Photoshop

PSD Alphabet Collection

2011-01-24T08:54:00.000-08:00

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Free Funky Fonts for Download

2011-01-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

30 Well Designed Examples of Funky Fonts for Download

We know designers are always searching for a little something special to spice up their work. Sometimes the fonts can be really boring and less pleasing. So for your inspiration i have present you with some stylish funky fonts. Here i have an amazing showcase of funky fonts for you to download. They can be used to overcome the boring feeling that basic and common fonts causes. So download and have fun with these mind blowing funky fonts.

BellBottom Laser

Dreamland

Advertising Gothic

Shagadelic

Airstream

ActionIs

Amalgam

Kyboshed

Zitcream

Amsterdam Tangram

Groovalicious Tweak

Vampire

Anonymous Clippings

Purple Tentacle

Antioch

Funk

Funkin Frat

Eight Track

Fairytale

Arabolical

Atarax-p

Jasmine

Brandy

Bambino

Backstage Pass

BeeBopp

Baphomet

Beech

MoulinRougeFLF

Free HQ PSD templates

2011-01-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

Here is many useful graphic design files with guidelines, resolutions for better and faster design creation like business card, icon, document, sticky note, dvd cover, car and etc. PSD templates help doing the job easier and fast. Here, I would like to share with you a showcase of High Quality Free PSD Files that can be used in different design tasks and projects. Just click the images to visit the link to download the PSD source file which absolutely free to download. I hope you do find this collection useful.

Flower Effect

2011-01-23T07:28:00.000-08:00

Flower Effect Logo in Illustrator

In this tutorial I will show you how I made this nice logo for one of my clients in Czech Republic. Feel free to use it as inspiration, but please do not copy it in any form. All copyrights belong to the owner whom I made it for. Last but not least, please excuse Czech language appearing in the dialog boxes on pictures; I use a localized version of illustrator.

The final product will look like this:

Step 1

We'll start by making a new document with 180 mm width and height. If you do not like it you can select whatever dimensions you want. Then we will make one horizontal and one vertical guide positioned directly in the center of the document.

Select the Ellipse tool (L), create the ellipse, fill it with no color, select black outline and put it in the center of the document. I made one 160 mm high and 40 mm wide. So it will look something like this:

Step 2

Now, we are going to copy the ellipse 8 times around the circle. Easiest way to do this is to use Rotate Tool (R). So select the ellipse, click on the Rotate Tool (R), hold down ALT and click on the center of the ellipse, dialog box should appear. Enter 20 in angle and click on copy button. You will get this:

Step 3

Now press CTRL+D 7 times and you get to this point:

Step 4

We can now delete the guide lines; we do not need them later. The easiest part of this tutorial is done, now we are starting with ant work :-) We need to divide the final product in to small pieces. We are going to make it using Pathfinder. So select all ellipses and go to Window>Pathfinder and click on Divide:

Step 5

Now press Shift+CTRL+G to ungroup all objects. We are going to delete all needless objects. It is all 5 inner circles composed of 18 objects. So, 3 outer circles of objects remain as on the picture below.

Step 6

We are going to play with gradients now. It will be quite long but the output will be awesome. So let’s start: select the objects with Direct Selection Tool (A) (press Shift and click on each object) and apply a gradient from C30 M100 Y0 K0 to C30 M100 Y0 K80 like the image below:

Step 7

Then select another group of 6 objects and apply gradient from C80 M100 Y0 K0 to C80 M100 Y0 K80, here we go:

Step 8

Select another following group of 6 objects and apply gradient from C0 M100 Y100 K0 to C0 M100 Y100 K80. You’ll get something like this:

Step 9

For now you have enough information to know how to apply gradients for other groups of 6 objects.

4th group gradient from C0 M50 Y100 K0 to C0 M50 Y100 K80
5th group gradient from C0 M0 Y100 K0 to C0 M0 Y100 K80
6th group gradient from C50 M0 Y100 K0 to C50 M0 Y100 K80
7th group gradient from C100 M0 Y100 K0 to C100 M0 Y100 K80
8th group gradient from C100 M0 Y0 K0 to C100 M0 Y0 K80
9th group gradient from C100 M100 Y0 K0 to C100 M100 Y0 K80

If all went well you will get something like this:

Step 10

Now we are almost done, just remove the black outlines from all objects. And you are done with the output. This output does not correspond to physics. But applying the gradients to specific directions on each object, which our flower consists of, can make for some pretty awesome effects. It can be done by selecting each object, clicking on a Gradient Tool (G) and playing with it. Like these two examples:

Conclusion

First example is a bit complicated I will explain it later. Second example goes out from our output made in this tutorial. It was made only by rotating a gradient in proper direction on each object.
If you were able to make the second example, then change the Blending mode to Darken and copy it. On the copy - you have to make axial symmetry of each object or gradient. You can make it by axial mirroring or just by rotating the gradient to opposite side of object. If you are done with it, just put the copy over the original one and you will get the output like in the first example.

About the Author

My name is Tomas Varil. I am from Prague (Czech Republic). I have no design or art school background. I studied electronic computer systems in high school and I now study biology at university. All I have learned in graphic design, I learned by myself, through reading great blogs or web pages like abduzeedo.com. I first started 6 years ago as DTP operator and retoucher. Now I work in advertising agency as a graphic designer and production manager and I am starting my own corporate identity freelance project on www.tomasvaril.com (pages are under construction).

To Create Amazing Wallpaper

2011-01-23T07:25:00.001-08:00

Case Study: NINE by Perttu Murto

The wallpaper of the week is an artwork created by Perttu Murto for the UUtheory NINE contest. We really like the design and asked Perttu if he could send us a case study showing the process of creating it. He was super kind and send us a 10 step making of in which we can understand a bit more about how it was done.

This artwork is originally made for UUtheory NINE contest, but it's also part of the desktopography 2010 exhibition. I wanted to create something mystic and scifi. I got this idea to make a big iron nine with apocalypse scenery. I worked this with the 3D artists Sami Kuronen, who made the 3d model of the 9.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Conclusion

More Info about this artwork.

Concept, illustration & post-production: Perttu Murto
http://www.perttumurto.com
http://twitter www.twitter.com/perttumurto
3d model: Sami Kuronen
http://www.samikuronen.com

Easy Digital Painting

2011-01-23T07:20:00.000-08:00

Reader Tutorial: Easy Digital Painting in Photoshop

This tutorial will walk you through the simple steps used to turn a regular photograph into an interesting digital painting illustration, using Photoshop's Filter Gallery and the Smudge Tool. Depending on the photograph you choose, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours to complete.

Preview

The first thing to do is to resize the photo to your desired output size.
This is important as the Filter Gallery effects are heavily pixel based and if you resize after you've finished your work, it can blend them all back together and lessen the overall effect. My photo was taken with an original iPhone and is only 480x640 pixels. I wanted the final illustration to be bigger so I enlarged the image size to 960 pixels high and also increased the canvas width to 1200. Next I boosted the Brightness and Contrast to help the Filter Gallery effects really pick out the noise from the iPhone's less-than-brilliant camera. The easiest way to do this is with an adjustment layer, as it is non-destructive.
Next we need to drop out the background, fix any problems and prepare the photo for the filters. I'll leave you to choose your own way of removing the background, but I prefer straightforward painting in the Layer Mask, for the level of control is gives you. You can be fairly rough with elements like the hair as they'll be fixed when we get on to the smudging part later on. In my original photo, the subject's left shoulder has been cropped from the frame, so that needs to be put back in. I've just copied the right shoulder and flipped it across to the left, tweaking a few bits along the way. Again, it doesn't need to be precise and photo-realistic at all, as long as the basic shape is right and you pay attention to the highlights, shadows and overall tone of the area.

Now we are finished with our basic image adjustments, it's time to apply the filters.
Load your Layer Mask as a selection (hold down the Apple key and click the Layer Mask) and Copy Merged (Apple-Shift-C), then Paste into a new layer. If you find that the pasted version has moved slightly, just reposition it over the original - quickly flipping the Blend Mode to 'Difference' can help, when everything is black, the two layers are aligned.

Select the bottom layer of the three and apply the 'Poster Edges' effect from the Filter Gallery. Tweak the settings until you get some nice black lines defining areas of you subject, almost like cartoon outlines.

On the next layer up, apply the 'Accented Edges' effect. This one should brighten up your image and add some nice highlights. Set the Blend Mode to 'Overlay'.

On the third layer, apply the 'Glowing Edges' effect. Don't worry that your image has suddenly gone black, the extra highlights and neon glows will be perfect once you set the Blend Mode to 'Lighten' and reduce the Opacity down to 50%.

Obviously, all of these settings are specific to this photo and may not be right for yours, so feel free to tinker and tweak until you're happy, maybe even try out some of the other filters. When you're done you should end up with something like this.

Now for the fun part.
With your three Filter Gallery layers visible, Select All, Copy Merged and Paste once more, and make sure the pasted copy lines up with the other again. Duplicate this layer (so you have a merged back-up) and then this is layer that we will be painting, but before we start there are two little tweaks to Photoshop's default settings we should change first. In the Preferences, go to Performance and up the number of History States saved to at least 200 if you haven't already. The second tweak is in Keyboard Shortcuts from the Edit menu, and is to change the usual Undo command (good old Apple-Z) to activate Step Backward instead. This allows you to quickly go back through those 200 history states if something doesn't look right.
OK, now for the fun part...
Select the Smudge Tool - it's the third option of the Blur/Sharpen tool - and choose a smallish soft brush, with the Strength set to 50%. Now just start brushing your image and blend the combined Filter effects back together to resemble brush strokes. The key here is 'short, controlled bursts' and to follow the natural lines and curves of your subject. Go with the contours of the skin, the curls of the hair, the patterns of the clothing and so on. Be careful not to bend any of the black lines away from their curves, if you do then Apple-Z is your new best friend.
Other useful keyboard shortcuts to know for this process are the square bracket keys - [ ] - which reduce and increase your brush size, and the number keys, which will alter the strength of the smudge effect (remember; 0 sets it to 100%, 9 to 90% etc)

(200% zoom view with arrows showing the approximate direction and click duration for the Smudge Tool)

Keep going like this, working methodically around the subject. When you do the hair, you can tidy up your rough mask from earlier by extending whispy hairs out from the head when you smudge them and also correct any other areas that you're not happy with - I altered the cloned lapel of the jacket while smudging as I didn't think I had the angle right first time.
Once you've finished your painting, you'll need a background. I've used and tweaked Fabio's excellent space background tutorial and added a spiral galaxy from the NASA archive for mine. As a finishing touch I've duplicated my painted layer, given it a high Gaussian Blur and moved it below the painting layer to add an overall glow to the image. If you plan on painting your background using the same effect, it's useful to keep it separate from your foreground image so you don't end up smudging the two together.

About the Author

My name is Nathan Barry and I'm currently a freelance Web Designer/Coder, after spending nearly 10 years building websites for the BBC. I also write for Wired's GeekDad blog http://www.wired.com/geekdad/author/discotechnological and I'm a keen photographer and full-time Dad. You can follow me on twitter @GeekDadNath if you like. Thanks for reading!

Photoshop help - Tutorials

2011-01-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

Tron Legacy Tutorial

Since the very first time I saw the trailer of Tron Legacy I decided that I would have to try to do something inspired on that, all those light effects were exactly what I always love to do in Photoshop. Then I saw the James White design inspired by Tron and I was damn it, James nailed it. So I postponed my little experiment, however this week I decided that the time had come and so, I decided to recreate the logo effect we see in the trailer.

For this tutorial I used Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Cinema 4D. Pretty much all the light effects and composition are done in Photoshop, the other apps were used just to create some shapes and elements, so if you want to do just the Photoshop part, in the of the tutorial there is a ZIP file with all the resource files used for this image.

Step 1

The first thing to do is find or create the logotype of Tron Legacy. I found a vector file online with it. Then open it in Illustrator and convert the strokes to fill (Object>Path>Outline Stroke). Export the file in a very low version of Illustrator, I'm using Illustrator 8.

Step 2

Once you have the vector logo it's time to create the 3D version of it. We could use Photoshop Repoussé to create that but I decided to do it in Cinema 4D because I've been practicing more with it. So once you import the shape just apply a basic extrusion. You can download the Cinema 4D file in the end of the tutorial

Step 3

One thing that was really cool with the Tron Legacy logo was that sort of digital pattern it has in the light effect, so to create that I used a simple Tiles texture for my material, that is a default preset in Cinema 4D. The color is not important because we will change that in Photoshop later on.

Step 4

Here is the Objects I have in Cinema 4D, as you can see there is all the shapes with the Extrude NURBS and the material. I also added 2 lights and a camera to get the right perspective.

Step 5

Here is the final render in Cinema 4d. You can download the TIFF file in the end of the tutorial.

Step 6 - Photoshop

Open the logo in Photoshop and now let's start editing and creating the light effects. The first thing to do is change the Hue and Saturation. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue and Saturation. Use 190 for the Hue, 50 for the Saturation and 0 for the Lightness.

Step 7

Go to Image>Adjustment>Levels. Change the black input to 30, the grey input to 1 and the white input to 131.

Step 8

Import the vector logo and make sure it's black, you can add a color overlay through Layer>Layer Style>Color Overlay.

Step 9

Go to Edit>Transform>Scale, reduce the size so it's a size between the front and the back faces.

Step 10

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 15 pixels for the Radius.

Step 11

Duplicate the layer in order to make this dark effect darker.

Step 12

Import the vector logo again and position it in front of the 3D logo, this will be the neon effect.

Step 13

Go to Layer>Layer Style>Color Overlay. Use #86f7fe for the color with 60% Opacity. Also over the Blending Options, reduce the Fill color to 0%.

Step 14

After that select Inner Glow. Use Color Dodge for the Blend Mode at 50% Opacity. For the color use white. Change the Source to Edge and use 0% for the Choke and 10 pixels for the Size.

Step 15

Select Inner Shadow. Use Color Dodge for the Blend Mode with White for the color at 50%. Use 120º for the Angle, 8 pixels for the Distance, 0% for the Choke and 10 pixels for the Size.

Step 16

Now, select Drop Shadow. Use Screen for the Blend Mode with white for the color at 50%. For the Distance use 0, for the Spread 15% and for the Size 30 pixels.

Step 17

The last option will be Outer Glow. Use Color Dodge for the Blend Mode, 100% for the Opacity, white for the Color. Them for the Spread and Size use 0.

Step 18

Now go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue and Saturation. Use 195 for the Hue, 90 for the Saturation, -20 for the Lightness.

Step 19

Select all layers including the background and duplicate them, after that merge all the duplicated layers into a new one and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10 pixels for the radius.

Step 20

Change the Blend Mode of the blurry layer to Screen at 80% Opacity.

Step 21

Again go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue and Saturation. Use 7 for the Hue, 50 for the Saturation and 0 for the Lightness.

Step 22

Again select all the layers and duplicate them, after that merge the duplicated layers into just one. You can do that using the keyboard shortcut Command (MAC)/ Control (PC) + Alt + Shift + E. After that just change theBlend Mode to Screen at 50% Opacity.

Step 23 - Logo Conclusion

The Tron logo is pretty much done, as you can see we were able to create the nice 3D/light efect as we see in the trailer and we used basically Blend Modes and Adjustment Layers. For the Legacy text I used Helvetica Neue Ultra Light with a nice teal glow. You can save your file and end the tutorial here, but I want to show you how I created the whole composition.

You can group all these layers and name the folder logo. Also you can duplicate the group and merge it into a layer so we will use only that file in the end of the tutorial. As it has a black background, change its Blend Mode to Screen as well, then hide it.

Layer Order

This is the layers order. You can see that it's quite simple.

Step 25

To create the composition like we see in the posters and in the trailer the first thing we will need is a city skyline photo to use in the background. The one I used is from Shutterstock and you can find it herehttp://www.shutterstock.com/pic-66610090/stock-photo-new-york-cityscape..... So basically just desaturate the image (Image>Adjustment>Desaturate) and then go to Image>Adjustments>Levels and increase the black inputs and the white inputs. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use something around 10-20 pixels for the Radius. The idea is make it very blurry.

Step 26

Now go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue and Saturation. Use 190 for the Hue, 40 for the Saturation and -50 for the Lightness. Also select the Colorize option. This adjustment layer will give that teal color to the image.

Step 27

Back to Illustrator create a few rounded rectangles using the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Also create a few circles and an empty space where it will be the sort of highaway crossing the grid.

Step 28

Copy the shapes in Illustrator and paste that in Photoshop, below the the Adjustment Layer. Also make sure the vectors are white so you will make them teal. Once you paste the grid from Illustrator, go toEdit>Transform>Distort. Distort the layer to get the perspective like the image below.

Step 29

Go to Filter>Blur>Guassian Blur. Use 5 pixels for the Radius.

Step 30

Duplicate this layer and move it down a few pixels and then change the Opacity to 20%. That will create the reflection in the grid.

Step 31

Duplicate the grid layer again and move it above the Adjustment Layer. Group this copy into a folder and change the folder's Blend Mode to Color Dodge. After that select the layer inside the folder and go toFilter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10-15 pixels for the radius. That will depend on the shapes you created.

Step 32

Hide the city skyline layer and then select all the layers and duplicate them, after that merge all the duplicated layers into one layer only then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10 pixels for the Radius.

Step 33

Change the Blend Mode of that layer to Screen at 100% Opacity. Also make the city skyline layer visible again.

Step 34

Add a layer on top of the others and with the Paint Bucket Tool (G), change the type to Pattern and fill this layer with a scanline pattern. To create this scanline pattern is pretty easy. Just create a new document of100x4 pixels and then create a rectangle of 100x2 in black. Also make sure that the background is white. Merge all layers and then go to Edit>Define Pattern. Just name it and that is it.

With the Eraser Tool (E) delete the pattern area that is above the city skyline, the idea is that the effect will be visible only in the grid and city.

Step 35

Change the Blend Mode of the Pattern to Overlay at 15%.

Conclusion

Now make the Tron logo layer visible again and position it in the center of the composition. After that add a new layer and go to Filter>Render>Render Clouds. Make sure you had black and white for the colors. Then change the Blend Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 40%. With the Eraser Tool (E) you can delete pretty much all the areas close to the edges leaving only the area that is behind the logo and a bit on top of it.

You can also add the same pattern overlay effect over the Legacy text to give that nice digital touch. Once again everything we did was done using simple tools and techniques mixed together, the most difficult part is understand and organize the thoughts, the software part is all about trial and error. So now it's up to you.

Click on the image for full preview