Adding Polish to your Photoshop Designs
So, as a self-taught photoshopper, I’ve learned to find my way around the internets looking for useful tutorials. But it seems the more tutorial sites that come out, the worse the tutorials get. I’ve spent countless hours looking for a tutorial that would show me that one technique I need to bring my designs from good to great. Well, recently I stumbled upon this post from Tutorial9 - and I have to say this is the closest thing I’ve come to that very tutorial I’d been searching for.
Anyway, enjoy. It’s a great post to read.
Inspiration: World War II Photos
I was googling around for some source imagery for a project I’m working on. Specifically, I wanted to use some imagery from old photos of World War II. While I was looking around, I realized how compelling many of these images can be. Thinking about the subjects in each image, and how they relate to the war, what they were doing while the photo was taken, how they were involved in the war effort at all… needless to say I found the process fascinating. So, I compiled a few of my favorites here. Hope you enjoy them.
Photoshop Blending Modes: WTF?!
So, I’ve been using Photoshop for quite some time now. Come to think of it, the first time I ever used Photoshop has to have been a good 6-8 years ago now. And to this day, the concept of blending modes still eludes me. How do they work? How can I use them strategically? Most importantly, can I ever know which blending mode would be best for the type of effect that I want to achieve, or will it always be a guessing game, trying each one until I find one that I like?
Well, fortunately for me, and probably for a lot of you out there as well, there’s a post on the PSDTOP blog tackling this very issue. The author goes through the time and trouble to show examples of each blending mode, explaining what each one is doing.
Pretty interesting stuff. I highly recommend this for anyone who uses Photoshop, especially if you work with a lot of layers and want to achieve those types of effects that seem almost indescribable - but still plainly evident.
My First Try at Papervision3D
So I just went through my first Papervision3D tutorial. For those of you that don’t know, Papervision is an open source 3D rendering engine for Flash. I’ve seen some really impressive work done with Papervision, and now that there’s a need for it at work, I decided to brush up on it. This is a super basic example, just a tutorial that I followed at Lee Brimelow’s always helpful gotoandlearn.com. Click on the faces of the cube to follow links to some of my favorite web sites. Enjoy!
My Must-See Bands (Before I Die)
This past Friday night I saw Minus the Bear at the Vic in Chicago. I have been a big, big fan of this band for years now, and until Friday I had never seen them play live. This got me thinking… what other bands are there that I still have yet to see that I still need to?
Those of you who know me personally will know that I am quite the music addict. I easily have over 1000 albums (most of which are an actual CD bought in an actual store), I have a growing collection of vinyl as well, I record my own music, and I have been pretty involved in my local music scene. So of course, it’s also obvious that I’ve seen my fair share of bands play live. Some of my favorites I’ve seen 5-10 times, while there’s a much longer list of bands I’ve only seen once (the list of bands I’ve shared a stage with alone is pretty massive). But, after all these years, there are still plenty of bands that I have yet to see, but absolutely have to before I take my final dirt nap.
So here’s the list, as I see it right now. I’m sure there are others, but for now, these guys top the list.
- Pinback
- The Roots
- Lupe Fiasco
- Iron & Wine
- Bon Iver
Sure, maybe it’s a little obscure. But of all the music I have, these bands still top the list. Does anyone else out there have a list similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments.
An Event Apart Chicago 2008
No, I’m not there.
But it starts today and I certainly wish I had a ticket. Some pretty important industry people will be there, including Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer.
Today they’ll be talking about some great stuff like focusing on what Web Design is and isn’t, debugging your CSS across browsers, storytelling through the web, usability and more.
Gorsh, it’s like a web designer’s dream. And in Chicago, to boot. Damnit.
Embedding Fonts in Flash CS3
Ok, I just need to write up a quick post about this issue because I haven’t yet run into it (and I’m not exactly sure how that’s possible at this point but I digress). Here at Real Art we use software called Extensis Suitcase to manage a very large collection of fonts. I am working on a project which requires a specific font to be embedded into the swf. I do not have this font stored locally on my machine, but I can still use it because the Suitcase is sharing the font with me. So, the font is stored on some server somewhere, and not on my machine.
This is where my problem comes in. I need to embed this font into my swf so that no matter what computer you view it at, you will still see the exact same fonts. And since the font is not technically stored on my computer, trying to embed the font proves unsuccessful. This must have something to do with the fact that Flash isn’t smart enough to know where the actual font is stored.
My solution was simply to find the source font (which was pretty easy to do from within the Suitcase), delete the shortcut that Suitcase created, and reinstall it on my local machine. Voila, it worked.
Damn you, Flash!
Flash CS4… Holy Wow!
I just got done reading a very informative article over at Flash Magazine laying out all the exciting new features that Flash CS4 will have to offer. It’s been 18 months since CS3 came out, and i have to say I didn’t find too many new features to be excited about when it came over, save for the fact that it looked more Adobe-like. But now, Flash is becoming even more of a multimedia powerhouse, with support for inverse kinematics, a brand new method for creating tweens, integration with Adobe’s Kuler web app, and a brand spankin’ new IDE. Check out the article over at Flash Magazine for a better overview than I can write.
And I know some of you will get very scared about this - don’t worry. Change is (usually) good.
Mega Man 9 to be released with a limited NES cartridge
Just look at how sweet that is
Oh yes, it’s true. Mega Man 9 will be reissued later this month in the form of downloadable content on the Wii, XBox 360 and Playstation Network. I found an article on Ars Technica all about it, definitely worth checking out.
Now how can I manage to snag one of these beauties?
A band you need to hear - This Town Needs Guns
This is my first of many posts to come concerning bands I think are worth checking out. I’ll be doing a post like this once a weekend (hopefully).
So this week’s band is called This Town Needs Guns and they are from Oxford, UK. They are a phenominal band that seems to just be getting started. Their debut album will be released October 13th of this year, in much anticipation after numerous splits and EP’s that they’ve released. I’m currently listening to their Australia/Japan EP, and I have to say I am completely floored by it. The songs are melodic and easily acessible while still containing elements of spazzy rhythms and uncommon time signatures. The guitar work clearly resembles the type of playing style that was made so popular by the Cap’n Jazz/Owls/Joan of Arc guitarists (Tim Kinsella, Victor Villareal, and Sam Zurick). If any of that means anything to you, then you’ll know that this band is definitely worth checking out.
If you’re looking for something new and different from what has flooded the music industry these days, then start with this band. You can’t go wrong.
And I, for one, cannot wait until October 13th. Good work, guys!
