Tutorial Wrap

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  3D Typography Tutorial

  This tutorial is a very cool one, something for the more advanced users who can use C4D and Illustrator, as well as Photoshop. If you are a somewhat new designer and would like a good challenge, then definitely try this one out. It will teach newcomers some great techniques in three very important programs that are essential to a designer. So this is a must try out for everyone. The outcome is visually great and the tutorial is detailed.

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  Adding an Eastern Twist to your Art

  This tutorial focuses on how to bring a little traditional Asian culture to your art, if you are up for trying out this visual style, then you should go for it. It is a six page tutorial so there are quite a number of steps, but it is also detailed. Simple techniques are used and the outcome is visually pleasing, so this is another tutorial to try out.

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  Building a Slick User Interface

  Here we have a tutorial for the Photoshop newcomers, anyone who has been around the tutorial blogs has seen countless tutorials that show you how to make iPods, iPhones, and various other types of electronic interfaces. So if that
  wasn’t enough for you here is a different take on one. I suggest people who need some practice with getting
  familiar with layer styles check this out because a lot of that is used here.

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  Giving your Sketches a Face Lift

  We all have a bunch of random doodles that we draw out just for fun, some actually have sketchbooks but don’t go any further than just drawing them. Well this tutorial will show you how to take your drawings and create amazing digital art with them. So round up some old drawings, scan them in, and follow this detailed tutorial. See if you can make something new out of your old doodles.

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  Create a Clean Hosting layout

  Last month we featured a similar tutorial from Grafpedia showing how to make a very stylish and professional layout for a hosting website. Well if that wasn’t enough for you, here is a second tutorial on creating a sleek business template. The techniques are fairly the same as last time, but if you need more practice, then this is the thing for you.

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  Create Cool Wet ink Typography

  This tutorial has a very cool outcome and requires a small amount of effort on the designers part. This is all we could ask for, a very stylish result made with a lot of ease. There isn’t much to say about this typographic tutorial. So check it out, download the brushes needed and get to creating your own rendition of it.

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(FREE!) Download Picks

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  Vintage Vector Pack

  Our first freebie of the month is a vintage serpent vector pack,
  unfortunately the pack only contains 4 images but they are still high quality and can be used many ways. The pack contains 2 serpent vectors, a
  origami type vector, and an abstract cube vector. They are all cool and unusual so everyone should check them out.

  Visit Download Site

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  20 Free iPhone Wallpapers

  If you are a real iPhone fanatic and change your wallpaper every month, then this is the freebie for you. The pack contains 20 very cool wallpapers ranging in many different styles for everyone’s favorite cell phone.

  Visit Download Site

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  Storm Cloud Textures

  Here we have a great addition to anyone’s collection of stocks. All designers use stocks of clouds and the sky so that is why these are so good. They are high resolution, which also helps when working with a big canvas. Check these stocks out and save the ones you like, you wont regret it because eventually you will end up using them.

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  Hair Styles Vectors

  This is a unique freebie that not everyone might want, but it is still cool enough to feature. This pack contains vectored images of different male and female hairstyles. The pack contains 8 different high quality vectors, so check it out if this is something you think you would need.

  Visit Download Site

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  22 Textures from the Grand Canyon

  Here is our second and not last texture pack for this month. This one is a pack of 22 various textures found on a trip to the grand canyon. The pack features many different types of textures, it varies from rocks, water, to the sky, and shots of the terrain. So check this one out.

  Visit Download Site

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  Rust Texture Pack

  Now for our next texture pack we are featuring something more gritty, these rust textures are perfect for different types of grunge art. There are a bunch of different colored metals with different types of rust. They should give your art some great effects.

  Visit Download Site

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  80 Stunning Backgrounds for your Website

  Your website does not need to have a simple and plain background, some backgrounds can really tie in the whole feel of a website, and this freebie is here to help. This post features 80 backgrounds for many different types of themes. This is a must check out for anyone who creates layouts, or owns a website, or is just looking for a cool background for themselves.

  Visit Download Site

Article Wrap

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  Graphic Design Education

  If you are looking to get serious about becoming a full time graphic designer then this is your article to read, the author tells you some important steps on where to start if you want to become a designer and some of the important requirements.

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  Showcase of Beautiful Textured Web Designs

  Here is your monthly dose of inspiration. This article showcases some great uses of textures in website designs. This is a combination with some of the textures in the Freebie section, and the layout tutorial. So check this out get inspired and try to make some yourself.

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  5 Overlooked Features In Photoshop

  This is an interesting and informative article. The author points out 5 things that most people forget about and overlook when using Photoshop. These 5 things can be extremely helpful and should not be forgotten when designing. So check it out and make sure you know about them before you try and create some more art.

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  Negative Space in Logo Design

  Too much blank space can sometimes hurt a logo, but the author of this article points out that some logos actually look better with some negative space. This is a roundup of some famous and not so famous logos that use negative space well. With each logo you can see who created it and what agency they work for. So check this out if you are really into logos!

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  Top Linked Design Articles

  You do not have to sit at home or your office all day looking to be inspired. This article points out that the “offline” world has inspiration all around it, you just need to know how to look. This is an extensive article that shows you the many different types of inspiration outside of the computer screen. So this is a must read for all because we all are without inspiration at one point or another.

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  Things to Ask your Clients for Besides Money

  This article will help you grow as a business man while still being a good designer. The author points out 7 things that you can ask from your clients that will help your career in the long run. So if you are a freelancer then this is something you should definitely check out because some of the tips here can prolong a designer’s career and bring in more business.

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  How to Choose a Logo Designer

  A companies brand is one of the most important things that the company has. Their logo will be plastered everywhere they are, so choosing the right designer to do that logo is essential. That is why the author of this tutorial has given a few tips for the person who is looking to hire a good logo designer. 10 Tips that should find you a competent and talented designer that can create the right logo for your business.

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1. Creating a Knob in Photoshop

2. How to Make a Menu Interface for a Fantasy Themed iPhone Game

3. Create a Promotional iPhone App Site in Photoshop

4. How to Create a Slick and Clean Button in Photoshop

5. Simple Button

6. How to Create a Detailed Audio Player in Photoshop

7. Create an Apple IPhone case from scratch

8. iPhone Style Icon Tutorial

9. Create the Glass Shelf Dock from Leopard OS in Photoshop

10. Build a Slick Rich User Interface in Photoshop

11. Loading Interface

12. Make a Web Interface with Car Images

13. Zoom Player Design Skin

14. Volkswagen Inspired Navigation

15. MP3 Player Interface Design

16. Blackberry Fruit phone

17. Interface Navigation Tutorial

18. Create a Mac Style Interface Button in Photoshop

19. Nokia 5300 Cell phone interface

20. Photoshop Tutorial: Audio Interface

21. High-Detailed Plastic Navigation Bar

22. Aqua Interface

23. Nav Bar Interface Tutorial

24. Content Box

25. Interface or Skin Tutorial

26. How To Create a Stunning Vista Inspired Menu

27. Create a Web App Admin User Interface in Photoshop

28. Creating Inset Buttons for Interfaces

29. Modern Web Layout

30. Creating Smooth Metal for Interface Design

31. Create a Zune MP3 Player

32. Interface Orbs

33. Design Your iPhone Widgets

34. RCA Lyra X3030 portable media player

35. Video Player Skin

36. Designing a Black Audio Player Interface

37. MP3 Player Interface

38. Design Mico Buttons

39. VCarbon Style Icons and Buttons

40. Create a Speed Gauge and Watch Icon in Photoshop

Subscribe to the Psdtuts+ RSS Feed for the best Photoshop tuts and articles on the web.

For tutorials we have a few very cool typography tutorials, that include a realistic fire effect along with a neon effect. As for the articles, we have an interesting article on the origin of the “I Love NY” logo, and also an article about a compilation of the best graphic design books out there. On top of that we have another great group of freebies, including vectors, wallpapers, and icons. So lets take a look at September’s Best!

Tutorial Wrap

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  Stone Texture in Photoshop

  We will start off the tutorial list with a very simple tutorial that is very valuable for some of the newer designers because it shows you how to make a very nice looking stone texture from scratch. All you need to use are some of the basic tools and filters to achieve this effect. If you are a more seasoned designer then you can obviously skip this because you probably wont learn anything new, but for the newbies this one is very useful and can also be applied to typography. So check this one out if it is for you.

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  Design Repeating T-Shirt Motifs

  This is something for the more advanced designer, but then again anyone can try it out. The goal of this tutorial is to show you how to create a repeat pattern that is similar to the repeat patterns you see on t-shirts today. The designer goes into detail on the process of creating this illustration. There are also a lot of great techniques to learn including stock blending and creating line art from your hand drawings.

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  On Track Design Explorations

  This is more of an abstract tutorial in more ways than one, the goal of this tutorial is to show the reader how to create a strong composition and then the rest of the design should come to you. While the author is explaining that he is also giving an example on how he created one of his abstract illustrations. So this is a good read if you think that you need some basic training in making an illustration, or if you just like the piece that the designer made and want to see how to make it yourself.

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  Wild Fire Typography

  As I said earlier, we will be exploring two types of typographic designs, and here is the first. We have all seen this design in the past but some still aren’t positive on how to master it, well to solve that try looking at this tutorial. The techniques used here are fairly the same as any other “good” tutorial on this topic but the outcome looks extremely realistic and it is bound to catch attention if you make it right. So with some reading and practice anyone should be able to master this typographic technique.

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  Creating 1980’s Effects

  Lately a lot of designers have hopped on the “retro” bandwagon and started creating designs that are inspired by the 80’s and 70’s and then mixing them with more futuristic elements, so since this is somewhat of a new trend not too many quality tutorials have come out on this topic, until now. Here we have a very cool retro tutorial that shows how to get that 80’s feel to your art by using simple techniques like texture manipulation, and very simple filters. So everyone should check this out because the result is fantastic and the process is fairly simple.

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  Neon Style Typography

  Here is our second typographic tutorial, this one will show you how to create a very sleek and realistic neon sign. This is another fairly simple tutorial with a nice looking final product, so everyone should try this out and then master it to learn all the skills taught in this tutorial.

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  3D Hosting Layout

  Like I said earlier we have a little bit for everybody. So if you are interested in designing templates then this one is for you, this tutorial will show you how to create an amazing 3D hosting website template. The techniques used here are simple and they explain the basics of creating layouts, but the final product looks very professional and looks like something that would be used by a company for their hosting website.

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(FREE!) Download Picks

• 

  High Quality iPhone Wallpapers

  Our first freebie of the month is for the many of you who own an iphone and need a change of wallpaper. Well PsdVault has got you covered, they got 20 very high quality wallpapers and cut them down to fit the iphone resolution. The wallpapers cover designs like a modified apple logo, to very sleek looking vectors, to patterned designs. So if you are an iphone user who is in need of a wallpaper then check this out.

  Visit Download Site

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  50 high Quality Icon Sets

  Here we have another huge set of icons for you guys. This pack features icons for Commerce, as well as stuff that websites would use as buttons and other useful stuff. There is not much to say so just check it out and download away since it is free.

  Visit Download Site

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  Tron Legacy Wallpaper

  Next we have a very nice looking wallpaper free to download for all. The design was inspired by the movie “Tron” and it looks very futuristic. The wallpaper comes in pretty much every resolution including iPhone resolution, so check this out and download it if you need a change of wallpaper.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Now this is a very cool and original set of wallpapers that you do not see too often and at this level of quality also. We are being given a set of “October” calendar wallpapers so you can have the calendar integrated into your wallpaper. If you are in need of this then download one, there is a wide assortment of types of wallpapers. 50 Wallpapers to be exact, so sit and look through them until you find one you like.

  Visit Download Site

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  Largest Collection of Free Vectors

  Crazy Leaf Design has set out to create the largest collection of free vectors, and they might have achieved their goal because this list is massive and covers a ton of different topics on Vectors, everything you need should be here so check it out and download away.

  Visit Download Site

Article Wrap

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  iStock Opens up a can of worms

  Many designers and photographers use iStockphoto to either download or upload photo’s from or onto their database, and now iStock has offered $5 per approved logo, but the catch is they are leaving it up to the client to go through the proper trademark and legal issues. So check this article out, it explains what is being done right now and why designers are concerned.

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  Origins of the “I Love NY” Logo

  Here is an article that is a bit of a history lesson for all the logo enthusiasts among us, the article features a clip of the originator of this famous logo and his thoughts on how it has grown to be imitated and known worldwide.

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  10 Solutions to Easily Create an Online Portfolio

  This article is for those who need to showcase their graphic work on the web but do not know how. The author offers up some suggestions, from famous websites like Behance Network, to DeviantArt. The author then lists some pro’s and con’s for each so you can have an unbiassed pick at the best place to show your work to the masses.

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  100 Classic Graphic Design Books

  This is for some of the more serious designers that are interested in learning the origins and history of Graphic design, as well as how it evolved over the years and some of the pioneers in the business. This is a great compilation of information for the graphic designer so if this is something you are interested in go ahead and check out the article and maybe even buy the book.

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  18 Ways to create a relaxing home office

  Many designers need a peaceful environment to think and produce work, so this is where this article comes in. The author talks about the importance of a peaceful and comfortable environment and then gives you 18 different ways you can improve it like a wallpaper change, fresh air, incense and a bunch of other idea’s to relax you and bring out the creativity.

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  21 Retro Website Designs

  Our last article of the month focuses on some inspiration for those of you who enjoy the look of retro artwork. This article features 21 great looking website designs that feature this type of artwork. So if you are looking for some inspiration or just want to check out the retro artwork then head over to this article.

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Hit the jump and learn to the max!

Phototuts+ – Photography Tutorials

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  7 Tips for Taking Travel Photos Like a Pro

  Travel photography seems so simple. What could be easier than traveling to an exotic location in a beautiful country with a camera and a handful of memory cards and taking some amazing photos? But, when you arrive at your location, you find that it’s a lot harder to take a decent travel photo than it looks. In this tutorial I’ll be sharing seven key tips for taking professional-looking travel photos you will appreciate for years to come.

  Day 1 Continue Reading

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  Create a Stunning High-Key Portrait Photo

  Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this four part tutorial you will learn how to create a combat knife suitable for use in next-gen games.

  Continue Reading

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  How to Shoot and Post-Process Professional HDR Photos in One Day

  In this tutorial you will learn the simple secrets of crafting a shoot sequence for HDR and creating professional quality HDR images in both Photomatix and Photoshop (depending on your weapon of choice). Not only will you learn an efficient workflow, but you’ll also learn the theory behind Dynamic Range. This lesson is taught by Peter Tellone, a professional photographer specializing in HDR landscapes.

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  Photography Kick-start Guide: How Your Camera Works

  Most photography tutorials, including most of the ones you’ll find here on the Tuts+ network of web sites, assume a certain base level of knowledge. But what if you’ve only just decided you want to make the leap into taking photos with manual settings?

  In this tutorial you’ll start to begin to learn the fundamentals of photography – fundamentals that will allow you to start reading and using more advanced tutorials, and manipulating the manual settings on your camera. Here we cover exposure, how the camera works, the shutter, focus, light, depth of field and ISO.

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  How to Use Flash With a Slow Shutter to Create Motion and Ghosts

  Though the still photo is a beautiful thing, it does have its weaknesses – especially when it comes to portraying movement. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to faithfully capture movement by taking photos that use flash and a slow shutter speed. You’ll learn about recommended gear, how to choose appropriate subjects, setting up the shoot, dealing with lighting and choosing the best settings on your camera.

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Cgtuts+ – 3D Tutorials

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  Model a Photorealistic Boss Tu-2 FX Pedal in Modo

  In this two-part tutorial you will learn how to model the Boss Tu-2 FX pedal using Luxology’s Modo 302. Taking advantage of Modo’s workflow enhancing toolset, the model will be highly detailed, and suitable for close up renders from any angle.

  Day 1 Day 2

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  Next-Gen Weapon Creation

  Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this four part tutorial you will learn how to create a combat knife suitable for use in next-gen games.

  Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

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  How to Export 3D Camera Data from Cinema 4D Into After Effects

  When it comes to motion graphics, exporting camera data from a 3D program to a 2D compositing program is one of the most important techniques you could know. In this tutorial, you will learn the basics behind getting Cinema 4D and After Effects to talk to one another, including using exporting tags, using the camera data in After Effects within 3D layers and effects, and how to set up and tweak your render for the best results.

  Day 1

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  An Introduction to Fluid Simulations in Blender

  Learning to simulate realistic fluids in any 3d app is always a challenge, but Blender’s sophisticated solver allows for some very rewarding results.

  In this introduction to Blender fluid simulations, you will learn the basics of how to set up a fluid simulation in Blender with an obstacle, and a few fluid set ups to give you an idea of some of the other things that you can do with Blender fluids.

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  An Introduction to 3Ds Max: Polygonal Modeling

  In the first part of the series, professional video game artist, Kaleb Aylsworth, walked you through many of the key skills that you will need to get started modeling in 3ds Max. Now, in the second part, he will demonstrate how to apply the things that you have learned by using them to make a low-poly version of Guy van der Walt’s “Retro TV Set”. You can see some more examples of Guy’s work at his portfolio website, Plasticboy.

  Day 1 Day 2

Nettuts+ – Web Development Tutorials

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  8 Regular Expressions You Should Really Know

  Regular expressions are a language of their own. When you learn a new programming language, they’re this little sub-language that makes no sense at first glance. Many times you have to read another tutorial, article, or book just to understand the “simple” pattern described. Today, we’ll review eight regular expressions that you should know for your next coding project.

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• 

  Design and Code Your First Website in Easy to Understand Steps

  In this tutorial, we’re going to design and code our first website in simple, easy steps. This tutorial was written for the beginner with the hope that it will give you the tools to write your own standards-compliant websites! It’s a brand new week; maybe it’s time to learn a new skill!

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• 

  30+ PHP Best Practices for Beginners

  PHP is the most widely-used language for programming on the web. Here are thirty best practices for beginners wanting to gain a firmer grasp of the fundamentals.

  Editor’s Note: The “Best Practices” series has been my baby for three articles now. However, due to my focus on the CI video series, I’ve decided to hand off this next entry to Glen. Having said that, I’m not very good at keeping my mouth shut! I thought it might be fun to sporadically add a few rebuttals to his tips. I hope he doesn’t mind!

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  6 Ways to Improve your Web Typography

  Typography on the web is anything but simple, and for many, it is a troubling mystery. Today, we’re going to review six ways that web designers and developers can improve the typography of the sites they create.

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• 

  A Crash-Course in Advanced CSS3 Effects

  Webkit is one of the few – if only – browser engines that really embraces advanced CSS3 effects. Unfortunately, this presents somewhat of a double-edged sword. We get to play with all of these amazing effects – such as CSS masks, reflections, transitions, animations, scaling, etc. – yet, we can’t truly implement them into our projects until more browsers provide support. With all of that said, it’s important to be on the cutting edge of what’s possible.

  In today’s video tutorial, we’ll review a bunch of different neat effects that can be used in Safari 4, Chrome, and for all iPhone development

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Audiotuts+ – Audio Tutorials

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  How to Use Multi-band Compression in Mixing and Mastering

  In some of my recent tutorials I have been breaking down the processors used in a typical mastering chain into individual subjects. So far we have looked at buss compression, M/S processing and stereo enhancement. In this tutorial we are going to look at multi-band compression.

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  36 Audio Interfaces Under $1000

  Most computers come with a sound card with line and mic inputs, and many people use these when starting out with audio recording. But if you are serious about the quality of your work, you should avoid them. They have inferior audio to digital converters, and often produce a good deal of noise. You need to choose a professional audio interface that allows you to plug in your mics and instruments, and connects to your computer through a USB, Firewire, PCI or PCMCIA interface.

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• 

  Advanced Drum Editing in Kontakt

  I created this tutorial to serve two purposes. First off, I feel that there is a distinct lack of proper in-depth Kontakt tutorials. This tutorial teaches you everything you need to know to get started with Kontakt 3’s amazing Group editing. Second, I find that there are plenty of threads out there where someone will ask “How do I get my drums to sound like ____?” (Usually Squarepusher). I feel that group editing is the quickest, yet most hands-on way of creating incredible, glitchy beats without relying on VST effects as a crutch (and therefore avoiding sounding like anybody who else who uses Plug-in X).

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• 

  How to Configure Your Axiom Control Surface with Logic Pro 9

  MIDI controllers with control surfaces are quite common and affordable these days. They can control just about any aspect of your DAW, but their strength is in allowing you to control the DAW while at the keyboard as opposed to being used for a mixing session after tracking is finished. Since the Axiom doesn’t come with any Logic presets, let’s take a look at how to configure all those buttons, faders and knobs from withing Logic.

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  How to Layer Hip Hop Drums in FL Studio

  Although it is often seen as a signature move of Hip Hop producers, customizing drums through layering is a technique used by artists in every genre, and it allows you to have fresh, new drum sounds that will energize your productions. Using simple tools and sounds you already have, you can expand your sound palette. In this tutorial, Sean Duncan gets us started.

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Psdtuts+ – Photoshop

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  Create a Mixed Media Masterpiece – Psd Plus Tutorial

  If you want to take your photo hand crafted textures into Photoshop and create a high-quality mixed media illustrations, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

  Continue Reading

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  How to Create a One-of-a-Kind Twitter Background in Photoshop

  If you’re on twitter and reading this blog, chances are you’ve already customized your profile with a cool twitter background. In this tutorial, we’ll create one of our own around a central mascot: a highly detailed twitter bird, that you’ll have to draw yourself! Get ready to do much more than clicking in this artistic tutorial!

  Continue Reading

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  Manipulate Smoke to Create Hyper-Real Images

  Learn to apply the Warp Tool effectively and a few other tricks to make smoke look like a skull. This technique has a variety of outcomes and works well with water, clouds and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is probably more for intermediate users, as I guide you through the process well, but not every Warp Grid point handle move. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

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  How to Create an Original Pin-Up Girl in Photoshop

  In this tutorial, I will be taking you through the steps that I do when creating a cartoon pin-up. I will start off with thumbnails and continue on to the final image. Along the way, I will be sharing with you my techniques and thought process when it comes to creating an original image with Photoshop. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

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  How to Create a Fallen Angel on Fire Photo Manipulation – Psd Plus Tutorial

  If you want to take your photo manipulation work to the next level, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. We’ll work with fire and other images to create this fantasy scene. Learn more at the jump!

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Vectortuts+ – Vector & Illustrator

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  How to Create a Mesh Flower in Illustrator

  In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to create a flower with Illustrator’s mesh tools and opacity masks. With these tools you have a high-degree of control and can create realistic looking illustrations. Let’s get started!

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  Create Illustrated Type from Sketch to Vector – Vector Plus Tutorial

  If you want to learn how to combine illustration and typography, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!

  Continue Reading

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  How to Create a Rainy Window Vector Background

  Using the Symbolism Tools, plus a bit of Gradient Mesh, learn to make a realistic window covered with raindrops. This is an advanced tutorial that assumes a fair amount of Illustrator experience, but everyone should be able to follow along. It can be done with earlier versions of Illustrator, but takes full advantage of newer features in CS4. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

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  How to Illustrate a Brain Icon for OSX and Vista

  In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a cartoon style illustration of a brain, then how to convert the image for use as an icon for OSX and Vista. I’ll discuss some points about detailing for icon design as well. Let’s get started!

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  How to Create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator and Make a Vector CD

  Ever wonder about creating Radial Mesh in Illustrator? Yes, now you can and it will reveal more possibilities to you in Illustrator. In the first part of this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator (without using any 3rd party plugin), and in second part we’ll create a Vector CD using that radial mesh method. So let’s do it!

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Flashtuts+ – Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials

• 

  Create an Attractive Digital Clock in Flash

  ActionScript 3.0 is a very powerful language, capable of creating anything from simple and light utilities to full-featured desktop applications.

  In this tut, we’re going to create something simple, a basic and good looking digital clock in Flash.

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• 

  AS3 101: Arrays

  In this installment of AS3 101, we’ll spend the entire tutorial exploring a single type of data available to most programming languages: the Array.

  Arrays are ways to keep lists of values. Arrays are useful to keep an arbitrary number of related items grouped together, and can represent complex data structures though nesting. In ActionScript, Arrays have quite a bit of flexibility and functionality, as we’ll see. After the usual abstract introduction, we’ll apply what we’ve learned (whilst also learning some more along the way) by building a rather simple puzzle game.

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  Make Your Flash Logo Bling with Alpha Gradient Masking

  In this tutorial we’ll look at how to create a logo which incorporates alpha gradient masking in its animation. I’ll explain some tips and tricks on how to get it working and avoiding some common problems.

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• 

  Using AMFPHP with AS3 and CodeIgniter

  It seems that the AMFPHP project has now been laid to rest, unfortunately it never made it past the 1.9 beta version and nor did the tutorials. However, Adobe didn’t give up on it that easily and with the new Flex compilers they’ve included the AMF3 object encoding!

  Good news for all you Flexers, but it’s a different story for all you AS3′ers. Flex allows you to quickly and simply build a service that will interact with your AMFPHP code, but you have to get your hands dirty with AS3. So, I’ve decided that it’s time there’s a decent set of classes out there that help Bob build a site with AS3 using the AMFPHP gateway.

  And to throw some more dirt into the mix, we’ll be integrating AMFPHP with CodeIgniter so that we have a fantastic PHP framework for the backend.

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• 

  Create Your Own Adobe AIR Application with Flash

  In this tutorial we’ll create a Twitter Reader application, fed from your own Twitter updates. We’ll look at some of the features of the nativeWindow class, how to sign it and make an install package.

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Aetuts+ – After Effects Tutorials

• 

  How to Create a Palmticular Tree

  In this tutorial, Vincent introduces a few of the new features in Particular 2 with the creation of a growing palm tree. Put on some sun screen and enjoy!

  Continue Reading

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  Creating a Tracked Head Wound

  In this tutorial Mathias shows that corner pin tracking can do much more than just replacing some pictures on a wall. We are going to compose a wound on a moving head and use the Mocha tracker in combination with his script MochaImport. Trust me, this is so much easier than creating a real head wound!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create the “My Paper Mind” Effect

  This tutorial will teach you how to recreate the “My Paper Mind” effect done by Javan Ivey, but with the environment in mind, Nicolas has come up with a way to save some paper (as well as about 3 days worth of paper cuts!) It is all done in After Effects without any third party plug-ins. Enjoy!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Recreate Mac OSX Intro Video with C4D

  As the penultimate nugget of goodness in our Mac Lover’s Week, Satya created a 2 day tutorial that everybody will enjoy! In day 1, he will walk us through Cinema 4D and how to create the 3d text in this effect.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Make a Glitchy Interface Animation

  This tutorial will teach you how to recreate a stylized Glitch Interface Animation that resembles a high tech control system, with an analog monitor startup. Anthony Errisuriz provides his step by step process for creating this amazing effect with design from Illustrator and animating in After Effects.

  Continue Reading

Be warned. Some of these images are massive as well as outstandingly beautiful. Your monitor may get jealous.

1. Polel Portfolio

2. Typography

3. Splash

4. UT102

5. Global Warming

6. The Flag in Berlin

7. Ghost.88

8. Fuel

9. My.Chaos.

10. Expectations

11. SQUARES

12. 3d graffiti

13. Giant Mutant Centipede

14. Type & Grid

15. Decadence

16. A Part of Me

17. She’s like a rainbow

18. Space Odyssey

19. Sound

20. Fictional Absolut Ad

21. The village

22. Make Some Noise

23. First Date With Alice

24. SaintDsign_03

25. Written

26. The Creative Mind

27. The End, The Tsunami

28. Hire Me 01

29. Spring

30. Jumper

31. Experimental Works #7

32. 1Bird

33. Experimental Works #5

Subscribe to the Psdtuts+ RSS Feed for the best Photoshop tuts and articles on the web.

Tutorial Wrap

• 

  3D Box Icon Tutorial

  We will start off the tutorial list with a sleek icon. This is a beginner friendly tutorial. It utilizes the most simple tools for creating the box as well as adding the color and shade to it to give it some sense of realism. The original icon comes with papers inside the box, but if you are familiar with icon design, then you can add any of your favorite things inside it and set it as one of your icons. So check this tutorial out.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Scorching Photoshop Effects

  This photo manipulation tutorial from Fabio Sasso is detailed. It shows how to manipulate a stock by adding numerous different filters to it. This tutorial is advanced, but still easy to follow. there are a lot of steps so don’t think you can duplicate the look just by adding a picture of fire to it. Layer masks, as well as Layer styles are used to make this look more authentic.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Single Shot HDR Effects

  The tutorial here will show you how to create the HDR style photo effect with only one picture and a few tricks that the author explains. This is an interesting tutorial because usually you would have to take a few shots at different exposures and merge them together to get an HDR effect, but here you will learn how only one picture will be enough to create that effect.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  3D Photoshop Typography

  This typography tutorial shows how to create 3D text in Illustrator, as well as how to give it that glassy transparent look to the text. The author shows you how to bring it into Photoshop and blend the whole thing into one with some simple shapes and patterns. Although the final outcome maybe a little hectic, the tutorial has some interesting techniques for crafting 3D text, so check it out.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Dramatic Lighting

  This tutorial will show how to create proper lighting in any of your illustrations. The author demonstrates these lighting techniques by first creating a scene with a desert and city stock and after it is merged a beam of light is added. Different Filters are used as well as Curves and Layer Styles to enhance the look of the whole piece, this is more on the simple side so the novices should check it out and learn some of the basics in this tutorial.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Painting Drows Vs Goblins

  Here we have a very nice and detailed digital painting tutorial. You can never have enough of these because with painting there are so many ways of approaching an illustration and experimentation is the best. The author includes some tips and brush settings to bring the whole painting together. At the end the author sums up all the important points of a painting, so if anything make sure to check that part out.

  Visit Tutorial

(FREE!) Download Picks

• 

  20 Awesome Wallpapers

  This freebie is an enormous pack of 20 top quality vector wallpapers. Each wallpaper has a vibrant color scheme and the vector work is top notch, we couldn’t ask for anything more. The topics in the wallpapers range from colorful characters to pigeons wearing sneakers. So check this pack out, I’m sure you will like at least one of the wallpapers.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Desktopography Wallpaper Pack

  Desktopography is known for having some of the best graphic designers out right now create amazing wallpapers for their annual packs. Well its that time of the year again and 2009’s pack is the best one yet. Artists include Chris Haines, Zach Bush, Craig Shields, and many more extremely talented designers.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Classic Fonts That Will Last A Whole Design Career

  This font pack is an essential part of any designer arsenal. These classic fonts can pretty much fit in anywhere you want them too. Included in this pack are some fonts like Helvetica, Din, Gothic, and much more. These fonts are versatile and can be used for almost anything.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  East Coast Textures

  The first texture set we are featuring today is a set of rugged and grungy textures taken on the east coast of Canada. The author was traveling that area and took some high-res pictures that can now be used to add some life to your illustrations. The textures are huge. Each is about 3000px wide so you do not have to worry about distortion. These 8 textures cover a range of colors and characteristics, so check them out.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Denim Texture

  Our second set of textures come from the folks at Bittbox. They have done it again with another original texture, this week it was denim. There
  aren’t a lot of denim textures on the net that is why this one is so interesting, so check this out and try to
  incorporate it into one of your projects.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Wooden Fence Wordpress Theme

  And the last freebie of the month is for all the bloggers out there. This is a nicely made fence theme wordpress template. If this theme suites your blog then download it now because it is compatible with widgets, as well as every internet browser of importance.

  Visit Download Site

Article Wrap

• 

  How much to charge?

  One of the age old questions for freelance designers is what is the right price to charge for my work? We have featured tons of insight on this topic and since it
  couldn’t hurt to get another opinion here is some more. The author of this article takes quotes from different executives form large corporations like AIG, and shows their opinion on the
  dilemma.

  Visit Article

• 

  Experts Critique Business Logos

  Newsweek recently posted an article about some of the most seen logos in the world. It includes the all popular Firefox, the Digg logo, craigslist and so forth. In this article experts on logo design proceed to critique and point out what could be better in these logos. For all the logo designers out there this is a must read because it shows you what the experts feel is good and isn’t good in a logo.

  Visit Article

• 

  Marketing Rules for Freelancers

  Working on your own is a hard thing to do. The author points out principles that help freelancers land a job. Branding, as well as what to charge is included in this article. So if you are currently freelancing and are having trouble landing some work then read this article maybe the tips will help you.

  Visit Article

• 

  Beautiful Typographic Art

  Typography can be used to create countless types of illustrations. And this article gathers up some of the best pieces to give us some inspiration to create more typographic work. The styles in this post range from creating typographic faces to just crafty typography on a magazine.

  Visit Article

• 

  Top Linked Design Articles

  This is an important article that everyone should at least skim through. It runs down the most linked to pages of top design blogs. Many different topics are covered as well. It is an ultimate web roundup of Freebies, articles, tutorials, inspiration and more.

  Visit Article

• 

  Social Networking Communities for Designers

  Since Myspace first came on the scene social networking websites started to explode on to the internet. They then expanded and branched out into various different topics, and out of that came these websites that are specifically for graphic designers. So if you are a fan of social networks and like interacting with other designers then check this list out.

  Visit Article

• 

  Ways to Save Money

  We all should read this because who hasn’t gone a little crazy with their money once or twice. Especially in this recession we all need to save a little more and this article shows us how we can do that with our web business by cutting expenses. There are a few good methods that are sure to work, so read this article and apply it to your business.

  Visit Article

We also have a set of great tutorials including two very different ones on digital painting, and our usual set of amazing freebies that include a set of seasonal RSS icons, as well as a great array of textures. So lets get into this month’s roundup!

Tutorial Wrap

• 

  Fantastic Digital Painting

  Our first tutorial of the month is a very interesting take on digital painting. The methods used are not the traditional ways to create digital paintings so this is a nice alternative. The outcome is vibrant, and the whole process of creating can be a bit difficult, but fun at the same time, since you could use your own materials like custom paint splashes.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Mastering Custom Brushes

  Our next tutorial will instruct us on how to take our own hand made brushes and use them to create extraordinary illustrations. The author of this tutorial will instructs us on how to get your brushes into Photoshop and how to set them up so they look their best. After that he shows us how to use them to our advantage and really brighten up an illustration.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Firefish Photoshop Tutorial

  This is an icon tutorial based on the original Firefox browser logo. This is a fairly simple tutorial that doesn’t use any complicated techniques, but the final product does look sharp. A lot of the logo is created with the free hand Pen Tool so if you’re good at using your hand to plot out shapes, then this tutorial is for you.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Creating Harry Potter Text

  Our next tutorial is a video tutorial that teaches us how to create the same type of text that is used in the widely popular Harry Potter books and movies. The text is created using layer styles. You start out with a blank white version of the text and build it up to the final product that you see on the posters. This is a good tutorial on using layer styles on fonts, so check it out.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Animal King Photo Manipulation

  This is another photo manipulation tutorial with an original and attractive final product. The author of this tutorial shows us the proper way to merge stocks and color the illustration so everything blends correctly. The whole point of this tutorial is how to blend different stocks to create a great illustration that is in composed in unison.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Creating Broken Link

  Our last tutorial of the month is on digital painting and shows how to take a simple drawing and turn it into an intricate painting. The author starts out with a rough sketch in Photoshop and builds on it until he has a good outline, then he explains how to properly layer the colors and how to add detail into your painting. So if you are interested in digital painting, then you should definitely check this one out.

  Visit Tutorial

(FREE!) Download Picks

• 

  Stunning Smoke Effect Brushes

  Our first freebie of this roundup is a very cool pack of 42 high-resolution smoke brushes. There is no limit to how you can incorporate these brushes into your art, and they are 2000px or larger in size. Since a designer can never have enough brushes, everyone should download these. I’m sure they will come in handy soon.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Wallpaper of the Week

  Our next freebie of the month is an abstract wallpaper from the folks at Abduzeedo. The wallpaper comes in 7 different resolutions including one for the iPhone. The wallpaper itself was made by Chris Haines and Rik Oostenbroek. The wallpaper looks cool so if someone is in need of a wallpaper change this is a must download.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Scratched Vector Icons

  This is another icon pack freebie and this time we have a vector pack of social media icons. The pack includes the all popular Twitter, Digg, Flickr, RSS, as well as other popular social media networks. This black and white design that the icons are created with is simple and elegant. If you have a blog that needs something a hand rendered tough, than these are your icons.

  Visit Download Site

• 

  Nebulae Grunge

  Now we cant have a freebie roundup without mentioning Bittbox’s texture
  Tuesdays. This months pick was a unique texture set that mixes the colors of outer space nebulas with dark grunge. The pack features 5 different stocks that are
  downloadable through Flickr. So check this out and add them to your texture collection.

  Visit Download Site

Article Wrap

• 

  Marketing Tips From a Six Year Olds Lemonade Stand

  This article is one of the more interesting ones I have read through the years. The author talks about how marketing techniques from his daughters lemonade stand parallel the same techniques that can be used as a designer. More articles should be written which compare real life events to work, which makes reading them more interesting.

  Visit Article

• 

  45 Awesome Game Concept Arts

  Game concepts are idea’s that are submitted to game developers to place characters, events, or scenery into the game itself; the are the basis for everything that you see in video games. A lot of the concepts don’t always make it into the games themselves, but are still awesome sources of inspiration. This is a great source to look through for artists who are entering the Psdtuts+ Delta Dawn Contest.

  Visit Article

• 

  50 Ways to Vastly Improve Your Blog

  If you happen to have a Wordpress Blog, then you must read this article. The advice given here is sound and helpful. The author of this article breaks down the tips into categories like design, performance, security, as well as other important factors. This is a detailed article on improving your blog so all blog owners should read this and apply what they learn here.

  Visit Article

• 

  Becoming a More Effective, Proficient, And Informed Designer

  This article focuses on showing you how to become a more well rounded and better designer. The author shows practical techniques like using applications, to organizing folders and bookmarks. When all of these techniques are applied you’ll be more organized and ready for your next client project.

  Visit Article

• 

  How to Become a Famous Designer

  Now if you want to skip being a proficient and informed designer and just become famous then check this article out. This is not a full proof method to becoming famous so lets not get our hopes up. But the methods here have worked for many designers in the past. Good marketing techniques like doing interviews on popular blogs can echo your name through the design community and propel you to fame.

  Visit Article

• 

  Massive Compilation of Design Tools

  The title of this article does not lie, this is a very large directory of tools that are essential to a designer. From a Wacom Tablet, to Online Font websites, these tools are extremely helpful to every designer no matter what type of art you produce. So this is another must read article for everyone because it can benefit all of us in different ways.

  Visit Article

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Please note: This post contains some artistic nudity. This is not a ranked list. Current Psdtuts+ authors are not eligible for inclusion.

1. NIARK1

Representing: Paris, France.

“I make flyers, identities and logos, illustrations, web design, characters, graphic design, stickers, covers, toys, skateboards, deco, arts and many more! If you want more info about myself or my work don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m cool and I’m interested by any connections that I can make and any exciting projects.”

• Website

2. Peter Jaworowski

Representing: Warsaw, Poland.

“I am the co-owner of the Warsaw-based creative studio, Ars Thanea, where I’m also design director. Debut Art represents me worldwide and Mushroom in Spain. Offline, you can check out my work in regular print publications like /Computer Arts/, /idN/ and /Advanced Photoshop/. I also write for Reform & Revolution and Cpluv, if you happen to frequent those sites!”

• Website

3. Bechira Soren

Representing: Timisoara, Romania.

Bechira Sorin is what we would call a “veteran” in the world of graphic design. He is 30 years old and displays impeccable skills in not only Photoshop but also in multimedia techniques.

• Website

4. Sakke Soini

Representing: Helsinki, Finland.

“Right now I am working as a freelancer and balancing my time between web design, illustrations, event management/promotion, DJing and VJing.”

• Website

5. David Fuhrer (aka Microbot)

Representing: Bern, Switzerland.

David Fuhrer is a self-taught digital painter with a passion for making some of the most creative and vivid art around. David is an extremely talented and creates some of his art by mixing 3D elements with painting.

• Website

6. Alberto Seveso

Representing: Rome, Italy.

Alberto’s digital illustrations have a distinct style, often featuring human forms made up of multi-layered tribal patterns with a 3D look. He has used this style to illustrate athletes Michael Phelps and Kelly Slater for prominent magazines. Hey says it doesn’t matter where he lives because the world has no borders.

• Website

7. Nik Ainley

Representing: Oxford, United Kingdom.

“Nik Ainley is a UK based illustrator who produces both personal and commissioned work. He rather bizarrely taught himself Photoshop in his spare time while gaining a degree in physics at Imperial College in London. He enjoyed it so much he ditched physics and moved full time into design and illustration.”

• Website

8. Pete Harrison

Representing: London, United Kingdom.

If you like that soft pastel 80’s look, then you will love the stuff in Pete Harrison’s portfolio. He has truly conquered that design style. But his skills don’t stop there. He is truly gifted in mixing images with shapes, colors, text in a original and creative manner.

• Website

9. Sam Gilbey

Representing: Bedford, United Kingdom.

“Sam Gilbey is a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and art director. He has created graphics and illustrations, designed websites, and/or provided art direction for many well-known clients and brands, including Sony, Weetabix, The University of Manchester, MTV, O2, The BBC, Cadbury, Tiger Aspect Productions, Working Title and Motorola. He has worked with several respected design agencies including LBi, Preloaded, CMW Interacitve and AIS London.”

• Website

10. Goro Fujita

Representing: Hamburg, Germany.

“I was born in Japan and moved with my family to Germany when I was two and a half years old. I have been fascinated by drawing ever since I was a little child. After finishing highschool I founded a company called “Quaintix” with a friend of mine and did some graphic design and programming work. Meanwhile I got interested in 3D animation and started to play around with cubes and spheres.”

• Website

11. Mike Karolos

Representing: Athens, Greece.

Mike is a 24 year old design from Greece. While he enjoys a variety of music, he is really into hip hop music. I think that love for hip hop music really shows in his urban-style design. His designs and artwork have elements of popular design styles, but presented in a way that is very much his own.

• Website

12. Meni Tzima

Representing: Athens, Greece.

“Presented as a new up and coming artist to look out for by Computer Arts Projects magazine, her work has also been featured by the latest Pictoplasma Character Encyclopaedia. Her characters appeared in various locations around the world on exhibitions such as The Freaky People in St.Petersburg, Russia, The little bird project in Hannover/Germany and lately at the Unreal event at Bios, Athens.”

• Website

13. Igor Šćekić

Representing: Zagreb, Croatia.

Igor Šćekić is a rare breed of graphic designer who is heavily influenced by traditional surreal artists like Salvador Dali, Rembrandt, and others. This influence translates onto his canvas into a stunning blend of traditional and new age digital art.

• Website

14. Marek Okon

Representing: Lublin, Poland.

Marek is a very talented digital painter who looks at his paintings as scenes from movies. He tries to capture the most pivotal moment that will make his art look explosive and amazing.

• Website

15. Evgeny Kiselev

Representing: St. Petersburg, Russia.

Evgeny’s works are highly unique, using the basic tools of symmetry, tiling, geometry and color to create a complex and kaleidoscopic end result. He has been featured in Computer Arts magazine and has completed work for big brands like Snickers, SanDisk and Unicef.

• Website

16. Jerico Santander

Representing: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

Jerico is a master at creating surrealistic photo manipulations that are so well composed they look like a snapshot of an alternate dimension. He has done work for Desktopography and MTV and is a member of the depthCORE collective.

• Website

17. Erik Johansson

Representing: Gothenburg, Sweden.

Erik is a young designer from Sweden with an exceptional talent for photo manipulation and retouching. His skills turn everyday scenes on their heads and are often humorous and clever, depicting impossible situations with extreme realism. Erik is also a talented photographer and shoots much of his own source material.

• Website

18. Stefan Lacut

Representing: Ploiesti/Timisoara, Romania.

“Stefan Lucut is 21 years old. He is from Ploiesti/ Romania, now based in Timisoara/Romania. In 2000 he won a painting contest and 8 computers for his gymnasium school. Rita Badulescu was the first teacher that guided and supported him and his graphic design abilities. He successfully finished Architecture High School. In his third year at Art University in Timisoara, Stefan is now working as a freelancer.”

• Website

19. Bram Vanhaeren

Representing: Kapelien, Belgium.

“Bram is a 18 year old designer from Belgium who works with his 20 year old brother. They are both currently in school studying design professionally. Although they are still in school, they have an impressive looking mix of work in their portfolio.”

• Website

20. Aziz Melibayev

Representing: Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Aziz has a unique look to his work. It is a bit of illustration work combined with Photoshop to create a classic collage look. This style of his has landed him some big name clients, including Esquire magaizne for which he has done a number of pieces for.

• Website

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Cgtuts+ – 3D

• 

  How to Create a Video Game Dumpster: The Complete Current-Gen Workflow

  As technology evolves, the tools and requirements for creating current-gen game art are constantly changing. In this tutorial we will learn the current game art workflow in its entirety, from the low-poly model all the way to final game-ready asset. We will create a realistic grimy dumpster suitable for any urban setting.

  This mammoth video training series features over 194 minutes of video instruction on all aspects of game art creation, including creating the low-poly and high-poly models, the UVW unwrap, baking normal maps from high-poly, and creating diffuse, specular and detail bump textures.

  Visit Article

• 

  Create Amazingly Realistic Renders Using Advanced Render in Cinema 4D

  Maxon’s 11th release of Cinema 4D introduces significant improvements to Advanced Render. AR 3 now uses two new algorithms (Irradiance and Quasi-Monte Carlo), making it much easier and faster to get clean, and beautiful renders than ever before. In this tutorial we will learn how to take advantage of these amazing new features!

  Visit Article

• 

  Sculpt, Model and Texture a Low-Poly Skull in Blender

  Normal maps are widely used in games to make low poly models look high poly. In this tutorial you will learn how to create a high res Skull model, generate a normal map from that model and learn how to apply this to its low poly version.

  Techniques covered in this tutorial include multires sculpting, baking a normal map, baking ambient occlusion and applying the maps to a low poly model.

  Visit Article

• 

  Model, Sculpt and Texture a Demon-like Monster in 3ds Max and ZBrush

  This is a multi-part tutorial on creating a Demon-like ‘Lok Warrior’ with realistic muscle anatomy. On the first day of this tutorial we created a base mesh for our character using poly modeling. On the second day, we took the mesh into ZBrush and sculpted the intricate muscle anatomy. On the third day we will texture the monster.

  Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

• 

  Create a Spectacular Crash Animation With Maya Dynamics

  It is always great to learn new animation tools and techniques that can help you to bring your creations to life. In this tutorial we will learn how to use Maya’s powerful animation, dynamics, and camera tools to create an explosive crash effect between two vehicles.

  Day 1, Day 2.

Aetuts+ – After Effects

• 

  War! Or How to Create a 3D Particle Generated Video Display

  Wes comes back with another adrenalin fueled piece that is sure to become an Aetuts+ favorite. Using Trapcode Form as the basis to display video, he shows how to use the audio reactors built in to form to achieve something very very cool.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create an Effect Inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum End Credits Sequence

  In a very clever use of Trapcode Particular, this tutorial shows us how to create an effect that is inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum end credits sequence.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create a Split-Flap Type Display

  Split-Flap-What? It’s the term used for displays that are found in train stations and airports, where they typically display departure and/or arrival information and do that cool flipping of letters to display the new information.

  This tutorial does not show how to create the effect from scratch but instead it is a tutorial to explain how to use the project file created by Mattias Peresini who runs the totally awesome mattrunks website which has incredible tutorials for After Effects in French. We are very happy to have Mattias doing his first English tutorial for us here at Aetuts+.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create a Sci-Fi Movie Title Sequence

  This tutorial covers the creation of a space-like si-fi title sequence from scratch. Michael shows us how you can easily create a visually interesting and impressive title animation with some simple title cards and text animation. The tutorial uses the Twitch plugin from Video Copilot, though a similar effect could be obtained by manual keyframing.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create a Surprising Billowing Cloth Reveal

  It’s amazing how much pseudo-3D you can do in After Effects today. This tutorial will focus on using a new plugin that brings 3D bicubic deformations to layers that allows you to truly bend and twist layers in 3D space. If you are familiar with 3D packages, this is true displacement as opposed to just bump mapping.

  Continue Reading

Nettuts+ – Web Development

• 

  24 JavaScript Best Practices for Beginners

  As a follow-up to “30 HTML and CSS Best Practices”, this week, we’ll review JavaScript! Once you’ve reviewed the list, be sure to let us know what little tips you’ve come across!

  Visit Article

• 

  20 Tools to Make the Life of a Web Developer Easier

  Developing a well-rounded aesthetically pleasing website can be a daunting task even for the most seasoned web developer. You must identify current trends and standards and determine ways to incorporate them into your designs. Luckily, there are many free tools which are available that can help you speed up your efforts and work in a more efficient manner. Below are 20 tools which are sure to benefit all developers.

  Visit Article

• 

  Outside the Box Navigation With jQuery

  Just about every website uses the regular navigation concepts we’re all used to. After awhile this can get pretty boring, especially for designers who thrive on creativity. While mimicking the OS X dock and stacks isn’t new, it’s certainly not common.

  Visit Article

• 

  10 Essential SQL Tips for Developers

  SQL is yet another essential language for developers wishing to create data-driven websites. However, many developers are unfamiliar with various aspects of SQL; so in this article, we’ll analyze ten essential tips.

  Visit Article

• 

  Build a Custom CMS Using PHP and MySQLi: New Plus Tutorial

  In this video tutorial, we’ll be building a custom Content Management System (CMS) using PHP and MySQLi. We’ll start off by pulling our content from a MySQL database and then build a CMS admin panel to manage our content. For easy content management, we will be using TinyMCE as our editor. I hope you enjoy the screencast. Join today!

  Visit Article

Flashtuts+ – Flash, ActionScript, Flex

• 

  Animate a Continuous Quad Run Cycle With Flash

  In this tutorial we’ll create a quad run cycle. The animation will be created using simple lines. Along the way we’ll cover a bit of work flow and animation theory, then near the end we’ll use Motion Tween and ActionScript to move the animal across the screen.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create an Apple Inspired Flash Preloader

  Preloaders are a must have in your Flash applications. They tell the user that the program is running but can’t show any contents until they’re sufficiently loaded. In this tutorial I’ll help you create an Apple inspired preloader MovieClip and teach you how to display some loading information. All this using Flash and ActionScript 3.0.

  Continue Reading

• 

  50 Flash Twitterers Worth Following

  There’s no denying how useful Twitter can be when it comes to trawling the web for content. With that in mind, here’s a quick roundup of 50 twitterers who tweet some of the most useful Flash-related content around.

  (It goes almost without saying; if you have any more who deserve a mention, we want to hear them!)

  Continue Reading

• 

  Using the YouTube Player API with ActionScript 3.0

  Though more and more of us are developing with AS3, certain technologies remain in AS2. This forces us to find fast, simple ways to use these technologies within our projects. One such technology is YouTube.

  The current YouTube player is still in AS2 and until it’s updated to AS3, we have to create a wrapper to allow us to load videos into our projects. Remember, stealing the FLV feed is against YouTube’s terms and conditions, so let’s do it the right way using the chromed or chromeless player.

  Continue Reading

• 

  AS3 101

  Pads are an extremely useful device for all styles of music, allowing for warm, calming, uplifting, sad, ominous, or even threatening effects. This tutorial shows you one simple way to create your own unique pads.

  Creating your own pads is yet another way to help build a custom library and develop a personal voice. And by having more control over the various elements that make up your pad, you have more freedom to add subtle layers of complexity and imperfection for an organic sound.

  AS3 101: Variables, AS3 101: Functions.

Audiotuts+ – Audio and Music

• 

  How to Use Saturation Effectively

  Saturation is an often misunderstood process, sometimes written off as basic distortion effect, too subtle for most uses. While this isn’t entirely inaccurate, saturation has a lot to offer and can impart a true analog flavor on our mixes if used correctly. Most saturation plug-ins are pretty simple devices, but the real key to using the effect is understanding how it works. Let’s take a look at the process in detail and then we can go through a few examples of a few saturation plug-ins in action.

  Continue Reading

• 

  A Guide to the Electric Guitar

  This article is a general overview of the electric guitar. We cover the woods, acoustic sound, construction, necks and fretboards, pickups and hardware and show you how to purchase and maintain an electric guitar that you’ll love for years to come.

  Continue Reading

• 

  7 Places to Find Inspiration for Songs

  Where do you find inspiration? It is as intangible and elusive as a ghost. You know when you have it, and can’t manufacture it when you don’t. Without it, creative work is a chore, and often a fuitless one. With it, magic happens.

  The question of where inspiration comes from interests me, and over the years I’ve kept notes about where the inspiration for successful songs has come from. It has been found in many and varied places. Most of all, it comes from real life – especially from sincere insights into life truths, and emotional responses to events and relationships. Some artists seem to have discovered ways to help the creative process, and inspire inspiration.

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  Working With the Intangibles of a Mix — Audio Plus

  In this week’s Audio Plus content, Bobby Owsinski teaches us how to set about creating a mix that works beyond the basic techniques of getting levels right. This tutorial is about planning the mix and creating the balance that makes everything come together. Bobby is the author of many best-selling audio books including The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook — this is a tutorial of expert advice that’s not to be missed!

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  How to Use Reverb to Create Your Own Pads

  Pads are an extremely useful device for all styles of music, allowing for warm, calming, uplifting, sad, ominous, or even threatening effects. This tutorial shows you one simple way to create your own unique pads.

  Creating your own pads is yet another way to help build a custom library and develop a personal voice. And by having more control over the various elements that make up your pad, you have more freedom to add subtle layers of complexity and imperfection for an organic sound.

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Psdtuts+ – Adobe Photoshop

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  Making Sense of the Warp Tool – It’s All About the Lines

  Every now and then a project comes along that challenges me to use one of Photoshop’s tools more than ever. This particular image was part of a series of ads I was working on with photographer Richard Radstone for a clothing line based in Colombia, South America. he challenge with this one was to wrap an accordion around the palm tree like a giant snake.

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  It’s Time to Create a’Neo-Constructivist’ Poster with Photoshop

  Constructivist graphic design is often associated with communist politics and propaganda, but it’s more than that, Constructivism is about using bright colors, playing with lightness, perspective, geometrical forms, besides photomontage techniques and digital collage. This time I’ll dare to name this tutorial a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ design. It’s time to get started!

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  Illustrate a Sensitive Subject Using Poser, Cinema 4D, and Photoshop – Psd Plus Tutorial

  We have another Psd Plus tutorial exclusively available to Plus members today. If you want to take your illustrative skills to the next dimension, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. Discover how to use Multiple 3D programs to create a composed render, then use Photoshop to add texture, polish, and refinement!

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  Creating a Spy Fly Photo Manipulation

  Welcome to a new Photoshop based tutorial. This time I’ll try to describe the main steps in creating a dead robot fly. Before we get started, I would like to thank Hortensiu Milstein (Personal Portfolio) for the great collaboration. We decided to make this tutorial a year ago, but the lack of time postponed the realization of this tut. This piece was actually created for a contest and off course the first prize was the result. The concept of this illustration was to take a picture and be creative, use parts of that image and create something unique. So, let’s get to it!

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  How to Create a Moka Express Icon

  The staple of every Italian breakfast is home espresso coffee, brewed with the iconic ‘Moka Express’ pot. In this tutorial, we’ll create a Moka entirely from scratch using shapes, layer effects and a bunch of productivity-enhancing tips. We will then proceed to turn our design into a Leopard and Vista-ready professional icon. So get your coffee mugs ready and let’s start brewing!

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Vectortuts+ – Vector & Illustrator

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  How to Create a Rocketing, Vector Aircraft Shuttle

  In this tutorial, we’ll be creating a illustration of a speeding aircraft shuttle. It’s going to be all vector, but along the way we’ll use blends, and other techniques that give this rocketing aircraft an interesting look. Let’s get to it!

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  How to Create a Stinking Zombie Flesh-Eater in Illustrator

  In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a cartoon zombie in Illustrator. Starting by creating a fresh corpse, we will then ‘yuck’ it up using a number of techniques. Let’s ‘rip’ this one apart!

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  How to Create a Smokin’ Western Type Treatment in Illustrator

  In this easy tutorial, I will show you how to create a western type treatment primary using Illustrator’s Effects. Using the effects from this tutorial, you can easily apply them to other type treatment and logos. Let’s get started!

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  How to Design a Custom Newspaper Icon – Vector Plus Tutorial

  We have another great Vector Plus tutorial available exclusively for Plus members today. If you want to learn how to craft a custom newspaper icon in Illustrator, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. In this tutorial, Jonathan takes us through the process of using Illustrator’s tools to construct this icon. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!

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  How to Create a Fun, Illustrated Skateboard Design

  Today we are going to be making a skateboard design. I will show you how I turned a funky looking character into the skateboard you see. The great thing about skateboard designs is that there are no limitations whatsoever. You can make a skateboard design about anything you want and let’s learn how!

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You’ll have to decide which are so overused they’ve become dull, those which still have life in them, and those that you can breath creativity into. This article is complete with a smorgasbord of resources and tutorials to show you how to pull these ideas off well and increase your stack of resources as well. Let’s have some fun!

A – Abstract Renders

Often artists make excellent 3D renders and use Photoshop to add a quick background and lens blur. It sounds easy to blend a 3D renders with a photo, but many artists don’t put that extra effort into it. 3D Shards, people, animals and correct lighting help make the piece more photo-realistic. Dynamic blur is a good technique to show a sense of speed or distance and is not used enough.

Resources:

• MrRoBiN Abstract render pack – Similar to what’s used in the piece below!
• Basic C4D tutorial – Abstract Renders in Maxon Cinema 4D (C4D)
• How to Integrate 3D Images into Dynamic Scenes – Psd Plus tutorial

Artist: MrRoBiN

B – Blender

"Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite" it is the most advanced 3D program which is currently free. Cinema 4D and 3D Max cost huge amounts of money, so this is perfect for those starting in 3D design.

It is becoming increasing more popular with the credit crunch in most countries. "It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, com positing, and creating interactive 3D applications."

Resources:

• Download Blender
• Modeling a Human Head Part 1

Artist IceVampyr

C – Comic Strips

Comic strips can be drawn, made in 3D, painted and photo manipulated, so know wonder they are very popular on the internet. Some artists go for simple drawings with short funny punch lines, some go for books and make very high quality pieces.

It’s often the ideas that are overused, rather than the graphics! There are some great comics out there, such as the “Cyanide and Happiness” comics, which use simple art and short snazzy punch lines, but are great to keep reading.

Resources:

• More Cyanide and Happiness comics
• Garfield comics

Artist: Kris-wilson, for Cyanide and Happiness

D – Digital Geometry

Being able to create amazing 3D text quickly in Cinema 4D or any other 3D program has great advantages. They look much better than a simple bevel and emboss effect in Photoshop and often are the main focal in these works.

They are often completely overused by novice graphic designers, although practice does makes perfect. It is very hard to get an outstanding look from 3D text, but when it is done well, it sure pays off.

Resources:

• Fresh 3D text tutorial – on DigitalArts
• New way to create 3D text tutorial – on Computer Arts
• Flaming meteor text effect – an old but still great PSD tutorial

Artist: Nick Ainley of shinybinary.com

E – Expert Photography

When you can take a photograph of an object, which looks Photoshoped, you are clearly an expert or a very lucky photographer. Photography is an important step in creating most pieces of art, or at least finding photos to use for your digital manipulations. Taking your own picture may take longer, but they should be easier to edit and you can also take photos in front of a green screen allowing for easier extraction.

Resources:

• 23 Magical Photographs To Believe That Are Not Photoshopped

F – Fonts

Your computer often has a set of default fonts that many use, rather than downloading more each time they make something new. Times New Roman and Trajan Pro are often used. Check out great sites such as dafont for some amazing free fonts to add to your collection. Or if you need better tracking, alternate glyphs, or other pro font features, then you may want to purchase some fonts.

Resources:

• 1001 free fonts
• Lynotype.com

Check out justcreativedesign for their list of fonts you should know.

G – Gradients

Photoshop comes with a set of default gradients but it’s good to learn how to make your own. There are countless pieces which are colored by these default color, so consider opening up your gradient palette. Black and white, orange and purple and rainbow colors are some of the most common to break away from.

Resources:

• Free Gradients from myPhotoshopbrushes
• Working with gradient maps at Digtal Photography School

H – Honest Products

This is the photo manipulation of turning everyday products into the true reflection of what you are actually getting. "Sometimes, though, a company tries to create a brand that doesn’t really reflect what the product is really like." This is where Photoshop comes in and you can change the product to your true reflection of it. This is a concept you can have some fun with.

I – Impossible Objects

The Pen rose triangle, also known as the Pen rose tribar, is an impossible object. It appears to be a solid object, made of three straight beams of square cross-section, which meet pair wise, at right angles where the vertices of the triangle form. Have fun making your own impossible objects.

Resources:

• How to draw the impossible triangle

J – Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is the use of differing colors coming together to create different moods in a piece. An example of this would be blues and reds coming together, blue portraying ideas of life, peace and happiness which would juxtapose the red colors symbolizing death, blood and conflict, etc. These pieces can be found in space manipulations, as it is easy to split the colors into two.

Other examples:

• Speed space by Superiorgamer
• Gambit by Lotay
• Fiery Photoshop Space Explosion Tutorial here on Psdtuts

Artist: Matkracken

K – Kuler

Adobe Kuler is a well known program, it makes it possible to create, share and explore new color schemes. Kuler is not an overused graphics technique, it is more of a overused graphics tool. It is great for beginners to explore the world of color, as well as experts to try new ideas and keep their work fresh and original.

Resources:

• Download Kuler
• Explore color themes
• Using Adobe Kuler to Enhance Your Photoshop Color Workflow

L – Light Bulbs

What can we manipulate inside a light bulb today? How about a fish tank? There are a large amount of people seeing what they can place inside light bulbs. Fish, forests, spiders, people and cats have all been done. What is going to be next? This is fun to do, as light bulbs represent ideas, so placing things inside them work well for fusing conceptual elements.

Artist: mceric

M – Movement

On a digital camera you can turn the exposure time up, which allows for you to capture light streaks and movement. A good SLR camera will often cost you a good deal of money, so it’s more affordable and easier to stay inside Photoshop to add these effects.

Resources:

• How to create intense light streaks in Photoshop
• How to Create an Interplay of Abstract Light Streaks – Unique Psdtuts+ light streaks tutorial

Painting with light by stoiclee

N – Nebulas

Where you find a planet you almost always find a nebula. They are often placed in via brushes, but more talented artists can paint their own. The easiest and most realistic way to add a nebula is to get free images. The Hubble telescope web site takes many thousands of pictures of galaxies and is the highest quality source you will find, though be careful and make sure you read the terms of use first!

Resources

• Nebula Brushes – For the easy way out use these great brushes.
• Nebula stock images- Collection of stock images, you have to pay but they are sure worth it.

Artist: thalesduarte

O – Omega Code

The band Omega Code will release a limited number of 2300 posters, which are going to be printed and distributed around the globe along side their music.

23 artists were invited to illustrate, among them you can find names like Joshua Davis, Si Scott, Mike Cina, Michael Paul Young, Mate Steinforth, Matthew Curry, Nelson Balaban, Tom Muller, Motomichi Nakamura, Danny Franzreb, Robert Lindström, Andreas Pihlström, Chris Hewitt, Hello& Hikimori, Sebastian Onufszak, Animatório, Colletivo, Nacionale, Unstru, Tomás Peña, João Oliveira, Peter Jaworowski, Umeric and Doomedo.

The Omega Code symbol is the four overlapping triangles and one of the most popular graphics icons this year. Check out the bands web site. Check out other uses of the triangles here.

Artist: R0GUEART

P – Planets

Blending planets into a photo manipulations is hard work. Many artists make the photos and planet look like two separate layers. The most common solution to blending planets in is to add a thick layer of clouds or to place an amazing fractal on top.

Resources:

• Lunarcell – An amazing plug-in allowing "fractal, reality-based, or just strange worlds in seconds."
• Planet Renders – Don’t have time to make your own? These high quality brushes are perfect.
• Create Spectacular Concept Art in Photoshop – tutorial on this subject on Psdtuts+

Artist kire1987

Q – Quietus

Quietus is another term for death. Death is often placed inside photo manipulations in the form of skulls. They appear most commonly in a vector format, but you can manipulate peoples faces with skull photos. As well as looking cool, skulls are also a great way to scare a viewer. Adding skulls at the bottom of a dark pit suggests that someone or something is murdering people – always fun!

Resources:

• Vector skulls
• Skull stock photos
• How to Create a Hellacious Flaming Skull in Photoshop – a flaming Skull tutorial on Psdtuts+

Artist: iRoot made this spooky wallpaper

R – Reflection

Often if an artist has a space to fill, adding a completely pointless text reflection is perfect – right! Often a simple flip and reducing opacity occurs, but this is totally incorrect. In ordered to do a proper text reflection you have to take the lighting and the surface into consideration, you have to get the correct perspective. It does take some practice to make a good reflection.

Resources:

• Basic text reflection tutorial

Create a Layered Glowing Text Effect on Psdtuts+

S – Splatters

A splatter brush can save almost any artist in Photoshop. If you have ran out of ideas, grab the splatter brush, and you get a instant background! They are also very good to use as clipping masks.

Resources:

• 500+ splatter brushes
• Splatter vectors

Examples of use:

• Splattergraphics.com
• Merged with photos
• As a background

Or as a T-shirt like above, made by me.

T – Trees

Trees seem to appear in loads of photo manipulations today. They are a good way of showing nature, as well as beauty within a piece. Often the tree flows out of an object or wraps around an object.

Resources:

• Tree vectors
• Free stock images

"The music nature" is a striking piece by Ethernity

U – Understanding Physics

Understanding physics is one of the hardest things to do in graphics design, often when photo manipulating you are looking to make something impossible or out of this world. When you need to manipulate a picture on earth, getting the physics correct is important. For example, making reflections in puddles, speed of cars, lighting, gravity (not having objects floating), airbrushing and clouds all correct in one piece is hard work.

Resources:

• Photoshop Disasters
• 12 worst Photoshop mistakes

V – Vectors

"Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics." Vectors are very common but take a lot of time and practice, when starting out don’t choose the most detailed object you can find!

As we can see we have another artist who has based their piece on the idea of the shape of a triangle, and then have images appearing to pop-out, or have everything contained within a triangle. There are almost endless ideas which you can use with triangles. Play around and find what is right for you.

Resources:

• Go media – They are worth every penny.
• GraphicRiver – Growing collection of stock vectors

Artist: recycledwax made this fantastic vector

W – Water World

Placing objects underwater has never been such fun as with Photoshop! You can take almost any scene you imagine and place it in the depths of the ocean. Add a couple of fish with some bubbles, and there you have it!

Resources:

• Flood plug-in
• Learn to flood cities in Photoshop tutorial
• Learn How to Digitally Paint an Underwater Galaxy – Psdtuts+ advanced underwater tutorial

Artist: Mandrak made this fishy work

X – X-lines

I was struggling to find anything for X then a friend told me about something he called X lines. These are the abstract renders in general shape of an X. Although there doesn’t seem to be a name for them, they are common to see in many pieces. If you know the proper name for them, please let me know in the comments!

Artist: Strangeprogram

Y – Yes it is real….

Some people like to manipulate pictures and make them so real that people cannot tell. They give them a false backstory to go with them as well. These pictures can end up in the news before someone figures they are fake. This story was posted with the picture below:

"There was a family on holiday in Australia for a week and a half when husband, wife and their 15 year old son decided to go scuba diving. The husband is in the navy and has had some scuba experience. His son wanted a pic of his mum and dad in all their gear so got the under water camera on the go. When it came to taking the pic the dad realized that the son look like he was panicking as he took it and gave the ‘OK’ hand sign to see if he was alright.

The son took the pic and swam to the surface and back to the boat as quick as he could so the mum and dad followed to see if he was OK. When they got back to him he was scrambling onto the boat and absolutely shitting himself.

When the parents asked why , he said ‘there was a shark behind you’ and the dad thought he was joking but the skipper of the boat said it was true and that they wouldn’t’t believe him if he told them what it was.. As soon as they got back to the hotel they put the pic onto the laptop and this is what they saw"

It took a long time before anyone figured that it was fake and in fact just a photo manipulation.

Resources:

• Read more about the shark
• The accidental tourist

Z – Zip It

Again where is it possible to add a zip? It is as simple as finding a picture of a zipper and then using the clone tool to create a zipped edge against something. Then add a picture in underneath. Easy and effective, and it makes for a very common manipulation. Awe, so cute, kittens in live alligators luggage!

Credit goes to Caveatscoti for this gruesome picture.

Conclusion

I hope you had fun with this post! There are some ridiculous and overused graphic concepts shown here. Though you’ve likely found a couple nuggets of visual awesomeness as well! It’s up to you to wade through all the clutter of digital graphics and find that creative spark, which ignites your artistic passion!

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