http://en.creasenso.com/freelance/

http://www.offscreenmag.com/

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Greece by Joao Pedro Neves

Hong Kong by angelreich

Paris by sunbeamy

Tokyo by photograph_1975

Venice: The Grand Canal by uurthegreat

Melbourne

Bangkok: Banyan Tree Hotel

Rome: The Coliseum by Marcel Germain

Dubai: Burj Al Arab Hotel

China: Great Wall of China

Egypt: The Pyramids of Giza

New Zealand: Rotorua

India: Taj Mahal by Ran Chakrabarti

Rio de Janeiro: Christ The Redeemer by IKO

Wiltshire: Stonehenge by Wally Gobetz

Sydney: The Opera House by bdearth

Thailand: James Bond Rock by farbspiel

France: City Lights, France-Italy Border by NASA

The Bahamas: Islands of the Bahamas by doncon402

Malaysia: Cameron Highlands Sunrise by Souvik Bhattacharya

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All we know is that this series is worth the attention.

You can see more works by Thomas Czarneki here.

• Little Red Riding Hood
  
• Happy End
  
• Snow White
  
• My Sweet Prince
  
• Alice in Wonderland
  
• Just a Trap
  
• Sleeping Beauty
  
• Naughty Girl
  
• Cinderella
  
• Too Fast
  
• 
• The Little Mermaid
  
• The Little Mermaid
  
• Jazmine
  
• One Last Wish
  
• The Beauty and The Beast
  
• Not so Romantic
  
• Pocahontas
  
• One More Trophy
  

src=http://www.awwwards.com/from-enchantment-to-down-by-thomas-czarneki.html

It’s a month of new beginnings over at our design and inspiration gallery Creattica. April has seen the site undergo a complete redesign with a whole new streamlined grid-style layout for its over 50 different categories. On top of that, Creattica now has better navigation, a new UI Elements section and a growing Freebies area of now over 700 items. All this and over 14,000 featured works from some 100,000 members. It’s quite the site!

But that’s not all, let’s first take a look at some of Creattica’s top Photos & Retouching work – and then stay tuned for some exciting news at the conclusion!

1. mr Altamirano

2. Louise by KSB

3. Zombie Soldier

4. landscape composition

5. deep inside your ocean

6. Sand Dunes, West Wittering

7. Mica Part III

8. Mercedes Retouch

9. face-flow

10. Stunning Landscape Photography by Katarina

11. Water in Motion

12. Lightone

13. Skin Retouch 2

14. como caravaggio

15. The Blind Barber

16. Top of the Rock – NY

17. dprell silver

18. Magdalena Wasiczek’s magic garden”

19. Paris Lifestyle

20. The Unknown

The Future of Creattica

When we started Creattica (originally Faveup) back in 2007, we wanted it to be one on the top inspiration galleries on the web. And as the site has grown and changed over the years, we find ourselves with what has become one of the biggest, broadest and most in-depth galleries of design out there. So I guess we can say – mission accomplished!

Over these past few months, Envato has really started working on focusing on our core products of Marketplaces and Tuts+ sites. So while we love Creattica, we find ourselves in the regrettable position of having to put the site up for sale soon. We really want it to go to an awesome home, so if anyone would like to express interest in the sale or get more details, please contact us here.

I’m certain we’ll find some new owners who can keep Creattica growing and evolving on into the future. And in the meantime I hope you enjoy the new design and all the gorgeous work as much as I do!

In the lead up to the 54th Grammy Awards on February 12, you may have seen some stunning artwork promoting the event displayed in your area. What you may not know however is that this artwork was created by a handful of Depthcore artists and past Psdtuts authors including Justin Maller, Jeff Huang, Niklas Lundberg, Emeric Trahand, and Pawel Nolbert. In this article, we will take a look at their artwork and will explain a bit about how the project came about.

Most of our readers would probably love to work on a project like this. Providing key artwork for an event as popular and prestigious as the Grammy Awards is a great honor. So before we start to talk about the artwork, you may be wondering how the project came about. In this case, both Justin Maller and Ars Thanea were tasked separately by TBWA to create a series of images for the 54th Grammy Awards. Maller had a tight deadline so he suggested that TBWA contact Huang, Lundberg, and Trahand to help produce the series in time. Nolbert worked for Ars Thanea.

Pawel Nolbert – Key Visual for Campaign

In this piece that Nolbert worked on at Ars Thanea with the help of 3D designers Peter Kolus and Pawel Wilkos, Nolbert was tasked with creating the key visual for the main campaign for the event.

Initially, the client came up with the idea of building a scene out of floating sparkles, particles, and bokehs. In order to give the client some more options, Nolbert also worked on a concept using sound waveforms. Ultimately, the waveform idea was discarded in favor of the original idea.

This piece was created in Photoshop using 3D renders from 3Ds Max and Krakatoa. According to Nolbert, the most challenging aspect of this project was perfecting and revising the composition that was composed of nearly 1,000 layers.

Key artwork for the 54th Grammy Awards by Pawel Nolbert at Ars Thanea.

These compositions show versions of the artwork that were eventually discarded in favor of the original idea.

Justin Maller – Adele and Bon Iver

Maller worked on 2 pieces for this series. The first piece is a composition featuring Grammy winning artist Adele. Adele stole the show at the 54th Grammy Awards winning Album of the year, and then by breaking several post-Grammy sales records. The Adele piece features lots of bokeh and splash effects that fit in really nice with the rest of the campaign.

The Adele piece displayed on a pay phone in New York City.

The Bon Iver piece takes a different approach. It doesn’t use cosmic or light effects much, at all. It is meant to be a reflection of his music, which is quite serene.

In this photo, Justin Maller poses in front of his Bon Iver design.

Jeff Huang – Paul McCartney and Foo Fighters

Like Maller, Huang worked on 2 pieces for this series. The first piece features Beetles legend, Paul McCartney who is considered by many to be the father of the rock/pop genre of music. This piece has an organic feel to it, the vines that grow from McCartney are meant to symbolize the growth of the genre that originated from his work.

Here you can see the Paul McCartney piece displayed in large format on a billboard in Los Angeles, CA.

The Foo Fighters piece stands in contrast to the McCartney piece and is a bit more consistent with other pieces in this series. It features members of the band in different states of disintegration and includes lots of shattered glass and shards.

In this photo you can see the Foo Fighters piece printed on a billboard in Los Angeles, CA. It looks absolutely stunning at night.

Niklas Lundberg – Skrillex

This piece by Niklas Lundberg features musical artist Skrillex. It uses lots of cosmic and lighting effects to achieve the desired result.

A daylight shot of the Skrillex piece printed on a billboard in Los Angeles, CA.

Emeric Trahand – Bruno Mars

This piece from Emeric Trahand featuring Bruno Mars includes colorful liquid splash effects, as well as glossy hearts that are incorporated nicely into the scene.

A daylight shot of the Bruno Mars piece on a billboard in Los Angeles, CA.

Since the first Adobe Lightroom, the ability to make books was requested by photographers. It’s possible in Lightroom 4. In today’s tutorial, we’ll take a look at some shortcuts built into the system, and also how to avoid making mistakes with some of the trickier areas of the program.

Making books and eBooks in Lightroom 4 is a fantastic experience if you’ve ever dreamed of being an InDesign expert, but never really caught the hang of it. The Book module in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is an easy way into the creation of books, being based on Blurb’s BookSmart program, and opens the doors of book creation to a wider audience, without being tied to a specific printing house or system.

The Book module in Lightroom 4 let’s you do your own Books or eBooks easily.

Lightroom’s editor is a simpler version, and some people will claim it’s too simple for their liking, but in fact, once you understand the limitations and begin to use the program, you’ll find there are ways to do more than what is obvious in a first contact.

I say this because I’ve been using BookSmart since 2008, for my projects, and I’ve asked Adobe for a “book module” since the first Lightroom beta, some six years ago. And I am having a lot of fun with the Book module. In fact, I wish I had more time to create eBooks using it.

A Look at the Past

Looking back to previous versions of the program, we had a sketch of a page creation option in Lightroom 3 (and in Lightroom 2, if you dared to look under the hood and change some code) but nothing compares to what Lightroom 4 offers. That said, this is not a substitute tool for people using InDesign, but something for the rest of us, photographers, amateurs or professionals that just need to get a book made with a few clicks.

I did create my first eBooks with inDesign and still use it, but not so much now, because I love LR4 Book module and it suits most of my needs.

The early beta days of Lightroom 4 led me to create some eBooks, eager to explore every part of the Book module, only to discover that there were problems with the creation of catalogs and also with the use of some fonts. I lost my first catalogue and book layout and it was not clear to me, at the time, the best workflow to get consistent results.

I exchanged emails with Victoria Brampton – aka The Lightroom Queen, also with Julieanne Kost, Adobe’s LR4 evangelist, and with some more people at Adobe, to try to solve the problems, and finally came to terms with some of the bugs and found ways around initial problems.

The first pages will be hard to create, but once your first book is finished, you’ll want to do another one. And another…

Sharing Knowledge

This does not mean that there will not be other problems with the software, but for now, creating books can be almost a “no problems” operation that will give you a unique chance to do your book, save it in a PDF format and take it to a print house. You can also, simply, create a lower-resolution eBook to distribute freely or sell online.

Some people have asked Adobe to create the option to save JPEGs, as some print houses prefer the format, but I am happy with the pdf, as the printer I work with in Portugal – using Xerox digital offset – accepts pdfs. Anyway, I guess Adobe will probably create that option too, in a future update of the program.

I was so excited with the option to do books – or eBooks – that during the beta period of LR4 I gave a workshop centered on the use of the module, and challenged participants to do their own eBook at the end. I believe that a hands-on experience is the best thing you can have, but some reading can also help you to get to terms with the program. That’s the reason why I decided to write this tutorial, that points out what I think is most important in way of getting some work done in Lightroom 4. So, without further ado, here are some tips to make your experience easier.

1. Make a Plan

Before committing to work in Lightroom, I would suggest you define what you want to have in your book. Sketch ideas on paper, write whatever texts you want to include, collect your images and start by importing them into Lightroom. You can always add more later if you need. Or write texts. But get some work done before.

2. Create a Collection

If you’re just doing a book from a shoot, as I sometimes do, import the whole collection, edit the images and then create a catalogue with those you want to use in the book. If you’re making a book with a selection of images from different folders I would advise you to create a folder for all the images you want to use. I create a specific folder for each book I am working on.

I prefer to have all materials in a single place than to lose links afterwards if something goes wrong. I also save the Book pages and final catalogue in the same folder, so I can just take the files to any other computer and keep working there, so long as I have Lightroom available. For this process to work you need to create a unique catalogue for each book, a solution I am using and that has the advantage of not slowing down Lightroom.

Working with just the files for your Book, makes it a faster job to accomplish. And if you’ve a collection of some 250 pictures that you’re working with, as I’ve done for my airplanes eBook, you’ll understand what I mean. And besides that, I like to have separated catalogues in Lightroom.

When creating an eBook, you must start on page one and skip the covers.

3. No Cover on eBooks

The Book module has a cover option that you don’t need to use if you are only doing an eBook. If you want to print using Blurb services you need the cover, but for eBooks you should do the cover on the first page (page one). You can always do the cover, if you want, as it will be saved automatically, but remember your eBook will start on page one. So all you will need for eBooks is the second .pdf file that comes out from LR4.

Use the cells in the page as a guide and a starting point, but define your own layout based on them.

4. The Layout is a Guide, Not a Rule

People complain that the layouts are limited in the Book module. They’re wrong. The photocells marked on the page (grey cells) don’t need to have a picture placed in all of them, you’re free to choose which to use. And you can also resize images within the bigger cells, and move them around, dragging them and using the options on the right side of the interface.

Some claim that the layouts are limited, but once you start to play the tools will reveal hidden options. Read the text to see how this was done.

5. The Secret is Having Time

The more time you invest in your layout, the better it will look. For the image on the left page of the spread above I used a single image that I placed on the 12 cells, enlarging it and moving each segment around until I got the grid result.

I know there are “more professional” ways to do a grid like this, and I could do this image in Photoshop and move it here afterwards, but I just wanted to show that it can be done this way too. and explore the limitations of the tools within the module.

Take time to look at all the pages created. Having a global vision helps you to define changes that will make for a better book.

6. Look at Your Book: Then Save It

After creating a few initial pages look at your work globally. It will help you to define little or big adjustments. Also remember, once you’ve chosen the images (you can always add some more later), to save the Book project. And export a catalogue with all the images you’re using.

I usually do this in the same folder where I have all the materials for a specific Book, that is also under a folder that has all the books for 2012. This helps me to keep track of everything: images, logos, graphics and texts (written previously in Word or another text editor).

You can do also do a text book if you want, but mixing pictures and text is what the Book module is all about.

7. A Book is Not Just Pictures

Although the Book module is in a program for editing images, Lightroom 4, it does not mean that this module was created to make books with pictures only. Adobe has answered the requests from photographers and the text areas let you fill whole pages with text, if need be. And then do whole pages with pictures, so you can create your own Book as you envision it.

Remember that when saving to pdf you need to check if there are no problems like text missing. This could happen either because it’s longer than the box it is in, or because some fonts go missing when saving the file. If this happens, change to a similar font or resize a box, and save again.

The Book module offers a chance to do panoramas, but you have to watch for the way it saves them in pdf. The initial version of LR4 has a bug that doubles text.

8. Do Panoramas, but Beware

Doing panoramas in Lightroom 4 Book module is easy, as the program offers an option to do double pages with different layouts. If you feel like trying it, beware of using text on the spread. Sometimes the software duplicates the text on both pages, spoiling the panorama.

An easy way to solve the problem is using two separated pages and then placing the same image on both, enlarging and adjusting it until it looks like a single spread. Then you can write what you want on one side. Adobe will correct this bug, I am sure, but for now it still shows up.

A Free eBook as an Example

The best way to show people what can be done is sharing with them your work. So I am sharing with you the first eBook I made in Lightroom 4 Book module. This eBook, contemplative photography essays, is written both in English and Portuguese and shows some of my workshops with people and the themes photographed. And it shows, what is more important, what anyone can do with Adobe Lightroom 4 in terms of expression. If I can do it, I am sure you also can. Download the trial version of the new Lightroom and explore it. I bet you’ll love it!

This free eBook will shows you some what can be done in the Book module in Lightroom 4.

Download my eBook (please share the link, do not share the eBook, so I know how many people downloaded this free eBook).

Download the contemplative photography essays eBook.

Photoshop CS6 has been hailed as a huge improvement for web and UI designers. I’m going to share with you some of the features that Photoshop CS6 Beta has to offer and demonstrate how they can help you in your web or UI design workflow.

Introduction

When I woke up on 26th March 2012, it was like any other ordinary Monday morning. I was still half asleep and recuperating from my weekend hangover. Then, as usual, I checked Twitter and that’s when I noticed a shining little tweet that soon lifted me from my dazy haze. It told me that Adobe had released Photoshop CS6 Beta.

Now I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to get a little bit too over excited about this (OK I’ll admit it, I’m a geek). I mean, I work with Photoshop day in, day out and probably spend a lot more time and see a lot more of its UI than I do my own family. I soon got to work with studying as many of the 65 brand new features that I could. I soon found it to be one of the best updates for UI and web designers I’ve witnessed.

The New Interface

It’s been nearly two years since Adobe last released an update to Photoshop and with this update comes a brand new interface. It’s about time Adobe showed a little bit of love to its UI and I’ve got to say I’m impressed. You have the option to choose from four gray color schemes so you can set the contrast of the interface to suit your requirements. To set these you can find them in Preferences > Interface.

New Borders

One of the biggest questions I’ve been wanting to ask Adobe for a long time is “Why is there no option to add dotted or dashed borders?”. This is probably one of the most popular techniques used in modern web design at the moment and until now it has been a long, drawn out process that involves cutting up lines or using the ‘-’ key to create a series of “stitches”.

Well, Adobe has certainly realized this and has introduced a tool to enable us to create them with ease and flexibility.

Strokes can be added to any shape or path and come with several stroke options that work in a similar way to the stroke options panel in Illustrator.

• Align – This allows you to select whether you want the stroke to align inside, outside or centre of the shape.
• Caps – This option lets you choose whether you want the stroke line to have squared ends that end at the path point (Butt Cap), semicircular ends (Round Cap) or squared ends that square off past the path point (Square Cap).
• Corners – This allows you to select how you would like the corners of the shape to be displayed. The options here are Milter, rounded and bevel.

Paragraph Styles

So you’ve just received your latest design back from the client. The PSD contains ten folders with each folder containing a page design for the site. It’s a big file and the client wants to change the title font on each page and asks you if you can also make it a little larger so that it can become more readable. It’s a simple enough amendment but it’s one of those alterations that can be quite repetitive; trawling through all the folders, changing each title individually can take longer than expected.

Photoshop CS6 introduces ‘paragraph styles’ to take the sting out of amendments such as these. With paragraph styles you can effectively manipulate text just as you would in CSS by creating a set of properties for each style. You can set up ‘H1-6′ tags and ‘p’ tags or any other styles that you might want. When text has been created, you can simply select the style you want from the Window > Paragraph Styles. This option works in a similar way to same options in Adobe InDesign, but is perfect for this kind of scenario.

Lorem Ipsum Arrives In Cs6

It’s often the case that the simplest of ideas are usually the most successful and this is certainly true of a particular new feature of Photoshop CS6. How many times have you had to leave Photoshop to grab some lorem ipsum dummy text from elsewhere on the web? Well now you no longer have to. You can simply paste some lorem ipsum in from the bottom of the type menu.

This is a great feature, but my only snipe would be that it would be even handier if it came with a pre configured keyboard shortcut – even by typing in the word ‘lorem’ followed by return would be really great! This can be worked around, using actions and keyboard shortcuts, but still.

Colors Become Hash Tag Friendly

If you perform front end development on the sites you create then I’m sure you’ll spend a lot of time flicking between Photoshop and your chosen code editor. Probably no more so than to get the hex value color references. The problem before was that the hex value field of the color picker in Photoshop previously didn’t accept the hash symbol (#) itself.

This resulted in problems when trying to match colors from the web and would often result in repeat journeys between your web inspector, your code editor and Photoshop. In CS6 Photoshop plays nicely and accepts the hash tag whether it’s inputted or if not. Another little time saver that makes all the difference.

New Document Presets For Common Devices (iPhone, iPad Etc)

It was only a matter of time before Photoshop introduced canvas presets for common devices such as the iPhone. This is a great little feature that just saves us that little bit of extra time. In my opinion, being a successful UI or web designer is all about creating a great workflow and the more time savers that you have the quicker you can get the job done.

Another great tip is to create an action that opens a new document with the your chosen devices UI assets already in. For example I’ve created an action for iPhone, iPad and Android that automatically creates a document and brings in items such as the menu bar and common controls as well as guidelines and grids setup for it. This takes CS6′s new document preset feature that one step further.

Shape Creation And Manipulation

In both web and UI design, shapes are important part of this process. We use them for banners, boxes, form inputs and in lots of other cases. Vector shapes have received a big overhaul in CS6 and brought some very welcome changes. Let’s look at them.

• Snap Vector Tools and Transform to Pixel grid. – This has been vastly improved in CS6 and now offers the ability to snap shapes to the pixel boundaries, including the pen and ellipse tools. This means that shapes appear sharp and crisp and never have bleeding edges. You can find this as a global option in Preferences > General
• Paste Shape Attributes – By right-clicking on a shape layer, you are now able to copy a shape’s attributes (such as color and stroke) and paste it on to another shape. This is a great time saver.
• Shapes as Layers – Before, upon creating a shape, it used to appear in the layers panel as a solid color. This is no longer the case my friend; you are now able to see the actual shape in the layers panel.
• Hiding the path. – It’s now possible to toggle the path of a shape by pressing Command+shift+H/Ctrl+Shift+H. This makes it a lot easier to be able to see the correct effect when adding layer styles such as stroke.
• Create the Exact Size of Shapes. Specifying a shape of exact size used to rely on looking at the info panel and having to draw the shape whilst trying to line up the measurements. Now you just enter the required fixed size in the options bar, place the cursor on your document and it will create a shape at the given dimensions.

Goodbye Info Panel, Hello Visual Feedback!

I can’t recall the amount of times that I’ve been coding up a design and had to take image measurements or even image positions for sprites. I used to rely on the info panel to help with this. Okay, the info panel still exists so it’s not necessarily ‘goodbye info panel’ but you may find yourself using it less and less now that visual feedback has been introduced in CS6.

It comes in the form of a nice little tooltip which gives you pixel dimensions alongside your cursor whenever you create a shape or marquee. No longer do you have to get your bearings as to where the info panel is on your screen as now the dimensions are always there next to your cursor. This is one of those features that makes it hard to believe that Photoshop never offered it before.

Layer Searching

This is one that I most definitely require. I don’t usually tidy my PSD’s up and organize them until the very end. I’m sure some would disagree with this practice, but I just feel that if I were to organize my PSD as I went along then this would interrupt my creative flow. I feel I should be concentrating on making it look the best it can be and not having to break off and organize. If you are like me, or even if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll appreciate CS6′s new ability to search through your layers. The search really is quite comprehensive and lets you filter layers based on the following:

• Kind – This option lets you filter your layers based on pixel area, adjustment layer, text layer, shape layer and smart object.
• Name – This is a simple search to filter your layers by the layer name.
• Effect – Filters out layers with specific layer styles applied.
• Mode – Filters out layers that have specific color modes applied.
• Attribute – Filters out layers with specific attributes attached such as ‘locked’ or ‘visible’.
• Color – Filters out layers that you have grouped under a specific color.

Other Useful Little Improvements.

• Performance – When you first try out CS6 Beta you might just notice that everything seems to have become a little faster and more responsive to your actions. This is partly down to Photoshop’s new graphics engine, Mercury. Everything that you do in Photoshop is now quicker than ever before.
• Rename then tab to next layer – You can now rename a layer and just tab to move on to the next layer to rename it. Awesome!
• Toggle Layer Styles Panel – When presenting my PSD to the client or the developer, it’s always nice to send a clean, tidy PSD. Now there’s a simple way to toggle closed all the layer style drop downs from the layer by simply option-click / alt-clicking on the little arrow that toggles the layer styles.

Conclusion

I’ve been using Photoshop CS6 for a little over two weeks and has it speeded up my workflow? The answer is yes. Not only has it speeded things up but it’s made the little tedious tasks a lot easier and more rewarding to perform. CS6 has been noted as one of the best improvements for UI and web designers in a long time and I would have to agree. It’s great to see that Adobe is getting back on top of its game with this new release and I’m looking forward to seeing if there are any more nice little additions when we see the full release.

Just because you missed that awesome conference, doesn’t mean that you can’t still watch the lectures! This weekend we’re sharing an inspiring talk by the creator of the Illustrator, Laurie Rosenwald at PSFK NYC 2012.

You already know Photoshop, but to complete your toolkit, shouldn’t you learn Illustrator as well? If you’ve always wanted to learn but never had the time or the resources, check out the new course from Tuts+ Premium: 30 Days to Learn Adobe Illustrator. Over the course of one month you’ll go from complete beginner to working confidently with vector files. Read on to get a quick overview of what the course includes.

Over 4.5 hours of video lessons

Adobe Illustrator is a powerful and popular tool for illustrators and designers, but can be intimidating if you’ve never worked with vector before. Don’t know about anchors, brushes, symbols or meshes? Never fear! Experienced illustrator Ryan Quintal takes you from newbie to Illustrator pro in just 30 days. Once you’re up and running, Ryan will work through a final project, a product case design, to show how it all goes together.

30 Days to Learn Adobe Illustrator

You’ll need to become a Tuts+ Premium member to access the full course.

Free preview lessons:

• Introduction
• Getting Started
• The Illustrator Interface

Tuts+ Premium

The recently re-launched Tuts+ Premium is a service that provides top-tier training in a variety of creative fields. Whether you prefer books, video training, or in depth tutorials, we have you covered.

While we unfortunately can’t afford to provide the service for free, it’s only a month – less than you’d spend on dinner.

But the best part is that, every month, we’re adding as many as five new in depth courses on the skills that you want to learn. What’s on the near horizon? Photoshop Techniques for Web Designers, an Intro to Motion Graphics, JavaScript Testing with Jasmine, Advanced Digital Painting, and countless more.

I hope you’ll consider checking it out! In addition to learning a huge variety of new skills, it’s also a fantastic way to say thank you to Psdtuts+.

Friday Photo Critique is our weekly community project, where we publish a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the image. It’s a great way to learn more about photography, express your viewpoint, and have your own image critiqued!

Quick Ground Rules

1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
3. You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for Friday Photo Critique!

The Photograph

Photo Details & Inspiration

• Nikon D700
• 24mm
• f/2.8
• 1/320
• ISO 400

Our local conservatory has a yearly butterfly show. I made this image of an Owl Butterfly while there. I found the mimicry of the animal fascinating. I can’t image what other animals might think when they see it. I really like that the “eye” even seems to have a highlight at the top giving it further depth.

Photographer: Jennifer Norton

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site. Interested in submitting your own photo? You can do so here!

The new iPad was released last month, and, amongst other things, it sports an incredible Retina Display with a 2048 by 1536 pixel resolution. Pretty much as soon as it was announced, focus turned to native app developers and their work to scale apps up to the higher resolution.

That was arguably the wrong focus. Relatively little was thought about in terms of the web, and how that would look on the new Retina Display in the run up to the announcement. It’s left us with an internet of amazingly crisp text, but laughably terrible, low quality images. It’s time to optimize, so in this tutorial we’re going to strategize how you can design with the Retina Display in mind.

Use Fewer Images

This is arguably pretty obvious, but it may still be overlooked by some. With significant advancements in CSS, the use of images in a site’s structure can be fairly minimal, or even non-existent at all. This gives these sites a huge advantage when it comes down to Retina Display compatibility because text and CSS-generated graphics will scale up without reducing in quality. For the same reason, text looks measurably better on a Retina Display.

Apple has made a big deal of text quality on the new iPad’s Retina Display

A site I was working on needed not a single update to its theme to look great on the Retina Display; the lack of images meant there wasn’t anything to update. Of course, not every site will be totally sans images, but minimizing their use will reduce the effort required to optimize for the Retina Display.

See what Paul Boag has to say on images and rounded corners

Generally, there’s one step to this tactic: minimize image use where it’s not really needed.

How Apple Does It

Naturally, Apple’s website is optimized to look incredibly sharp and crisp on the Retina Display. In the days prior to the iPad’s announcement, Apple started updating their own website to offer up responsive images; items that changed depending on whether you were browsing on a new iPad or not.

Apple’s method is simple in principle. The website loads up as normal, but then they use JavaScript to replace relevant images if you’re browsing on a new iPad. If you visit on a new iPad, you’ll get the optimized images, whereas any other browser will pull up the defaults.

One such example of this is Apple’s hero text on the iPad’s product page, using the following code in the file itself.

<hgroup class="headline">
	<h1><img src="http://images.apple.com/ipad/home/images/overview_title.png" width="471" height="94" alt="Resolutionary" /></h1>
	<h2 class="first"><img src="http://images.apple.com/ipad/home/images/overview_intro_build.png" width="280" height="53" alt="The New iPad" /></h2>
	<h2 class="second"><img src="http://images.apple.com/ipad/home/images/overview_intro.png" width="490" height="53" alt="Introducing the new iPad. With the stunning Retina display. 5MP iSight camera. And ultrafast 4G LTE." /></h2>
	<h3><img src="http://images.apple.com/ipad/home/images/overview_price.png" width="135" height="24" alt="Starting at 9." /></h3>
</hgroup>

For simplicity’s sake, I won’t share their actual scripting, but essentially it first checks whether the browser is on a device with a Retina Display, then checks for the existence of a 2x image (we’ll get onto that in a minute) and, if both the previous conditions are true, displays the 2x image.

The 2x suffix convention means the “Retina” counterpart for the file image.png would be image_2x.png. This comes from iOS, which automatically displays an @2x image in a native app when it exists. Unfortunately, we web designers don’t get the luxury of automatic search-and-display, so we need to come up with methods of emulating that with our own scripts and queries.

This does come at a price however. Using this method, the end user loads both the non-Retina and Retina image, meaning the page ends up with an increased file size. Not only that, Apple’s scripting means more requests are sent to and from the browser, resulting in further page load time. Of course, if you continue to minimize image use, this problem will also be reduced.

The Tutorial: Using CSS Media Queries

While Apple uses JavaScript, a somewhat effective method, there is an alternative; using CSS media queries to serve up styling condition to the device’s pixel density.

Before we get onto that, it’s important to note that, ultimately, the iPad’s display is still 1024×768 px in “CSS pixels”. I’ll allow Dave Hyatt to explain.

Most Web site authors have traditionally thought of a CSS pixel as a device pixel. However as we enter this new high DPI world where the entire UI may be magnified, a CSS pixel can end up being multiple pixels on screen. For example if I set a zoom magnification of 2x, then 1 CSS pixel would actually be represented by a 2×2 square of device pixels.

Therefore, the method we’re using won’t target the iPad based on its resolution because it simply wouldn’t work. For all intents and purposes, the iPad’s resolution is still 1024×768 px according to the browser, and targeting this resolution would also target all previous iPad generations. Likewise, targeting the new 2048×1536 px resolution with media queries wouldn’t have any effect on the new iPad.

Instead, we can target using the min-device-pixel-ratio query. That query tells the browser to load up a specific style based on the ratio of device pixels to the aforementioned “CSS pixels”. In the Retina Display-equipped iPad’s case, this is two (1024:2048 and 768:1536 simplified down to 1:2).

Therefore, we can load in a “retina” stylesheet based on the device’s pixel ratio.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="retina.css" media="only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)" />

Obviously, we use the WebKit prefix since the iPad’s browser is Safari, a WebKit browser, but also because the media query seems to be only available through WebKit for now. Since styles cascade (as the name “CSS” will tell you), by simply ordering the above tag correctly, rules in that stylesheet will overwrite the ones for regular devices specified previously.

If you don’t happen to want to put everything in a whole separate stylesheet, you can use inline media queries to specify portions of your stylesheet for Retina Display-equipped devices only, like so:

@media(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
	#element {
		background-image('image-2x.png');
	}
}

Note: While using the “2x” naming scheme is a useful way of organizing your images, don’t feel obliged to do so. You can name your images whatever you want and, unlike with native apps, they don’t need to be even remotely similar.

Of course, using this media query isn’t in any way specific to the iPad. In fact, the same logic will be triggered when browsing your site on any device with a similar pixel density that employs the same CSS to device pixel ratio, including the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. If you do want to target only the iPad, you can simply combine the pixel ratio query with a width one, to specify only Retina Display-equipped devices of the iPad’s reporting resolution.

Conclusion

It’s not a case of your site looking good without optimizing, but looking better with. You only need to visit an image-rich, but non-optimized, site to understand how terrible non-Retina imagery looks on the new iPad. And, ultimately, you need to actually witness the results. If you don’t have access to a new iPad, I highly recommend taking a trip to an Apple Store to take a look.

While Apple has sold millions of units, in the grand scheme of browsers, it’s still a small concern. However, with potential Retina Display-equipped MacBook on the horizon for as early as this summer, putting in the work now could really pay off later.

This tutorial will cover the process of creating a vintage inspired retro flyer design. There are four main areas of concentration to achieve this look and feel: color, type, character and texture. We’ll review a complete vintage vector design workflow to create this retro flyer design. Let’s get started.

Step 1

Do research and actually get inspired. As simple and basic as it sounds, this is really an important step to have in your design process. Inspiration is key in creating something that actually feels inspired by design of the past, instead of just faking or mimicking the aesthetic.

Actually digging through a book is preferred, but in a pinch simply image search things like ‘vintage ads’, ‘retro poster design’ or ‘old handbills’. The images below are from the actual book I looked through for inspiration, Ad Boy: Vintage Advertising with Character.

Step 2

Sketch. Hopefully something grabs you from the research process, get your ideas out and down on paper.

Step 3

For a flyer you want to stick to something similar to the A4 or letter document size. The reason being is that these are standard sizes and will be easily reproducible on print and copy machines, etc…

Step 4

Pick your Palette. Establishing a color palette from the start helps to create the overall feel of the design. Here is a look at the colors I will be using. Keeping a limited color palette is key to getting the vintage vibe. Limit your design by using only two to three colors max. Here you have yellow and blue, with a lighter and dark variation on each.

Step 5

Start with the largest, most important info on the flyer and choose a nice, clean sans serif typeface. Here I am using Knockout in JouniorFlyWeight for ‘VINTAGE’ and ‘VECTOR’ text. The ampersand is set in Knockout WelterWeight. I am also adding some tracking to the word ‘VECTOR’ so that the bottom word aligns nicely on each side with the top word.

Step 6

Next we will create the angle on the headline type. Command + Click > Transform > Shear and using the dialog box choose and a -19 shear angle with a vertical axis. Having Preview checked helps to get it just right.

Step 7

Apply the previously chosen colors to the headline type, light and dark yellow, and light blue.

Step 8

Simply using the Rounded Rectangle tool and Pen Tool, create a background shape and a banner shape (with the same angle as the headline type) to start establishing the overall layout. Also, use the Star Tool to integrate a shape with the banner to hold the ampersand.

Step 9

Next we will select both ‘VINTAGE’ and ‘VECTOR’ text, then Copy and Paste in Back. While the text is still selected change the fill color to white.

Step 10

Select the top ‘VINTAGE’ and ‘VECTOR’ type and in the Transparency palette change the mode from Normal to Multiply. This gives the type a ‘screen-print’ vintage effect.

Step 11

Now, we have a little fun and design an anthropomorphized pencil character, just like they used to do on vintage ads. Reference this previous cartoon character design tutorial for an in-depth tutorial of the character design process.

For our purposes here, I will generalize the process. Start with the general shape/lines of the object using the Pen Tool. Use mostly lines with a nice thick stroke and filled shapes where necessary.

Step 12

Add the face detail, simplified eyes, smiling mouth and sharp nose using the Pen Tool. Also, I am using the four color, which is dark blue.

Step 13

Add details, eyebrows, lip, chin and of course mustache for style.

Step 14

Next, we’ll apply the same ‘screen-print’ retro effect to the pencil character by Copy and Pasting in Back (Command + B) the shape’s basic outline and giving it a white fill.

Step 15

Again, in the Transparency palette, apply Multiply to the dark blue character lines.

Step 16

Give the pencil character a speech bubble, so the character can sing. Saying something funny and silly like ‘LETS GO RETRO!’ fits the theme of this flyer design, again it’s set in Knockout.

Step 17

Next, integrate the details (date, location, time, etc..) below the round corner background shape. Using a new typeface, which is Archer Semibold, separate some specific info and again using Knockout for the rest.

Be sure to use a lighter color with this smaller type. Here I am using Knockout JuniorFeatherwt and some nice open tracking to subtlety reference a letterpress lock-up. I also created a custom ‘Free’ script for variety.

Step 18

Using the Pen Tool draw simple lines coming from the pencil tip, to create rules between the stacked type.

Step 19

We are getting close, now for the final touches. In the open space in the upper left corner, lets pay respect to the man – the lovely folks over at Vectortuts+ with a nice little banner lock-up. Create it using the Rectangle Tool and Pen Tool and set it in Archer.

Step 20

Down at the bottom of the flyer implement any of the necessary fine print and details, such as legal disclaimer, social media links, website url, etc…

Step 21

Now you could just stop there, it looks pretty nice and definitely has the vintage vibe going. But there are two things I’d do to really take this thing to the next level. Apply a halftone texture to the light yellow background shape in light blue. For simplicity sake, I have included the halftone texture in the source files. It gives it a nice, subtlety weathered look, without looking like grunge. And its adds some awesomeness to the headline type.

Step 22

Now, we’ll employ the technique of creating bit map tiff texture from my previous tutorial, GO CRAZY WITH TEXTURES!

Put them on the headline type, the background shape, everything. Even down to the lines between the type lock-up in the bottom. Use the same colors that were used throughout the design. All of these box shapes (the bounding box on the TIFF files are where I have integrated texture. Yes, it takes a little bit of time and finesse.

Final Image

Wowzers! Was that some work or what? Good stuff, hopefully you learned a lot about getting a vintage vibe when designing a retro flyer. The final image is below. You can view the large version here.

Photoshop has a variety of tools to edit your images, and almost as many settings that you can adjust to get optimum performance from the software. In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at some of the options available in the Preferences dialogue box. Let’s get started!

I am not stalking the most dangerous animals in the world, but boars and deer can turn on you if you don’t keep your distance. In today’s tutorial, you’ll get some tips for safer and better wildlife photography. Photographing wildlife is a fantastic experience, but unless you go to a zoo or in a guided tour, there’s a lot of things to think about before starting your journey.

I won’t be talking about gear today. I hope you already know what your needs will be. We’ll be discussing some other things, like patience and being respectful of the animals needs. You’ll need to have these ideas your mind if you want to come back home with great photographs and in one piece.

Being patient enough to sit down and wait for things to happen is a must if you want to photograph wildlife.

1. Sit Down and Be Patient

Watching and understanding wildlife is probably the most important tip to remember. Be patient. Although I stalk animals if they’re on the move, I’m very cautious! I also sit down at a spot, sometimes for long periods of time, waiting for things to happen.

I recently sat for two hours near a pond to see some European tree-frogs. Not many did, but I had time to feel nature, and that’s important too. It will make for a better understanding of the world, and sometimes a better understanding of yourself.

At moments like this, you have to know your camera well in order to react and get a series of shots.

2. Be Ready for the Unexpected

The picture of deer fighting during the rutting season is an example of the need to be prepared, know your camera and being able to get the exposure right in time. This was a lucky shot. I had been following deer for some days and never had the chance to see a fight, although I could hear them far away.

I would be in one extreme of a hill and would hear them fighting some miles away. This time I was passing close to a group of animals when these two started to fight. I got my camera ready and shot four or five images from where I selected this one, which is the strongest, in my opinion. Using a long 100-400mm lens let me play with the framing while keeping my distance.

A “hide on wheels” is a great bet many times. And it offers you ways to support your lenses.

3. Use a Car as Hide

Although I do walk a lot to find animals to photograph, I also use a car as cover. Animals feel less threatened by a vehicle, and besides being a great place to be when the weather is bad, it also works as a hide. Big animals and even birds will come close to a car, but run away as soon as you step out. I guess we look too ugly for them!

Also, when using a car as hide, you can use a simple way to get your camera steady. I use the coat hangers you find in most models to suspend a neck strap that goes around the lens barrel. It works fine and gives you total freedom.

The deer picture asked for patience, until a pair of them came close to the water and gave me a different shot aided by the symmetry .

4. Know Your Subject

The young deer reflected on the water are a result of patience and knowing my subject. Being aware of the behavior of the animals you’re following helps you to get the best shots. But it also takes time to get things right.

I had to wait for a whole morning near this water area to get this shot. I had other animals showing up but it’s the two deer side by side that make the image, a bit like a double reflection. My bit of luck for having patience to sit and wait.

You have to be ready to work fast to get wild boar playing or fighting.

5. Keep Your Distance

Wild boars are a fantastic species to see and photograph, but they can be dangerous. I’ve had some charging over me for no apparent reason and I had to find a shelter. They’re also very aggressive towards each other, and a peaceful setting can suddenly become a pandemonium.

It’s good to keep your distance and check the best route to move away if you need to. Try never to get close to newborn pigs and a mother sow. A simple distress call from a pig will get mother to come running, ready for battle. And the whole group can decide to give a hand.

A close encounter of the animal kind asks for some caution, but can be rewarding

6. Accept the Challenge

This picture represents a departure from safety conditions. The wild boar was curious enough to come close to me, an “eye to eye” situation that gave me a chance to take this picture. I had time to frame, compose and shoot more than one picture before the animal decided to move away and vanish in the vegetation.

I am always on the lookout for a sign of danger at moments like this, but I do think one has to measure each different situation and try to make the most of it. This time I got a nice portrait.

7. Stay Safe

I enjoy being alone in nature and I do think every photographer likes the solitude it represents to be by himself facing challenges. This said I am always very careful to not get in a situation that I might regret. Let people know where you are going and when you expect to return, be wary of wild animals and watch your step.

These are the best tips I learned from other photographers and I always keep them in mind when I am outside. Do you have any other tips that have helped you get better wildlife pictures? Share them in the comments.

It’s a month of new beginnings over at our design and inspiration gallery Creattica. April has seen the site undergo a complete redesign with a whole new streamlined grid-style layout for its over 50 different categories. On top of that, Creattica now has better navigation, a new UI Elements section and a growing Freebies area of now over 700 items. All this and over 14,000 featured works from some 100,000 members. It’s quite the site!

But that’s not all, let’s first take a look at some of Creattica’s top HTML/CSS work – and then stay tuned for some exciting news at the conclusion!

1. BRILLIANCY

2. Guifx Website

3. Bokche Creative Studio

4. Momentum

5. SoSweet! Creative

6. Chris Burkard Photography

7. Eleven Media

8. viljamis.com

9. Chichester Music Academy

10. Designzoom

11. Cabedge Website

12. Goldenboy Media

13. Local Wisdom

14. Cascade – Personal vCard Template

15. Pline Studios

16. The Squad

17. Purple, Rock, Scissors

18. The Vintage Catering Company

19. saganowski&Co

20. DressTo

The Future of Creattica

When we started Creattica (originally Faveup) back in 2007, we wanted it to be one on the top inspiration galleries on the web. And as the site has grown and changed over the years, we find ourselves with what has become one of the biggest, broadest and most in-depth galleries of design out there. So I guess we can say – mission accomplished!

Over these past few months, Envato has really started working on focusing on our core products of Marketplaces and Tuts+ sites. So while we love Creattica, we find ourselves in the regrettable position of having to put the site up for sale soon. We really want it to go to an awesome home, so if anyone would like to express interest in the sale or get more details, please contact us here.

I’m certain we’ll find some new owners who can keep Creattica growing and evolving on into the future. And in the meantime I hope you enjoy the new design and all the gorgeous work as much as I do!

In this quick tip you will learn how to create a simple audio player bar. This is mostly about the basics of pixel perfect vector shape building techniques. We’ll start with a simple rectangles and the Rounded Corners effect. Next, we’ll use some Offset and Pathfinder techniques to create the highlights. Finally, some masking/blending techniques and the Drop Shadow effect will help us add the final touches.

Step 1

Create a 600 by 300px, RGB document. First, enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Next, you’ll need a grid every 5px. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. You can also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Do not forget to replace the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Unit > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.

Step 2

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 525 by 30px shape. Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, make sure that there’s no color set for the stroke and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners Enter a 5px radius, click OK and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 3

Reselect the shape created in the previous step and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a 1px Offset and click OK. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown in the left window, click OK then go again to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown in the right window and click OK.

Step 4

For the following steps you will need a grid every 1px. So, go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid and enter 1 in the Gridline every box. Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 47 by 30px shape. Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, remove the color from the stroke and place it as shown in the following image. The Snap to Grid should ease your work.

Select this new rectangle and make two copies in front (Control + C > Control + F > Control + F). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow once. Thanks to the Snap to Grid your shape will move 1px down. Reselect both copies, open the Pathfinder panel (Window > Pathfinder) and click on the Minus Front button. Fill the resulting shape with white.

Step 5

Reselect the two shapes created in the previous step and group them. Make a copy (Control + C > Control + F) of this group and drag it to the right as shown in the following image.

Step 6

Pick the Type Tool (T), add some simple text and place it as shown in the following image. Use the Tahoma font then set the size at 10pt and the color set at R= 75 G=75 B=75. Make sure that this text is still selected and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown below and click OK.

Step 7

Reselect the rounded rectangle created in the second step and make two copies. Select the top copy and move it 1px up. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with white and bring it to front (Shift + Control + Right Square Bracket).

Step 8

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create two, 1 by 30px rectangles. Place them one next to the other then fill the left shape with R=150 G=150 B=150 and the right shape with white. Group these two rectangles then make a copy of the group. Select this second group and hit the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below and open the Transparency panel (Window > Transparency).

The white numbers from the gradient image stand for location percentage. Select this new shape along with the group created in the beginning of the step, open the fly-out menu of the Transparency panel and click on Make Opacity Mask. In the end your masked group should look like in the fourth image.

Step 9

Reselect the masked group from the previous step and duplicate it (Control + F). Move this new group a few pixels to the right and go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Check the Vertical button and click OK. Reselect both groups and duplicate them (Control + C > Control + F). Drag these groups one by one and place them as shown in the final image.

Step 10

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 5px square, fill it with R=95 G=95 B=95 and remove the color from the stroke. Continue with the Rectangle Tool, create a 5 by 11px shape, fill it with R=95 G=95 B=95 and place it as shown in the second image. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on this new shape. Select the top, left anchor point and move it 4px down then select the bottom, left anchor point and move it 4px up.

In the end your shape should look like in the third image. Return to the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 1 by 3px , a 1 by 7px and a 1 px 11px shapes, fill them with R=95 G=95 B=95 and place them as shown in the fourth image. Select all the shapes created in this step, click on the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel and go to Object > Compound Path > Make.

Step 11

Reselect the compound path created in the previous step and place it as shown in the first image. Focus on it and make two copies in front (Control + C > Control + F > Control + F). Select the top copy and move it 2px down. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Turn the resulting group of shapes into a compound path (Object > Compound Path > Make) and fill it with R=45 G=45 B=45. Reselect the compound path created in the previous step and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown in the final image and click OK.

Step 12

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create two, 3 by 11px shape, fill them with R=95 G=95 B=95 and place them as shown in the first image. Turn them into a compound path (Object > Compound Path > Make) then make two copies in front (Control + C > Control + F > Control + F).

Select the top copy and move it 2px down. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Turn the resulting group of shapes into a compound path (Object > Compound Path > Make) and fill it with R=45 G=45 B=45. Reselect the compound path created in the beginning of this step and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown in the final image and click OK.

Step 13

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 250 by 6px shape, fill it with the linear gradient shown below and place it as shown in the first image. Continue with the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 150 by 6px shape, fill it with R=175 G=175 B=175 and place it as shown in the second image.

Step 14

Select the first rectangle created in the previous step and make two copies in front (Control + C > Control + F > Control + F). Select the top copy and move it 1px down. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with R=62 G=62 B=62, change its blending mode to Screen and bring it to front (Shift + Control + ] ). Reselect the first rectangle created in the previous step and add a 1pt stroke. Set, its color at R=45 G=45 B=45, align it to inside. Make sure that your shape is still selected and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the data shown in the final image and click OK.

Step 15

Pick the Rectangle Tool, create a 60 by 6px shape and a 30 by 6px shape place them as shown in the first image then add the properties used for the shapes created in the previous two steps.

Conclusion

Now your work is done. Here is how it should look. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tut.

Marcelo Schultz is a Brazilian designer and art director with a talent for producing fantastic typographic illustrations. His work typically has a 3D look and feel but is done entirely without the use of 3D tools or applications. In fact, Schultz’s weapon of choice is Photoshop. In this article we will take a look at some of our favorite pieces from his portfolio.

DDQ Design

The Skull of Rock!

Nike – Just Do It – Experimental Project

Awesome Type

Volkswagen “Bubble”

This piece is clearly not a typographic illustration but we thought it deserved to be featured nonetheless.

Nike – Just do It – Part II

LOVE. HATE. SEX. PAIN.

Coffee Lovers

Let’s Rock Around The World

Born To Shine

Let’s Rock Now!

OoOps!

Working as a photographer’s assistant is, in my eyes, the best way to gain experience and work your way to becoming a professional in your own right. The chance to work so closely with a photographer gives you valuable insight into the ways in which they work, the techniques they use, how their achieve their photographic style and also how they control and shoot and all the variables that come with that.

So here are some rules or guidelines if you will, on how to work effectively as an assistant and make the most of the opportunities you get.

Find the Work

First things first, you need to find some assisting work. Build a portfolio of work that you feel best represents your photographic exploits. It doesn’t need to contain vast sums of photographs, just a balanced and carefully selected group of shots that display your various skills.

Begin by approaching photographers that you already know. Get your name out there. Bear in mind that you aren’t restricted to purely working with photographers from your local area, many photographers travel for shoots and may well be in need of someone who knows the local area, gear rental shops are good location to find people in need of help.

It can be fairly difficult to find assistant work, as new photographers may not have the financial resources to warrant an assistant and it can be hard to get close to the well established professionals, but keep pushing doors and building contacts. Opportunities will come.

Photo by Wolfgang Lonien

Discuss the Shoot

It’s important that you are up to speed with the details of the shoot, so have a conversation with the professional well before the shoot to establish some basic information so everyone knows what the format of the shoot will be.

Who is the shoot for? Are there any specific shot requirements? What will the style of the shoot be? Are there any specific aims, locations or backdrops in mind? These elements will not only help you on the day, but it will aid the communication between you and the professional and ensure that everyone is working together effectively towards the same goals.

Photo by Mugley

Pre-Shoot Preparations

Prior to the shoot, it’s important that you check whether there is anything you can do to aid the main photographer in ensuring they have everything in place for the shoot.

Do they need to rent any gear, particularly lenses or lighting equipment if they are traveling far to the shoot. Will a studio be required at all, maybe a space for hair and make up needs to be organized? Are there locations that are yet to be decided, might you be able to help by scouting out and visiting potential spots?

As you work on more shoots, you’ll find that you build up a database of information such as good rental stores, studios and locations, but it’s important to do your research before suggesting them to the professional, as it may fall on your head if things don’t work out!

Photo by Garry Knight

Be Clear on your Role

Before you get to the shoot, it’s essential to discuss with the photographer what your role is on the day. You need to find out how you will be of most use to them? It may be a case of simply transporting gear, carrying lenses and being a second pair of eyes at the shoot.

However, they may well want you to be a back up shooter, shooting over the shoulder of the professional or taking shots that include them as well for promotional purposes. If this is required of you, be sure to research the style of the photographer beforehand, to ensure that your work will sit nicely alongside theirs. It’s essential that you remember to ask permission before taking any photos. If the professional hasn’t explicitly stated that you’ll be shooting, don’t except to do so.

Photo by Ugg Boy

Go Prepared

On the day, it’s essential that you get a few basic things right, just to show your intentions for the shoot. Be on time, in fact, be early. I know it sounds obvious, but showing up late really isn’t an option. Ensure that you dress appropriately, especially if it’s a function such as a wedding. If you’re not sure, just ask. If it you’re scared to ask, word your question carefully. “So will you be wearing a tuxedo or a suit?” See how that sounds.

Double check you have all the gear you require, and if you’re not sure, take it. An extra tripod might be useful for a remote flash and that extra reflector cover might just add the extra warmth you’ve been after. Overall though, it’s important to go along with the right mindset, ready to offer your services and do what is asked of you!

Follow the Lead

Let the photographer introduce you to the clients and use their example to acclimatize to the situation. Remember, that it’s not about you, you may well gain a lot from the experience, but you’re role is secondary to that of the professional.

However, the shoot is also not about the professional photographer, it’s about the client. Your priority should be to ensure that everyone gets along and works together.

Photo by Ashraful Kadir

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

There will be various things that will be asked of you through the shoot, some of which you’ll be more accustomed to than others. Carrying equipment sounds easy, but it’s essential to be careful, especially if you’re wheeling various cases of gear around.

Don’t leave them unattended unless you’re certain they’re safe. You may be asked to take light readings, so be sure you know what you’re doing with a lightmeter. It may also be required for you to sit in before a model arrives in order to check lighting and angles, this can feel a bit like you’re being put in the limelight, but sit still and try not to pull any funny faces!

There will also probably be the need to control the lighting, angles and amounts, so again, know the gear and how to make the adjustments that are required. You’ll also probably need to carry a selection of lenses with you, for which a robust bag can be useful. Make sure you know which lens is which in order to hand over the right one when it’s needed.

Photo by morbuto

Be Ready

It’s up to you to concentrate on what’s going on within the shoot so that you can be ready to provide the photographer with the correct gear and adjustments on demand. To a certain extent, it’s good to almost interpret what might be needed at specific times so you can pre-empt the needs of the photographer.

Maybe you’ll need to shift some lights to the secondary set up, or maybe a different lens will be required as the models hold a pose, so be ready, be quick and be efficient!

Photo by Soundman1024

Be a Sounding Board

You may well find that the photographer uses you to bounce ideas off and to double check setups. This is not the time to just be a yes man, engage your mind and do your best to give accurate answers, not just the answer you think they want to hear. This is your chance to offer opinions on the elements within the shoot and maybe even offer some creative suggestions if you feel it’s appropriate.

Don’t take this as the open door to start commanding wholesale changes, but maybe you feel the photographer has missed something, a light might be better placed or an opportunity has been missed. By all means make suggestions, but don’t hassle the photographer or clients as they will be under pressure to deliver the required shots.

It can also be useful to keep track of the time to ensure that everything is running on schedule. The photographer can often get engrossed in their work and if there are limits on the subject’s time or upon the usage of the location, it’s important to use the time effectively, and to not delay proceedings.

Photo by SparkFunElectronics

Stepping Up

It may be the case that the photographer takes a break or wants you to go and photograph a separate element of the event on your own. If you do get the opportunity to step into the role of a photographer (as opposed to an assistant), be confident. Believing that you have the ability to take the shots required will take you a long way to getting the shots you want.

Having confidence will allow you to get into the best positions and command the situation, allowing you to control the subjects and make the most of the opportunity you’ve been given.

Photo by TDNPhoto

Get Feedback

It’s really useful to have an informal de-brief once the shoot is over, just to assess the positives and negatives of the workings of the shoot. Did the photographer managed to achieve what they set out to do?

It can also be useful to ask whether they feel you fulfilled your role adequately, which can be seen as leaving a door open for criticism, but hopefully they’ll be generous in complimenting the things you did well, but also advise you on aspects that could be improved on for next time.

Photo by Sunshine

Returning Your Shots

If you have been required to take some shots, be selective in the work you send. Don’t just send hundreds of shots hoping they’ll like some of them. Choose the best select few and ensure that you take your time with the post processing to guarantee high quality images.

It’s important that you are efficient in sending them to the photographer well within any set deadline to leave space for touch ups and re-edits. Also, don’t publish your photos anywhere without the explicit permission of the main photographer. This is a huge faux pas made by assistants, as clients will get distracted if they see your shots before the main photographer’s and it will detract from their work. It’s also likely that you’ll never get invited back.

Following Up

As common courtesy dictates, thank the photographer that hired your for the work. If the photographer didn’t ask for shots of him/herself working, that would make an excellent thank-you gift. Also, buying them so little piece of equipment you might think will help them out would be nice, even if it’s just a pack of zip ties or a roll of gaffer’s tape.

If the photographer has the time, it’s smart to ask them for a post-shoot review of any photos you took. If you work with the photographer in the future, it will make you more aware of what they are looking for.

In this Quick Tip video tutorial I’ll show you how to create a rating system using CSS, web fonts and sprites.

Watch Screencast

If you’re looking for free vector grunge graphics, such as distressed backgrounds, worn textures, dirty paint splatter, and more, then you’ve found a compilation worth downloading. We’ve collected an assortment of vector grunge illustrations, free vector grunge textures, and wickedly worn graphics available for free download. Jump in and grab these free grunge vectors now and start making grunge vector art for your next project.

Many of these free vector graphics are available for commercial use, as well as personal use. Some may have stronger restrictions though, so as always check the usage rights before using.

Using Vector Grunge Graphics in Your Work

Vector grunge graphics are used primarily for distressing your vector illustrations. Vector graphics are known for their crisp look, with sharp edges, and controlled gradients. Graphics made in Illustrator naturally have a shiny modern style, whether you’re making icons for interfaces or illustrations for print.

Giving your work a worn feel can humanize your vector work, making them fit better in a vintage style catalogue design, retro themed advertising campaign, dirty music cover, screenprinted t-shirt, and more. There are so many projects designers can use vector grunge graphics in that a list would be endless.

Whether your final vector work is destined for the web, mobile, or print, giving your vectors a grunge feel can be just what your next project needs.

Creating Vector Grunge Graphics

Here are some tutorials that will teach you how to create vector grunge graphics of various styles and how to apply them to your illustrations:

• How to Create a Spray Grunge Splatter
• Quick Tip: Create a Set of Scalable Grunge Icons
• Illustrate a Grunge Style Talking Skull in Vector

Download Vector Grunge Graphics for Free Right Now

If you’re in a hurry though, then download one of the free files below, and put them to use right now in your current design or illustration project. We’ve assembled a large collection of useful vector grunge graphics: with textures, corners, borders, background, splats, and more.

Grab a multitude of vector grunge graphic freebies to add to your files, which are available in EPS, CSH, AI and other vector formats for free download. Whether you use Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or prefer another vector software package, you can download these sets and use them in your next design. There are plenty of options to fit just the grunge need your project has right now.

Free Vector Grunge Textures

Grunge textures are versatile vector freebies. You can overlay them over your graphic and illustration work to give them a worn or vintage feel. We have subtle grunge vectors, as well as rust inspired vector textures, a set that looks like a scratchboard, and more available below. Each one of these will add a different feel to your vector work. Follow the links below to grab these free vector grunge textures.

Free Vectors – 15 Free High-Quality Subtle Grunge Vectors

Free Texture Tuesday: Vector Grunge Scratch Patterns

Vector Art: Grunge Texture

Vector Grunge Texture

Free Vector Grunge Corners, Borders, and Backgrounds

Grunge vector art is stylish and fits with various aesthetics, from alternative music, vintage style graphics, and more. A simple way to distress your artwork is to apply grunge corners or borders. If you’re looking to give your artwork a stronger grunge feel, then you can apply a well worn vector grunge background.

Some of these look like they could have been formed from stains on the side of dumpsters or cracked walls in urban areas. Each one of these vector grunge graphics will add a unique feel to your vector work. Follow the links below to grab these vector grunge borders, corners, and backgrounds as free vector grunge downloads.

50 Free Vector Grunge Corners

Free Vector Grunge Borders

Free Vectors – 15 Grunge Vectors

Urban Vector Grunge Background

Free Vector Grunge Splats

Grunge splats can add a specific worn look to your vector graphics. If you’re looking to create a paint splattered effect, or make a graphic look like it’s been rained on heaveily, then one of the following sets would be great to use. Follow the links below to grab these free vector grunge splatter textures.

Splatter Grunge Vectors

Paint Splatters and Spills Vectors

25 Free Vector Drips, Drops, and Splatters

Free Splatter Vector Grunge Set

Free Vector Grunge Splatter Cracks

Free Miscellaneous Grunge Vectors

Here are a multitude of additional grunge graphics of all sorts, from worn vintage wings, to rough plant textures, distressed arrows, vector grunge frames, and various classic grunge graphics. If you need abstract grunge vector graphics elements, or have a specific vector grunge need, then download one of the free vector grunge sets below.

Free Grunge Vector Samples

Vector Pack Sixx

Free Vector Grunge Plant Textures

Free Grunge Destroyed Arrow Vector

Free Vector Grunge Elements

Abstract Grunge Vectors

More Large Collections of Free Vector Downloads

• 350+ Free Graphics: Vector Arrow Symbols and Shapes
• 200+ Free Vectors: Tribal Graphics & Tattoo Designs
• 250+ Free, Vintage Graphics: Flourish Vector Ornaments
• Free Vector Downloads: 50+ Illustrator Patterns for Vintage Design
• Massive Collection of Vintage Vector Graphics: Floral Borders, Corners, and Frames
• 150+ Free, Vintage Vector, Medieval Heraldry Graphics
• Best of, Free Vector Business People Silhouette Packs
• 23 Free, Vector Icon Packs for Social Media
• 13 Brandable, Free, Vector People Graphics: Mascots and Character Designs

The new timeline feature in Photoshop CS6 will allow you to open, edit, and export videos without ever having to leave the application. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use this new feature to create an animated GIF from a video; a feature that could be used for banner ads, avatars, and more. Let’s get started!

Adobe is officially releasing it’s CS6 suite today. It’s new features are exciting, but their Creative Cloud solution is making headlines. Soon users will be able to subscribe to Adobe for a monthly fee and get access to the entire CS6 package, all for just /month if you sign up for a year. The whole shebang will be available in the next 30 days.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended

Photoshop continues to please with several new features. The new Content-Aware Patch gives users more control over the already popular Content-Aware fill feature by allowing them to chose where the fill is coming from. There is also a Content-Aware Move function that allows you to make a selection, move it to another part of the image, and let Content-Aware fill in the missing area. Much like when Content-Aware was first launched, this function may not be perfect, but it will most likely be a great starting point and time saver.

The new Mercury Graphics Engine allows you to see your changes more quickly. When applying complex filters over your images like warps, this feature reportedly speeds up the processing and preview times. This is a global change allowing all kinds of other functions to work faster.

The Blur Gallery allows you to quickly and intuitively make parts of your image blurry. This allows for quick and easy tilt-shift effects, which basically entails making two sides of your image blurry with a gradient effect to less the blur as it gets closer to your subject. You’ll also be able to more easily amplify shallow depth-of-field, but selecting what you what to remain in focus and what you don’t.

The Crop Tool has also been redesigned. It is non-destructive and operates a little like the Lightroom cropping tool. When you select the tool, it automatically selects the whole image instead of forcing you to draw your own crop. There’s also a handy drop-down menu at the top that allows for graphic overlays showing the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Spiral and more.

Another addition that I’m excited about is the automatic resampling function. When you resize image for the web, a variety of methods can be used to pick and choose the right pixels. This feature will choose the best method based on the circumstances, which will hopefully result in smoother images without funky gradients or fuzz.

The Creative Cloud

Adobe describes the Creative Cloud as a “digital hub that lets you download and install every Adobe Creative Suite® 6 application; access online services for file sharing, collaboration, and publishing; and benefit from new apps and features as soon as they’re released.”

The Creative Cloud is a subscription service. If you commit to a year, the monthly fee is . You can also go month-to-month, but the fee jumps to . There will also be a lower fee for Photoshop-only access, but the same cannot be said for all the other programs in the suite.

As Adobe’s description suggests, you also get access to a cloud-based storage and sharing service. With a subscription, you get 20GB. If you decide to give a 30-day trial a whirl, you’ll get 2GB to play with.

For those freelancers among us, there is also an preview web app. This could make collaboration a little quicker if downloading files is unnecessary.

Keep in mind the CS6 does not currently include an update of Lightroom. Lightroom 4 in not on the same release schedule.

Check It All Out Yourself

You can head over to Adobe’s site to further explore all the new applications and features. I’ve only mentioned things here that pertain specifically to photography, so if you’re a web or graphic designer or even into producing video, there’s a lot more in store for you. They’re even introducing a few tablet-based apps they’re calling Touch Apps soon.

Learn more about the Creative Cloud here. Check out all the new features that Photoshop will have here. And finally, get an in-depth look CS6 and the Creative Cloud go here.

Web Design Workshop is our weekly community project where we ask readers to submit their work for your friendly, constructive criticism. It’s the perfect way to learn, offer opinions and have your own work critiqued! This week, we’re feeling romantic..

Rules of Engagement

Play nice! We deliberately select work which will benefit from advice and pointers. If you can’t be constructive in your comments, don’t. Other than that, offer any advice you can give. Feel free to link to examples and images which back up your points.

The Design

see it live

My second website ever.. Got the job of bringing the website of our wedding planner into this millennia. It’s a win win for us both. She gets a new website, I get to practice and I can use this site as a reference if/when I’ll ever master the skill of web development enough to make a living out of it..- Tommy Waglen Major

The site is in norwegian and many of you most likely won’t understand it, just look at it as if it was lorem ipsum text I really like the fullscreen background image, and the image gallery section (thanks to fancybox).

Working on:

• making the site responsive
• smaller file size for the background image
• fixing the bug with the drop down menu disappearing
• better logo/more detailed/more suitable for Hawaii

Open for all feedback on design and code. Feel free to rip this one apart and give me the hard truth. I want to learn from my mistakes.

P.S: This site is in use! The contact form WILL send an email to the wedding planner, so please don’t spam her!

• Designed by: Tommy Waglen Major
• Project: Hawaii Bryllup

Vectortuts+ loves Illustration and discovering new talent, so today we are proud to be showcasing Round 1 of the Vectortuts+ Creative T-shirt Project. The best thing is, you can be a part of it! Find out how to get involved, at the jump.

Create Your Own T-shirt Design, Round 1

The designs are posted in no particular order, but we thought it would be fun to kick things off by getting crazy with Aldemir! Great work everyone, it’s been fun to see what you’ve come up with.

Submissions are open for another week! Get your entries in before Monday 30th of April 2012 for a chance to be in Showcase 2!

Aldemir Alves
I’m Aldemir Alves from Brasil (dãn)…and I’m crazy…crazy, not lazy! aldemiralves.daportfolio.com

Dan Phillips
“Classic style. My name is Dan Phillips and I am a graphic designer by trade and an artist at heart. I have been doing freelance design work for the past few years, and have loved every second of it. You can see more of my work at designphilled.com“

William DeLeo
“About the shirt: “QRystal Ball Augmented Reali-tee” t-shirt project design template. It is designed to hold a QR code, but draw the human eye away from the existence of the code itself. Each square was hand chosen to destroy patterns, leaving the eye to see the “whole” not the parts. The QR code can be swapped in/out, and the entire image is a trigger for an augmented reality layer, which rotates and remains fresh. The current version shows a glimpse into Bilbo’s hobbit hole. About me: I am a physicist/oceanographer who has a mobile marketing startup (tagitup.net). I’m a hack programmer, a hack ai artist, and an all around hack CEO. I wear this shirt and Adidas Spezial to “work” every day. Happy scanning!!!”

Welcome2Mars

Rasmus Ekroth
My t-shirt smurfatard. A parody based on the likeness there is between the na’avis and the smurfs. Simply a wild smurf riding one of those ikrans.
I made this one with my friend Tom, we both live in Sweden, are 18 YO and are studying digital media at the gymnasium.

Alexi Bradich

Andreas Strömberg
I originally made the catdesign in Photoshop but managed to vectorize it in Illustrator. I love graphic design and Photography, 37 years old and live in Sweden

Matthew Bowring
I’m a ESL teacher living in Chiang Mai Thailand that enjoys making vector art in my spare time.
Here in Chiang Mai its the annual water festival called “Songkran” which is basically one huge water fight for the entire city, celebrating Thai New Year. My T-shirt design is based on the festival.

Please check out my other work at mattbowring.deviantart.com

How to Get Involved!

Would you like to participate in the Vectortuts+ Creative T-shirt Project? It’s easy, all you need to do is Download the Template, join the Vectortuts+ Facebook Group and get creative!

Artwork by Artamp – Vectortuts+ Vector Freebie

How to Make a Vectortuts+ T-shirt Design:

1. Download the Design Template
2. Draw your image onto the template, you can be as creative as you like, feel free to alter any or all of the illustration. We want to see creative and fun projects so go crazy!
3. Upload (or tag) your design to the Vectortuts+ Facebook Group with a short description of your style or theme.

While thinking up a strong concept is often one of the biggest challenges that a designer will face during the creative process, executing that concept can be equally, if not more challenging. In this Tuts+ Premium tutorial, author Liran Szeiman will explain how to create a cute, but dark, fantasy illustration in Photoshop using digital painting techniques. This tutorial is available exclusively to Tuts+ Premium Members. If you are looking to take your digital painting skills to the next level then Log in or Join Now to get started!

Tuts+ Premium Members can login now for instant access to this tutorial. Membership to Tuts+ Premium gets you access to hundreds of exclusive premium tutorials, top selling ebooks, in-depth courses, member forums, and much more. To learn more about Tuts+ Premium, Take the Tour or Join Today.

Making choices about cameras is always tough. Do you pack a huge DSLR with great image quality or would you rather choose a point-and-shoot that you will actually carry? With the latest class of cameras, you can get the best of both worlds with fantastic image quality and portability. Today, we’ll take a look at Micro 4/3 and other mirrorless cameras.

Intro to m4/3

One of the greatest appeals of these cameras is the combination of image quality and portability. From personal experience, toting around a full frame DSLR with big lenses is something I don’t enjoy on a day-to-day basis.

When it comes time to work, I love the image quality that it provides, but I often find myself leaving this combination at home (thus decreasing my total number of photographs made) when I should be carrying it to capture life’s in-between moments.

The smaller sensors of these cameras grants huge advantages to these cameras for a number of reasons. With smaller sensors, less “coverage area” is required from the lenses to project the image onto the sensor. This is a very similar discussion to how full frame and crop factor lenses differ; full frame cameras require lenses with the capability of projecting the image onto the 35mm size sensor. These cameras require smaller amounts of glass to project an image of the needed size onto the smaller sensor.

What does all of this mean? Lightweight, lower cost lenses. The technology that can drive better image quality on smaller sensors has encouraged movement toward these cameras, and the image quality is certainly on par with entry-level DSLR’s. With the greater crop factor, manufacturers can also create lenses that cover a greater range of focal lengths.

Cameras like Sony’s NEX series combine portability with great image quality. Photo by LoneWalkerNYC.

Another feature of these cameras that seems to divide people is the electronic viewfinder. We’re all familiar with the classic optical viewfinder that allows us to view our scene through a peephole. These cameras evolve on this by being an electronic view of the scene; imagine a super tiny LCD screen if you’ve never used one. The technology is still improving and offers the ability to superimpose all kinds of useful (and customizable) information on top of the scene.

Image quality? Check. Portability? Usually the case. Lenses? They’re trickling out slowly with more manufacturers jumping on board. It’s not hard to see the values that these cameras are bringing to the table.

What’s in a name?

From the title of the article, you’ll notice that I applied the term “Micro 4/3″, but this may not be the best term to use. Micro 4/3 was simply a specification (or format) created by Panasonic and Olympus in 2008. This sensor size is half of the full frame size, so lenses get a 2x crop factor.

However, plenty of other options exist that span a variety of features, sensor sizes, and some of the other terms that I’ve heard applied to these cameras are EVIL, short for “electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens”, and simply “mirrorless”, meaning the camera foregoes the pentaprism and mirror in the camera. Other people simply call them “system” cameras, meaning that this line of cameras is simply part of a series featuring commonly interchangeable lenses.

The truth of the matter is that it’s very difficult to get everyone to agree on anything in the photography community. And with every technology, it constantly changes, so the definition and standards for this class could be completely different by this time next year.

Don’t get hung up with choosing a specific term, because it will almost certainly exclude a camera that someone else would call similar. Regardless, the things I look for are a fairly large sensor, interchangeable lenses, and a manufacturer’s commitment to the system.

What’s Available

Olympus / Panasonic (Micro 4/3)

Panasonic’s DMC-GH2 is one of many offerings and is built more like a DSLR than many micro 4/3 cameras.

Perhaps the best known mirrorless class, the Micro 4/3 format is a great joint effort between Olympus and Panasonic that really kicked off the trend of this camera class.

Dozens of true Micro 4/3 cameras are available. As mentioned above, the half frame sized sensor (compared to full frame) is not as big as an APS-C sensor, but still dwarves many of the point and shoot sensors that are out there. The image quality that these cameras can produce are fantastic, and the system has certainly grown.

Even better, tons of lenses are now available for the system. Third party manufacturers like Sigma have started jumping on board to produce lenses. If you’re interested in jumping around, this system is a great bet with the support of multiple camera manufacturers and many lenses already available.

Fuji

Fuji’s X-Pro1 is one of the newest mirrorless camera and features classic styling and a large sensor.

Appealing perhaps to those that value classically styled cameras (including yours truly), Fuji’s latest cameras have raised a lot of eyebrows among those interested in going mirrorless.

The company’s first offering, the X100 featured a fixed lens and really wowed many photographers. They praised it for its portability and enjoyed the ability to focus on the image making process without all of the features of a DSLR.

The image quality provided by the APS-C sensor was still fantastic, and even the electronic viewfinder was widely praised. However, the fixed lens sent some away because they felt the rather expensive X100 was a passing phase.

The follow-up, the X-Pro1, is a true system camera. With it, Fuji has introduced an entirely new mount known as the X-Mount. Although expensively priced at around 00, the camera is drawing rave reviews from photographers who are praising it for the image quality and usability. Fuji currently offers three lenses: an 18mm f/2, a 35mm f/1.4, and a 60mm f/2.4 macro lens. These three primes are interesting choices for photographers looking to simplify.

Fuji seems to be blazing a trail that focuses on stylish rangefinder-esque cameras. Although they are producing rather high cost offerings, the fantastic image quality combined with the simplicity and portability of these cameras is attracting more and more photographers.

Sony

Sony’s sleek styled mirrorless cameras, known collectively as NEX, feature big image sensors and high megapixel counts. This camera, the NEX-7, packs 24 megapixels.

Forever committed to developing proprietary technologies and systems, Sony has their own mirrorless offering in the form of the Sony NEX series. These are frequently discussed and lauded as having some of the highest image quality, and the Sony NEX-7 offers 24 megapixels of resolution.

The downside to these is that they do feature a proprietary mount, so lenses from Olympus and Panasonic don’t work with the cameras. The company has already introduced 5 NEX digital cameras, and even offers video cameras with the same E-mount lenses. Sony’s cameras feature big APS-C sized sensors.

Nikon

Nikon’s J1 camera along with the 10-30mm kit zoom lens.

Having launched their own proprietary system, Nikon seems to be doing well with their mirrorless system, collectively known as “Nikon 1″. Two cameras are currently offered, the J1 and V1. The premium priced V1 brings an electronic viewfinder to the table, while the more petite J1 includes a pop up flash. Many critics were unhappy initially with the size of the sensor, which is substantially smaller than the Micro 4/3 sensor.

However, the cameras were praised for having snappy autofocus and feeling very responsive. Users also seem to enjoy the minimalist style design, and Nikon appears committed to adding more lenses to the lineup with prototypes being shown off at trade shows and expositions.

Pentax

The tiny Pentax Q features interchangeable lenses and is the smallest of these cameras.

Perhaps the wildcard in the arena, Pentax currently offers one camera in the class. The pocket sized shooter known as “Q” is focused on being diminutive. Image quality is solid, but the camera features a tiny sized sensor that many believe disqualifies it from being compared to the above choices. Furthermore, it’s difficult to tell if the Q will become a series offered by Pentax, or if investing in this camera will be a sinking investment.

The Future

What does the future hold for this class of cameras? It’s hard to say, but my tendency to dream about fictitious cameras is in full force.

I think that the Fuji X-Pro1 may become the defining camera for the future of this system. With this camera, Fuji has now committed to a mount that they can use and grow with in the future. Smaller cameras such as these may never demand a full frame size sensor, so Fuji has probably hit the right size with an APS-C (or roughly DX equivalent size sensor) in the camera.

Personally, my belief is that these cameras will become widespread to the extent that they will pull photo takers from both directions: casual fans wanting something more powerful than a point-and-shoot, as well as professionals looking to travel lighter, such as myself. For some, these could replace their current cameras, while others would add them as an additional option.

I also believe that these cameras will grow in terms of what can be accomplished within the camera itself. Are editing features and sharing out of the question? Cameras such as these are likely to be refreshed and replaced by manufacturers more often than DSLR’s, so experimental features don’t seem out of the question. The big camera makers may use this form factor as a testing ground to find out what features consumers could be interested in purchasing.

Furthermore, I have to wonder about Canon’s plans for their own mirrorless type camera. So far, they are perhaps the biggest player without a contribution to the field. I’m not sure if they have labeled this as a passing trend (remember when computer manufacturers scrambled to make netbooks? That market seemed to dry up quickly in favor of tablets and iPads) and aren’t taking it seriously. This type of strategy leaves the company vulnerable to having to play “catch-up” in the future if demand continue.

Regardless, I’m excited to see what becomes of this class of cameras. I think that it really combines the best of all worlds, and a lower priced version of the X-Pro1 with a wide angle or 50mm equivalent lens would certainly be a camera I would buy.

Conclusion

How do you feel about this new class of cameras? Has one found its way into your bag, or are you holding off for a future model? Make sure and let us know your feelings about these cameras in the comments.

Calling all Fireworks gurus! We publish regular content from authors all over the world and on a huge variety of topics within the web design industry. One area I feel we could make more of is Adobe Fireworks – do you have wisdom to share?

Adobe Fireworks

Whether we’re talking wireframing or pixel-perfect final concepts, web designers will often reach for Photoshop to do the job. But Photoshop was never conceived as a design tool, and it’s effectively had to catch up in terms of features to keep designers happy. Fireworks, on the other hand, was always intended for multimedia design layout.

I’m not particularly interested in a vs. debate, but I am interested in properly exploring the capabilities of Fireworks. Do you know Fireworks in and out? Can you teach others how to speed up their workflow and boost their creativity? This is a paid gig; throw some ideas my way and we’ll talk dollars!

Excellent! Where do I Sign Up?

Send an email over to webdesign[at]tutsplus[dot]com, with the following details:

• Your name.
• A short bio about yourself, also listing your strengths and interests in the field of web design.
• A brief synopsis of your Fireworks tutorial ideas (I need to understand what you’re describing – sell it!)
• Any other relevant work, portfolio pieces, experience.

I won’t be able to reply to all submissions, but expect an email very soon if you’ve made the grade

In the following tutorial you will learn how to create a garbage bin illustration. Use a complete Illustrator CS5 workflow, vector shape building techniques, gradient and opacity shading, as well as various vector effects. Let’s get started.

Step 1

Hit Command + N to create a new document. Enter 700 in the width box and 600 in the height box, then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi) and make sure that the “Align New Objects to Pixel Grid” box is unchecked before your click OK. Now, turn on the Grid (View > Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid).

Next, you’ll need a grid every 5px. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides & Grid, enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. You can also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes.

Do not forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Unit > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.

Step 2

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 200 by 390px shape, fill it with R=0 G=153 B=109 and remove the color from the stroke. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the bottom anchor points.

Select the left anchor point and move it 15px to the right, then select the right anchor points and move it 15px to the left. In the end your shape should look like the second image shown. Reselect it and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F).

Step 3

Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 220 by 50px shape and place it as shown in the first image. Select this new shape, along with the copy created in the previous step, open the Pathfinder panel and click on the Intersect button.

Step 4

Reselect the shape created in the second step and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 10px radius, click OK and go to Effect > Warp > Arc Lower. Enter the data shown in the second image, click OK, and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 5

Select the shape made in the previous step, along with the shape created in the third step, and click on the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. Move to the Layers panel (Window > Layers), Double-click on the resulting shape, and name it “Body”.

Step 6

Pick the Pen Tool (P), draw two vertical paths (400px) and place them as shown in the first image. Add a discrete black stroke for these paths. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the left, vertical path. Select the bottom anchor point and move it 15px to the right.

Continue with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the right, vertical path. Select the bottom anchor point and move it 15px to the left. In the end your paths should look like the second image shown. Duplicate them (Command + C > Command + F). Move to the Layers panel, find these fresh copies and make them invisible. You’ll need them later.

Step 7

Reselect “Body” and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy, along withe the visible paths created in the previous step, and click on the Divide button from the Pathfinder panel. Move to the Layers panel and you will find a group with three simple shapes. Ungroup them (Shift + Command + G) and delete the middle shape.

Step 8

Focus on the two shapes created in the previous step and fill them with the linear gradient shown below. The yellow zero from the gradient image stands for Opacity percentage.

Step 9

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid), then go to Edit > Preferences > General, and make sure that the Keyboard Increment is set at 1px. Select the right shape edited in the previous step and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F).

Select the top copy and hit the right arrow once (to move it 1px to the right). Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below, lower its Opacity to 20%, and change the blending mode to Overlay. Remember that the yellow zero from the gradient image stands for Opacity percentage.

Step 10

Reselect the shape created in the previous step and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, raise the Opacity to 100%, and change the blending mode to Normal.

Step 11

Select the left shape edited in the eighth step and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the left arrow once (to move it 1px to the left). Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below, lower its Opacity to 20%, and change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 12

Reselect the shape created in the previous step and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, raise the Opacity to 100%, and change the blending mode to Normal.

Step 13

Select all the shape created and edited in the last six steps and group them (Command + G).

Step 14

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create two, 5 by 405px shapes, and place them as shown in the first image. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the left shape.

Select the bottom anchor points and move them 15px to the right. Continue with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the right path. Select the bottom anchor point and move them 15px to the left. In the end your shapes should look like the second image shown.

Step 15

Reselect the two shapes created in the previous step, fill them with the linear gradient shown below, and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a 7px radius and click OK.

Step 16

Move to the Layers panel and find the invisible paths created in the sixth step. Make them visible and bring them to front (Shift + Command + ] ). Add a 5pt, white stroke for these paths, lower the Opacity to 5%, change the blending mode to Overlay, and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a 3px radius and click OK.

Step 17

Pick the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 140 by 255px shape, and place it as shown in the first image. Reselect “Body” and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy, along with the new shape, and click on the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a 10px radius and click OK.

Step 18

Select all the shapes created and edited in the last four steps and group them (Command + G).

Step 19

Next, you need to mask the group created in the previous step. Select “Body” and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Fill it with white, bring it to front (Shift + Command + ] ) and open the Transparency panel.

Select this white shape, along with the group created in the previous step, open the fly-out menu of the Transparency panel, and click on Make Opacity Mask. In the end your masked group should look like the third image shown.

Step 20

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Reselect “Body” and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the up arrow twice. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Now fill the resulting shape with R=0, G=119, B=88. And bring it to front (Shift + Command + ] ).

Step 21

Reselect “Body” add a 1pt stroke. Set its color to R=0, G=119, B=88. Make sure that this shape is still selected, move to the Appearance panel, and add a new fill using the Add New Fill button. It’s the little, white square icon located at the bottom of the Appearance panel. Select this new fill and use the linear gradient shown below.

Step 22

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 245 by 20px shape and place it as shown in the first image. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on the bottom anchor points. Select the left anchor point and move it 30px to the right, then select the right anchor points and move it 30px to the left.

Now your shape should look like a trapezoid. Select it and send it to back (Shift + Command + [ ). Reselect “Body” and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy, along with the trapezoid shape, and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. This will create a group with two triangle shapes. Fill them with the linear gradients shown below.

Step 23

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid) and focus on the left triangle created in the previous step. Select it and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow and the left arrow three times.

Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with black and lower its Opacity to 20%. Switch to the Delete Anchor Point Tool(-) and click on the three anchor points highlighted in the third image. In the end your shape should look like the fourth image shown.

Step 24

Focus on the right triangle created in the previous step. Select it and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow and the right arrow three times. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.

Fill the resulting shape with black and lower its Opacity to 20%. Switch to the Delete Anchor Point Tool(-) and click on the three anchor points highlighted in the third image. In the end your shape should look like the fourth image shown.

Step 25

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 5 by 30px shape. Fill it with the linear gradient shown below and place it as shown in the first image. Make two copies of this shape and place them as shown in the second image.

Step 26

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Select the first shape created in the previous step and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow once. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.

Fill the resulting shape with white, lower its Opacity to 30%, and change the blending mode to Overlay. Repeat this technique for the other two shapes created in the previous step. Select the shapes created in this step, along with the shapes created in the previous step, and group them (Command + G).

Step 27

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create the four new shapes (use the dimensions mentioned in the first image), and place them as shown in the first image. Fill them with a random color and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 10px radius, click OK, and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Select the group created in the previous step and duplicate it (Command + C > Command + F). Select this group copy, along with the four, rounded rectangles and click on the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. The resulting shape should look like the fourth image shown.

Step 28

Reselect “Body” and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy, along with the shape created in the previous step, and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.

Move to the Layers panel and you will find a new group with a bunch of shapes. Open it, delete the largest shape, then fill the remaining shapes with black, and lower their Opacity to 10%.

Step 29

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 245 by 20px shape, fill it with the linear gradient shown below, and place it as shown in the first image.

Next, you need to add a bit of roundness for this shape. Use the Round Any Corner script. You can find it in the Vectortuts+ article 20 Free and Useful Adobe Illustrator Scripts. Save it to your hard drive, return to Illustrator, and grab the Direct Selection Tool (A).

Select the top anchor points and go to File > Scripts > Other Script. Open the Round Any Corner Script, enter a 5px Radius, and click OK. In the end your shapes should look like the second image shown.

Step 30

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Reselect the shape created in the previous step and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -1px Offset and click OK. Select the resulting shape and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy and move it 1px down.

Reselect the two shapes created so far and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with white, lower its Opacity to 10% and change the blending mode to Overlay. Reselect the shape created in the previous step, add a 1pt stroke, set its color at R=0, G=130, B=90, and align it to inside.

Step 31

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 110 by 20px shape, place it as shown in the first image and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 5px radius, click OK and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Reselect the shape created in step 29 and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select it, along with the new, rounded rectangle and click on the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown in the final image.

Step 32

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Reselect the shape created in the previous step and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow once. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with R=0, G=130, B=90.

Step 33

Reselect the shape created in step 31 and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the bottom copy and hit the down arrow once. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with white, lower its Opacity to 30%, and change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 34

Select all the shapes created in the last five steps and group them (Command + G).

Step 35

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 220 by 20px shape. Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, place it as show in the following image, and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 5px radius, click OK, and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Select the resulting shape, make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F), and disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Select the top copy and hit the down arrow once. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with white, lower its Opacity to 30%, and change its blending mode to Overlay.

Step 36

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Select the largest shape from the group created in step 34, make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F), and move it two pixels up. Reselect the rounded rectangle created in the previous step and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F).

Select these two copies and click on the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with black and lower its Opacity to 10%. Select it, along with the shapes created in the previous step, and send them to back (Shift + Command + [ ).

Step 37

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 210 by 20px shape. Fill it with the linear gradient shown below, place it as show in the following image, and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 5px radius, click OK, and go to Effect > Warp > Arc Upper. Enter the data shown below, click OK and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 38

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Reselect the shape created in the previous step and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -1px Offset and click OK. Select the resulting shape and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F).

Select this copy and move it 1px down. Reselect the two shapes created so far and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with white, lower its opacity to 30%, and change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 39

Reselect the shape created in step 37 and add a 1pt stroke. Set its color at R=0, G=130, B=90, and align it to inside. Select the shapes created and edited in the last two steps and send them to back (Shift + Command + [ ).

Step 40

Select the rounded rectangle created in step 35, make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F), and move it two pixels up. Reselect the shape created in step 37 and make a new copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select these two copies and click on the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Fill the resulting shape with black and lower its Opacity to 10%.

Step 41

Select all the shapes created in the last six steps and group them (Command + G). Select the rounded rectangle created in step 35, make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F), and send it to back (Shift + Command + [ ). Fill it with none and add a 1pt stroke. Set its color at R=0, G=130, B=90, and align it to outside.

Step 42

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 40 by 30px shape. Fill it with none and add a 5pt stroke. Set its color at R=0, G=150, B=110, align it to outside, and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 5px radius, click OK, and go to Object > Path > Outline Stroke.

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid), select the resulting shape, and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -1px Offset and click OK. Select the resulting shape and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Select this copy and move it 1px down. Reselect these two smaller shapes and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.

Turn the resulting group of shapes into a compound path (Object > Compound Path > Make), fill it with white, lower the Opacity to 30%, and change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 43

Reselect the first shape created in the previous step, add a new fill, and use the linear gradient shown below. Keep focusing on this shape, add a 1pt stroke, set its color at R=0, G=130, B=90, and align it to inside. Select this shape, along with the compound path created in the previous step, and group them (Command + G). Send this group to back (Shift + Command + [ ).

Step 44

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 10 by 70px shape. Fill it with R=20, G=20, B=20, place it as shown in the first image, and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 2px radius, click OK, and go to Effect > Warp > Bulge. Enter the data shown below and click OK.

Now, your shape should look like the first image shown. Select it and make a copy in front (Command + C > Command + F). Fill this copy with R=65, G=65, B=65, move to the Appearance panel, and delete the Warp effect.

Step 45

Select the second shape created in the previous step and go to Object > Expand Appearance. Fill the resulting shape with the linear gradient shown below. The white numbers from the gradient image stand for Location percentage.

Step 46

Disable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Select the shape edited in the previous step and make two copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and move it 1px to the right. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.

Fill the resulting shape with white and lower its Opacity to 15%. Again, select the shape edited in the previous step and make two new copies in front (Command + C > Command + F > Command + F). Select the top copy and move it 1px to the left. Reselect both copies and click on the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel. Again, fill the resulting shape with white and lower its Opacity to 15%.

Step 47

Re-enable the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Pick the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 5 by 10px shape, and place it as shown in the following image. Select this new shape and go to Effect > Stylize > Rounded Corners. Enter a 1px radius, click OK, and go to Effect > Warp > Arc Lower. Enter the data shown below, click OK, and go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 48

Reselect the shape created in the previous step, fill it with the linear gradient shown below, and add a 1pt stroke. Set its color at R=88, G=88, B=88, and align it to outside.

Step 49

Select all the shapes created in the last five steps and group them (Command + G). Duplicate this group (Command + C > Command + F).

Step 50

Select the group copy created in the previous step and go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Check the Vertical button and click OK. Drag this flipped group to the left, as shown in the first image. Finally, send both groups to back (Shift + Command + [ ).

Conclusion

Now your work is done. Here is how it should look.

Creating a realistic 3D render often involves the use of both 3D applications and Photoshop. In this tutorial we will explain how to add texture and lighting to a render that we originally created during a tutorial on Cgtuts. If you would like to start this tutorial from the beginning and learn how to create these renders in ZBrush, please browse to the tutorial on Cgtuts to learn more. Let’s get started!

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

• ZBrush Renders
• Pattern File (Example)
• Brush File 1
• Brush File 2
• Brush File 3

Before We Begin

If you would like to learn how to create the original render in ZBrush, please begin by following this tutorial on Cgtuts.

Step 1

Create a document 600×600 pixels with black color as background. Import the render passes provided in the Asset files. Manage the layers as shown.

Step 2

Next, create the two new channels for the depth passes in the Channels Panel.

Step 3

Now, we are going to blend the “Tentacles Light” layer, change its blend mode to Soft Light and set opacity to 80%. To avoid making the lower area too bright, add a Layer Mask and apply a gradient of black color from bottom to up.

Step 4

Next, we are going to add the light that comes out from the tentacles, make a circular selection and fill it with white color, then got to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a quantity of 8.5 pixels of radius, duplicate the layer and move the new light over the other tentacle, merge both layers, and rename the new one “Light Bright” set its blending mode to Lighten and leave Opacity to 100%.

Step 5

Under the light we have created before it is necessary to add a glow effect, for it, duplicate “Light Bright” layer and place the copy below it, now go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply a 90 degrees and 9 px of Distance.

Step 6

Now, we are going to add more smoke inside capsule, first it will be necessary to create a mask to avoid paint outside it, for that, use the “Capsule Mask” layer, and as we want to avoid painting the insect, we will use the “Model Mask” also, check out the black and white color on the layers capture. Paint some smoke strokes with the brushes provided on the assets file.

Step 7

The smoke strokes we painted before are not very well integrated, create a Layer Mask and apply some black color gradients for improve them.

Step 8

At this point I was not happy with the tentacles light effect, then I decided to add more. Let’s do it, add a new layer, name it “Extra Light” and place it below the “Glow Light” layer. Create an elliptical selection over tentacles, fill it with white color, then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a 28 radius pixels. Now set the blending layer mode to Soft light and leave Opacity to 100%.

Step 9

Now we are going to add some detail to the sonar eyes, load the pattern provided on the assets, create a new layer, name it “Spyder Eye Texture” and place it over “Capsule & Model” layer, next fill the new layer with the pattern, then got to Edit > Transform > Scale, or short cut Command/Ctrl + T, and rescale till get the desired dot size. Next, using the “Color Mask” layer make a selection of the eyes using the Magic Wand Tool, and apply a layer mask on the pattern for isolate them. Set the blending layer mode to Overlay and 42% of Opacity.

Step 10

Next, we are going to apply a Lens Blur to the “Capsule & Model” layer, go to Filters > Blur > Lens Blur and apply following settings, make sure to select the correct Alpha for the Depth Map.

Step 11

Here we have finished the first phase, for keep all organized create a Folder, “Group 1,” and put all the layers we created before inside.

Step 12

Now we will increase the size of the canvas to start working on the final composition. Go to Image > Canvas Size and apply the following settings in two times. We got a new canvas of 700 width by 800 high.

Step 13

Let’s start creating our micro bionic spheres army, first select all the “Group 1″ layers, duplicate and merge them, so we will have the foreground micro bionic capsule, rename it “Front Capsule”. Duplicate that layer twice and rename them “2nd Line R” and “2nd Line L,” scale them a bit (Command/Ctrl + T) and place them below “Front Capsule” layer.

Step 14

Next we will create the transparency of the foreground capsule, it will be necessary to apply it on the crystal but not on the insect, to achieve it, first set the Opacity of “Front Capsule” layer to 75%. Now we have the desired crystal’s transparency, next duplicate “Front Capsule” layer and place it over the original one, using our masks layers, use the “Model Mask” layer for make a selection of the insect shape, then apply that selection as a layer mask to “Front Capsule copy,” so we will have the insect opaque again and the crystal opacity at 75%.

Step 15

Let’s start duplicating more insects, make copies of “2nd Line R” adding more capsules lines, make sure to make them smaller depending of how far the line is. Follow adding the layers from up to down, name them with the number line and R, L or M depending if they are right, left or is in the middle, “3rd Line R,” “3rd Line M,” 3rd Line L” and so on.

Step 16

Arrived at this point is necessary to add more space at the bottom to the canvas, to have enough space to design the floor. Go to Image > Canvas Size and apply following settings, now we got a new canvas of 700 width by 900 high.

Step 17

Next step will be add the ground, we are going to use the same pattern as before, create a new layer, name it “Ground,” placed below all the capsules layers. Fill that layer with the pattern and go to Edit > Transform > Perspective, and transform the layer to fix the perspective, next set the Transparency to 14% for darken it.

Step 18

Now we are going to create the blue lights that come from the floor, they will help to enhance our technological atmosphere. Using the Magic Wand Tool make a selection of some ellipses of the pattern that are below of the front capsules, create a new layer, name it “Ground Lights,” and fill them with the Paint Bucket Tool and light blue color.

Step 19

Select same ellipses that we choose on the previous step, but now go to Select > Modify > Contract and make them 6 pixels smaller, create a new layer, name it “Light Brights” and use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the selection, this time we will use white color. Next go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a blur of 18 pixels to the blue lights layer, and a blur of 8 pixels for the white ones. So we have the lights and its glow.

Step 20

Capsules needs to reflect the blue light that comes from the floor, for it, let’s create a new layer, name it “Ground Light Reflection,” next use the “Capsule Mask” layer for make a selection of the front capsule, use it for make a Layer Mask to isolate the capsule’s shape. Next apply a gradient from bottom to up with same light blue color we used for the lights, set the layer’s blend mode to Soft light and Opacity to 70%.

Step 21

Same as before but this time invert the mask for the second line capsules, create a new layer, name it “Ground Light Reflections 2″ Soft Light blending mode and 100% of opacity, and instead of use a gradient, use a soft round brush to paint the blue reflection.

Step 22

Following with reflections, this time it is necessary to create some on the front capsule crystal. Create a new layer, name it “Reflections,” Normal blending mode and 100% of Opacity, make a selection of the upper lights from the “Ground” layer and fill it with the same blue color, next blur it using the Blur Tool.

Step 23

Now it’s time to blur the capsules as they move away, farthest ones must be more blurred for create a kind of macro effect, and give the feeling that they are microscopic. Go to the different layers applying the following blur settings.

Step 24

Set the Opacity of each capsul as shown. Next, you notice that the smoke pattern of each capsule is very repetitive and does not look real, to fix it, create a new layer, name it “Capsule Corrections,” Normal blending mode and 100% of Opacity, isolate the second line capsules making a selection of them and apply a Layer Mask, don’t forget to exclude the front capsule. Now with the smoke brushes paint some strokes, then, blur them with the Blur Tool. For the 3rd and 4rth capsules lines use the Smudge Tool to modify the smoke pattern.

Step 25

On the previous steps we have obscured too much the tentacles lights, to turn on them again create a new layer, name it “Point Lights,” Normal blending mode and 100% of Opacity, and with a hard round brush paint a dot over each one, them go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a 4 pixels radius blur. For enhance depth create a new layer, name it “Depth Shadows,” Normal blending mode and 100% of Opacity, pick the Gradient Tool set its Opacity to 20% and make a gradient from top to bottom with a black color.

Step 26

Here we will add some Vignetting to the image, create a new layer, name it “Vigneting,” Normal blending mode and 100% of Opacity, next, make Command/Ctrl + Left click on the “Background” layer, we have a selection of the whole image, go to Edit > Stroke and write 9 pixels Width, then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a 32 pixels of radius blur.

Step 27

Now we will add the light labels, the biohazard, and the barcode, using the labels brushes provided on the assets, paint each label on a new layer, “Label 1″ and “Label 2″ set its blending modes to Normal and 70% of Opacity. Then go to Filter > Distort > Spherize and apply that filter twice at 100% for each one, next go to Edit > Transform > Wrap and transform each one for fit it on the capsule. Finally apply a Layer Style of Outer Glow with the shown settings.

Step 28

To add more macro effect use the Blur Tool on the “Ground” layer, to blur the surrounding areas of the front capsule.

Conclusion

Finally Flatten Image, add some noise, Filter > Noise, and adjust the Levels, Image > Adjustments > Levels, this step is optional, I like to add some noise to my images and adjust levels can enhance the final image effect.

In my opinion, documentary photography and its close cousin, photojournalism, are the most difficult forms of photography. By the very nature of the work, you have little or no control over your subject matter. You must think and compose on the fly. You must, through a visual medium, tells stories that are usually reserved for words. There are usually no second chances, the proper moments are fleeting. With that said, we hope this article give you a head start into this genre of photography.

Research your subject

The first thing you need to do, before even thinking about picking up a camera, is to get to grips with the subject matter that you’re going to be shooting. This will not only help you to anticipate what to expect while shooting, but will also prepare you in understanding how to represent the subject matter involved. Ensure that you all the equipment required for the shoot, think particularly about whether you need to travel light in order to be mobile.

Photo by Simon Bray

Get inspired

Once you’ve got your research done, it’s time to begin thinking about how to shoot the subject matter and I always find it useful to get some inspiration from some of the greats of documentary photography such as Robert Capa, Martin Parr, James Nachtwey and Don McCullin.

Observing work such as this will encourage and train your photographic eye to be vigilant and to see the extra depth within a scene in order to capture the moments that define your story.

How to represent your topic

The final piece of preparation before shooting, is to consider how you want to capture your subject matter. Think about why you originally wanted to work with the topic, what inspired you? How do you view the subject matter? How would someone else in a different position view the subject matter?

Make a few decisions about how you want to represent the subject prior to the shoot. This will get you started, but remember, you are documenting something. The word “document” implies a certain about of truth and objectivity. Therefore if a situation is not what you expected, you should not try to represent it as your preconceived notion.

Simon Bray

Representing Reality

Working as a documentary photographer comes with a certain amount of responsibility. It’s up to you to make decisions as you shoot with regard to what is appearing before you and how you portray that scene.

The audience is relying on you to accurately portray the truth of what is happening, so when composing a shot, you need to remember that sometimes what you leave out is just as important as what you put in the shot.

It can be very difficult to work objectively. In fact, some would argue that it’s impossible as we all approach life with certain perspectives and preconditioned mindsets. However, it’s important that you work as objectively as possible, establishing a truthful account of the subject without prejudice or political slant.

Photo by Simon Bray

The Bigger Picture

When shooting, it’s essential to capture a variety of shots in order to give your audience a balanced perspective of the subject. Imagine that someone is walking around a market, they wouldn’t spend the duration of the time with their faces as close to the artifacts on sale as possible, and so in a similar way, you wouldn’t want to simply have a photo essay filled with macro shots, because the shots wouldn’t have any context.

Ensure that you take some wider angle establishing shots, and maybe take some time away from the action to view the scene from a different perspective. This will help set the scene for the viewer and allow them to put the rest of the shots into perspective.

Photo by Simon Bray

Details & Faces

Alongside the wide angle shots, it’s essential to pick out interesting details that may have otherwise been missed by a casual viewer. Textures, colors and patterns all make for eye catching close ups. Be vigilant and keep your eye out for opportunities to supplement your story. It’s also important to capture the faces of any people involved.

This can require a lot of confidence on the part of the photographer, but approaching people and asking if you can take their photo really isn’t as scary as you might think. An audience will engage with faces, the reactions and expressions of those involved are a great way to aid telling the story of the subject.

Photo by Simon Bray

Relationships with subjects

If your subject matter is focused upon people, then you have two options based upon your approach. it may be that you don’t want anyone to know you are there, you want to blend into the background and shoot entirely natural shots. The other option is to interact with your subjects, in which case, it’s important that you build a rapport with them.

Introduce yourself and have conversations, this will break down any barriers and ensure that the subjects are comfortable with having a photographer around. It will make for far more natural shots as everyone will be happier and at ease.

Photo by Simon Bray

Be Patient

Documenting a subject can be a painstaking process. There can be a lot of waiting or even shoots that require multiple visits in order to get the shots you want. If this is the case, it’s important to be patient and not to get frustrated that the timescale is longer than you’d imagined.

In my experience, waiting for just that extra few minutes, hours or days can really make the difference. If you are finding it hard to get the shots you want, then maybe you need to re-assess your outlook, maybe you’ve set yourself a challenge that is impossible to meet. Don’t be afraid to shift focus for a while to give yourself time to establish your approach.

Photo by Simon Bray

Play by the rules

I know restrictions aren’t anyone’s idea of fun, but it’s important that within this context that you play by the rules and don’t push the limits of what you are and aren’t allowed to shoot.

Some areas have photographic restrictions placed upon them, so don’t shoot where you’re not allowed and if asked to refrain from taking photos, please do so politely. If required, ensure you get permission to shoot in certain areas. Similarly, some people do not wish to have their photo taken or for a stranger to take photos of their children, so please respect their requests.

Don’t over do it in post-production

Documentary photography is all about representing reality. Many photographers are now guilty of shooting quickly, hoping for the best and relying on post production to save their shots. With documentary photography, you cannot hide behind the post production.

It’s essential to retain the reality and truth within the shot. Therefore, it’s important to get it right in camera. Know your settings and take your time with the composition to ensure you’re getting the shots you want and need.

Photo by Simon Bray

Compiling a Photo Essay

Now you’ve got this vast collection of shots, it’s time to select the ones that will best represent the subject. It’s often useful to think of it as telling a story. If the subject matter has a natural process to it, then you’ll find it easy to track with that and build a collection of shots that capture each element in that natural order.

However, if the subject matter is less ordered, then it’s up to you to responsibly build that story and construct the scene through the selection and order of the shots. The temptation can be to just select the shots that you think are best and front load them, leaving the weaker shots until the end, but this is detrimental to the story.

It’s more important to tell the story accurately and this may involve including shots that you don’t feel are the strongest, but may add that vital piece of context.

Photo by Simon Bray

Presenting your work

Once you’ve refined your collection of shots and established the order, it’s important to consider how you want to present the work. If publishing online, you may want to consider a slideshow of images that displays each shot one by one, so the viewer can take in a shot at a time to build the story.

It’s also important to think about including captions with the shots. ` A caption can put a photograph into context and add considerable depth and meaning to an image.

Photo by Simon Bray

Hey guys, today we’ll be creating Premium Pixels’ Tagtastic Tag Cloud. As an experiment in alternative approaches, we’ll create the tags using gradients, shadows and (most importantly) CSS transforms, which will form the point of each tag. After completion we’ll even take a step further and cater for IE.

We’ve covered tags before on Webdesigntuts+, but on this occasion we’re going to examine an alternative method of creating all the composite bits and pieces. There may be sharper ways of creating the effect, but our example will refrain from images, use very clean markup and some unusual styling. Let’s get stuck in!

Step 1: HTML5 Base Markup

Let’s start off by throwing in some basic markup, including the familiar HTML5 doctype. We’ll also refer to our stylesheet within the head of our document.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
	<head>

		<!--Meta tags-->
		<meta charset="utf-8">

		<!--Title-->
		<title></title>

		<!--Stylesheets-->
		<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/styles.css">

</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>

Step 2: Adding Some Containers

For the purpose of this tutorial we’ll create a wrapper/container to hold our tags. You will most likely need something similiar should you use these in, for example, a blog sidebar.

For ours, we’ll simply create a div with a class of wrapper, apply a width of 340px and a margin of 50px auto to center the wrapper on the page. I’ve added 50px instead of 0 just to add a bit of margin top so our tags don’t touch the top of the browser window. While throwing in this CSS we’ll add some styling for the body (such as a background image) and apply a reset.

<div class="wrapper">

</div>

html,body,div,span,applet,object,iframe,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,p,blockquote,pre,a,abbr,and,address,cite,code,del,dfn,em,img,ins,kbd,q,s,samp,small,strike,strong,sub,sup,tt,var,b,u,i,dl,dt,dd,ol,ul,li,fieldset,form,label,legend,table,caption,tbody,tfoot,thead,tr,th,td,article,aside,canvas,details,embed,figure,figcaption,footer,header,hgroup,menu,nav,output,ruby,section,summary,time,mark,audio,video,input,textarea,select{background:transparent;border:0;font-size:100%;margin:0;outline:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline}article,aside,details,figcaption,figure,footer,header,hgroup,menu,nav,section{display:block}body{line-height:1}blockquote,q{quotes:none}blockquote:before,blockquote:after,q:before,q:after{content:none}

body {
	font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size:16px;
	background:url(../images/bg.jpg) repeat;
	-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

.wrapper {
	max-width:340px;
	margin:50px auto;
}

Step 3: Creating a Tag with Some HTML

I’ve structured these tags very simply; all we’ll be using is an anchor tag (a logical choice as these will likely act as links to somewhere or something). For this tutorial I’ve given it a class of “tag” but this can be changed to whatever you like.

	<a href="#" class="tag">high resolution</a>

Step 4: Tag Styling

Right, on to the next part! We’ll now make a start on styling the tag – there’s quite a bunch of code here but don’t let that confuse you, I’ll explain whats going on.

I’ve first added some basic stuff here;

• Floats
• Margins
• Positioning – Relative
• Text-decoration – none

Next we’ve defined some font settings, size, family and weight, followed by a color and a text-shadow. After that we’ve applied some padding, using ems so that everything is sized relative to the body font size, or the browser font size. Next, a simple border, though we haven’t applied one to the left. The ems have popped up again! This time we’ll apply them to border-radius but only the top right and bottom right corners. Okay are you still awake? There’s more.. next we’ll use some CSS3 gradients (I’ve gone ahead and used the neat Gradient app to calculate the values). Final part is some box shadows, an inset and drop shadow. Remember those prefixes!

.tag {
	float:left;
	margin:0 0 7px 20px;
	position:relative;

	font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size:0.75em;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-decoration:none;

	color:#996633;
	text-shadow:0px 1px 0px rgba(255,255,255,.4);

	padding:0.417em 0.417em 0.417em 0.917em;

	border-top:1px solid #d99d38;
	border-right:1px solid #d99d38;
	border-bottom:1px solid #d99d38;

	-webkit-border-radius:0 0.25em 0.25em 0;
	-moz-border-radius:0 0.25em 0.25em 0;
	border-radius:0 0.25em 0.25em 0;

	background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0,StartColorStr='#feda71', EndColorStr='#feba47');

	-webkit-box-shadow:
		inset 0 1px 0 #faeaba,
		0 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.1);
	-moz-box-shadow:
		inset 0 1px 0 #faeaba,
		0 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.1);
	box-shadow:
		inset 0 1px 0 #faeaba,
		0 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.1);

	z-index:100;
}

Step 5: The Arrow

Okay we’ve completed the main part of the tag, the next part is to create the arrow. To add this we’ll use the :before pseudo element. We’ll also experiment with some advanced techniques here from CSS; transformations. Creating these arrows involved a lot of trial and error. I had to try different widths and heights along with positioning of top and bottom to get it as perfect as possible! Any feedback is therefore very welcome..

We’ve used the same background gradient as previously but with one minor change: because we’ll be rotating the square we’re about to make, we’ll also need to rotate the gradient so it matches up with the main part of the tag. Gradient app was helpful in letting me change the direction of the gradient. The next part is to create some borders, on the left and bottom. All that’s left with regard to the arrow is to add a border-radius to smoothen off the point and to finally apply our transformations. We’ll rotate the square we’ve made 45 degrees so it looks like an arrow. We’ve used transform:45; along with the prefixed ones.

.tag:before {
	content:'';

	width:1.30em;
	height:1.358em;

	background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -o-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	background-image: linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 218, 113), rgb(254, 186, 71));
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=1,StartColorStr='#feda71', EndColorStr='#feba47');

	position:absolute;
	left:-0.69em;
	top:.2em;

	-webkit-transform:rotate(45deg);
	-moz-transform:rotate(45deg);
	-o-transform:rotate(45deg);
	transform:rotate(45deg);

	border-left:1px solid #d99d38;
	border-bottom:1px solid #d99d38;

	-webkit-border-radius:0 0 0 0.25em;
	-moz-border-radius:0 0 0 0.25em;
	border-radius:0 0 0 0.25em;

	z-index:1;
}

You should now have something similar to the following; Note I’ve zoomed in so you can see where the arrow connects to the main part, this is barely notiticable when viewed at normal size.

Step 6: Tag Hole

The last part to complete our tag is to create the little hole on it. Here we’ll use a pseudo again, but this time, the :after element. What we’ve done to create the hole is rather simple. We’ve defined a width and height in ems so it’ll grow smoothly. Next we’ve added a large border radius which will create a circle with a border to outline it. Following this we’ve added a drop shadow which is similiar to the text-shadow. Finally we’ve positioned it (while using ems).

.tag:after {
	content:'';

	width:0.5em;
	height:0.5em;

	background:#fff;

	-webkit-border-radius:4.167em;
	-moz-border-radius:4.167em;
	border-radius:4.167em;

	border:1px solid #d99d38;

	-webkit-box-shadow:0 1px 0 #faeaba;
	-moz-box-shadow:0 1px 0 #faeaba;
	box-shadow:0 1px 0 #faeaba;

	position:absolute;
	top:0.667em;
	left:-0.083em;
	z-index:9999;
}

Step 7: Adding Some Hover Styles

To make our tags even more awesome we’ll add some hover styles. We’ll need to add this to the main part of the tag and the arrow (while remembering to rotate the gradient for the arrow). We’ve also changed the border color on both.

.tag:hover {
	background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: linear-gradient(top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0,StartColorStr='#fee18d', EndColorStr='#fec86c');

	border-color:#e1b160;
}

.tag:hover:before {
	background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -o-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	background-image: linear-gradient(left top, rgb(254, 225, 141), rgb(254, 200, 108));
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=1,StartColorStr='#fee18d', EndColorStr='#fec86c');

	border-color:#e1b160;
}

Step 8: Catering for IE

If you’d still like to show your tags in full glory for IE users you’ll need to take a different approach towards these tags, beginning by creating an IE specific stylesheet. I’ll explain why.. Firstly, a lot of our CSS3 effects won’t work in versions earlier than IE9 (only a couple work in IE9 as it is), but the main problem here is transforms which will not work. To cater for IE users, we’ll edit our code a bit. We’ll start off by changing our HTML first, by replacing the wrapper div and everything inside it with:

<div class="wrapper">

	<a href="#" class="tag">
		<span class="arrow"></span>
		<span class="text">high resolution</span>
		<span class="end"></span>
	</a>

</div>

We’ll use an anchor tag again but with 3 spans inside it; we’ll need one to create the arrow, the main part and the end which has the border radius.

Step 9: Images for our IE Version

To ensure our tags will work in IE, we’ll have to use images. Start off by deleting everything beneath the .wrapper styles, everything tag related! You’ll now need to paste in the following snippet. We’re simply applying some background images here, but also repeating the text background on the x-axis as the text could be any length! Even Supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus!

.arrow {
	width:15px;
	height:25px;
	float:left;

	background:url(../images/arrow.png) no-repeat;
}
.text {
	height:25px;
	float:left;

	padding-left:4px;
	padding-right:4px;

	background:url(../images/text.png) repeat-x;

	font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size:0.75em;
	font-weight:bold;

	color:#996633;
	text-shadow:0px 1px 0px rgba(255,255,255,.4);

	line-height:23px;
}
.end {
	width:4px;
	height:25px;
	float:left;

	background:url(../images/end.png) no-repeat;
}

.tag:hover .arrow { background-image:url(../images/arrow_hover.png); }
.tag:hover .text { background-image:url(../images/text_hover.png); }
.tag:hover .end { background-image:url(../images/end_hover.png); }

Conclusion

Well thats it! That’s another tutorial complete and it looks good! We’ve taken these tagtastic tags and created them with CSS while catering for IE at the same time. These tags could be used for all sorts of things – go ahead and use them in a sidebar, blog, whatever you like!

I hope you liked this tutorial, thanks for reading.

In this Quick Tip you will learn how to make a French Fold template using Indesign version CS3 through to CS5. This tut will explain how to set your InDesign document up for printing, including guidance on safe areas/bleed, orientation of the panels and using guides. Let’s begin!

Introduction

A French Fold is achieved by folding a sheet of paper horizontally and then folding it again vertically. So for example an A3 sheet would fold to A4 and then fold again to A5, we will use these sizes for the purposes of the tut. Traditionally printers would employ the French Fold to save money, as only one side of the paper was printed on.

Once the folds were made, an illusion similar to a four page booklet was given. In recent times this technique has been mainly used for invitations and direct mail brochures. Other examples include newsletters, maps and even posters.

Step 1

Open InDesign and create a new document. In the new document window set the following values: Number of Pages; 1, Page size; A3, Orientation: portrait, margins 3mm and bleed 3mm (if needed). Press OK.

Step 2

Make sure the Rulers are visible by going to View > Show Rulers and then set a horizontal guide at 210 mm by dragging it in from the ruler.

If your Guides weren’t visible InDesign will automatically switch them on when you attempt to drag a guide out of the ruler.

Step 3

Do the same for a vertical guide and set it at 148.5mm. These two guides represent the folds in the leaflet and marks the center of the page.

Step 4

It is wise to set a Safe Area to prevent any important information been trimmed during the finishing process. The safe area for the page edges have already been set when you entered 3mm for the Margins when creating a new document. However it is also useful to add some guides to prevent any information been affected by the folds and creases.

Step 5

Vertically add one guide at 147mm, which is 1.5mm less than the vertical fold and add a second guide at 150mm, which is 1.5mm more than the vertical fold. In total this gives a 3mm safe area around the folds.

Step 6

Using the same principle add two more guides horizontally placing one guide at 208.5mm and the other at 211.5mm.

Step 7

Now we need to create a second page, which will form the reverse of the document. As we have just set up the guides on page one, let’s use this page and duplicate it for page two. Open the Pages panel by going to Window > Pages. Click and drag page one down to the Create New Page icon at the bottom of the Pages panel and release.

You will notice that a new page has been duplicated and has copied all of the attributes of page one.

Step 8

Now that the guides are set, it is time to plan where the artwork will sit and in what position. If you haven’t got an example of a leaflet with a French Fold, take a piece of A3 paper and place it in the portrait position. Fold it in half by folding the top edge down to the bottom edge resulting in a A4 size fold.

Now fold in half again by folding the left edge over to the right edge which will give you an A5 size fold. You have just completed a French Fold.

On the front panel write the number one, inside left panel = number two, inside right panel = number three, back panel= number four and finally open the paper up and write center.

Turn the sheet over and you will see how the orientation of the panels look. Notice how panels two and three are positioned upside down. This is exactly how you need to place your artwork within InDesign.

Step 9

Obviously it is a bit awkward to design upside down so I suggest you set the artwork up prior to working with the template.

Conclusion

So next time you are working on a relevant brief, consider the French Fold. To have a brochure and poster in one document could prove very useful. Additionally it might be worth contacting your printer to obtain quotes for single sided and double sided printing with a French Fold finish to determine what options suit your design best.

This week, Adobe made a big announcement; Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the new Adobe Creative Cloud will be released within 30 days. This is fantastic news for anyone who is looking to upgrade their current installation but a lot of people have questions about what this means for them. In this article, we will discuss what you need to know about the upcoming release.

What is included in Adobe Creative Suite 6?

The CS6 Applications include: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Adobe Audition, SpeedGrade, Prelude, Encore, and Bridge.

How much will CS6 cost?

That depends on the suite that you purchase. There are 4 different suites that you can purchase: Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium (US,899), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard (US,299), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium (US,899) and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection (US,599).

How much is a standalone copy of Photoshop CS6?

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is 9 to buy and 9 to upgrade. Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended is 9 to buy and 9 to upgrade.

When will they be available for purchase?

Adobe hasn’t released a firm release date but what we do know is that it will be released within 30 days of April 23, 2012.

What is the Creative Cloud?

The Creative Cloud is a subscription-based service that will give you access to all the Adobe CS applications, Adobe Muse, Adobe Edge, application upgrades, Creative Cloud publishing services, TypeKit, and much more.

Update: earlier we mentioned that the mobile apps would be included with the Creative Cloud. We were incorrect. Here is an excerpt from the press release.

Adobe Touch Apps can be purchased separately from the iTunes App Store or Google Play for US.99 each. Special offers for Adobe Touch Apps are available for customers who sign up for annual membership of Adobe Creative Cloud. For more details visit http://adobe.com/products/touchapps.

Will all the Adobe apps be hosted and streamed in the cloud?

No. You will be able to download all the Adobe applications onto your machine and use them the same way that you do now. You only need to be connected to the Internet once a month so that Adobe can check to see if your subscription is still valid.

How much will the Creative Cloud cost?

Adobe Creative Cloud membership is .99 per month, with an annual contract. A special introductory offer of .99 per month for the first year for CS3, CS4, and CS5 customers is also available.

How many computers can use a Creative Cloud subscription?

You can install Adobe applications on 2 machines, just like you do now. A laptop and Desktop, for instance.

Is there a student and teacher version of the Adobe Creative Cloud?

Yes. The Student and Teacher Edition of Adobe Creative Cloud is available for .99 per month.

Still have more questions?

More information about the Adobe Creative Cloud can be found on Adobe’s FAQ Page.

We have another Photo Premium tutorial exclusively available to Premium members today. In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at the box camera, which is a simple camera with a darkroom built inside of it. Learn more after the jump!

In today’s tutorial, we’ll be taking an in-depth look a box camera. Box camera is a generic term for a primitive instant camera which uses photo paper to produce a negative and subsequently duplicate that negative to turn it into a final image. In short, it’s a camera with a darkroom built inside of it. You may have had some exposure to with them when The Afghan Box Camera Project went viral.

We’ll take a look at my custom built box camera, which varies quite a bit from any other camera I’ve seen. You’ll also get a chance to see me take a photo of my vintage 1970s Garelli moped.

Tutorial Preview

Tune In for More

Didn’t hear about Photo Premium? You can find out more here. It’s an additional, in-depth article, published each week just for our Premium subscribers (on top of all our regular free content!)

Join Today!

Join Premium and Expand Your Photography Knowledge!

This is a really interesting technique to perfect, and you’ll be really pleased with the result! This Premium tutorial will help you get started with ease.

For those unfamiliar, the family of Tuts+ sites runs a premium membership service. For per month, you gain access to exclusive premium tutorials, screencasts, and freebies from Phototuts+, Nettuts+, Psdtuts+, Cgtuts+,Activetuts+, Aetuts+, Audiotuts+, and Vectortuts+! For the price of a pizza, you’ll learn from some of the best minds in the business.

Become a Premium member and download this tutorial today!

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Is there a specific technical aspect of photography that you really want to learn more about? How about a very advanced technique that you could never quite grasp fully?

We really want to make our Premium content as relevant and useful to you as possible, so do send through your comments and requests to photo@tutsplus.com. Let us know what you want to see, and we’ll commission top-notch photographers to teach you!

The typical user of an information system (a website, for example) will exercise perhaps three minutes of good will, during which he (or she) will give rein to curiosity, peek and poke, and try to understand how to find things. If no progress has made by this time, the user’s relationship to the system will become permanently adversarial; further search attempts will not be considered worthwhile. There’s a small window of time during which a user can be won over by the system – let’s examine a set of principles that will facilitate that.

Mutual Categories

We start by designing a set of categories which will house some example information.

The first requirement of an intelligible set of categories is that they be mutual. By this I mean that they subdivide a population into commensurate partitions. Few things are more annoying than a presentation which breaks this rule. For instance:

• Monthly reports
• Sales reports
• Joe’s reports
• New reports

Nobody wants to waste mental effort trying to guess where something is. To eliminate this, present the information in mutual categories:

• Monthly Reports
• Weekly Reports
• Quarterly Reports

Or:

• Sales Reports
• Expense Reports
• Tax Reports

Or:

• Joe’s Reports
• Jack’s Reports

But suppose you want to retain the option of finding Joe’s reports and Sales reports and Monthly reports? You must rise to a higher level, at which these categories become mutual:

• Reports by Time Period
• Reports by Cash Flow Type
• Reports by Agent
• Reports by Age

Defining Species

To invent some terminology, let’s say that a mutual set of categories must belong to the same species. So “time period” would be a species, and “monthly” would be a category within that. This leads to the next principle: the viewer should never have to look at more than one species at a time.

Identifying Plants

So, if a system has the following:

• Reports by Time Period
• Reports by Region
• Cubes

then this principle has been violated. Reports by “Region” and “Cubes” do not belong to the same species. Here is a better presentation:

• Reports
• Cubes

These belong to the species, say, “Presentation Vehicle”. “Reports by Region” and “Reports by Time Period” belong to the “Report” species.

To assemble these ideas, first note that each sub-division starts life as a category, and then becomes a species in its own right:

• Species: Presentation Vehicle
• Categories: Reports and Cubes
  • Species: Reports
  • Categories: Reports by Time Period; Reports by Cash Flow Type; Reports by Agent; Reports by Age
    • Species: Reports by Cash Flow Type.
    • Categories: Sales Reports; Expense Reports; Tax Reports

So the principle that a viewer should only see one species at a time is another way of saying that he should only see categories which are mutual to each other; or, to be more precise: a viewer should only see, at any one time, a species and its component categories.

If space permits, multiple species can be presented, as long as the boundaries are clear, and there is no ambiguity about organization.

Organizational Decisions

Devising a set of categories can be very hard work; in some cases, this is nothing less than a conceptual description of an entire enterprise. In this respect, it is similar to designing a database.

Database concept, vintage cabinet.

There is one design decision fundamental to data organization: the choice between multiple and single membership. In a multiple membership system, information can be found in more than one category. “Sales for January” can be in the sales category or monthly category. An example of a single membership system is a restaurant menu, where the customer does not want to find (and the firm does not have space for) the same item under many headings.

Another decision is whether labels refer to information or users. A college website may have a tab called “faculty”. This is ambiguous: does it contain information for, or about, faculty? Some college sites are explicit: tabs are labeled “for faculty” or “about faculty”. However, in general, it is preferable to label the information, not the user. How does the web-designer know what a faculty member will want to look for?

Category labels should identify the contents of the category. This is so elementary that you may wonder if it is intended as a sarcastic remark. If only. So that we can refer back to this, let’s give it a name: the principle of descriptive labeling.

Category labels may be meaningful to regular users, but not to newcomers. This should be overcome, by adding explanatory sub-labels. I once visited a theatrical web-site that had a choice labeled “Discovery Series”. I never did find out what that was; the site had lost my good-will by that time. It would not have taken much space to clarify this, whatever it was. “Discovery Series—Our Saturday Night Lectures”; or “Discovery Series—Our Recorded Plays”.

Visual monopoly: when a user is selecting a category, all the candidates are presented together.

Category selection should be organized, to coin a phrase, under a visual monopoly. Lists of choices tend to capture the attention; if the user is selecting from among a horizontal row of buttons, he is not simultaneously going to notice another row elsewhere on the screen. When he discovers it, he will be annoyed—he has already expended effort trying to locate his target within the first row; he has tried to form a mental picture of the information as housed within the categories he is looking at; this will be wasted effort if he finds another set of categories elsewhere.

This is not meant to be a prohibition against multiple rows, as long as they are shown together, as a single population of choices covering many lines; it is meant to prohibit one row, along with another row, far away on the screen, with different shaped icons, and having categories not clearly related to this first.

Psychological Stance of the User

The site designer must define the psychological stance of expected the user: is the user a passive consciousness, available for manipulation and control; or a directed consciousness, searching for information with a clear target in mind? In the first instance, the principles of advertising will govern the design; in the second, the principles of information display, which is the subject of this article. There is an intermediate state: someone who does not have a clear target, but who nonetheless wants to understand the informational geography of the site; such a user is also best served by the principles discussed here.

To see these principles (violated) in action, consider the choices you see in Microsoft Word, under the “Office” Button, Word Options:

• Popular
• Display
• Proofing
• Save
• Advanced

First of all, to reach this list, you click the office button; you see a list of choices. “Options” is not on the list. You might spend several (not exactly joyful) moments trying to guess which item to choose. Finally, when you are ready to exit and look elsewhere, you notice a button marked “options” next to the “exit” button, far away from the other choices. This is a violation of the visual monopoly rule.

Having clicked the options button, you see the bullet point list shown above. Here we see category names that are not meaningful. How does a person know if the choice he is looking for is popular? How does he know if it is advanced? These labels break the principle of descriptive labeling.

Once you become sensitized to these things, you will hardly be fit company. Everything will offend you. It is the price you pay for initiation into the higher reaches of data presentation. You must become a light in the world and advance the cause.

Summary

This will be hard work

First, design the categories. This will be a hierarchy. At the top level, a set of species. Each species will contain a set of categories. Each category will become a species in its own right, with a set of categories under it. And so on. The top list of species, as well as all subordinate lists of categories, should be mutual: our guiding principle. The viewer should never see a list of categories unless they are mutual to each other. Categories are mutual if they subdivide a population into commensurate partitions. This will be hard work; it will represent the conceptual skeleton of the entire effort. So that you don’t exaggerate this task, be clear about the contents of the project; it may be a small sub-set of the firm’s activities or products.

You will need to define your aesthetic approach. I like simple, clean, uncluttered designs; I don’t like things flashing at me; I like uniform displays, rather than, say, a horizontal list in some places and vertical lists elsewhere (although these can be handled tastefully). There is no reason to dwell on this; it is part of the creative process, and a good designer will want to develop his own standards.

Then decide on the ratio of label to information. Do you want the viewer to see labels only, with information appearing after he clicks a label? Or do you want information along with the labels, at the top level? This will depend on the nested depth and the quantity of labels.

Think carefully about icons; sometimes they are helpful; not always. Internet Explorer becomes less verbal with each release. There is a green circular arrow which signifies “history”. I don’t see the connection. There is a yellow square with the corner raised, meaning “discuss”. Neither the yellow square nor the verbal “discuss” convey anything to me. Generally speaking, your clients will not be archeologists shining a flashlight on a cave-wall; they will expect intelligible symbols, not puzzles.

Here are the Principles:

• Categories should be mutual.
• A category is a component of a species. It may also become a species itself, if there are other categories below it.
• A viewer should be looking at one species (and its component categories) at a time.
• Decide between multiple and single membership systems. May an item be classified under more than one category?
• Be consistent in your use of labels: do they identify users or information? Make it obvious.
• Principle of descriptive labeling: users should be able to infer the contents of a category by reading the label.
• Sub-labels can be helpful if the labels are not self-explanatory. There is usually no excuse for this, but sometimes the label is a proper noun, referring to program, product or other proprietary attribute of the entity being modeled.
• Visual monopoly: when a user is selecting a category, all the candidates are presented together.
• I think you will be surprised at how much effort is involved in this activity. Most sites evolve historically, as things are added to some original design; this may turn out to be practical. Visualizing the whole thing in advance is major, but you get a shot at best practice.

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