Extracting detailed objects from a background can be a tricky thing in Photoshop, particularly when dealing with fuzzy edges like hair, fur, and leaves of trees. The Quick Selection tool and the Refine Edge feature introduced in Photoshop CS3 go a long way, but there are more powerful solutions… Personally, I’ve been a fan of the Extract filter for...
You’ve probably already heard the news that Adobe announced Creative Suite 4 tv.adobe.com on September 23rd, the latest versions of its ubiquitous design apps. As usual, there’s plenty of excitement surrounding this announcement, as every Adobe release brings cool new features, better cross-product integration, and (hopefully) speed improvements that make for an easy transition to your usual...
Nothing about this book looks like an art book. The somewhat colorless cover, the MIT imprint, the marked lack of giant, colorful images. At very first glance, you know that editor Oliver Grau, an Image Science professor and Cultural Studies dean, means business. Media Art Histories is a more academic look at a subject normally approached with...
With rising gas prices and other economic troubles, freelance designers (as well as their clients) may be feeling the pinch. Clients are eschewing major redesign jobs and other big budget projects, and designers are scrambling for ways to keep work rolling in. But you might be able to get back on track with two little words: Thank you. Now is...
No doubt you already know the value of tracking your site’s traffic. You know to look at visit totals. You know to look at what sites your visitors are coming from. You know never to rely on the number of hits. But there can be even more interesting information found in common site statistics that...
With the recent success of the sarcastic and definitely NSFW (not safe for work) You Suck at Photoshop tutorials that have made the Internet rounds, I’ve noticed a lot of people are trying to make their own design software tutorials to share on YouTube. Search on any design app and you’ll find lots of tutorials from designers. What...
Let’s talk about harmony. Not the hippy-dippy kind… the kind dictated by your color wheel. Unfortunately, with crazy deadlines looming and pushy clients on the phone, designers often don’t have time to go back to basics. The fundamentals of color theory that you learn early in your design education might even be a distant memory. ...
Most designers are pretty familiar with shopping for royalty free photos and illustrations for use in their designs. For anywhere from one dollar to hundreds, you can find just the image you need from various stock library sites. Interactive designers often need more than images to get the message across. For many Flash pieces and videos, music or...
I recently found an article that presented the 30 must-have fonts for designers, and it made me wonder what other must-haves that design professionals recommend for beginners… First off, those 30 must-have fonts I mentioned are found at justcreativedesign.com. Jacob Cass breaks them down by serif and sans serif, and includes some that you likely have handy (Helvetica, Lucida)...
It’s a question as old as freelancing itself. How much do I charge my potential client? Too much and you risk not getting the job. Too little and you risk a lot of things: looking low-end, not getting enough to cover your time and costs, dooming future jobs to similar low rates… There’s no hard and fast...
