Hey
I have not been able lately do do any really good design work but I have found a really cool font that I want to use in some future project. Its called Birth of a Hero if you didn't work it out from the title.
From the picture above its a very grungy font, but at the same time its still very uniform and geometric. Really cool. You can get the file here if you want to download it. Its availble for Mac and Windows.
Hey there,
Since I haven't been posting much on this blog lately since my life has been so busy with work I thought I would give you 2 wallpapers to use this week. These are really cool and I love them both.
The first one is a 70's style alien vector image thing. I don't really no what to call it but it does look cool. You can find the original here. You can click the image for the full version.
This second image is of a completely different take. I have not found many good 3d images to use as wallpapers but this is so funny. The original is found here. I just love this image so much. Click for full version.
Till next time good bye.
Hey
Photoshop is a great program but it may have a competitor in the cheaper market. This new cool looking program is called Pixelmator and is availble for $59 and it could compete with the big daddy that is Photoshop.
Why is it so cool. It just seems for graphically oriented. For example it uses the GPU instead of the CPU to do the graphics rendering. This has its push and negative points but generally runs well on my Mac Book Pro, and is very is responsive.
If you case above it uses black a lot. Thats the drag and drop installation of the program. I fyou look below you get the welcome screen. It is normally a lot darker, but taking the image seems to have changed what the image looks like.
Generally it looks good and is fun to use. You can see the darkness of all the palettes that the program has to offer. It is quick and simple to use but like any new programs it is new so there are some bugs.
The above image didn't take me long to do. Although it is a bit rubbish it is fun to work with so I might give it a try. You can find it here on Pixelmators website.
Hey
Cropping photos is easy in Aperture. Like most things it only involves a couple of clicks and doesn't take long to do. The first thing you need to do is open Aperture and find a photo you need to crop.
The next step is to select the crop tool. This is located in the tool bar.
Drag a box around the part of the image you want to crop. The lighter sections will be kept. The darker sections will be removed.
The floatable HUD does have built in options for preset sizes. For example if you look at the image below these are all the sizes you can use. The select box changes to which ever size you select.
Pressing enter or selecting another tool crops the image and create a new image in the stack.
This tool is easy to use and you can crop all your image in no time. You can read the rest of the series here.
Hey
Sorry for the lack of updates. An Aperture tutorial will be here tomorrow I have been really busy at school. Any way if you want this weeks wallpaper you can cast your eyes down to the image below. Again this was taken on my holiday in Greece and it was one of the ship wreaks. It's made out of iron and was deserted for a long time. You can click the image for the full version.
If you are interested now is the best time if you want to buy a Mac and iPod since Apple are offering there back to school promotion. You can check it out here.
Hey
I like maps and vectors so whats better than vector maps to download. The ones i've found are amazing quality and are at a very reasonable price of $50. For example this pack includes maps of countries, American states and a world map. Nearly all the maps are availble in either Illustrator Ai, Gif, Jpg, and editable PDF. These are really high quality and are either in full colour or single colour as shown below.
If you think this is a really cool product to buy because I can think of hundreds of uses for this product. You can download this product here for a limited time only price of $49.
Happy mapping.
Rotating images in Aperture is as simple as two clicks. Ill show you the simple steps needed so you can do it every time.
The first step is to find the rotate button. Its located in the toolbar at the top of your screen. Click either of the two on the right. You can also press on of the square brackets ( [ & ] ).
Notice the images in there slanty uncorrected position.
And after a click or 3 the image are the right way round. You don't have to change the tool to change the rotation of the image just keep clicking and the image will keep rotating.
Thats was a quick tutorial. There will be another one tommorow. You can read the rest of this series here.
Hey
Illustrator is a great program. It offers so much versatility in creating vector images. Hence why it is the top vector program out there. As a beginner to this program I want to share with you a tutorial that is simple to follow that you can use to draw Homer Simpson of The Simpsons. It is really easy to do but it does take a long while if you want to get it correct and good looking. What we would hopefully be working towards is something shown on the right. That image is lifted directly out of I had made. All the included colours will be given although you can download the swatches from the source file if you want to load them directly. If you want to see any of the image screen shots full size please click on them.
Step 1 is simple create for canvas and suitably name it. A size under 800 x 600 is perfect because the source file we will be working on isn't the best of quality. Remember to save the file once as you click OK. You don't want to lose all of your work because you didn't save your file.
You next need to create a layer for the background image that we are going to trace. Rename the existing layer (If you need your layer palette up go Window > Layers) and naming it something useful (and spelled correctly (D'Oh)). The next step is to lock the layer by checking the tick box. Locking the layer prevents you from moving it are changing any of the attributes when working.
The next step is to copy and paste or place the image below onto this layer. You can either resize it to a large size if it is to small or leave it as it is. 
You should have something that looks like this. When you lock the layer there will be a small pad lock by the eye. If can always click and unclick the pad lock to edit and change the layer as necessary. This will be done numerous times to different layers.
The next step is to start drawing. Use the Pen tool (P) and set the stroke to about 2. Change this depending on the size of your image. One thing to remember is that a thinner line will be added on to the image later.
Once you have selected the pen tool create a new layer. Name it outline. The carefully draw around the outline of Homer. Make sure that you adjust the curves as needed with the White Pointed Tool (A).
Once you have spent some time carefully adjusting the image you should have a good outline. Through out the creating of this tutorial I was always going back and changing the outline to look both good and fit to the original sketch.
You now need to reduce the stoke size of the brush. The inner lines are smaller and thinner due to the detail.
Again, follow the sketch outline using the 1 stroke brush. One thing to note is that the left eye is better if you use the ellipse tool. It is easier to get the round shape.
Continue down the body tracing the image as necessary. The more time and effort you put into getting all the lines to match up is vital. The image does look better in the end. Remember to add in the backs of his eyes.
One thing that might become apparent when drawing your image is problem areas due to the edges of the brush strokes. The one below is shown be his sleeve opening. This can be solved in an easy way.
Go Object > Path > Outline Stroke. The converts the single line to a block shape. You can then move the points by hand to match up and cover up any errors.
You can then move the points and make the sleeve look better.
The next step is to start creating the coloured skin. Homer Simpsons skin is defined by the colours below. You can use the colour palette included in the source pack.
Begin by making the colour the yellow you just created and the stroke to 0 or the colour invisible. Use the pen tool.
Create a new layer. Name it colour. Lock the outline layer so you can't change it while you are working on the colour layer.
Go around the outline of skin with the pen tool. You don't have to be to careful when you make the points as along as all the skin is filled in and there is no white bits left.
You need to continue with other parts of his skin. The beard is RGB 238, 205, 128. You can download the colour values from the source pack.
The next step is to move onto his feet and finally on to his shoes. The blue used will be slightly different and darker to the original used in the sketch. The colour values are shown below.
He is starting to come to look good now.
The final part of block colouring is to do his shoes. These are dark and use the colour values RGB 85, 85, 85. Again use the pen tool and go around the shape of his shoes.
They are coloured in a look like so.
He really does look cool at the moment and hopefully should yours. Give yourself a pat on the back for you good work. But you can make it even better with some shadows.
The shadows use the same basic colours but are darkened. These colours are not in the source pack so you have to make them yourself.
These is where your artistic talent comes in. Use the pen tool again with no stroke and the fill set to the shadow colour. Make and out line shape of the shadow and use the reference image as a source. I've moved the sketch image off to the left so I can easily refer to it. Use a new layer if you want to.
Continue around all parts of the skin.
If you look at the layer palette below i've locked all but the shadow layer I am working on. By the way the path under Shadow shouldn't be locked. I clicked the button by accident before taking the screen shot.
Although from the screen cap it may be difficult to notice all of the skin has a shadow.
Continue now with the shadow of the trousers. The colour shadow is RGB 83, 124, 180. Again create a shadow by following the sketch image as a source.
The shaodws really bring the image to life and they look a lot less 2D.
You need to do the same with the grey for his t-shirt. I've used the default light grey that is included with the colours with Illustrator.
At this point my homer looks very similar to the original copy.
You need to do again the shadows on his feet. I've used another of the default greys.
All you need to do now is finish off by sorting out any stray lines. I've added some text for extra effect (and people no I did it). As well as this there is also a shadow. This again uses one of the greys built into the colour palette.
Now this image is by no way perfect. There are little blips that could be sorted out but other wise it is really cool. Please leave your comments below.
Wallpaper Wednesday is a favourite of mine, since it gives me the chance to surf good design sites and share with you the best images on the web. This weeks photo is a vector image from DeviantART. I'm gonna have ago myself tomorrow with a similar style wallpaper. Click the image to make it full size.
Quite cool don't you think.
Hey
This Aperture tutorial is all about straightening photographs. It is pretty simple to do and doesn't take long to do each photograph. Please bare in mind though you do need a fast-ish computer if you want to do these quickly as it take a couple of seconds for me for the image to initially update. This was quiet funny as many of the image were even worse than before. If I had hundreds of these to do I might use a Mac Pro to easily cut through the photos, my Mac Book Pro struggled a little till I got the hang of waiting. I could of course just take the photos straight to begin with.
Anyway rotating photos could not be easier in Aperture, all it involves is finding a dogey photo, clicking the straighting icon, move the mouse up and down and watch it as the photo rotates. I will show you through the steps.
Once you find your photo you want to correct click the Straighten Tool (G) wait a couple of seconds (if necessary for the tool to load)
You will notice that a grid comes up on your image, click and drag your mouse forward and backwards to line up the image. Aperture automatically rotates and crops your image for you.
When you done let go. As with anything in Aperture a Stack is created. You are done and ready to move onto the next image.
Thats all for this quick tip in Aperture. You can see the rest of the series here.
Hey
As you may know by looking through this website I like to use Photoshop and good graphic design tools. One of my favourite parts of Photoshop is the ability to use shapes to drag into any project that I am using. For example with the use of the pen tool I can create and vector image with the shape as a starting base. I search the web constantly to find more shapes to fill in my collection (I have hundreds already). I think I have found the best place to buy high quality shapes. When I mean high quality these are the best in the world. The guy who created these must have far to much time on his hands. They are just superb. Anyways I will show you a couple of the best examples which I have manged to acquire from him.
Flames
Flames are great if you really want to add some fire to your Photoshop work or if you want the interesting curves that flames make. If you move you eyes over to the left you can see an example of how many shapes you can get. Please note that there are over 120 all different shapes which you can use to your advantage. If you look below you can see an example, it is the one I quickly made and added some Web 2.0 style gradients into the mix.
If you want to buy these, which I suggest you seriously consider since these are amazing you should visit the Graphic Xtras buy page. They are only $6, £4, or €5. You can get them here. Splash out. They are availble to both Mac and PC's and are really simple to install. If you want to find more information about them you can go to the product description at the bottom of the page.
Gears
Got a grinding passion for some gear shapes to use. Then again at GraphicXtra's these are the ones to buy. For example in the full pack for $10, £7 or €9 you get 150 gear shapes (I only have a limited selection shown left) . These are all different types and can be used for a variety of applications. If you want to create a document that looks like it is in progress a simple gear would be simple enough to add. There is no need to make you own and pain painstakingly make sure all the teeth on the gear look correct and lined up properly. This pack has everything you ever want. If you take a look at some of the designs I mocked up you can get an example of what is included.
Download is instant do get them here. Once again if you want to find out more scroll down to see the product details link.
Embellish
Along with flames these are one of my favorites. I a twisty, curly sort of way these really stand out on a page. They sort of remind me of Hindu henna tattoos (I think?) but there is so much detail put into each one. There is 130 in the pack priced at $6, £4 and €5 respectively. That works out at only £0.03 per shape and absolute bargain. If you look down below you can see an example.
You can purchase this shape pack here.
Flow
The final pack that I am going to show to you tonight because I think it also is on of the best at the moment on the internet. This pack is called flow. A vary creative name for shapes that are warped, smudged and bent out of shape. These shapes are the ones you would use to enhance any image, provide an overlay to an image that isn't that obvious.
This is part of the mega pack of shape that is available for US $60 GBP £40 EUR €50. This pack contains 12,000 shapes which are all compatibles with Photoshop for Mac and PC. The product page can be found here.
You must agree with me that these are some really cool shapes to own. You can get all these packs separately or you can buy some of the multi packs where you get thousands of shapes for a reduced price. Some that are on offer include. The mega pack which is available for US $60 GBP £40 EUR €50. In this you get 12,000 shapes, which are pack numbers 1 thru 32. All royalty free. You can get them here.
If you don't want to pay that much you can go for one that is availble for £30, it doesn't have as many shapes but could be in you price range, this can be found here.
Finally if you are really on a budget you can still get some fantastic shapes for only £20 and equivalent. This pack is still worth it. You can get this one here.
Hopefully you find this resource one of the best about. Please leave your comments.
Hey
Its part 10 of the Aperture series with no foreseeable end, todays tutorial is only going to be quick since I haven't got a lot of time to spare. I am going to use the simple red eye tool to quickly remove red eye from photos. It doesn't take long to learn and is only point and click to use. So if you are ready strap yourself in and lets get ready to roll.
The first step is to find an image which is a suitable offender to remove the red eye. If you look below you can find an image of me (don't I look young) which has red eye.
The next step is to select the red eye tool. This is located on the toolbar at the top if you have the default layout used.
What pops up is this floating HUD (Heads Up Display). Its pretty simple to understand. The slider and value is indicating the size of the circle / "brush" which is used to remove the red eye. you want to get the circle small but is doesn't have to be precise, just some where in the region of the size of your eye,
What you then need to do is click on the red eye. The circle will then change to this cross hair style pointer on your eye.
Do the same with the other eyes on your image and the red eye is gone. No messing point and click.
As with everything in Aperture a new image has been created and put into a stack. You can read one of the previous tutorial about stacks.
Well this tutorial was short but there isn't really much to explain. You can read the rest of this series here. Aperture is available from the Apple Store at a great price. You can purchase your copy here.
I've dabbled in Illustrator for a bit and it is one cool program. One of the defining points with this program is, of course vectors. But there most be some places on the internet where you can get really cool places to get cheap or free vectors to use in you work. Work of the highest quality is a must.
Place number one is Bitbox. One of my favourite blogs for design. The guy who runs the show has made up some cool vectors which you can download all for yourself. How nice. Anyway one of my favourite vectors that he has made is the Modern Arrows (Pictured Below) you can download it here and you can find the rest by searching through his site as it is always updated with new vectors which you can download.
The second place that is really cool for vectors is Vecteezy. Home of the stupid name cool vectors there are some amazing vectors that are located here. They are all free (like the previous one) and range in quality to the OK may be if i'm bored to the super cool I can't believe this is free. So if you want to check out this site it is certainly worth it.
The next one on the list is one of my favourite places for buying materials for both Illustrator and Photoshop and this is Graphic Xtras. They offer hundreds of different materials which you can download for a small charge. For example for $15 or £9 you can get this (tinyied because its breaking my input mechanism) really cool little pack that contains 13 high impact designs which you can use to create thousands of designs (one shown below). Although you get them free this is the place to get the ones at top quality.
If you want to splash out you can always pay some proper money for 25 Volumes of thousands of professionally vectors. There price reasonably at $90/£60 so if you want some pro vectors to use in you work this is the place to get them. They are available for Mac and PC respectively.
Ok, the next site is another of my favourite design sites which offers again some free vectors. There are hundreds of different vectors which you can download. The site is called Web Design Blog and like many sites it is all about design. If you want to sample the vectors which you can use you can find them here.
If you have been on the internet at all you have probably heard of deviantART.com one of the top places for arty stuff. A bit like Vecteezy they vary in quality but you can find some really cool stuff on there. So if you hunt around and search you should be able to find some cool vectors which you can use. Nearly all are royalty and other stuff free. So go to here to check them out.
If you find any more cool sites to download vectors please post them in the comments.
Hey
Its time for wallpaper Wednesday. As you may have heard the new CTRL (Channel Tunnel Rail Link) between London and Paris has opened which means fast transport to the Europe if I ever decide to buy a ticket. Anyway, I was in a bit of a train mood and found this cool vector style image for 2 Eurostars. The original link is here but you can click the image below for the full version. Ain't trains great.
Hey
I haven't got all the time in the world to right tonights tutorial but I am going to give you an insight into one of the different tool included with Aperture. This tool of course is the Loupe tool. The Loupe tool is like a big magnifying class where you can zoom into an image with out actually zooming in. It offers a lot of detail as well as other features of an image for to use. If you want to match up a colour or change a specific colour more accurately this tool gives you an opportunity to do that.
The Loupe tool can be accessed from to different ways. Mostly from the View > Show Loope menu. The screen shot below shows me when I have got the Loupe open. I took this shot mid way through making this tutorial. So Hide Loupe would say Show Loupe. You can click any of the images to make them larger.
Another way to show the Loupe is to press the Show/Hide Loupe on the tool bar at the top of the screen. It may not be on your toolbar. Later on in this series I will show you how to customize the toolbar to suit your needs.
This is the basic loupe. The small circle in the top left (although it does move around on screen as you move the Loupe about) is the locator part of hte image. What is in the bigger circle is what is shown in the smaller circle.
One option that is useful at this point is that when you right click extra options appear at the bottom of the menu. I am going to go through this menu as well as the main menu from your menu bar in this tutorial.
The first option that is selected is the centered Loupe. A bit different as the small circle has disappeared and is one big magnifying glass. It does the same function, its just laid out differently.
If you right click on this menu you get some extra options.. You have options for Loupe magnification, pixel grid and values and weather the Loupe is centered like now or hidden.
The top option relate to the what is magnified. The "Focus on Loupe" means where ever the Loupe is, that is where magnification takes place. The "Focus on Cursor" means the magnification is where the cursor is at the present moment. Each have there pros and cons.
One of the options selected below is the Colour Value. It is given in RGBL format. Personally I don't no what the L stands for, could be luminance. This feature is good is you want to replicate the colour exactly.
One thing that you may need to do is make the Loupe bigger or smaller. This can be done through the right hand click menu or using the keyboard shortcut. The actual size of the Loupe changes on screen. You can also increase the magnification if you need to zoom in or zoom out more.
Pixel grid which can be accessed by right clicking on the Loupe after you have put colour values on draws, as you might expect, a grid on screen. This breaks down the pixels so you can easily see each one.
Now I no that this tutorial was a bit quick but you can get over it. I will be back either tomorrow or the day after for the next one. So sit tight. You can always visit the Apple Store if you need to purchase Aperture or any other product.
This was sort of explained in the previous tutorial about the use of stacks within Aperture. Stacks are very important as they control the way you work with photos in the Aperture program. For example every time you modify a photo a new image is made. If there was no way to organise these photos you would have hundreds of the same photo except with minor alterations with each one. There would be to many photos, it would become to cluttered and you would find it hard to work. The use of a stack reduces the amount of photos that are in the file browser. They are still there only hidden. This reduces the amount on screen improving work flow. As well as individual photos you can put similar (or not very similar) files into stack of there own. This can be used for files that you don't like or for shots that you took in rapid succession and do not need to be separated. Of course you can break up stacks and have stacks within stacks. Although stacks within stacks are broken up.
If you are ready I will give you a guided tour of the features and interfaces that you see and use to be able to use stacks within Aperture. Click any of the image for there full versions. If you are new and haven't yet got your copy of the program. Visit the Apple Store for more information.
OK, the main menu for stacks which I would be referring to through out this tutorial is on the menu bar. Clicking on this menu will get you all the different menu options of the stacks. I will be referring to options from within here. So if you can't find what i'm talking about here is a good place to look.
If you notice the following image is in a stack. It was used in the last tutorial. Stacks are defined by the number badge in the top left hand corner. This number increase as more images are added to the stack.
The stacks menu. Located in the menu bar at the top of the screen this offers all of the option or creating and modifying stacks. There are shortcuts so you can use them to quickly achieve what you want.
If you open a stack, all the images are displayed. They are encompassed by a small blackish boarder, so you can still figure out that they are still in a stack. The number in the top left is still present.
The top half of the Stacks menu is about creating and breaking stacks, if you look at the photo below you will see what I mean.. By selecting photos and using the Stack option, these photos are then placed into a stack.
The unstack option removes the photos from the stack. It doesn't open and close stack as I originally thought when I first used this program. It may take a while to realize what this does.
Split stack is a bit like taking a knife to the stack. If you click on a, say the third photo like in the photo above the first and second become a separate stack and so do the third and last.
Extract removes the single (or more than one if selected) out from the stack.
A quick tip, if you drag and drop a photo into the stack it is the same as adding. Dragging the photo out also works. A small green vertical arrow will appear if the photo is out of the stack.
Moving down there is the auto stack option. This I find is a bit hit and miss. It automatically sets its own stacks depending on the photos you use. and the parameters you set.
When in stacks the image you create may be more important that the one that is currently shown at the front of the stack. Using the pick button promotes the image to the top. This is the main image shown when you close a stack. The album pick is similar but for albums.
Promote and Demote move images up and down a stack. For example if you have made lots of modifications to an image and have lots of photos in a stack you can use the promote demote options to move and image up and down. A rank of you image if you will. If you promote and image all the way to number one it is the same as pressing pick.
This next screen shot of the menu are the navigation options. Previous and Next stack do pretty much what they say on the tin.
This one is slightly different in that it selects the stack that you move to. The previous option just moves the image browser view to the stack thumbnail location.
This option is what you should use for opening and closing stacks. This a bit like a book or a draw opens the stack out so you can see all of the images. The option at the top of Close Stack changes between close and open depending on what stack you have chosen an weather it is open or not.
Finally as an end note you can quickly customize the tool bar at the top with the stack options.
Right click on the menu and select Customize Toolbar.
You are then presented with all these options to add to the toolbar. Which like any option with in Mac OS X Tiger you can drag and drop the options as you want.
On closer inspection these (the icons in green) refer to the options you what for stacks. All the other options I will go over in due course.
Hopefully this has give you an insight into stacks and how to use them. If you want to see the rest of the tutorial please use the Aperture label.
Hey
I've decided to move away from the Aperture Tutorials (They will be back tonight) and do a tutorial that will make your name look starry and shiny. It makes it stand out and look interesting. Makes you name or site look important.
Anyway to do this you need:
