Macworld has put together a nice piece on how to get started with Google+.
Tagged: tutorial
Creating percentage-based paragraph styles in Adobe InDesign
When you’re setting your paragraph styles in Adobe InDesign you must specify a font size. If you want to shrink your entire layout by 20%, you have to go to each style and manually alter it. Such a pain!
InDesignSecrets has a wonderfully clever solution to this problem which involves creating a paragraph style based on percentages of your already existing paragraph styles. Check out this cool InDesign paragraph style tutorial!
Create an emboss text effect in Adobe Illustrator with this great tutorial
I recently had the need to create a realistic looking license plate for a project and I wanted to do it completely in Adobe Illustrator in order to keep it easily editable and total flexibility in sizing for later use. I knew I had read a tutorial years ago, so a quick search found it.
Real World Illustrator offers this fantastic emboss text effect tutorial that yields near perfect results every time.
Pixel perfect art when rotating layers in Photoshop
When you’re working on your pixel-perfect artwork in Photoshop, some common functions like moving, rotating and pasting can undo your hard work, resulting in a blurry mess. In fact, if you’re not careful, rotating layers in Photoshop can damage them in a very noticeable, pixel-mashing way – as illustrated below. But with some small changes to your workflow, you should be able to maintain the highest-quality artwork from the start to the end of the project.
Marc Edwards at Smashing Magazine has a great pixel perfection tutorial outlining a few methods that most designers are unaware of that avoids the problem.
One of the easiest solutions that I’ve used for years is to simply change the rotation orientation to the top left axis when rotating objects.
How to apply pseudo-HDR image enhancement to your photos
Sometimes even a photo that has been composed perfectly needs a little something to really make it pop. Or maybe you just want to jazz it up for use in a text-heavy document. There’s a simple way to give it a pseudo-HDR effect using Adobe Photoshop, or even Pixelmator.
The original image lacks the oomph we're looking for
The original image above is really nice. It’s well-composed, has great depth and color, and would probably be fine as is. To give it some punch, you make a duplicate of the background layer by hitting Command + J, and set the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay using the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers panel.
Adding a few layer copies can boost the overall color & contrast
While the image already shows boosted color and contrast, try duplicating that newly created layer again using Command + J. The Blending Mode should already be set to Overlay, but if it isn’t go ahead and do so. As you can see in the image above, the effect is quite stunning. But if you feel you went too far, adjust the Transparency of the top-most layer until you’re satisfied.
The Graphic Mac Link Box #2
A collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:
Steve Ballmer’s days are numbered
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, has apparently done more to reduce the value of Microsoft than any other product, service or company. That bit of news comes to us from an in-depth opinion article by Ben Brooks.
Your next logo design: RGB vs. CMYK
MycroBurst attempts to answer the question of what color standard you should use when designing your next logo. It isn’t a particularly in-depth article, but I felt like it was a great lead-in for a list of 9 rules for logo design I wrote a long time ago!
25 Weird interview questions from large companies
I can’t say I’ve ever been asked any of these in a job interview, but I have been asked some odd questions that were clearly intended to set me off pace for the purpose of gauging my reaction.
Text Wrap and Fit Content Options in Adobe InDesign
New users of Adobe InDesign may find this article quite helpful. It covers the ins and outs of InDesign’s Text Wrap and Fit Content Options most excellently!
How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop
Creating eroded, grungy, nasty, weathered metal text in Photoshop is probably something you do 50 times a day, right? Ok, probably not. But if you did need to, this tutorial will make it easy for you!
Apple to introduce us to Lion: Maybe you’ve heard?
Ok, so that was a smartass question. If you’ve been on Twitter, Facebook or the web in general, you’ve probably heard that Apple has a lot to announce Monday at their annual WWDC conference. Expected in the announcement are details about Apple’s MobileMe replacement, iCloud. Also expected are announcements concerning the next release of iOS 5 which will reportedly include Twitter integration and much more. As for me, I’m prepping my hard drive for a rather large (and price discounted) download of Lion from the Mac App Store!
Tutorial: Enhance your vector image with Adobe Photoshop
Enhancing vector art in Photoshop takes your image to the next level
The greatest value in any tutorial you come across on the web is not the actual image you create following the tutorial, but being exposed to the techniques used to create them.
VectorTuts has a great tutorial on enhancing your vector art with Photoshop. The image to the right is a piece of vector art created in Adobe Illustrator. It’s flat and boring, and you could use many filters and techniques to enhance it in Illustrator, but exporting the vector file as a layered Photoshop file offers you the opportunity to learn some really useful techniques. The end result can be seen in the image at the top of this post.
As with any tutorial, I encourage you to play with the settings illustrated in the tutorial to suit your taste. The tut makes heavy use of layer effects and gradients. While the tutorial is what I would call intermediate level, it will probably take you about a half an hour to go through.
Tutorial: HTML 5 grayscale image hover technique
This tutorial illustrates the HTML 5 grayscale image hover technique
The benefits of HTML 5 are starting to pop-up on sites all over the web. One you may have seen is a technique where a grayscale image turns into a full color version (click here for demo) when you hover over it with your cursor. The technique can be achieved with simple Javascript and multiple images, or using Flash. But with HTML 5, you only need a bit of HTML code and JQuery.
WebDesignerWall has put together a quick tutorial to show you how to enhance the appearance of your web portfolio using this HTML 5 grayscale image hover technique.
Create a 3D rocket ship in Adobe Illustrator CS5
Create some great 3D effects using Adobe Illustrator CS5
When you think of 3D applications, you rarely think of Adobe Illustrator CS5, but the fact is that Illustrator has some decent tools to create simple 3D vector art. VectorTuts has a great Illustrator 3D tutorial to introduce you to the tools and help you create some neat effects like you see in the image above.
Tutorial: Converting your PSD to HTML/CSS
This tutorial will help you code your PSD mock-up into a functioning website
This second part of a two-part tutorial at SixRevisions focuses on converting and coding your PSD mock-up into a clean HTML/CSS template.