Hiatus

I'll be taking a little break from this blog for a week or two. But don't fret, I've found lots of links to good tutorials and other interesting things to keep you occupied while I'm gone. Be sure to check them out.

w3schools has lots of good tutorials, resources, references, and examples. It can teach you anything about HTML, CSS, Javascript, and much more. This will help a lot if you're into Dreamweaver.

N.DESIGN studio has lots of good tutorials and resources for you Illustrator users.

And you can always find good tutorials on DeviantArt.

Simple Patterns

This is more of a suggestion or idea then a tutorial. It basically just demonstrates what all you can do with a simple filter.



Watch Simple Patterns Tutorial  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Photo-Merge

This is a really simple, but really helpful tutorial. Ever take panoramic shots and then have to go through each one and try to find where they match up? Well, with CS3 you don't have to. Just open up as many shots as you want, go to File - Automate - Photomerge and select your settings. If you already have all the images open, you can just select Add Open Files. Then, sit back and watch as Photoshop automatically lines them up to each other, and uses masks to hide the parts that are not needed. Here's an example.

I took these six images. . .


















And, using Photomerge, got this:

The Basics of Divs

This is a little tutorial to just kind-of give you a visual explanation of what a Div is. In short, what I'm trying to explain is that divs are basically two-dimensional boxes. They can be put inside each other, hold each other, and be combined in various ways. I will use divs in nearly all of my Dreamweaver tutorials.

Adding Interest to Text

This is a tutorial showcasing some of the ways you can make text more interesting. It also helps show you how to make it blend, or mesh, with an image.

Artistic Filters

This is not so much a tutorial as a reference. This is simply a list of all the artistic filters Photoshop has to offer, and what the result of them can be. To use one, simply go to Filters - Artistic, and find the filter you want to use. To view the full-sized photo, just click on the smaller photo.

This is the original.



Colored Pencil.



Cutout.



Dry Brush.



Film Grain.



Fresco.



Neon Glow.



Paint Daubs.



Palette Knife.



Plastic Wrap.



Poster Edges.



Rough Pastels.



Smudge Stick.



Sponge.



Underpainting.



Watercolor.



The photo I used belongs to Sourcow of DeviantArt.

Vector-Style Portrait

This is a tutorial to show you how to make a vector-style portrait using Photoshop. Vectors are usually made in Illustrator. It is, actually, impossible to make a true vector in Photoshop, but that's why it's called vector-style. I'll just be making a simple one, but you can use the same techniques to make a very complex piece. This is also good practice for using the Pen Tool. Trust me, you want to be able to use this thing well. It makes everything easier. If you'd like to view a larger version, you can find it here.





The photo I used in this tutorial is from Yellow-Stock of DeviantArt.


Here are some examples of really good vector-style pieces.
Motin45's
FKindgren's
Japanese-Whaleboy's
Rizart3's

Blends with Masks

Now, I don't know how many of you remember the "blend" craze, but it used to be that if you could make a decent blend, you could rule any teen graphic design community. I really don't know if blends are around anymore, but this will give you good practice with Layer Masks anyway. Oh, sweet nostalgia.



Untitled from Tyler Friend on Vimeo.

Dark Photos

Sometimes it's simple impossible to get a shot that's neither blurry nor dark without professional equipment. Dark photos can be very interesting, but most often they need tweaked a little. These are just a few ways to handle dark photos.
I'm going to start with this photo.



You can always try lightening it with levels [Image - Adjustments - Levels...], but that often causes graininess with very dark images like the one I'm using. If you want a similar affect, you can try changing the exposure [Image - Adjustments - Exposure...]. If you raise the exposure, it will look just the same as if you raise the levels. The difference is that Exposure gives you two other options. Fiddle around with the Offset and Gamma Correction.



This does not look good on this photo, but it could certainly work for others. Another approach is to not try to change the darkness, but change the sections that aren't dark. One way to do this is by raising the contrast and/or brightness [Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast...].