Effects posts

10 of the coolest CSS3 and CSS effects

Mar. 16, 2012  |  31 comments

We all know it and we all love it, and of course by now you probably already know I am talking about CSS and CSS3.

Actually, we should probably take a moment to thank CSS3 before going any further for speeding up the load times for all of your favorite sites.  They, if they know what they are doing, are more than likely using CSS3 in place of a ton of images to enhance user load times, which is pretty awesome.

It is a pretty accepted fact by now that we simply do not need images to do all the things we used to need...

20+ Demos Showing Advanced jQuery Effects

Jul. 22, 2010  |  58 comments

Just a short while ago, Flash was one of the primary technologies used by web designers to add interactivity to a website.

Since the introduction of the iPad, with its lack of the Flash Player, there’s an acceleration in the web development world to use alternative technologies to Flash, such as jQuery, Ajax and others.

Although Flash is still a very powerful and useful tool, which works great on many cases, several of the effects that web designers are accustomed...

20 Amazing Examples of HDR Portraits

Jul. 7, 2009  |  78 comments

High Dynamic Range (HDR) images can really take your photography to the next level.

But creating compelling HDR images, whether through fake HDR techniques in Photoshop or multiple exposures and tone-mapping, can be tricky.

Creating portraits can be even trickier, because human subjects are often less forgiving in HDR photos.

But you can do a few different...

50 Free Rusted Metal Texture Backgrounds

Feb. 11, 2009  |  53 comments

If you ever heard the phrase ‘you can find inspiration everywhere you look’, then this article is for you. Today we look at rusted metal textures as both an unusual source of inspiration as well as an option for unique backgrounds.

Textured backgrounds are a great way to add an extra dimension to any graphic design project. Magazines and printed media can resort to textured paper for added impact however, this is impossible to do on the web, and the closest we can do is adding texture to simulate this effect.

We’ve compiled a list of 50 free rust metal...

Create A Glowing Extreme Wallpaper in Photoshop

Jan. 28, 2009  |  57 comments

In this tutorial, we’ll create a complex glowing wallpaper using Photoshop.

We’ll be using custom brushes, several blending modes, lightning techniques, and blurs.

The tutorial was created using free resources, so you can easily recreate it by following step-by-step. To make it easy for everyone, we have included the PSD source file at the very end of the tutorial which should...

40 Amazing 3D Fractals Using Apophysis

Jan. 7, 2009  |  67 comments

Today we’re featuring 40 fractal images created using Apophysis. It’s a free Windows program for designing and rendering fractal flames. You can download the software for free at SourceForge

Recently, Apophysis has been getting more and more popular among the community of DeviantArt. Apophysis, and competing fractal product UltraFractal, are the most popular fractal software used by fractal artists...