Tutorials and Tips in Adobe Photoshop

Simple Diagonal Background

1. Open a new document, 5 pixels wide, 5 pixels high, 72 pixels/inch.
2. Zoom in so you can see each pixel.
3. Choose two colors for the foreground and background. Paint the entire image with the background color using the paint bucket tool.
4. Set the pencil tool to 1 pixel. and select foreground color. Draw in each pixel to create a diagonal stair across the image.
5. Use in web page as a repeating (both x and y) background. You could also draw a horizontal or vertical line. For stripes spaced farther apart, create a document 10 x 10 pixels.

 

Color Enhancement

Original	Color Pop Soft Light	Color Pop Overlay

Color Pop Soft Light

1. Open file and duplicate layer. To the new layer, apply a gaussian blur (+5-10).
2. Change layer mode to soft light and reduce opacity.
3. Flatten image.

Color Pop Overlay

1. Open file and duplicate layer. Apply gaussian blur +5-10.
2. Change layer mode to overlay and reduce opacity to 15-40%. Flatten the image.
3. Duplicate layer again. Change to screen mode. Lower opacity to 15-50%. Flatten.

Creating a World Map

As I searched for a world map in stock photos, I was about to pay for this little trick. Luckily, I came across this tutorial from freshtuts.com. It was so simple, I was amazed. It utilizes the icons found in the Microsoft "Ding" font families.

1. Open a new Photoshop document (400 x 400 pixels).
2. Select the type tool, font face "Webdings", font size 200 pts. Click on the document, press the [Alt] key and type 0251.
3. Ta-da, a map in whatever color or size you prefer.
4. This also works in Word, Illustrator, etc.

 

 

Using WebDings for Icon Creation:

Before putting a lot of effort into icon creation from scratch or searching for clip art, try looking at the font family, WebDings. It contains many popular and frequently used icons. The icons can also be customized in graphics programs by rasterizing, creating outlines, creating paths, ungrouping, etc. To access WebDings, you can type or copy/paste into any application that uses TrueType fonts.

On Windows XP, open the Character Map Utility by selecting Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map.

On a Macintosh system you actually have two choices for reading fonts that are in the "Ding" families. The standard method is to choose Applications : Utilities : Key Caps and open that utility to insert your fonts. The Key Caps interface gives you a miniature keyboard that will display the characters for each font once you have selected the font in the Menu bar. Press the keys on the virtual keyboard or press them on your real keyboard and the characters you enter will appear above the keys. Select the characters then choose Edit > Copy, or press Cmd+C and your text characters will be ready for use in Fireworks, Freehand, or Flash. For additional information on Web Dings, click here.

Once you have inserted the WebDings icon into your application, such as Photoshop, Fireworks, or Illustrator, you can convert the icon into paths, rasterize the layer, or create outlines, to further manipulate individual elements of the icon.

Another method to use the icons would be in web pages with either Cascading Style Sheets, or the FONT FACE tag. Because WebDings is a fully functional TrueType font it looks great on screen and in print, and can be used with other Windows applications, like Word and PowerPoint. The drawback would be if the user does not have the font installed, they would only view gibberish. This use would best apply to web pages used on an intranet.

 

WebDing icons with keystrokes [Alt]56 and [Alt]57

 

 

 

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