Creating a Chrome Style Navigation in Photoshop

Tuesday, August 31 2010         No Comments
Creating a Chrome Style Navigation in Photoshop

This tutorial is a more advanced Photoshop tutorial and assumes you know all of the basics to using the program. This tutorial was creating using Photoshop CS5 and therefore some of the controls may be different depending on what version you are using. Step 1) Making the Background for your navigation Create a new document, I chose 1200 x 600 and make sure you set the background to transparent. You can then set your foreground color to #bebebf and your background to #d2d2d2. From here choose your linear gradient tool and drag from the top of the canvas to the bottom. From here we will add some...

Designing A Glossy Download Button in CS5

Thursday, August 19 2010         No Comments
Designing A Glossy Download Button in CS5

This tutorial will teach you have to design a glossy button with Web 2.0 standards in mine. This tutorial goes under the assumption you have basic Photoshop skills in mind and have a good understanding of keyboard shortcuts. As always the source files will be available for download at the end of this document. Step 1) Starting the Document Let’s start our new document by setting the background color to #303030 . Then create a circular shape using the Ellipse tool , keep holding Shift while dragging outwards to create a perfect circle. Start dragging from the center of the canvas while holding...

Realistic Wine Glass from Scratch

Monday, March 30 2009         3 Comments
Realistic Wine Glass from Scratch

In this tutorial, we will be looking at a relatively easy way to create a realistic wine glass with a liquid in, a reflection, and a projected shadow. Let's start with a blank canvas. Create a new layer and then make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool. We want it to be the width of the wine glass, but only one pixel high. You may find it easier to zoom in. Like so: Next, choose a gradient that will go Gray-White-Gray-White-Gray. We chose the Gray (#dedede) and set it at 15% and 85%. The other three markers are White, at 0%, 50% and 100%: Try Server Intellect for Windows Server Hosting...

CS4 - Using Content-Aware Scaling

Thursday, January 01 2009         1 Comment
CS4 - Using Content-Aware Scaling

In this tutorial, we will be looking at one of the many new features introduced into Adobe PhotoShop Creative Suite 4, Content-Aware Scaling (or CAS). CAS uses a rather complex mathematical algorithm that decides what is important in an image, and what is expendable, when it comes to altering or discarding information upon resizing. However, it wouldn't be an Adobe product if you couldn't manipulate the function and use it to its best advantage. In this tutorial, we will explore a few ways of getting the best out of the Content-Aware Scale. We will begin with a sample image, such as: Before anything...

Creating a Christmas Bauble Decoration

Tuesday, December 23 2008         No Comments
Creating a Christmas Bauble Decoration

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Christmas Bauble for your festive graphic decorations. We will start with a blank canvas and draw a circle with the Elliptical Marquee tool, then fill with green (or the color of your choice) on a new layer. Next, let's add a bit of glitter - goto Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Choose Gaussian and 5%, or as much or little glitter as you want: Now we want to give the Bauble a more spherical appearance. Goto Filter > Distort > Spherize. Choose 100%, Normal: We migrated our web sites to Server Intellect over one weekend and the setup was so...

Creating a Christmas Star

Monday, December 22 2008         No Comments
Creating a Christmas Star

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to create a Christmassy Star for your festive graphic decoration. We will be creating the star from the basic star Custom Shape in PhotoShop. To start, let's go ahead and choose the Custom Shape tool and select the Star shape from the list: We will draw the Shape onto our canvas, holding Shift to maintain proper proportions, and we should have something like this: Now that we have a Path, we want to fill this with a solid color. To do this, first create a new Layer in the Layers Panel, then goto the Paths Panel (Window > Paths). You should notice...

Creating a Christmas-Themed Composition

Wednesday, November 19 2008         No Comments
Creating a Christmas-Themed Composition

This tutorial will show you how to create a Christmas theme composition, which can be used for eCards. We'll start off with a blank 400x300px canvas, and fill with the gradient of your choice: Need help with Windows Dedicated Hosting ? Try Server Intellect . I'm a happy customer! Next, make a selection in the shape of a Christmas tree, something like this: Next, choose a star shape from the Custom Shapes tool, and in a new layer, make all different sizes of it inside the tree selection. The Custom Shapes will be Paths, so when you're done, right-click the path in the Paths Window (Window > Paths...

Creating an AJAX-Style Animated Loading GIF

Friday, September 26 2008         5 Comments
Creating an AJAX-Style Animated Loading GIF

With the increase in the popularity of AJAX web applications, we have seen similar animated GIFs around the web used when an AJAX process is pending to let the user know that it's working on something. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create these professional-looking animated GIFs. We chose Server Intellect for its dedicated servers, for our web hosting. They have managed to handle virtually everything for us, from start to finish. And their customer service is stellar. This example was created with Adobe PhotoShop CS3, which has animation features built-in, unlike older versions where...

Creating Window Reflection

Monday, September 22 2008         No Comments
Creating Window Reflection

Along with water, glass is a very hard element to replicate in PhotoShop, at least realistically, because it's appearance depends greatly on it's environment. In this tutorial, we are going to replicate the look of a house window, complete with the window pane and the reflection of the outside view. If you're looking for a really good web host, try Server Intellect - we found the setup procedure and control panel, very easy to adapt to and their IT team is awesome! We will start with a PhotoShop document with our two images on separate layers - we will need an indoor image, and an outdoor image...

Creating Eyes from Scratch

Monday, September 22 2008         No Comments
Creating Eyes from Scratch

It can be extremely useful to have at your disposal a whole library of eyes to use in different types of digital compositions. This tutorial will show you how to create your own eyes so that you do not need to keep thousands of stock images of eyes. If you're ever in the market for some great Windows web hosting, try Server Intellect . We have been very pleased with their services and most importantly, technical support. We will start with a blank canvas and then create a new layer. On this new layer, create a perfect circle by using the Elliptical Marquee tool and holding shift, then fill the...