Gradients

Linear gradients Linear gradients are gradients in their most basic form—a gradual blend between colors, following a straight line. I’m sure you knew that, so onto the more interesting stuff. Reflected gradients Reflected gradients are like their linear friends, but they repeat the gradient twice with the second repeat mirrored. Radial gradients Radial gradients start from the center (or any chosen point) and grow outward in a circular pattern. Angle gradients Angle gradients can be a great way to mimic environmental reflections found on highly polished metallic objects. Gradients on gradients Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, right? Dithering is everything Adding dithering to a gradient produces smoother results. If you’re not seeing the difference, here’s an extreme, completely unrealistic example of gradient dithering in action. Ensuring your gradients are dithered is easy—just check the appropriate box in Photoshop. Gradient Maps Without the gradient map, things look quite different.

Cool Photoshop Abstract Effect Tutorials & PixelDetail Photoshop is a powerful tool that belongs in any designers toolbox. Abstract works is a mysterious of web design header, beautiful photo effects, vibrant desktop backgrounds or it can be beautiful art. One of the most unique and creative things you can accomplish with Photoshop are abstract effects. In order to save your time, I have collected some of the best Photoshop abstract effect tutorials of all time. 1. In this tutorial, you will learn a simple technique for creating brilliant light streaks. Create Brilliant Light Streaks in Photoshop 2. In the tutorial, writer will show you the steps I took to create this glowing Floral Pattern in Photoshop. Simple Glowing Floral Pattern in Photoshop 3. In this tutorial you will learn that how to create a beautiful and extraordinary effect with some simple steps. Special Purple Lighting 4. This Vista Lighting Effect, sometimes referred to as the Aurora Effect, can really transform an ordinary wallpaper to something extraordinary. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

handwriting tips You’ve decided you want to improve your handwriting and you’re probably hoping a fountain pen will do the trick -- maybe a friend told you it would. Maybe you’re just adventurous and you want to try your hand at calligraphy (or you might, once your handwriting improves). Good for you! A fountain pen may make your writing look a bit better, but if your writing looks as if frenzied chickens got loose on the page, chances are this won’t be enough. After coaching handwriting and teaching calligraphy over the years, I’ve learned to see the characteristics of those who’ll be able to pick up the necessary motions quickly from those who’ll have to work a bit harder. Crampy, uneven letters are often the result of drawing the letters with the fingers rather than using the whole arm to write. People who inevitably have trouble with handwriting and calligraphy write with their fingers. If you use the right muscle groups, your writing will have a smooth, easy flow and not look tortured. Fig. 1. Top

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? 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 These are a few useful customized keyboard shortcuts that for some reason didn’t make the cut when coming out in CS5. 11. 12. 13. 14.

10 Useful Web Apps for Designers | Design Woop | The Web Design and Development Blog DesignWoop welcomes this guest post by Tomas Laurinavicius. Since the iPhone and iPad entered the market you can hear lots of news about apps for these devices. Tons of apps available today and you can find everything you want. But today I would like to share 10 handy web-based apps for designers. To use these apps you don’t need to buy an iPhone or iPad, you can use them without any additional software or device, you just need a web browser. In this collection I’ve picked 10 useful and time-saving web apps for designers. Invoice Bubble Invoice Bubble is free invoice software that lets you create an invoice and send to your client in seconds. Gridulator Tell Gridulator your layout width and the number of columns you want, and it’ll spit back all the possible grids that have nice, round integers. Browize Useful tool for resizing current browser window size to set or custom resolutions. Screenr Screenr is a web-based tool that lets you create screencasts without installing any software. Kuler

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