Illustration How-Tos

Draw Paths with Photoshop's Pen Tool

It might seem odd to find vector-drawing tools in a pixel-pushing program like Photoshop, but once you understand it, you'll turn to it often. Use the Pen tool to draw clean, controllable shapes and paths; to cut out something from a photograph's background; and to create shapes that upscale without distortion.

Combine Illustrator Patterns with Photoshop Masks for Instant Visual Appeal

With this technique, you can create eye-catching imagery without fancy plug-ins or big stock photo budgets.

Illustrator How-to: Distribute Art Around a Path

When you want to align objects to something other than a straight path -- for example, 12 stars in a circular pattern -- you have to go back to Illustrator's beginning.

Clipping Drop Shadows in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

Learn how to create an object with both a transparent fill and a drop shadow in three major software programs.

Mobile Design How-to: Use a Vector iPhone Skin

When you're designing for the iPhone, making something look good on a screen is the easy part. The hard part is interacting with that design. What happens when you click on a button? How about a slider? Here's how to create a functional mockup without writing a single line of code.

Create Starbursts in Photoshop

Give Photoshop's sometimes-overused lens flare filter a rest and add a glint with this technique instead.

Get Creative with Vector Speech and Thought Bubbles

It doesn't take long to create speech or thought bubbles in Adobe Illustrator. Bonus: As you have fun, you'll learn more about the Pathfinder palette, Shape tools, Warp tools, and the Pen tool.

Photoshop Graffiti

Use layer blending modes and some masking to add realistic graffiti to a brick wall.

Create Photorealistic Reflections and Shadows

Celebrated digital painter Bert Monroy shares tips on creating realistic reflections and shadows in Photoshop.

Tug and Twirl Text in Illustrator

The sky’s the limit when you convert Illustrator text to outlines. It’s so easy to change each letter’s size, position, and color, and even push and pull letters into fantastic new shapes.

Create a Searchlight in Photoshop

Whip up a Hollywood-style spotlight effect with realistic-looking beams of light in Photoshop CS3.

Make Vector Splashes

Get all Jackson Pollock and make a splash -- literally. Then use Illustrator's easy Live Trace feature to bring your art into the digital world.

Transform a Busy Photo into a Strong Silhouette

When you want a clean, strong image for a print or Web project, use Illustrator to turn a photo into a striking silhouette.

How to Break into T-Shirt Design

T-shirt design is huge, and thanks to online stores like Threadless, you don't have to open a brick-and-mortar storefront or even build your own Web site to see success.

Illustrator How-to: This Technique is a Real Knockout

Thanks to the Knockout Group checkbox in the Transparency panel, you can accomplish the seemingly impossible in Illustrator.

Illustrator How-to: Why the Appearance Panel Rocks

Although the Appearance panel has been around since Illustrator 9, many people don't realize how helpful it really is. This tutorial gets you up to speed.

Turn Color Photos into Duotones in Photoshop

You can transform one photograph into a wide variety of duotones to use in print or on the Web.

Add Strokes to Placed Images in Illustrator

Because placed images in Illustrators aren't vector shapes, you have to know these insider tricks if you want to apply a stroke, or keyline, around the images.

Round Corners Quickly in Illustrator

With this how-to, a free corner style library, and a free Action, you can round one, two, three, or four corners in no time.

Make Illustrator Behave!

Yesterday, you resized an Illustrator text frame and the text reflowed, staying the same size. Today, you enlarged an Illustrator text frame and the text grew right along with it. How do you force Illustrator to act the way you want it to?