The Best Things in Life…
Every Friday since July 31, I've posted a short article on CreativePro.com that includes a graphic (photo, vector illustration, or video) from image-sharing site Flickr. I chose some for inspirational purposes only, but others, such as the red smoke photo below, are not only inspirational, they're also OK for you to incorporate in your own work -- for free. The Creative Commons licenses assigned to each graphic will tell you what's allowed. 

Here's a sampling of what I've showcased so far:

To see all of the graphics, visit the Flickr Friday Archives.

Create Gradient Watermarks with Photoshop
Watermarks not only discourage thieves from snagging your online images, but when done subtly, they can also promote your name without intruding too much on your photographs. And you can even use Chad Neuman's technique as a cool new way to make photo captions!

Scanning Around With Gene: Made-Up Names for Made-Up Products
Would you buy something made out of Pliofilm? How about Velon? They may sound funny to us now, but in the 1940s and '50s, brand names were nothing if not inventive.

"Cellophane" was another fabricated word, but it became so well-known that it's now a generic term.

Mix Acrobat and Flash for Better Interactivity
Chris Converse is not only a writer, he's also a practicing print, Web, and multimedia designer. In this real-world example, Chris explains how he embedded Flash in a PDF file to give the end result a portability and interactivity impossible before.

Related Reading: Interested in passing files from InDesign to Flash? Watch this video.

TypeTalk: Stroking Text in QuarkXPress
In QuarkXPress, you can apply a stroke (called a "frame" in XPress) to text. You can even affect whether that stroke falls on the inside or outside of the characters. But, as Ilene Strizver cautions, just don't try to edit the text after you apply the stroke.

Going from text to outline vector is a snap:

Related Reading: Do you know how to use stroke offsets for depth effects in Illustrator?

Get Selective in Camera Raw
Adobe's Camera Raw software is an amazing tool for improving your photographs. Using features such as the Adjustments Brush and the Graduated Filter, Ben Long helps you quickly turn a photo from "eh" to "ooh!"

The Adjustments Brush and Graduated Filter saved this photo from the trashcan:

Related Reading: Download Camera Raw updates.

Play the Game "Cheese or Font"

ArtWork Updates to 3.0

This Typeface Has Its Own Movie Trailer

New Memory Card Has Read/Write Speeds Up to 90MB/s

Leica X1 Is Miniature Marvel

Sooner or later, almost everyone will visit Wal-Mart. This site chronicles some of the more unusual shoppers. Caution: Some photo captions are NSFW.


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