Design Techniques
Choosing The Right Eraser
A rather useful bit of information about erasers from Binders Art. Some of this I didn’t know.
Tips & Tricks #7: The Other Side Of The Pencil – Choosing The Right Eraser For The Job.
Baby-Step Art
I discovered a long time ago that, for me, the most difficult part about completing any personal art project is getting started (thankfully, this is not true of paid assignments where deadlines and money tend to motivate me). I’ve been known to put off a personal painting for months because of not having the time I want, being too tired, having too many distractions or just the general environment for getting prepared wasn’t right. Huh?! I know, I don’t get myself sometimes. But then again maybe you can relate. What works for me? Baby steps! Thats right! I have to go no further than the movie What About Bob to find an answer. Don’t laugh. The approach has gotten me through many a project. If I do something, ANYTHING towards getting started no matter how small, rather than look at the project in its entirety, before I know it I’m finished. Maybe its just getting out my paints and brushes or stretching the paper or getting started on the drawing or just finishing the nose instead of the whole face. Sometimes they can even be microsteps. Maybe I’m just a big baby. Anyway, whatever process works for YOU and makes YOUR art happen? Do that!
Photoshop Ghosts
This is Seth (on the left), I met him a couple of years ago at Kennesaw Mt. National Battlefield, NW of Atlanta. Still dutifully manning his artillery postion after 140 years, he insisted on reading me a letter from home. He doesn’t know he’s a ghost and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Atlanta would fall a few short months later.
Seth reading me his letter from home
So, whats this tongue in cheek silliness all about? Be wary before you fall for photo “proof” of something fantastic and unbelievable. Just about anything can be faked these days and quite easily at that. But then you probably already knew that. It is fun to mess around with though.
My Simple Photoshop Ghost Recipe
1) In Photoshop I opened the Civil War photo file, selected the soldier and dragged him into the photo file with me by the cannon. Doing this creates a new layer.
2) After sizing and positioning the soldier I added a layer mask and masked out parts of him by painting on the mask to make him fit behind the cannon barrel.
3) I made a copy of the soldier layer and added a horizontal motion blur value of about 60 or so to the copy. I set the opacity of this blurred layer to about 70% and put it beneath the original in the layer order, offsetting the blurred layer by just a hair so that it wasn’t perfectly lined up with the original on top.
4) The original soldier layer I set to an opacity of about 60% and then I painted on the layer mask with a soft airbrush to fade out areas I wished to be even more transparent or vanish altogether.
5) To add a sepia tone to all the Photoshop layers simply add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer at the top, click the colorize check box and adjust the hue and saturation until you get the color you want.
Rust, Cracks and Stone Textures
Thanks to DesignM.ag for these excellent compilations of Photoshop brushes and textures
150 Free Rust Brushes for Photoshop
Photoshop Malpractice
Many of us Photoshop veterans (I guess with 18 years PS experience I’m a legit veteran) have learned about bad practices the hard way. But you don’t have to if you start with this collection of common PS user mistakes. I agree with the post and the big pay off in avoiding these is in efficiency and achieving top notch professional results. Worth a look.
12 Common Photoshop Mistakes, Misuses and Abuses | The Design Cubicle.
Free Photoshop Plugins You Might Actually Use
Sometimes the exhausting Free-Everything-for-Photoshop lists can be, well, exhausting. Who has time to check out 500 sites worth of Photoshop freebies and wade through tons of marginally useful stuff to find the gems. Maybe I’m just getting too old. Thanks to Photoshop Roadmap for this list of 15 free Photoshop Plugins which is thoughtfully selected, presented and previewed. Not to mention many of these free plugins seem pretty useful.
Avoiding The Cliché
When I file through stock images laden with more handshake photos or world globe images than I can shake a stick at, I groan audibly. Check this post at Just Creative Design with another in his series on over-used graphic elements, in this case cliché stock images used in web design. You’ll probably agree with most of them as I did. Its important to note that cliché is not necessarily bad. In the right circumstance a cliché image may be the best choice. But don’t go there immediately if a little thought will cultivate a better alternative.
If you need to find cool, compelling images for your next web design or corporate brochure think more metaphorically and see where it takes you. Adopting a theme that fits the client’s business activity or identity is a good way to go about that. Below is the cover for a corporate brochure and matching web page I designed for a law firm. We chose the theme of “Focus” due to the firm’s specialization in a particular segment of law. Being able to depart from the gavel and scales of justice sameness was OK by me. If you have to use a more cliché image look for the treatment of that subject that stands out as unique. Better yet take a stock image and put a little time into making it unique with some of your own customizations in Photoshop or Illustrator.
Killer Texture Site
[CG Textures] claims to be the worlds largest FREE texture site. Who knows maybe they are. They have a ton of ‘em thats for sure. The “bone” texture category was kind of unexpected. It warrants a visit if you’re looking for a cool texture.
Over-Used Graphic Techniques
Thanks to Jacob Cass over at Just Creative Design for this well thought out post. Top 7 Most Overused Techniques and Elements In Graphic Design. Good choices and a valid point that these techniques are neither bad nor good. I would add to his list the “wet floor reflection”. I personally think hot, popular trends can be used judiciously as long as you endeavor to give them some sort of individuality or twist. Many of these techniques can be employed in a vast number of ways. And if you design for clients as I do, you may get requests for that particularly “hot” look. I look forward to the rest of Jacob’s 6-part series.
Better Black and White
Improving your black and white photos is anything but black and white. If you’ve tried to find good techniques for doing this you know they are as numerous as the pixels in your image. So add this tutorial to your list, but don’t rush, its a good one and worth learning.
