50 Photoshop Tricks for a Fast-Paced Work Environment Are you a designer on a deadline? If you are, then I’m sure you can recall the last time you thought to yourself, “if I had a little more time, I could…” what? Polish that button? Find a better hero image? Reevaluate that color palette? The truth is, however, that we designers will always be looking for more time to polish the one pixel that got away. Of course, since our go-to design tool in the office is Photoshop, we thought we’d share with you 50 simple Photoshop tricks and shortcuts we love using that can help trim excess spent time in your workflows. Important Note: The following require Photoshop CS5 and a Mac OS X. The Usual Keyboard Shortcut Suspects Memorize these shortcuts. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.Keyboard shortcuts for flipping foreground and background (X): Use this to switch between your current foreground and background colors located in your toolbar. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Customized Must-Have Keyboard Shortcuts 11. 12. 13. Photoshop, the Word Processor 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
Thousands of Plastic Figures Hold Up the Floor One of the most exciting contemporary artists of our time, Korean Do Ho Suh, created this large sculptural installation that doesn't look like much until you come closer. Glass plates rest on thousands of multicolored miniature plastic figures who are crowded together with their heads and arms turned skyward. Together, they are holding the weight of the individual visitor who steps onto the floor. Currently showing at Lehmann Maupin's pop-up gallery at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI), Floor is one of those installations that's wonderfully thought-provoking. The figures represent the diverse and anonymous masses of people who support and/or resist the symbolic floor. This installation can be seen, alongside works by artists Teresita Fernández, Ashley Bickerton, and Lee Bui, from now till February 11, 2012. Lehmann Maupin Gallery website
How you control your computer is about to change. Here's how Leap Motion brings Minority Report-like gestures to life. Leap Motion, a San Francisco start-up, wants to change the way you control your computer with a little device it revealed this week. The Leap is a small 3D motion sensor that goes in front of your computer and creates a 3D interaction space of 8 cubic feet from which you can use your hands and fingers to direct your computer. Leap Motion, a San Francisco start-up, wants to bring motion-sensor controls, 100 times better than any other, to your computer for less than $US70. Photo: Leap Motion The makers of the device, which is reminiscent of Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Kinect, say it is 200 times more accurate than anything else on the market, no matter the price, and can track your movements "down to a 1/100th of a millimetre." Advertisement "It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen," the company says on its site. "It sounds too good to be true, we know," the site says.
Create your tilt-shift picture Move the vertical slider on the right of the original photo to select the area in focus. Use the "Preview" button to see the results, then click on the required image size and press "Download" when done to process the image and get a download link. Site members get unlimited downloads up to 21MP (5700 pixel length/width) and can access over 50 bokeh styles, click here for details. Processing and downloading hi-res images may take a few minutes, depending on original photo size and other factors. A download link to the most recent hi-res file processed this session will appear in the "Recent hi-res:" area. The size of the main selected area can be adjusted using the horizontal slider, from "narrow" (focusing on a small area) to "wide" (focusing on a larger area). If you're using a display resolution of 1280x1024 or higher, try clicking on the "Large" button on the left to switch to large preview mode. Tilt-shift miniatures often look better with vivid colors. Strength 0-5: Strength 5-8:
Tron Legacy (2010) Year: 2010 Tron Legacy permalink I spent a half year writing software art to generate special effects for Tron Legacy, working at Digital Domain with Bradley "GMUNK" Munkowitz, Jake Sargeant, and David "dlew" Lewandowski. Interview with GMUNK about the team's process In addition to visual effects, I was asked to record myself using a unix terminal doing technologically feasible things. HexVirus is a spherical map of the globe that features vector outlines of the continents. The scoreboard was the first element I worked on. Fireworks, mmmm. For the portal climax, the TronLines app was used, but also apps like "Twist" from our team's previous jobs. I wrote a particle renderer that could make the head holograms slurp in and out of the data discs. When fixing Quorra, there was an element in the DNA interface called the Quorra Heart which looked like a lava lamp. After this project, I was fed up enough with wxWidgets and Carbon that I was ready to author my own OpenGL based UI.
25 Napping Facts Every College Student Should Know Written By: Angelita Williams It's almost cruel the way adults ease children into life outside of the house. They got us on board with the whole going to school thing by letting us take naps in pre-school. But then, come kindergarten, no more naps! Nothing but 12 more grades of trying to focus all day without a siesta. It makes you smarter According to Dr. If it was good enough for them… Presidents JFK and Bill Clinton used to nap every day to help ease the heavy burden of ruling the free world.
20 Free Fonts Just Perfect for Retro and Vintage Designs Awww, vintage and retro style designes are simply awesome. By using various design elements such as textures, patterns and brushes to add an aged or used appearance designers can easily pull of timeless look. To compliment retro/vintage appearance it’s also important to use proper typography from the time period you are trying to represent. I’m hoping that you found at least one new font to add to your collection.
jQuery for Designers - Tutorials and screencasts Mega Collection Of Cheatsheets for Designers And Developers Cheatsheets and various quick reference guides are available for almost any type of software and language these days. Unfortunately they’re not always easy to find when you actually need them. This is why I decided to take some time to gather up as many as possible and share them with you here! Hopefully this can be a timesaver for you, along with teaching you a new trick or two. CSS3 Cheat Sheet ↓ CSS2 Visual Cheat Sheet ↓ CSS Cheat Sheet (V2) ↓ Css Property Index ↓ BluePrint CSS ↓ HTML 5 Cheat Sheet ↓ HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet ↓ HTML5 Glossary ↓ HTML Character Entities Cheat Sheet ↓ Color Codes Matching Chart HTML (Convert CMYK, RGB Hex) ↓ Javascript JavaScript Cheat Sheet ↓ Javascript DOM ↓ JavaScript Reference Card ↓ jQuery 1.4 API Cheat Sheet ↓ jQuery selectors ↓ jQuery 1.3.2 ↓ jQuery 1.3 ↓ jQuery 1.2 ↓ Mootools 1.2 Cheat Sheet ↓ Prototype Cheat Sheet ↓ PHP & MySQL for dummies ↓ PHP 5 Online Cheat Sheet v1.3 ↓ PHP5 Cheat sheet ↓ PHP Manual Quick Reference ↓ Printable PHP Security Checklist ↓ MySQL Softwares
6 Summer Bunk Bed Rooms Whether you have a large family or a busy summer house, a bunk room is an ideal solution for accommodating lots of guests. Here are some of our favorites. This nautical-inspired bunk room in a Hamptons home by Steven Gambrel features lots of room for storage with built-ins and under-bed drawers. An absolutely gorgeous bunk room from the Lerer House in Park City, Utah. This bunk room in an Alys Beach, Florida vacation rental home features a unique L-shaped layout for the beds. Coastal Living's 2009 Seawatch Idea House at Sunset Harbor, North Carolina featured this amazing bunk room for children.
How to Create Your First Web Page Note: If you know anything at all about HTML and CSS, don’t bother reading this, it’s a guide for the uninitiated, technophobes, luddites, computer-illiterates, anyone who is more comfortable with a pen and paper than a keyboard and mouse. If making a web page seems like brain surgery to you, then this is the article for you. What you need to know The only prior knowledge I will assume is that you’ve used a computer before, you’re familiar with using a keyboard and a word processor, and you’ve at least seen a website. Other than that, I assume you are completely ignorant! The Basics When you visit a website (for example the one you’re reading now), you see a page in your web browser (the program you use to access the internet) , containing text, images and maybe some other things like videos, music etc. In order to display a page correctly, the web browser needs to know about the structure of the page, e.g. What HTML Looks Like HTML uses ‘tags’ to identify different parts of a page.