First comment, yah!

I do like the new design. Waaay better than the brown one. And some forums would be great, so we could chat with other PSDTut fans. If you do add them, I’ll be one of your first members!

great new design, collis - it looks clean.
it is too bad that the PSD will only be available for the paying subcscribers - although i understand the reason behind your decision.

i hope more tutorial will come on PSDTuts!

i see no footer here - is that intentional, collis?

though i liked your brown on brown, this is nice too. as long as you keep the great tuts coming, i’ll always visit this site!!

Completely understandable but please make it possible to pay one off for specific tutorials.

Oh, and please change the text colour of the comments box!! Light grey on white atm so apoligies for any typos!!

Nice, but previous was much better!

The brown site was better! But i will get used to this. Keep the tuts coming!

Nice new design. Great site. I check it daily.

The old design wasn’t bad at all! But I do like reading on white space on the computer vs. a dark color.

Are you going to write a tutorial on how you created this design and chopped it up in WP? Just curious.

Only complaint: the font color in the comment box is too light - made it difficult to type this comment

Wow, subscriptions to download the file, why dont you just host it on rapidshare or something. I am glad the adds are almost gone, but I would rather have some more adds than pay to download a psd.
The new site looks alright, and I love the tutorials, but seriously, rethink the pay for download, not tight

Great idea to charge 8$/month! I’m willing to pay!

By the way, I agree with stevi3, It’s really hard to type in this post due to the extremly light gray color in this box.

Keep up the good work!

Everything is perfect now but I would move trackbacks below comments, and the font color in the comment box is too light

The old design had one great thing going for it - it looked original. This one? … not so much. Just another site using same design with different colors.

Change is good, but i liked the old one much more… by the way: i can’t read my own comment, because the grey font is nearly white! thanks for your great tutorials.

I just failed to breathe when I saw your new design!! Good job!!

I agree with stevi3, the font color is too light.
I think the dark one was better, but tihs doesn’t change anything about the high quality of photoshop tutorials.

Keep it up!

I Like the New site…

One Suggestion though! … Perhaps a light Grey behind every second tutorial to distinguish between them as they run into each other at the moment?

Keep up the good work!

i really missed the spoon ! the slogan is meaningful too …

i like the simplicity, but on the other hand, i think i would like to see some more unique design, rather than the ‘common feel’ like this one

There are so many free file hosting servers can’t you upload the psd files to 1 of them?

–Can you do a tutorial in ‘laymens’ terms the steps to setting up a wordpress account, mapping it to an external domain name and editing / applying the style sheet ?..I like the site..although I prefer the white body area to be delineated by a background colour..Great work..I’m away to download all your sample psd’s before the subscription fee comes into play!, Lyns

Nice new design. Great site. I check it daily too

Just to give you guys a small headsup. You get a horizontal scroll in 1024 and the navigation @ the top drops down into two lines.

Looking forward to the next tutorial

I miss the spoon too!
I like the new look, but I think I liked the old one better. anyway, this is now my number one favorite website.
Best of luck!

I miss the spoon as well.. But i like this more than the other version.. The font color here in the Add a comment form is almost white and difficult to read.. But good job..

Brown was great really but that one is ok too (too simple?). Whatever, wonderfull website!

Very good redesign, I like it!
Maybe this design was also suitable for a liquid layout, but it’s ok even this way.

I like the new layout more than the old one. It’s clear and nice as before, but its better readable.
I recommended you site on my blog some days ago. I hope you will keep up the great work.

Greetings from germany,
Peer

This is really nice ! Keep it up
(even though the gray text in these fields is hardly readable!)

Though I won’t be subscribing at any price, I would suggest that $8 is a little high. I can buy Computer Arts magazine for less and that has much better tutorials and far more goodies on the DVD. I’m not intentionally trying to compare you to a professional publication, it was the only comparison I could find around the same price bracket. Which is exactly why I believe $8 to be too high. Not for any personal gain either, just because I’d rather see this site flourish than anything else.

Hello:)

To be honest - I preferred the previous design, and the main reason is that this one looks much like another great site I visit frequently - http://freelanceswitch.com/

Wow, beautiful! Just going to go and explore it a bit more now

Hey! Where’s my spoon? And the coffee mug at the end? Did you make yourself a coffee and made off with it?

All this white and red makes it feel… I dunno… first-aid-ish. Maybe all the white can be a more cream colour? I am just talking based on what I feel and not out of some artistic reasoning, so do what you want with this suggestion.

I do like the cleaner look, and the lighter background vs. dark. We tend to be creatures of habit, so change is always good to make us not complacent

Nice design!

I found just one bug: in Opera 9.23 the right rounded corner of top links shows in wrong position…
No problems in Firefox or IE7

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/9307/psdtutsscreenxg5.gif

I have to admit, i am very disappointed in this design.

I loved the old design, it was very unique and the main reason i kept coming back. Now i just feel this looks boring, a real shame you didn’t just tweak the old one.

I think qureyoon comment is spot on.

I think the logo needs some work. Spacing is uneven and I think you should have used a less round typeface. Other than that, I like the design very much.

Keep the good tutorials coming!

i kinda liked the old site better as white appears very glaring on my screen xD and oh dear this font on the comment box is indeed too light…

It looks good, some fonts are too low contrast though (like this font in the comment box). Great job

Why not serve the zip files over Bittorrent and try to still keep the site free?

I miss the spoon

this one’s still nice but i preferred the old design…

Love it. Great design, and great tutorials!

Go back to the dark side! I visit the site everyday and thought the darker layout was better. So much different (and WAY better) than every other tutorial site out there on the net. Plus, the designs really jumped off the page. Regardless, it’s the content that is king on this site for tutorials and inspiration.

I also think the old layout looked better. Ive been with this site since its started, and Ive only downloaded 2 files. I really dont want to pay $8 a month to rarely download the psds. Any chance you can let the average viewer download 1 file a month? (kind of like Mayang)

I like, nice…

more tutorials please…

I think the new design is brilliant. Creating badass photoshop effects and flashy graphics is one thing, but mastering simple web design is a whole new level of talent. Great job.

I definitely think the old one looked better, this has too much white to be honest - no offence.

I agree with Mike, I cant see what I’m typing because the color is so light. The only other thing I’m not a fan of is the red box behind the links in the header needs to be bigger. As of now it’s practically touching the letters…just make that red box larger. Other that than, great new re-design. I love it. Look much more professional and clean.

Brian

Much better! The new design is cleaner and more usable. I especially like the typography and the attractive colour scheme.

My only criticism would be the text fields which are borderline unreadable. This is on Safari 3; I suspect other browsers are affected too.

I think the design of the new site is much more mature. Great work!

To White ! To to white.
There is nolonger any style here. It feels like any old lame blog now.

I wont kiss up to ya, this is just to plain now.

I like this design a lot better than the brown one, it does seem to lack colour in some places, but I think it’s nice.

O come on, you should keep everything free, and the brown made everything easier to read. It is different but it added a nice touch and it defined PSDtuts. No other website has such a brown and i liked it

I like it better….other than the text box while typing this message (too light).

It’s ok…i did like the other version better, mainly because this one looks like most of it’s inspiration came from the http://freelanceswitch.com/ website…

Not trying to call you out or anything! I just liked the other version better!

must be honest, I’m not sure I like this design. Bit to plain imo

FYI…
There are some layout issues when you attempt to conduct a search (Win; FF2 and IE 6).

I too was a fan of the brown, but I’ll still come back here for the killer tutorials. Keep up the good work.

If bandwidth and money is the issue … there are a number (dozens) of online file upload sites. Megashare, Rapidshare, Filefactory, etc etc etc.

On the other hand, if this is just an excuse to have a paid subscription section then you will ignore my comment and claim otherwise.

Awesome, i really like this new design!

personally id rather a dark background with white text.. i read alot at night and it hurts my eyes

haha anyways i like the site now its clean and works well..

good job mate..

Actually, I liked the brown design better! A white background maybe seems pure, but causes less readability for me. However, I love your tutorials! So please don’t stop writing!

You promised a tutorial on redesigning the site, right?

Hey, Good job! Although I am missing the dark background but overall, the site identity and navigation look so much better now, but the comment is very hard to write because text color is so light. I think you are going to fix this soon, right?

Oh! One more thing. I always wonder if you can provide print friendly version for the tutorials.
Thanks

Good work! I actually am fond of both designs - both have their strong points but I do agree with most of the other comments on the contrast of the comments text. You can’t see it but I’m squinting while typing this! lol Keep up the great work - I love the tutorials on this site and will be one of your first paying members!

Hey there

i think you are very brave to have such a bold shift from dark to light. Maybe it’s just that I’m now using Firefox 3, but this VERY light gray text I’m typing right now is nigh on impossible to see.

I think your subscription service is AWESOME, and I really hope it works for you. I’ve sent many people to your site and now I’ll highly recommend they subscribe for you.

I might suggest a slightly higher contrast for your copy on the background, but all in all I like what you’ve done, and where you are taking this site.

Keep it up!!

I like the new design. Though the comment input box color is much too light.

I’m gonna look into submitting some tutorials. This site is great, and I’d love to help out.

I like this one.. Nice job!

Ok something negative. Some fonts are way too low contrast! …

Hi Collis,
I am interested in writing tutorials.
I have some questions:
1- What kind of tutorials are you needing?
2- what level of complexity it is required? min/max?
3- what kind of tutorial will not be accepted? - supposing that the format is fine and the tutorial is original-

Thanks by your time an consideration.

Pablo.

The new design is great, except from the color of the text. A true black (#FFFFFF) would be preferable, instead of a dark grey. In my opinion, it’s much more legible.

you guys are too picky, this site is just as good

love the red / white / brown combination

Boy, This site has suddenly changed from amazingly good one to just another site. The dark colors gave the site an identity of its own and it was definitely more soothing to the eye. I request.. no no plead to bring back the original. or modify it with some soothing colors, not this glaring white.

Seond, readability of fonts is all about contrast and not any particular color. so Grey on white is as difficult as brown on black, the point here seems to the point of alphabets (pun intended). Increase font size to satisfy everyone. However those really into photoshop shoud have a keen eye and shoud not try to create storm in a tes cup over wheather the site is fit for the visually impaired (sorry for my arrogance).

The grey in the comment box I think is a leftover from previous design and so it will be polished out in a few days. Our dear Collis too damn intelligent to make such mistakes.

I am completely in agrement with your decision to make .psd exclusive. Learning a ps tutorial is not about just making a copy, it is learning all the steps and exploring the hidden possibilities. Any good student should avoid downloading the finished product and try to make ones own. Using someone elses psd doesnt help much in the long run.

However I am against commercialization of creativity. I hope your site doesnt change to one of those “Premium tutorial learning site” like so many others on the net. Tutorials should remain free. I am a big fan of WIKI, DEVIANT ART, TERRAGEN, BLENDER etc. If your site changes I am pretty sure many people will shift to DEVIANT ART for inspiration.

The idea for providing video tutorials to premium subscribers sounds wrong. It also sounds like “Have money? get the best. Otherwise get the rest!”. I felt the motto of this site was”ONLY THE BEST”. and I sincerely wish u would keep it the same.

Enough said for a day. Its your site and you should have full creative control. So CHARGE AHEAD WITH ALL YOUR PLANS. Dont be angry over my words Its easier being a critic than a creator

My sincerest wishes towards the success of this site. Best of luck. You have started something amazing, I dream it will turn only better.

You’ll have some tuts on the way!! Love the new look!

Morning guys! Yikes, didn’t realise how low contrast this comment box is

Thanks for the comments all, yeah the brown did give some identity, I’ll see what I can do to characterize this place a bit more now. And damn I REALLY need to fix this comment box, it’s terrible!!

Since I just discovered your site this ast week, I was stunned by the gorgeous browns because it was different from all the white/grey/black everywhere and yet still cutting edge. This might be easier to read…but I could stare at the browns all day.

Nice! Maybe I’ll write a post abut this redesign.

Hey folks, well back by popular demand is the spoon in the header. Boy I never realised people liked that spoon!

Also fixing a few other bits and pieces, font contrast has been upped - you know I’ve never ever put up a design and not had someone tell me the contrast was too low. You’d think I would have learnt by now

The new version is nice — it’s very, very clean and snappy. There’s a lot to be said for that. But in this context, I’m not sure it’s the best thing for the site. The commenters above who noted that it’s not as cool as the previous version are on the right track. The new design lacks almost all of the character that the previous one had. The previous design said something about who you are, and what the site does. The new version not so much. I like that the new version is cleaner, but bringing back some of the color would make it pop again.

Just wanted to add to the feedback that this new design is the bomb. Very 2.0ish and with a clean taste. Good job.

Much better with the spoon back and slogan. I’m sure you can spice up the rest of the site over time…

Keep posting those amazing tutorials, deffinately the best quality tutorials that i have seen to date!!

Man, I love the new design! I’m thinking about writing some tutorials now! (Even if I would prefer recording - you know: video tuts). Anyway, I would really like getting into the team! Keep it up!

I think you’ve lost you’re identity.

I loved the old site, because it was unique and clean.

This site is relatively clean, but it looks like every other amateur blog / tutorial site out there.

However, in saying that…i’m amoungst the people who absolutely love your work!!

When you change to the new payment system, will anything change with your tutorial content?! At the moment, you exclude screenshots and details of styles. This may become more frustrating, and free tutorials are pointless if we can only access this information by forking out more monthly fees.

Just something to think about.

I love the new layout.
I really wish you all the best for the future…you’re doing an awesome job!!
: )

I also hav a side comment about wordpress. with your image thumbnails on the homepage, how do you link them to the tutorial rather than the image file.

Congratulations
I love the new design! Keep it up!

free things are better than things you pay for.

I like this design and the last design. Though, this one is may be better for the lengthy reads. ¶ If you do a forum, I suggest BBpress. It complements Wordpress and is lite and fast. ¶ Also, I am willing to pay for the occasional useful tutorial download. Thanks again!

I really miss the beautiful brown on brown! I found it much easier to look at, and i agree with the others- it certainly made the designs ‘pop!’ and was unique!

thanks for your dedication to the site- it is very helpful to so many people, and always inspires me in my own work!

love, lint_faery

Personally I preferred the old brown layout, it is also a shame that you have decided not to offer the psd files at the end of the tutorials unless you are a paid subscriber but I can see why you decided to do it.

This design looks great. Simple and readers can go through the content without much difficulties.

I think psdtuts offers the highest pay for tutorial writer on the net. Hope to see all quality work spring up. Your new design is cool. Well Done.

I have to agree with many of the others. I did like the old site better. I enjoyed the darker background because it made the images pop and the text was just as easy if not easier to read. However, it’s good to keep changing things up. I think you are doing the right thing by paying more for tuts. If you are wanting to be one of the best psd tut sites out there, this is a good move. One question… You said that the psd’s would only be available to the subscribers. However, what about the brushes and things that you lead us to additionally??? Will those be for subscribers only as well? Thanks again for the great resource.

Hey guys!

Just to clarify a couple of things about the subscriber thing I mentioned, the *only* thing that you will have to pay to get is the sample PSD download. And as someone mentioned I will make sure we change the tutorials so that they make sense even without the PSD (e.g. explaining layer styles).

Anyhow it’s probably still a little way off as I tried to install a payment plugin for wordpress and it didn’t work so well

Well I liked the old design better, but thats just me. The new design isn’t bad though.

Incidentally somebody asked why we don’t switch to something like Rapidshare, actually if you look closely there are a lot of restrictions, for example a free account has a “Max parallel downloads” of 1, so obviously that won’t work (we get many thousands an hour when the site is being dugg), and even the premium accounts of a lot of limits (25gb p/5-day download limit for example).

But most importantly its worth remembering PSDTUTS is only 3 months old, and it has 15,000 visitors a day on average and up to triple that when something gets popular. Now think what the traffic might be in 6 months or a year… and you can quickly see it gets out of control.

Anyhow it’d be good to earn some money without ads here And then we can pay even more for tutorial writers!! Also I think I’m going to hire an editor in a month or two so that the site is updated more often!

Damn dude, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LISTENED!!

Wish you stuck with the old design. It was different, it was easy on your eyes. The old site was nice and mellow.

Right now, on my screen the white is almost eye piercing. The red looks alarming, seem like someones blood got splattered. Maybe the person who stole the coffee cup?!

I liked the coffee mug!

No offense dude but at the moment I see the head, arms, feet. But no body. WHERES THE BODY?!

Also dude, subscription for the files. Hmm, I don’t know. I love the high quality tutorials but I have my medical insurance, car payments, game subscriptions, cbt subscriptions, and everything else to pay monthly. The extra $8 USD ad’s up.

Maybe consider a similar approach to what Deviantart has?

One webpage design with ads, queued downloads and one where people login to have the ad disappear, instant downloads?

Anyways, just wanted to say that I miss the old brown design. This current design is ehh. White is harsh.
- Marcin

Someone mentioned http://www.freelanceswitch.com.
I really thought that psdtuts was a part of freelanceswitch and that would have been cool but turns out it isn’t?

Alright then, the tutorials are still amazing and that’s what matters …

I’m sorry you recieved such criticism, because I LOVED the brown style ^_^
Anyway, you always Rock.

The old design was much better. Change for the sake of it I fear.

Hello Collis,

Receive my compliments for your new design. Your site is one of the best Photoshop sites around, not only because of its high quality content, but also in your commitment to offer a high quality design.

Enrique Flouret
The Photoshop Roadmap

Ouch, there you go uniqueness…

I don’t know man. I’m not sure if I would pay 8 bucks a month for tutorials. However good they are.

And I LOVED the brown and the cups of coffee. Too bad the cups weren’t enough to pay the bills.

Nice, but previous was better

Great site! I have to admit though, I did enjoy the darker version of this site better however. Change is good though. Keep up the great work!

Too bad the nice brown layout is gone…

Awesome! Just AWESOME! I really like the new design!
Keep it up!

Hey there, love the tuts and the new look. I like the spoon but should it be flipped to frame the logo rather than leading the eye into empty space? I’m just a cartoonist not a designer but this kinda leapt out at me. Keep up the great work, as a design newbie I’ve found it very helpful.

I visited this site nearly every other day. But to pay a subscription, I don’t think I will be visiting now. I would rather see ads than pay money to download files. Nicer design, but you just lost at least visitor.

Regarding the subscription amount, there are so many websites now moving to the monthy subscription site. I already subscribe to vitalist for tracking to do items and Flickr. Vitalist is a robust application and it’s only $5 month. I much prefer Flickr’s yearly charge. Then you can just pay once per year and it doesn’t eat at you every month. I might pay $20 a year here but I would not pay $8/month as I don’t download examples every month. In fact I don’t download examples often but might still subscribe for a one time or at least once a year reasonable fee just to support you. But another monthly bill? No thanks. I can do math and $96 per year is way too much.

The design looks much better!! Great Job!!

Also, at $8/month you’ll likely see a lot of people signing up for one month, downloading all the PSD files, then unsubscribing. $20/year seems reasonable but again I still wouldn’t pay it.

Remove the PSD files altogether if they’re costing that much. I think they tempt people away from actually completing the tutorial themselves anyway.

Hi, I agree that the site should remain free. The PSD files are also important because if you don’t say understand how to get a certain effect for a certain design, you can refer back to the PSD. However, like Spencer Lavery said if it tempts people from completing the tutorials, remove the PSD files and give more longer instructions on how to get certain effects. Good job with the excellent tutorials, and keep them coming!

Ciao

Wow..2 days not visiting psduts now have a big change!..I LOVE IT . you guys rock

Hey, i’m willing to pay $8 amonth..please provide video tutorials that we can download it.

Thanks

Brilliant redesign. Very attractive, clean and easy on eyes. Good work guys.

Hey Collis,

I’m a bit late to the show, but I thought I’d come with my constructive comments, and share them with you.

Firstly, I love most of your design work. You seem to make ordinary elements just stand out.

However, there are a few areas where I feel it could definitely be improved.

1) Your default content are text size is far too small. I find it strange that you would make the comments easier to read than the content. Not only is the text too small, but as with a number of your designs, the content area is much too wide. If your font size was at least two sizes larger, you might get away with it. Something needs to give here. I know it can be changed by the user, but, let’s face it, most people either don’t bother, or they don’t even know it’s an option.

2) The footer links lack structure. To me, they look like an after-thought. But you’re a designer my friend, everything has its place, and purpose

I think those are the only (what I’d consider) major issues. I don’t mind the left aligned look. The whole thing looks very clean, and polished.

Please take this as constructive. I only mean well, and I’ve only bothered to comment like this, because I appreciate your work so much.

….. to much white, its hard on the eyes, other than that nice site.

Peace

CR.

i actually liked the brown version better than this

Sorry, I don´t like the new design. All the “white” designs are too common. The brown one was definitly standig out.

I guess I’ll add my 2 cents to the chorus. I do agree with the majority that the dark site was better and more eye catching. It made the tutorials stand out more etc.

I know bandwith costs money, and I’m not opposed to paying for content, but not for a few psd files. I do have some suggestions on what id defintely be willing to shell out a few bucks for.

1. If you have a few high quality video tutorials added a month
2. Maybe subscribers get layer styles, gradient, high quality brishes added each month
3. Maybe subscribers get downloadedable resources like some stock photography or textures created by your group of professionals
4. Maybe subscribers get a high quality psd web template a month

Basically something high end, that no other site/service does. There ARE a lot of tutorial sites on the net, but none that Ive been able to find that are high end. That combined good design with good graphical skills that this site has ample of. A was a subscriber to NAPP, which charged me 100 bucks a year which gave me access to a PRINT versions of the magazine, a PS portal with resources and video tutorials. The problem with that is it wasnt advanced enough for my tastes. I still learned some stuff, but I don’t think it was quite worth my 100 bucks, or basically 8 bucks a month. In my eyes a 100 bucks a year for a few psd files and maybe a video tut a month isnt really worth it. But the things I mentioned I would be more than willing to shell out cash for high end tutorials and content.

In the meantime while you prepare your subscription model you can charge 50-99 cents to download the psd file for that lesson. Or figure what the bandwith is and add a little bit for profit. The psd files arent just useful for learning since they have the source files and layer styles included with them. I think by offering the right content you could fulfill a need that I dont think is being addressed in the PS community.

I should defintely add though the site is awesome AND an AWESOME resource. I havent been able to find a site of it’s ilk anywhere around. The tutorials you offer are easy to read and well layed out and arent silly “HOW TO CREATE A BEVELED BUTTON”. I really do think you’re your way to building an AWESOME creative resource and an awesome community site. With the right premium features I do think you’d have a viable pay-for model.

I actually liked the brown better, it stood out. This layout and style just looks like every other boring looking wordpress site on the net. No offence. If possible you should center the page so that us with large widescreen monitors don’t see half a screen with content and the other half without.

Loving the new design, The whitespace is really good.

Hello Collis,

sorry to write it here, but - is there a way how to contact you via e-mail? I didn´t found your e-mail address anywhere. I have some questions about publishing on psdtuts….Thank you for your answer.

Sorry to say I did like the brown better then this. Too many white “clean” sites out there already. This might have something to do with the layout falling apart in my IE7 on 1440*900. Sorry for using IE btw, just formatted harddrive and haven’t gotten FF yet :].

Anyway, nice work with the tutorials and I hope you will be able to make a buck or two from it. You’re doing a great job!

Thanks.

Is it just me, or have less people started commenting on the tutorials since this redesign? The past few have not gotten that great of response as the ones before the redesign have? Maybe just assuming things, but just a though.

Oh, and I seemingly commented in the future:

Sonny Gill

December 14th, 2007

I really love your tutorials… I’m a certified fan of yours…

Upir, the one e-mail address I found is psdtuts@freelanceswitch.com, but when I try to send a message I always get a delivery report from gmail… I can’t even submit a tutorial - they have borken e-mail address.

nice design, nice tutorials =D