Adobe Photoshop

My name is Russell McGovern and I use Fireworks to design websites. There, I said it. I could be wrong, but it feels like I’m in a small minority; among web designers, the application of choice seems to be Photoshop.

Agencies send me PSD files at work and ask for them in return; design blogs are full of Photoshop tips, tutorials and templates; other designers request the Photoshop files that they assume I must have used to build elements.

It’s almost like being a second-class citizen. It’s like the only tool a truly professional designer would dream of using is Photoshop—the software equivalent of choosing a Mac over a PC.

Yet Photoshop is not the only option. I’ve used Fireworks for many years now and find it to be by far the easiest and fastest way to get ideas out of my head and into pixels on the screen. Read more

Textures make a website feel tangible.

They give content a relationship to the physical world, a sense of place and a reality that people can relate to.

Unfortunately, simulating physical textures isn’t as simple as shooting a photo or running a few Photoshop filters.

One has to blend random noise and recognizable patterns, striving for similarities rather than pure repetition.

Here, we’ll discuss what gives textures an organic quality, and we’ll look at techniques for creating and applying natural-looking textures and seamless tiles. Read more

Photoshop has been a part of every web designer’s life since they picked up their first mouse.

On February 10th, 2010, Photoshop turns twenty. To mark this anniversary, we’ve come up with an article that takes you through the evolution of Photoshop from its modest beginnings as a bundled program sold with scanners to its current version.

For each version and major feature listed, we couldn’t help but think “did Photoshop ever exist without that feature?”.

Some of the minor details are fun too, such as the one-liner Easter Eggs that Photoshop developers hid in some versions and the fact that the most current versions of Adobe Photoshop CS are equipped with anti-counterfeiting measures for multiple world currencies.

Please join us in thanking the Knolls and Adobe for making all of our lives more awesome, every day. Read more

Today we bring you another awesome set of exclusive Photoshop brushes which include 24 high resolution “Sparkling Light Effects”.

The set was created by Grant Friedman from Colorburned exclusively for WDD readers.

These brushes are completely free for both personal and commercial use so you can create any type of project with them with no restrictions, with the exception that we do not allow the redistribution of the brushes in any shape or form.

If you’d like to share these brushes with your friends and colleagues, simply refer them to this page so that they can download their copy.

Below is a full preview of all 24 brushes for quick reference. The download link is at the bottom. Enjoy! Read more

Photo manipulation is an ever evolving collaboration between photography and graphic design.

Combining certain elements to create a unique image, that can convince even the most experienced set of eyes, requires a very creative set of skills.

Because the manipulation of a photo gives a realistic view of an unreal picture, you should have an open mind when gathering ideas on how to get creative with your images.

Photo manipulations are a great source for inspiration, generally because designers are able to express their creativity through various aspects of design.

Several of the following images contain illustrative elements, while others display a more realistic approach.

So here are 40 of the most incredible examples of photo manipulation. Read more

Anyone can cobble together a few photos and textures and create a humdrum montage.

To elevate yours beyond this it takes a few simple tricks using Photoshop’s awesome array of tools.

Do it right and the style has got dozens of applications from static navigation or graphics, through to animated banners and interactive collages.

I’ve picked a musical theme, as the style works really well for band graphics or music based sites.

This tutorial explains how to create a great Photoshop montage in 19 steps, so let’s get started and have fun with it. Read more

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 be great to use for quick reference.

Go ahead and try it out and post your examples in the comments area.

Here’s a preview of the final image…. Read more

You have a picture of a stuffed penguin. It’s not just any stuffed penguin, though. It’s the latest and greatest in stuffed penguin technology, the hot item that everyone will want under their Christmas trees this year. You’ll make a fortune with this penguin, if only you can start selling it online in time for the holidays. “But wait!”, you say. “I can’t just put this picture on the Internet looking like that! It’s too big! It needs a border! It needs a drop shadow! What shall I ever do?”

OK, maybe not. Your penguin won’t lead to fame and fortune, and you can easily edit your image with Photoshop. So let’s change the scenario a bit: your client has a picture of a stuffed penguin, and a picture of a stuffed owl, and a stuffed gopher, and a stuffed wallaby, and a stuffed flamingo… You get the idea; hundreds of pictures from their Stuffed Animals from Around the World catalog.

Before you can load all of the pictures into your client’s fancy new e-commerce site, you need thumbnails with simple borders and drop shadows for each and every image. Simple, yes, but tedious. And you’ll get to do it all over again when they release next year’s line of stuffed animals. Read more