Best of the Web – October

Nov 1st in Web Roundups by Emil

With another month in the books we can finally round up the best Tutorials, Freebies, and Articles. This month we found some great RSS icons as well as a pack ofHalloween icons. An interesting X-Ray tutorial, and an article on how to become a Freelance Designer. This is definitely a good month so lets get into it.

Author: Emil

Emil Agarunov is from Brooklyn, New York. He has been using Photoshop for around four years and has been using Illustrator lightly for the past couple of years. His main techniques are vector based images and photo-manipulations.

Tutorial Wrap

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  Highlighter Pen Tutorial

  There have been tons of icon tutorials but I haven't yet seen a tutorial on how to make highlighter pens until now. This is a very detailed tutorial that shows step by step instructions on how to create various colors of highlighter pens. The PSD file is included as well.

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  Girl in Temp Tutorial

  Here we have a very interesting and original Photo Manipulation tutorial that was based on the Depth Core pack Noir. The artist explains some very creative and original techniques that everyone should know.

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  Dream Design with 3D Typography

  Alex Beltechi created a very cool and original typographic tutorial on how to create some nice 3D text in Photoshop, and then work with it even more to finally create a very ornate design with trees. Alex also recently wrote a tutorial here on PSDTUTS about combining artfully drawn elements

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  Creating Illustrations for Magazines

  Computer Arts brings us a great informative tutorial on how a profession designer makes his illustrations for magazines. The artist shares his secrets, and shows us some interesting techniques.

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  X Ray Effects in Photoshop

  Here we have a very unique tutorial that you don't find everywhere. TheX-ray effect is definitely a helpful thing to master and can add a unique view into any design. Also, quite awhile ago we had a mechanical x-ray tutorial here on PSDTUTS.

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  Custom Hard Drive Icon

  If you are into creating your own icons to use on your desktop then this tutorial isdefinitely for you. From the same website which brought you the Highlighter Icon tutorial comes the tutorial on how to make arealistic looking hard rive in a multitude of colors.

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(FREE!) Download Picks

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  Halloween Icon Set

  With Halloween here this is a great icon set to have on your desktop. Twenty icons for either the PC or Mac, they are based on popular Halloween figures, so definitely download these and try them out.

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  RSS Icon

  These are some professionally made icons for your RSS Feed. Four different icons, and each an animal. This is a must download for every website owner and anyone who needs them. Some cute designs to get ahold of.

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  BB Free Font: Tire Shop Demo Version

  Here we have a demo font from BittBox. It is called Tire shop and its a great font that looks like it was hand drawn with a marker, this is something every designer should have because you can never have enough good fonts.

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  Quantum Brush

  This is another great abstract brush. You can use this one to make some amazing abstract designs and illustrations.

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  Hand Doodle Icon Set

  Another original icon set that everyone should have. The artist drew these designs by hand and then converted them to vector designs. It's a set filled with all types of icons that are great for bloggers.

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Article Wrap

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  25 Ways to be a More Productive Designer

  This is an article everyone should read, who wouldn't want to know what steps to take to become a better designer?.

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  Inspiring Movie Posters

  If you are lacking a source of inspiration, then you should really check this post out. The author shows us tons of visually professional movie posters that should inspire any designer.

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  Vintage Typography

  This is an interesting article for all you type enthusiasts out there. The author gives a lot of examples of retro typography from fonts in books to the fonts of advertisements. This is also a great source of inspiration if you are in need for a retro look.

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  How to Freelance

  An informative article on the steps a designer should take to go into freelancing. It covers making the choice to freelance, researching, planning, and implementing these facets to get going! This is a good article to review if your thinking of making the jump to freelancing.

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  Great Graphic Design Portfolios

  This article showcases some of the best graphic design portfolios on the net, you can learn a lot just by visiting them. If your looking to review some inspiring work or doing research on designing your portfolio, then check this out.

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  CS4 to Upgrade or not to Upgrade?

  This is the big question among Photoshop users, should we upgrade to CS4? Well this article will answer your questions.

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