Digital Design Cottage

Photoshop Resources : Photoshop Mosaic

2007-04-27T11:07:00.000+01:00

Photoshop Mosaic is a new site dedicated to Photoshop tutorials, brushes, plugins and lots more. It has tons of great links to all things Photoshop. I found some brushes there that I really like. You can check it out here.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using the Metallic Gradients

2007-04-24T12:21:00.000+01:00

You’re probably well aware of the “regular” gradients that come with Photoshop but did you know that there are lots of other gradients that come with the program that are just waiting for you to load them up. In this short tutorial, I’m going to show you how to add extra gradients into the Gradient Picker and how to make a super quick “silver” pipe.

1. Open a new RGB document, 300 x 300 pixels.

2. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the toolbox and draw a long skinny rectangle, similar to the one I’ve drawn below.

In the toolbar, select the Gradient Tool .

3. On the tool options bar, click on the down triangle next to the Gradient thumbnail to open up the Gradient Picker. In the right-corner, click on the triangle to open up the Gradient Picker pop-up menu. At the bottom of the menu you’ll see a list of all the other gradients that come as presets with Photoshop. Cool or what?

4. Choose Metals from the list . Photoshop will ask you if you want to replace your current gradients with the new set or if you want to append (or add) them to your current set. I usually choose Append.

5. Now that the new gradients are added, you can run your mouse over them and you will see that they have names such as Silver, Gold, Brass, Steel Blue and so on.

6. To make the Silver pipe, choose the Silver gradient , then using the gradient tool, click and drag from one side of the rectangular marquee to the other.

7. Ta Da! You now should have one nice looking “silver” pipe, made literally in seconds. Press Ctrl + D (Windows) or Cmd + D (Mac) to deselect the new pipe.

As well as the "metallic" gradients there are quite a few more to choose from so take a look at those ones too.

Design News : Kate Moss - The Font

2007-04-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

Some of you font lovers may be interested (or horrified) to hear that Kate Moss now has a new brand. Created in conjunction with typographer Paul Barnes, it looks like this:

You can read more about Brand Moss here on creative review.

Photoshop Quick Tip: How come my Colour Picker looks funny?

2007-04-19T16:02:00.000+01:00

This morning one of my trainees was having a problem with the Colour Picker in Photoshop. Normally, when you click on the Foreground or Background Colour Swatch (at the bottom of the Toolbox) it looks like this:

However, this morning it seems like the Photoshop elves had been at the whiskey and the colour picker looked like this instead:

If this happens to you, you can get your normal Photoshop colour picker pop-up back by pressing Ctrl + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac) to open up the General Preferences dialog box. To make sure you get the one you want, under the Color Picker pop-up menu, set the chosen Picker to "Adobe."

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using "Lock Transparent Pixels"

2007-04-17T14:33:00.000+01:00

Changing the colour of an object that is semi-transparent or has faded edges in Photoshop is easy when you know how! In this short tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use the “Lock Transparent Pixels” button on the layers palette to do just that.

Let’s start off with a yellow blob. As you can see from the image below, it is definitely yellow in the middle but then it starts to fade out at the edges.

If you try to use the Paint Bucket tool on this faded edge, you will just end up with a circle with very rough edges, as seen below.

To get over this problem, click on the “Lock Transparent Pixels” button near the top of the layers palette in Photoshop.

Note that you cannot use this on the background layer only on layers with transparency.

By locking the transparent pixels, we can now only manipulate the opaque areas of the layer.

Now when I use the Paint Bucket on the yellow blob, the fade is preserved.

Obviously this is a very simple example, but as you can imagine this would be extremely useful when you are designing things like t-shirts or print work where you may need to change an objects fade colour.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Using Filters and a Quick Mask to Create A Border

2007-04-13T12:46:00.000+01:00

In this Photoshop tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a border using a quick mask and a couple of filters. It’s quick and easy and you can get all kinds of cool results by using different filters.

1. Open up the image that you want to apply a border to.

2. Using the lasso tool , draw a rectangular(ish) marquee around the area of the image that you want to keep. It doesn’t matter if the edges look a bit rough, that all adds to the, ahem, “character” of the piece.

3. Press Q on the keyboard, or click on the Quick Mask mode button on the Photoshop toolbar.

4. Now we’re going to apply some filters to the area we have Quick Masked. You can play around here and try out several filters to get different effects. For this example, I chose Filter > Brush Stokes > Sprayed Strokes. This opens the Sprayed Filter dialog box.

Here I set the stroke length to 18, the stroke radius to 14 and the stroke direction to left diagonal. Click OK to close this filter.

5. At this point you might like to use this jagged edge as your border or you can go on and try out more filters. Again, I chose Filters > Distort > Glass.

6. The settings used here were Distortion of 7, Smoothness of 3 and Texture set to Frosted. Click OK when you’re happy with the effect.

7. The Quick Masked area will now look quite different than when you first selected it. Press Q on the keyboard to return to Standard Mode. You’ll see the dancing ants indicating the selected area.

8. Invert the selection by choosing Select > Inverse.

9. Create a new layer and make sure that it is selected. Set the foreground colour to white and then using the Paint Bucket tool, click anywhere on the selection to fill the area. Your border should now look something like this:

By adding the white border on a new layer, you haven’t damaged your original image. Now save your masterpiece and impress friends and loved ones with your new found border-making skills.

Free Photoshop Brushes : High Resolution Tattoo Style

2007-04-12T14:58:00.000+01:00

I've created five high resolution Photoshop brushes for your viewing pleasure! They are in Tribal Tattoo style and were created in Illustrator and then brought into Photoshop to become the fine upstanding brushes you see today. The brushes are all about 2500 pixels wide or high and have nice smooth lines. You can download them as a zip file below.

Download Zipped Brushes

I'd be delighted to hear from you if you find them useful or like them.

Back from holidays ...

2007-04-11T14:37:00.000+01:00

I'm just back from a really nice (and desperately needed!) break from work and commuting. Went to Tunisia for a week to recharge the batteries and get some sun, although the weather has been brilliant here in Ireland - sun is splitting the stones at the moment. Tunisia is lovely, particularly the south with the troglodyte dwellings and the Sahara desert. I've attached a picture I took of the sun coming up early in the morning in the desert. Can't decide if this is depressing to look at now that I'm home or that I'm delighted I was there ....

Photoshop Quick Tip : Exporting your layers as separate documents

2007-03-29T13:00:00.000+01:00

This is a very quick tip today, but a handy one. If you are working on a document in Photoshop with multiple layers, it is possible to export each of those layers as separate documents. An example where I use this is if I have made up a document with several of my photos to work on, when I'm finished I can just shoot them out.

All you need to do is choose File > Scripts > Export Layers to Files.

Photoshop Quick Tip : Find your layers fast

2007-03-27T13:03:00.000+01:00

When you’re working on a large document in Photoshop with many layers, a quick way to jump to the layer you want to work on is to:

Select the Move tool by pressing V on the keyboard.

Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on a portion of the image.

A menu will appear when you click and will list all of the layers underneath your cursor.

To make a particular layer active, just click on it in the list of layers. Now, you’ve got your active layer.

If you click Right-click or Control-click on a part of the image where there are no layers or if the layer is transparent in that area, then only the Background layer will be listed in the menu.

Book Review : Digital Photography by Scott Kelby

2007-03-26T14:49:00.000+01:00

I bought this book a couple of months ago and read it cover to cover, thoroughly enjoying it. I've recently gone back to the book again and more importantly I've been trying to use and apply some of the excellent tips contained within.

I would consider this a must-have reference book for digital photography fans. It's written in the humourous but fact-filled Scott Kelby style and covers a wide range of photography subjects. The full title of the book is : "The Digital Photography Book: The Step-By-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros'!" and that's literally what the book offers. Step by step instructions over eleven chapters on Landscape photography, Flower photography, Portraits, Travel, Sports photography and more.

I've read a lot of photography books and this one is without question one of the easiest to understand and immediately apply to your own photography. Also it's not too expensive and is well worth the money.

Digital Photography by Scott Kelby

5 stars out of 5.

Check this book and other's like it in the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Usint The Art History Brush

2007-03-20T15:06:00.000Z

Rather than using the filters to create a watercolour or painterly effect, you can use the Art History Brush in Photoshop to create a nice looking "painting". And it will make you feel like you're part of the process of making something because with this tool you need to make decisions about how the effect will look.

1. Start by opening the image you want to paint in Photoshop. I’m using this close up of a flower. This is a large, high resolution image.

2. Select the Art History brush from the toolbox. It may be hidden underneath the History Brush.

3. On the tool options bar, click on the Brush options. Choose a “Dry Brush Tip Light Flow” brush from the list of brushes available. Depending on the size of your image you may need to change it from the default of 66 pixels. For this image, I’m going to leave the brush size as 66
pixels.

4. Open the brushes palette and click on the Shape Dynamics under Brush Tip Shape.

5. Drag the Roundness Jitter to about 50%

6. Click on the Color Dynamics. Drag the Hue Jitter to about 10%.
That’s all the brush adjustments that we need to make.

7. On the Tool Options bar, set the style of the Art History Brush to Tight Short.

(You may want to try out different styles depending on the effect you want to achieve). Set the area to 50 pixels.

8. Start painting on the image. It’s a good idea to paint over large areas of similar colour to get a feel for how the art history brush works.

9. Continue painting into the more detailed areas of the image. Reduce the brush size where required on the intricate areas.

10. Keep working on the image until you have painted the whole area and you have what should look like a nicely painted watercolour image.

Photoshop Tutorial : How to create a simple logo using Photoshop

2007-03-22T14:53:00.000Z

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a simple logo. Many professional logos are created in Illustrator or Freehand or other vector drawing programs. However, it is possible to create logos in Photoshop either as a raster image or using Photoshop’s own vector tools including the Pen, Shapes and the Type tools. Vector tools are used most often for logo design because once the design is created there is no loss of quality when making the problem making the logo larger or smaller and so that’s what we’ll used.

A good logo has the following qualities:

Logos are simple. They need to be practical and work in both colour and black and white.

They communicate an idea, a principle or a description.

They are aesthetically pleasing.

That’s what we’ll aim for.

I’m going to create a logo for a fictional company called “The Iron Mongers” who create unique iron work gates. We’ll also add the words “Iron Boutique” as the tagline.

Start with a blank document size 5 in x 5 in with a resolution of 300 ppi.

It’s important to have a high resolution document in case you want to print your logo rather than just use it on the web.

Select the Type tool and in the Control Palette, set the font to Bernhard Modern, size 36, set the anti-aliasing to Strong and the colour to Black.

Click on the document and add the text “The Iron Mongers”.

With the Type tool still selected, go back and highlight the word “Iron”. Click on the colour selector on the Control Palette and change the colour to red. (I used RGB values 204, 0, 0).

Click on any other tool to commit the text.

Select the text tool again, and in the Control Palette leave the Font as Bernhard Modern but set the size to 14pt and the colour to black. Underneath the words “The Iron Mongers”, add the text “Iron Boutique”.

In the layers palette, select the Iron Mongers text layer and Shift + Click to also select the Iron Boutique layer.

On the Control Palette, select the “Align Horizontal Centers” button to line up the two layers of text.

Click on the Line Tool (it might be hidden under the Rectangle Tool) and in the Control palette, set the weight of the line to 2 pixels.

Draw a straight line (hold down the Shift key to keep the line straight) from under the capital T till it just meets the I in Iron Boutique. Draw another line on the other side of the Boutique to just underneath the small s. (See illustration below).

Lines are a very effective design tool and can elevate a design to another level.

Now we’re going to add a shape as an embellishment. Select the Custom Shape Tool (it will be hidden beneath the line tool).

On the Control Palette, click on the Custom Shape Tool drop down box. I chose a shape called Hedera 2.

Drag out the Hedera 2 shape. Drag the shape so it is approximately the same height as the letters in the “The Iron Mongers”.

When you drag out the shape you are creating a path. You can see the outline of the work path on the image but to add actual pixels by filling or stroking the path, you must click on the paths palette.

Create a new layer, then in the paths palette, click on the workpath to highlight it. You will see the two lines that you drew with the line tool as well as the new shape you created.

Make sure the foreground colour is set to black (press D on the keyboard to set the colours to their default of black foreground and white background). Click on the Fill path with foreground colour button at the bottom of the paths palette. When you click this button black pixels are added to the new layer you created.

The new shape looks pretty fuzzy around the edges, this is only because the path is still selected, click anywhere on the grey area of the Paths palette to deslect the path.

Back on the new layer you created, click on the new leaf using the Move tool and drag out holding the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key. This will create a duplicate of the leaf. Drag the duplicate to the other side of the logo, then choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal to flip the leaf to the opposite direction.

That completes the logo.

Always save your file as a .PSD file so that you come back and edit it in the future if necessary.

Photoshop Tutorial : Creating an Ansel Adams Style photograph

2007-03-23T13:34:00.000Z

Here's a quick photoshop video tutorial showing you how to use the Colour Mixer to create a very "contrasty" black and white image.

Creating An Ansel Adams Style Photograph In Photoshop -

Photoshop Quick Tip : The best Photoshop keyboard shortcut!

2007-03-21T15:37:00.000Z

Ok, this is probably a matter of personal opinion (and perspective) BUT, the first keyboard shortcut that I insist my trainees know in Photoshop is ...

Ctrl + Z (windows) Cmd + Z (mac).

This very simple shortcut will undo your last action/mistake.

If you need to undo more than one action then the other shortcut you will find invaluable is ...

Ctrl + Alt + Z (windows) Cmd + Option + Z (mac).

Design Resources : Picfindr

2007-03-19T08:57:00.000Z

This is a new free service that I heard about at the weekend. It's a search engine for free stock photography that you can use commercially. There are already several free free stock sites such as Image:After , MorgueFile and the great SXC.hu, but Picfindr should make it that little bit easier and quicker to find images.

As it mentions on the site, the service is neither "alpha" nor "beta", it's just not finished yet. I found it already works really well. I typed in a couple of terms and off it went searching on 4 different sites and coming back very quickly with thumbnail results.

As part of your search you can specify if you want to give credit for the image, not alter it in anyway or ask permission to use the image. Depending on your choices, the search engine will return different results. I know that I'll be using this service regularly.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2007-03-16T13:07:00.000Z

Well Happy St. Patricks Day to you all! I'm looking forward to a few days off work - one of the best things about Paddy's Day in Ireland is that you get a day off work, even if it's on a Saturday! Also looking forward to a few of these babies ...

Free Photoshop Brushes : Book of Kells

2007-03-16T12:56:00.000Z

The set of free photoshop brushes that I'm offering you today are based on the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an ornately illustrated manuscript of the gospels created by monks in about 800 AD. The books were found in a town called Kells here in Ireland and I live about 7 miles from there. The manuscripts are now held in Trinity College in Dublin and you can go and see them in the wonderful library there.

You can find out more about the book of Kells here.

The photoshop brushes consist of some of the images found in the book and some of the ornately decorated letters. I hope you like them.

You can download a zip of the brushes here.

Photoshop Plugin : Virtual Photographer

2007-03-15T15:47:00.000Z

As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of plugins available for Photoshop. Some are excellent and some not so hot. I'm generally of the opinion that most of the things you can do with a plugin, you can learn how to do using just Photoshop and I like to try to figure them out myself.

Having said that, the Virtual Photographer plugin is one that I have had for over a year and one that I really, really love. It allows you to add styles to your photographs that could take quite a bit of time and effort to achieve in Photoshop alone. But most importantly the results are very professional. There is everything from sepia to ultra-contrasty cold steel styles. Very cool.

The plugin is free from the optikVerve Lab website and there are lots of samples and a forum over there too.

B.T.W. I have absolutely nothing to do with the company, I just really like this plugin.

Photoshop Brushes : Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

2007-03-13T15:43:00.000Z

Here's another set of free photoshop brushes from the Digital Design Cottage downloads section. These are the bug brushes.

You can download the brushes as a zip file here, and let me know if you like them!

Colour Models in Photoshop : What they are and when to use them

2007-03-12T14:53:00.000Z

When you’re working in Photoshop, it’s important to understand that there are different colour models and colour modes available. I'm going to to briefly explain the theory behind models in Photoshop and why you would choose one particular model over the other.

What is a colour model?
A colour model is simply a way to define colour. A model describes how colour will appear on the computer screen or on paper. Three of the most popular colour models are:

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black)
RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
Lab Colour

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

1. The CMYK model is used for print work and it describes colours based on their percentage of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These four colours are used by commercial printers and bureaus and you may also find that your home printer uses these colours too. These four colours are needed to reproduce full colour artwork in magazines, books and brochures. By combining Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black on paper in varying percentages, the illusion of lots of colours is created.

2. The RGB model is used when working with colours destined for TV screens or computer monitors. A value between 0 and 255 is assigned to each of the colours – Red, Green and Blue. So for example if you wanted to create a purely blue colour, Red would have a value of 0, Green would have a value of 0 and Blue would have a value of 255 (pure blue). To create black, Red, Green and Blue would each have a value of 0 and to create white, each would have a value of 255.

In this situation, when we talk of “value” of colour, we’re referring to the strength of the colours in relation to each other.

3. The Lab colour model is a slightly more complex beast. It is made up of three components – the lightness component (L) ranging from 0 to 100, the “a” component comes from the green-red axis in the Adobe Color Picker, and the “b” component which comes from the blue-yellow axis in the Adobe Color Picker. Both “a” and “b” can range from +127 to –128.

When Photoshop is converting from one model to another, it uses Lab as the intermediate colour model.

So, after all that which model should you use?
If you know that your work is being sent to a commercial printer, then it’s a good idea to start your document in CMYK mode. Otherwise it’s safe to say that you can work in RGB for almost any other project. Even if you’re printing at home on your own inkjet printer then RGB is the one to go for. For any screen-based work such as websites or web graphics or DVD’s, you should always work in RGB. Your monitor works in displays in RGB so in terms of colour, what you see is what you get. If you do need to convert from one colour model to the other, it’s just a matter of choosing Image > Mode and then picking the one you need.

Photoshop Link : PhotoshopTalent.com

2007-03-09T11:43:00.000Z

I've been having a bit of fun entering the contests on Photoshoptalent.com. I only joined about two weeks ago and haven't won anything yet but ... Victory Shall Be Mine! (Eventually I hope.)

It's a great place to try out your photoshop skills and I've found that there are lots of experienced photoshoppers there who are willing to give advice. The skill levels for the contests range from beginners which is open to all, to more advanced contests which can only be entered by photoshoppers who have built up "talent" points by winning contests.

If you're interested in developing your skills and can't think of things to do in Photoshop this site is great for getting you thinking.

Photoshop : Tutorial - Eyecatching Text Effect Using Layer Effects

2007-03-08T09:11:00.000Z

Here’s a very simple and quick way to create some eye-catching text. It’s all based around one Text layer with three layer effects added. Let’s get started.

1. Create a new file with dimensions of 500 x 200 pixels.

2. Select the Type tool and add some text. I’m using the Cooper Black font, size 72, anti-aliasing set to smooth and colour set to red.

3. Make sure the text layer is selected then click on the Layer Effect button on the bottom of the layers palette.

4. Select Drop Shadow from the Layer Effect drop down menu and choose a Distance and Size of 5 and Spread of 0%.

5. Don’t click OK, yet. Click on the words “Inner Shadow” on the left hand side of the Layer Style dialog box. This will change the options available in the dialog box. Again, set a Distance and Size of 5% and Choke of 0%.

6. Don’t click OK, again! Click on the word “Stroke” on the bottom left of the dialog box. Set the Size to 3 pixels, Position to Outside and the Colour to white.

7. Click OK. The final layer set-up and the text below:

Book Review : 100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers

2006-12-07T14:27:00.000Z

Unfortunately (for some of us, others thrive), being a designer means having to do so much more than just designing. We need to deal with clients, create an efficient workflow and stay up to date with technology. This book looks at how successful designers manage to deal with all of the above and more.

The business of design is divided up here into categories which include Education, Self-promotion, Partnerships and Dealing With Clients. Within each of these categories. designers explain their approach and sample of their work illustrate the process.

The aim of this book is to give advice about how to integrate the business world with the creative process (and not go mad). I found this book to be extremely helpful and also inspirational in terms of "pulling up my socks" and getting out there.

100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers: Insider Secrets from Top Designers on Working Smart and Staying Creative
I would rate this book 4 out of 5.

Don't forget to visit the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf to see a wide range of Photoshop and Design related books.

Book Review : Graphic Design For The 21st Century

2007-03-07T12:41:00.000Z

This heavy book will be of interest to graphic designers at the start of their career but also of interest to experienced professionals. Throughout more than 600 pages, the authors show us the work of 100 designers from around the world. You may recognise some of the designer names, whilst others are not so well known but it's fair to say that the authors did a great job making their selections.

The book opens with an essay on design culture which I found interesting and informative, but probably more interesting AFTER I had gone through the book and looked at the designs.

As mentioned already, there are 100 designers included in the book and each one has been allocated a decent amount of space with pictures and some text about the work. It's easy reading and some of the designs I found quite inspirational.

Graphic Design For The 21st Century: 100 Of The Worlds Best Graphic Designers

I would rate this book 4 out of 5. Don't forget to visit the Digital Design Cottage Bookshelf to see a wide range of Photoshop and Design related books.