Best of the Web – August 2010
As you know, each month, we round up some of the best Photoshop-related content from around the web. This month, there were some excellent Photoshop tutorials, articles, and freebies to choose from. Please take a moment to review our favorites from August 2010.
Tutorial Wrap
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Paint With Fire
In real life, painting with fire might be considered dangerous and possibly illegal. In Photoshop, however, painting with fire can produce stunning results. This tutorial from Digital Arts demonstrates how to create a flaming person in Photoshop.
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Using Lighting, Atmospherics and Digital Illustration Techniques for Matte Painting
To create a realistic matte painting, or any artwork for that matter, it is important to understand the properties of light, atmospherics, color and perspective. This tutorial from Creative Fan demonstrates how to use these principles to create a stunning landscape matte painting.
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Create a Refreshing Beer Themed Poster Design in Photoshop
When you create a print advertisement, it’s important that all the elements of your composition are geared towards selling a product and promoting a brand. This tutorial from Colorburned demonstrates how to produce a beautiful beer-themed advertisement in Photoshop.
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Combining Custom Brushes for Wild Effects in Photoshop
Photoshop brushes are one of the most powerful tools in Photoshop’s arsenal. In this tutorial, Creative Fan makes a second appearance in this round up with this really nice tutorial demonstrating how to use custom brushes to produce wild effects in Photoshop.
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Correcting Exposure with the Shadows & Highlights Tool
Often, when taking pictures, it’s difficult, sometimes impossible, to get the perfect exposure on everything within the frame. When shooting outdoors, you’re bound to over or under-expose parts of your shot. This tutorial from Tutorial9 demonstrates how to use Photoshop’s Shadow/Highlight adjustment to maximize the potential of your shots.
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Create a Scene with Retro-futuristic-Inspired Light Effects
Photoshop and Illustrator make a powerful combination. You can often produce stunning results by creating objects in Illustrator and bringing them into Photoshop. This tutorial from Design Instruct demonstrates how to produce stylish custom patterns and vector shapes and import them into Photoshop to bring them to life.
Free Downloads
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Moustache Buttons!
If your design needs more moustache, then you should definitely check out this set of moustache buttons from Cute Little Factory. This set includes 15 buttons based on well-known celebrity moustaches. An excellent find!
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Simple But Sophisticated App Icon Set
You can never have too many icons in your design arsenal. This set of icons from Creative Nerds will make an excellent addition to your design library. Give this set of icons by Helen Gizi a download and try them on for size!
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14 Free High-Res Slate Textures
Textures are great resources to use to add a sense of realism or depth to your compositions. This set of 14 free high resolution slate textures are perfect for creating tiled floors or surfaces.
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Freebie: 25 Original And Free Abstract Smoke Brushes
Abstract smoke brushes are great for adding interest to your designs, especially if you need something that looks great but can’t take up a lot of time. This set of 25 smoke brushes from 1st Web Designer is perfect for anyone needing to add a quick, yet beautiful effect to their designs.
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Free Hi-Res Photoshop Brushes: Assorted Texture Set
Textures are great for adding realism to your designs but brushes created from textures can often open up new possibilities that the texture alone could not achieve. This set of assorted Photoshop brushes from Bittbox includes some really nice brushes for you to use.
Articles and Inspiration
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A Handy Guide to Image Resolutions in Print Design
Image resolution can be a confusing principle for young graphic designers to understand. This post from Spoon Graphics explains a little about image resolution and what it actually means.
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36 Creative 3D Typography Designs
3D Typography is the art of collecting and arranging text in a three-dimension view. This showcase from DesignM.ag collects 36 amazing examples of 3D typography.
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Outstanding Advertising Inspiration
No matter where you live, ads are everywhere! The best ads combine a great idea with excellent execution. This round up from Abduzeedo showcases some outstanding examples of advertising inspiration.
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30 More Hilarious Print Advertisements
Some of the most memorable advertisement are also some of the funniest. People love humorous advertisements. This round up from Spyre Studios showcases some of the funniest print ads that you will ever see!
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Really Cool Advertisements and Photo Manipulations
In our third installment of advertisement inspiration, check our this post from Presidia Creative that showcases some really cool advertisements and photo manipulations.
