CreativePro.Com How-Tos

Safely Export Pictures from QuarkXPress

Editor in Chief — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:19:46 -0700

Reproduced with permission of Planet Quark

Adjustments applied in QuarkXPress’s Picture Effects palette (Window> Show Picture Effects) exist as part of the QuarkXPress project file -- they do not change the original source pictures.

Combine Image Creatively in Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:51:49 -0700

One of the most rewarding projects you can tackle in Photoshop is combining images. Whether you're swapping skies, creating a collage, or building a panorama, it's a useful procedure that's also a lot of fun.

In this tutorial you'll learn how to fade one image into another using a gradient mask, and then you'll discover a new twist on the classic oval vignette collage.

Fade One Image into Another

Photoshop Crop Tool Tutorial

Editor in Chief — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:33:15 -0600

Sure, you already know how to use Photoshop's crop tool to remove the edges of a photograph. And you probably know how to use it to straighten an image. But did you know that the crop tool can temporarily hide portions of an image that you can later restore?

Watch and learn! For the full-size video, go to YouTube.

Prep and Color Scanned Drawings in Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:13:57 -0600

Since it opened in 1996, design studio The Chopping Block has always done things a bit differently. (Just look at its mission statement: 'World Domination Through Graphic Design".) Now Principal/Designer Matthew Richmond is sharing his technique for taking hand-drawn artwork from paper to Photoshop, and yes, it's a little different.

WordPress for Creative Pros, Part 1

Editor in Chief — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:56:34 -0600

WordPress's early claim to fame was as a tool that made it easy to create and maintain simple blogs. If that were all it did, it would still be useful for creative pros, since a blog can be a good way to promote yourself.

Composite Unique Landscapes in Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:40:43 -0600

This article is provided courtesy of Peachpit Press. All text and images © Dan Moughamian, unless otherwise noted.

This article details useful techniques for creating surreal composite images in Photoshop CS4. We all have our own definition of what it means for something to be "surreal," but the idea is to bring elements together seamlessly that you traditionally don't associate with one another.

One Good Kern Deserves Another

Editor in Chief — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:29:54 -0600

The old saw that "it's the little things that count" was surely coined by a typographer, and few things are littler than kerning adjustments. Consider this: A 1/100 em kerning adjustment applied in 24-point type results in a movement equal to the width of a human hair.

Draw Paths with Photoshop's Pen Tool

Editor in Chief — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:40:08 -0600

One of the most misunderstood Photoshop tools is the pen tool, which creates vector curves and paths. The pen tool is very powerful and accurate. With a little know-how and practice, it will be your ally for the rest of your career.

Vectors Explained

Edit Colors Independently in Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:18:59 -0600

Photoshop's Hue/Saturation command is growing somewhat long in the tooth. For example, if your primary purpose is to increase the saturation of an image, you're better off exploiting the Vibrance command or the Lab mode.

And yet, Hue/Saturation does something that no other feature can do: It lets you edit one range of colors independently of all others -- without defining a selection or mask -- all from inside a single dialog box or palette. And it does this so very easily and so very credibly, that you can get in and out of an image without anyone being the wiser.

Combine Illustrator Patterns with Photoshop Masks for Instant Visual Appeal

Editor in Chief — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:26:19 -0600

Using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop together to create masked patterns takes a little time but no money, and with this tutorial, you'll quickly learn all you need to know to take your images beyond the same-old same-old.

Zoom Effect in Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:12:00 -0700

This zoom effect how-to works in most versions of Photoshop.

Step 1
Open a photo in Photoshop and choose the elliptical marquee tool from the toolbox.

Make a selection on the photo, as shown in Figure 1.

Tip: Hold the space bar to reposition the selection as you are drawing it.

Step 2

To Boldly Go . . . Or Is It Italically?

Editor in Chief — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:16:20 -0600

Your basic typeface family consists of four members: roman, italic, bold roman, and bold italic. They may go by other names (I'll hash that out in a future column), but this foursome has become standard. You might wonder why roman type is always followed around by these three secondary faces. Part of the answer is emphasis. The other part is advertising. This column will look at how to use these secondary faces and tricks in setting them.

View Source: Make Web Site Elements Partially Transparent

Editor in Chief — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:29:45 -0600

If you've worked with Photoshop, you've probably adjusted a document's layers opacity to create transparency effects that blend layers together. And if you've placed text over a photo in InDesign or QuarkXPress, you've probably added a transparent screen behind the text to dull the photo's contrast and make the text legible.

Illustrator How-to: Distribute Art Around a Path

Editor in Chief — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:23:19 -0600

This tutorial is courtesy the Real World Illustrator blog.

Many designs call for distributing art along a path. And while Illustrator has some nice Align and Distribution tools, and even Smart Guides, they won't help when you're trying to align your objects to anything other than a straight line.

Create Gradient Watermarks with Photoshop

Editor in Chief — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:36:33 -0600

When you post a photo online -- for example, on a portfolio site -- you're taking the risk that unscrupulous people will steal the file and use it without your permission, and maybe even claim the photo as their own. Watermarks are one way to protect or at least brand your online images. While adding a watermark doesn't prevent anyone from downloading the image, it can deter some from taking credit for the photo and may be an opportunity for publicizing your work, as well.

You could just slap a copyright symbol and your name in huge type on the middle of the image: