stamp the brush with a desired size .
- Double click on the layer.
- Select Inner Glow. Select a solid orange colour with full opacity. Set the blend mode to Hard Light.
- Select Outer Glow and choose a red colour with full opacity and set the blend mode to Hard Light.
- Select the smudge tool with a suitable size and smudge the boundaries to create a convincing fire.
Using and creating patterns are simple but very effective to add professional look to your images.Creating patterns are easy and adding them to your pictures are even easier. I have created a simple line pattern and added it to my previous Fish Love entry. The result is amazing. Go for it and do it yourself.
To create a pattern in Photoshop:
- Open a small 10 px X 10 px canvas
- Zoom in as much as you can
- Add your pixels to create a symmetric shape
- Once done, go to Edit > Make Pattern and give it a name
To use your pattern in Photoshop:
- Open a new photo and double click on the layer twice to get to Layer Properties
- Tick Pattern Overlay and double click to see the pattern selection list
- Click to select your new pattern
- Adjust the scale and the opacity
- Add Gradient Overlay if desired
- Enjoy your art
Enjoy creating a fresh pear in Photoshop, from scratch.
- Paint the shape of a pear using a round brush
- Soften the edges by applying a Gaussian blur
- Sharpen the edges back by using the Levels Adjustments
- Select your pear using the selection tool and copy in to a new layer
- Fill in your pair with a colour such as green
- Set up a mask layer for later adjustments
- Using an airbrush add some blob of paint like red and yellow to your pear
- Blend the colour together by again using the Gaussian blur
- Add texture by adding noise using Noise filter with Monochromatic selection
- You can make the pear look better by duplicating it and change the layer blending mode in the top layer to Soft Light
- Come back for Part 2, and learn how to add shadows and highlights for a complete pear effect!
Create quick vignette out of your favourite pictures in five easy Photoshop steps.
- Set foreground colour to white
- Select the area of the picture you require to keep y using the elliptical Marquee tool
- Select > Modify > Feather ( Alt + Ctrl + D) and choose 10
- Select > Inverse
- Edit > Clear
Enjoy a new custom made brush of say your favourite rock star.
- Open a photo of your favourite rock star in Photoshop.
- Using any selection tools, select what you like to use as a brush tip in Photoshop.
- Choose Edit - Define Brush Preset.
- Save the brush by naming it and clicking OK.
- Go to your brush set to see your new brush.
Photoshop CS3 comes with many new features and one of the useful features is non destructive smart filters. This means you can apply filters and have total control to change the filters without changing the original picture.
Go to Photoshop CS3 and open any picture you like
- Go to Layer and Convert to Smart Object
- Go to Filter and Select any filter you like, say Blur, Gaussian Blur
- Click on the smart filter and you can mask out parts of the filter as you wish, or change the filter properties
- In the right hand side picture above, I have used an artistic filter over the blur, and masked out the rose
The first time I opened a raw file in Photoshop CS3, after taking some photos in raw with my Canon EOS 450D DSLR, I totally understood the value of having an image taken in raw format.
To compare what I got in raw and jpeg formats, I took a picture in RAW + JPEG. This is provide by Canon for passionate photographers who perhaps do not want to spend time to convert all their raw images themselves, but wanted to keep that vital raw information, that serve similar as a film negative in storage.
So what is the big deal about the raw format and why we get default jpeg images on our memory cards? A raw format file is not a photo or even an image. It is a file that contains and keeps all the data necessary to create an image plus all the meta data that goes with it such as camera model, date and time taken, ISO and more.
When we take a picture, the camera's sensor is exposed to light as at the time of the shot with the selection made by the photographer at the time, such as white balance. The camera has a built in raw convertor that automatically process this information and save them as a jpeg file in the memory card. This process is irreversible and any information lose to make the compact jpeg file is lost forever, taking away from the photographer the opportunity to correct any mistakes later.
A raw file is that opportunity to access that pure data exposed to the sensor at the time of the shoot. A raw file is the data as it was, pure and untouched. By opening a raw file in Photoshop CS3, Camera Raw plug in starts and within seconds the image data such as white balance, temperature, saturation and highlights can be altered to produce an amazing results that would take hours, if at all posible to achieve via any image manipulation programme using the jpeg file.
Shooting in raw also has an extra hidden advantage of having the opportunity to use future improvements in colorimetric conversion which are not still available or known. Something like processing a film negative with newer technology that would create better results.
In the above picture, in left hand side I have my shoot in jpeg format and in the right hand side, the converted shoot using a raw format and Photoshop CS3 Camera Raw.
If you are deciding to buy a new digital SLR camera, and would like to know about three new features recently available in the Digital SLR cameras, read on.
These three new features are:
- Dust Control
- Live View Mode
- Built in Image Stabilizer
Dust Control
In digital SLRs, or in fact in any SLR camera, the photographer has the ability to change the lenses in order to make the most out of type of photography involved. This feature means that when changing the lens, the interior of the camera, including the sensor is exposed to dust particles.
When dust enters the interior of a camera, it will land on the sensor and so blocks the light to reach the sensor in those dots.
The Anti Dust technology , or Integrated Cleaning System is a new technology that automatically shakes off the dust by using variety of techniques, such as shake, or static charges to repel the dust particles, or even software to identify the dots and remove them before processing.
Live View Mode
Until recently this feature which is widely used in compact digital cameras, was not available for digital SLRs. The reason is the difference between the build of a SLR and a compact camera and the way pictures are taken.
In order to be able to see a live view of a picture before the shoot, light has to be reflected to the sensor. As digital SLRs use a mirror to reflect the image from the viewfinder and meanwhile the mirror blocks the sensor, the live view is not possible, unless the camera is equipped with the new Live View LCD technology.
In Live View Mode technology a second sensor is build in the way of the light in order to transmit the light to the LCD.
Built in Image Stabilizer
This is not something new for a lens, but a new feature for the camera body. So why image stabilizer. This is equivalently called Anti Shake and is required if photographer requires to take pictures in low natural light, without using a flash particularly if they are moving objects, like children playing in living room.
Basically when the shutter speed is low in order to absorb more light, any slight movement will result in producing blurry pictures. High ISO setting will produce more noise or grain and if the lens is not equipped with a required wide aperture settings, then the only way to stop the blur is to have a camera with Anti Shake technology built in.
This technology is based on a simple concept of making sure that the camera sensor doesn't move and so cameras with this feature have sensors built in a certain way to stop them moving when handled by a shaky hand or when shutter speed is low.
Create that stunning panoramic effect by merging your shoots in Photoshop CS3.
- Take overlapping pictures of a landscape you adore.
- Saved them into a folder.
- Open Photoshop CS3, and go to Files menu.
- Select Automate, and then Photomerge.
- Select the files that you have saved in the second step above.
- Submit and watch the magic happen.
For those of you who love Photoshop and web design, I have a great news. Corrie Haffly's "The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques" is free to download for a limited time from SitePoint: http://photoshop.aws.sitepoint.com/
Corrie Haffly is a Photoshop artist who uses Photoshop in this book, for web design oriented work as opposed to printing and publishing work. She has been using Photoshop for many years and her book is organised and simple to follow.
This free download is for a limited time only. So if you are interested, go for it now.
When it comes to Web 2.0 , ZOHO rocks. ZOHO is everything WEB 2.0 is about.
ZOHO is a well thought online suite of applications most of them free and all basic versions free.
ZOHO has a suite of office applications, ZOHO Writer, ZOHO Sheet, ZOHO DB and Reports, ZOHO Show, ZOHO Projects, ZOHO CRM, ZOHO Creator, ZOHO Wiki, ZOHO Planner, ZOHO Notebook, ZOHO Chat, ZOHO Mail, ZOHO Meeting.
ZOHO Notebook
ZOHO Notebook is everything you want to keep online Notes. Similar to Microsot One Note, but it is free, easy to use and much more sophisticated.
Have a look at what you can do with ZOHO Notebook here:
http://notebook.zoho.com/nb/public/rainstar/book/123953000000002287
Creating art from photos, as you gathered by now, is one of the activities I most enjoy when using Photoshop CS3. If you want to transform any picture to art and be guaranteed to have infinite choices, follow my simple steps:
- Open your photo in Photoshop CS3.
- Double click on the background layer.
- Use the select tool to select part of your picture. Here I selected the three roses.
- Use Filter, Artistic and select as you wish. I selected the Cutout Filter.
- Inverse the selection to select the rest of your photo.
- Use Filter, Brush Stroke, to transform the rest. Here I selected the Sumi-e.
- Add a Layer Style is optional to create the extra dimension.
- Finally save as jpg and add it to your digital art collection.
Sometimes you can look at a picture and not see it, because there are too many colours in there. There is an easy way in Photoshop CS3 to bring out that special colour in your picture. Here I love to show off the reds.
- Open your picture in Photoshop CS3.
- Duplicate the background layer.
- Desaturate the duplicate layer using Image, Adjustment Layer.
- Double Click on the layer in the layer's panel.
- Drag the underlying layer left slider towards the right a quarter of the way.
- Watch your picture in a new light and enjoy!
Fancy changing colours in photos to what you like. Then follow these simple steps:
- Open your photo in Photoshop CS3.
- Create a new layer by using Layer, New, and Layer.
- Double click on the background layer.
- Select your desired object in the photo that you‘d like to change its colour, using the Photoshop CS3 Quick Selection Tool.
- Go to Image, Adjustment, and Hue/Saturation while the selection is active.
- Play with the Hue and Saturation until you get the desired colour, and click OK
- Be adventurous and add a shape layer to create a frame, using custom shapes.
- Save as a jpg and enjoy.
Have fun with Free Transform and Layers to create a photo collage.
- Open your first photo in Photoshop CS3.
- Create a new layer by using Layer, New, and Layer.
- Copy your second photo in this new layer.
- User Layer, Layer Mask, Reveal All.
- Select a brush and mask out the unwanted details.
- Use Edit, Free Transform and resize the second Photo to desired size.
- Use Move Tool to move it to the desired location.
- Be adventurous and add an Artistic Filter, by using Filter, Artistic.
- Save as a jpg and enjoy.
You can design your web page with curves using Photoshop/Illustrator. To do this,
- Draw your desired curve on the paper
- Select the Pen Tool and click on a starting point
- To create straight lines, just click on the next point
- To create a curve, from the starting point drag the mouse towards your desired direction to create a handlebar.
- Always finish by joining back to your starting point
- To adjust, select the Direct Selection Tool and move the points or handlebars until you get the desired curve.
Achieve quick print art results using Photoshop blending mode in layers. This can be used in your scrapbooks or just printed out for a an artistic print result. To get the result here follow these very simple steps. It should not take you more than 10 minutes if you are familiar with Photoshop.
- Cut out around a photo and ctrl+J to copy the selection into a new layer.
- Hide or delete the original layer.
- Duplicate the new layer twice to stack up over the new layer.
- On the first copy of the layer which is directly over the bottom layer, invert colours using ctrl+I and change the blending mode to colour.
- On the second copy that now sits on the top of the stack, change the lending mode to hard light.
- Use a transparent gradient colour to jazz the result up if you want.
Drop Shadow is one of the many features available in a Layer Style Panel. To access and have fun with this feature
- Double click on the selected layer to get to the Layer Style window
- On the left hand side of the window you see the Styles, Blending Options.
- The first one on top is Drop Shadow. Tick it to get the default shadow.
- To get the Drop Shadow Panel, highlight it by clicking on the Drop Shadow text.
- In Structure panel, you get the choice of Blending Mode, Opacity and to change the Colour of the Shadow.
- To change the Angle and Distance, just put your mouse over the shadow and control is completely yours. No need to fiddle with Angle and Distance in the Structure panel.
- Size and Spread will do what exactly they say they do, they resize and spread the shadow.
- In the Quality panel you can either select a pre-defined quality by clicking on the arrow next to Contour, or double click on any Contour to open the Contour Editor.
- Dragging the Noise to the right in the Quality Panel, will increase the noise of the shadow.
Play and have fun with the Drop Shadow.
Understanding Photoshop Layers and how to use them to create what we want is an essential part of enjoying our graphical design experience and in my case having lots of fun with Photoshop.
This short help explains the use of Grouping layers and how to achieve it.
On the layers tab, you may have tens of layers stacking on top of each other. Sometimes some of these layers are relevant together and achieve a certain result for you. Once you decided these layers, you may want to file them away in a folder like manner. Grouping gives you this exact ability.
To create a new group and adding layers to it
- Multi-select all the layers you want to group together by holding the control key (Windows) down and clicking on the desired layers
- Drag the selected layers in to the folder icon on the button of the layers palette.
Group layers names are automatically created and default to Group 1, Group 2, etc. To rename a layer group, right click on the group name and go to Group Properties.
You can also create sun-groups for existing layer groups in the same manner and in this way you organise your groups into smaller groups if required.
Today was my just feel creative day. So I just played with a combination of tricks I knew and created a couple of images. Here is one of them, which I called Silver Nights.
If you are interested to know how it is done, please contact me and I will send you the tricks.
After our sandy adventures in parts 1 and 2, finally it is time to have some fun scribbles on the sand!
- Grab the sandy texture you have created in “Sandy Pictures – Part 2”
- Add a Text Layer and write something you like. I chose “Sunny”
- Double click in the text layer to open the Style window
- Change the blending mode to Colour Dodge
- Select Contour from the Styles and double click on it
- Play with Elements and Range to get the right effect
Here is my “Sunny Sand”.
Now it is time for me to experience some textures on sand! I grab my sand picture from the “Sandy Pictures – Part 1”.
To add texture to the sand
- Double click on the layer to open the style window
- Double click on the texture and select a pattern like bubbles, or clouds.
- Play with the Scale and Depth
- Try Invert to see the effects
I love drawing on sand. Whenever I go to seaside, it is one of my rituals to write names of people I love on the sand.
It was a frosty morning today, but when the sun came out, I felt like being on a sun-kissed sand somewhere warm. Photoshop came to my rescue.
Here I created a sand texture background in Photoshop to use later for my drawing.
- Create a new file in Photoshop with default setting. I used a 300 px by 300 px size.
- Fill it in with a yellowish colour such as d6hd81
- Add 20% of Gaussian Monochromic noise.
- Colorize by Image Adjustment, Hue/Saturation.
- Get ready for the next adventure on the beach.
It does not have to be hours of work to transmit your favourite landscape photo to a work of art. Here is how you get the arty result.
- Open your photo in Photoshop
- Double click on the background layer to un-lock it
- Duplicate the layer
- Desaturate it
- Filter > Stylize > Find Edges
- Set the layer as a Colour Burn
- Save and enjoy!
It is not always the case of brining those old photos to life by adding colour and restoring the scratches and stains. Sometime it is nice to work the other way. Go back in time and see what we get. This is a very easy process in Photoshop and can be achieved by using only two image adjustments, i.e. Desaturate and Hue/Saturation.
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Go to Photoshop and open your original colour image.
- Go to Image Adjustments and apply Desaturate.
- Go to Image Adjustments again and click on Hue/Saturation
- Make sure the Colorize is ticked.
- Use Hue around 33 and Saturation around 22, and keep the lightness at 0.
- Enjoy your new old picture!
The image used in this work is a painting originally by Liotard, Jean-Etienne called The Chocolate-Girl c. 1743-45.
And here is my first attempt to transfer my Photoshop tricks. Imagine it is a very cold day, one of those greyish days after snow, when the ice speaks of constant wriggles on the floor. Penguins are fed up with the cold and all out the water nagging and cursing the weather!
I had an email from one of my penguin friends, called Pingu. She was desperate for my help to get them some warmer, sunnier sky to melt the ice and heat the waters. She confessed that she missed swimming so much.
So I started to work.
- I duplicated my original layer.
- Then I went to Photo Filter via Image – Adjustment.
- Applied a warm filter.
- Made it more realistic by using the Brightness/Contrast.
I emailed the image back to Pingu. She replied to me with a warm smile! Have a go. Add some warmth to your images!
The soar of digital technology has revolutionised art by increasing the possibilities an artist may have for expressing and communicating messages that cannot be otherwise articulated with words.
Adobe Photoshop is a unique fantastic tool that comes with a set of filters that assist in creating art by using photographs. These filters bundled with layers and masks and an infinite possibility to use existing brushes and patterns as well as creating new ones opens a world of magic to any graphic artist.
I have created the art work here by using an original picture of a red rose and a combination of filters and adjustment layers. My plan is to update this site with some of my Photoshop work as well as creating simple entries that can be followed for fun as well as learning that extra Photoshop trick.
Feel free to download my "Dark Rose" and send it to your Valentine.
The interface that user will interact in any web page is one of the important factors that has to be seriously considered by a web designer. There are many ways to create this interface, and one of these ways, which has increases in popularity is using Cascading Style Sheets, CSS.
A CSS file separates the contents of a page from its layout, giving the designer the opportunity to optimise the design for scalability and reusability.
Separate CSS files can be created to present a web page for different layouts separately suitable for printing, or viewing via a mobile device as well as the normal viewing via a web browser.
CSS files also can tackle browser compatibility issues by adding the extra code that handles viewing in different browsers such as IE, Firefox or Opera.
Designers can change the layout of the whole website in seconds by changing one parameter in the CSS file, such as body background picture, or the format of the fonts.
To see an example of a site I have developed purely by using CSS, have a look at Integral Net Systems.
I will write more about CSS soon. If you are interested subscribe to my feed to be the among the first people who get updated with more Web and Graphic Design Articles, News, Tips and Tricks.
When it comes to editing your images, the limit is the sky. You may consider doing some corrections to
- Re-position the objects within your image
- Crop the extra surrounding
- Change the colours
- Change the brightness or luminosity of colours
- Change the resolution or size
- Modify the content by adding extra objects
- Modify the contents by removing extra objects
- Enhance the objects by making them look better
- De-grade some objects by making them look bad
- Mix some images together to create artwork
- Modify images by applying artistic and creative ideas
I will add examples of each of these to my site soon. Please come back visit later to see more examples, or look now to see what is already there.
The above image is taken inside a sunglasses shop in a dark rainy day while trying a model I could not afford to buy! I then mixed it with a background image of a park taken in Paris in a sunny day. The result is somehow convincing!
One of many implementation of Graphic Design is Photo Editing. We all know that
- Photos are one of many effective ways of communication.
- They are easy to grasp.
- They give us a way of talking without speaking
- They remind us of our friends.
- They bring us back good memories.
- They make us nearer to our loved ones. Design Maze offers photo editing for individuals and businesses.
If you would like to re-touch, or transfer your photos to art work, contact me to discuss your requirements.