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    • Posts Tagged ‘tips’

    Standing Out From The Crowd On Photoshop

    Thursday, December 15th, 2011

    Certain aspects of an image need to be brought out, and this can be very difficult to do especially when there is a lot going on in the picture already. There are quite a few tools available to help you change and modify colour settings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will help an element of an image stand out.

    Curves edit input and output with the image and this can help draw attention to the image you want to grab attention. Making the image stand out a little more will require selecting the image, either by using something like the polygonal lasso tool, colour range selector or for the lazier web designers, the magic wand. Using the curve tool is more by eye as opposed to an exact “how to” guide. If you want to make an image stand out, create a curve which is closer to the top left hand corner. This will take some playing around with to get the levels just right but the time you can spend on this will range depending on how perfect you would like it.

    If you really want your image to stand out as much as possible, you’re going to have to reduce the amount of attention your background receives. So again a very similar process like before, make sure all of the background is selected and the image that you are trying to draw focus to is deselected. The curve you will need to create should point close to the bottom left. Again this will take some playing around with to get just right but it depends on the kind of effect you are going for with the curves.

    Conclusion

    When using Photoshop as a tool for web design, some objects may need to be brought out to help draw more attention to it and make it as a main focus. This can be very helpful with things like products and people. The situation in which curves will be used will definitely change and the approach you take as a web designer will change too.

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    Posted in Web Design Work |

    Photo Manipulation Tips for Photoshop

    Friday, December 9th, 2011

    Manipulating images in Photoshop is useful for many reasons such as web design or just as a fun hobby, but there are some tools and methods that can be used when manipulating photo’s, for example putting two parts of an image to create one, or adding someone to an image or background. There are a lot of variations of photo manipulation and with this, there are many different tools that can be used.

    I Can Transform Ya

    Using the transform tool opens up loads of options, such as warping, resizing and of course rotation. One of the first things that should be done is to resize the image that is being added because it is much easier to work with an image that I the correct size as opposed to something too small or large. Rotating an image is also just as important as resizing for the same reasons; it is much easier to work with an image which is positioned correctly. Warping an image gives it a 3D effect which stops the addition looking flat and can help it to blend in and look realistic.

    Colour Settings

    There is a huge list on Photoshop of colour settings, such as hue/saturation and colour balance. When manipulating images, these settings can be used to get shades and colour levels as close as possible. This will make the images look as if they were taken in the same place and reduces the obviousness that they have been edited.

    SpongeDodge BurnPants

    Sponge Dodge and Burn tools adds the finishing touches to parts of your image, if the colour is a little too intense, then the sponge tool can be used to wash and tone down the colour, the dodge tool lightens colour and the burn tool darkens it. The burn tool can be used to darken edges and to literally burn images. The dodge tool can create a flash photography effect or just to lighten up the edges to create a fading effect.

    Cloning

    The clone stamp tool can be used to add the pattern or texture of one area to another, this creates a smoother effect to the image and if something has been added or taken away, then this can be used to fill in the gaps and make the image look more natural.

    Conclusion

    There are quite a few different tools available for photo manipulation, each tool has its’ own purpose and they can all be used to create great effects and manipulate two images perfectly into one. It can take a lot of practice to master photo manipulation but it can be used for many different purposes which can really come in handy when it comes to web design.

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    Posted in Web Design Work |

    Shadow Manipulation

    Thursday, December 1st, 2011

    Sometimes to make an image look a little more realistic, we have to create shadows. There are a lot of different methods that are available, but one of the simplest methods would be to use the Gaussian blur filter on a soft brush.

    When adding the first part of the shadow, which would be the brush. It is best to use a soft edged brush and also set the shadow so it is behind the image (or on top for now) and only peaks out of the image slightly. To make the shadow go behind your image, use a soft edged eraser and delete the dark area that overlaps your image. It is best practice to add a clipping mask to this layer, as a precaution in case you delete to much or you would like to use this layer elsewhere.

    When using the Gaussian blur filter, the best effects are reached through selecting a radius between 20 and 80, but this can vary depending on how strong you want your shadow to be. Other blurring filters also create a good shadow effect, such as the box blur. However the Gaussian blur is very simple to use and creates great shadows almost every time.

    Conclusion

    Shadows are important to include when editing images on Photoshop, a shadow can make a huge difference for an image looking obviously edited and genuine, so for the perfectionists out there, the shadow tool is essential to utilise to add those finishing touches to your web design images.

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    Posted in Web Design Work |

    Glow Ahead

    Friday, November 25th, 2011

    Sometimes there are aspects of an image that can seem a little dull and to put it bluntly, boring. Making certain aspects of an image stand out is a difficult task but there are a few things that can be experimented with to really bring your main elements out from the page.

    Making your images glow can be a difficult task, however there are a few different settings that can played around with to give that perfect glow effect.

    Having a dark background always help bring out your image, especially if it is a brighter colour, it will create a contrast and stand out from the page. Creating a glow effect will also bring images out to attention. Try and play around with the outer glow and inner glow settings in the layer style. If you really want that glowing effect, try using a white image and then selecting a florescent colour for the outer and inner glow. Note that in the quality section, the best setting for a glowing effect is the half round setting; this is because it creates the illusion that light is being radiated from the image or object.

    If you really want to take that extra step in creating an image that glows, add a drop shadow with roughly the same colour as the outer glow, then play around with the distance to determine how much your image should radiate. Similar to the outer glow, half round quality is great for creating a light emitting effect.

    Conclusion

    Creating a glowing effect can really bring attention to the appropriate areas which previously would have been overlooked. When used correctly, the glow effect can create a professional, futuristic look to your web design creations.

     

     

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    Posted in Web Design Work |

    5 Tips that you can follow to better design your website

    Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

    In this highly competitive online era, if you own a website, it is important to design it properly. Your website should be such that it contains eye-catching graphics, offers user-friendly navigation, possesses easy to read textual content and moreover the web page must load very fast. Whatsoever, website designers are faced with several challenges and they often have to make compromises in order to maintain the best overall design. Here we discuss about some important website designing tips that the website designers must take into consideration while designing websites.

     

    Maintain a particular color scheme

    If your company has some preferred colors, just stick to it. And if you are a first time web designer, just select few complementary colors and stick with them. As a comparatively inexperienced designer, you must not change the colors on every page. If you are little bit confused regarding the color scheme to choose, you can conduct an online research and find a website that you like.

     

    Content and page layout

    Content and page layout are very important in website designing. You need to ensure that most important information comes first when the page is first displayed. A study conducted has revealed that within 5 to 7 seconds, visitors take the decision whether or not the website contains relevant information they are looking for. It is recommended that your content should be composed of short sentences and short paragraphs. This is very much helpful for the visitors to get the information that they are looking for very quickly. The changing styles and patterns are now favoring graphics and images.

     

    Take use of templates

    If you are not able to create website of your own, you can take the help of templates. A large variety of website designing templates are available online. You can surely take the help of these templates. These are like web designing softwares which can be of great use to you. There are some websites available free of cost online, which specialize in designing templates and some of them offer free web designing tips.

     

    Make user-friendly navigation

    Another important aspect of website designing is user friendly navigation. Your website should be very intuitive in nature. Otherwise, the visitors of your website will soon become frustrated and will leave your website. It is recommended that your navigation must be coded in HTML. It will ensure that the navigation is accessible to all visitors.

     

    Keep site map

    If your website is comparatively big, it would be wise if you keep a site map in all the web pages. Through the site map, you can easily reach the page where you are intending to go.

     

    If you are into an online business, first of all, you need to design your website in a proper way. The above discussed web designing tips will surely help you a lot.

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    Posted in Web Design Work |