Photoshop : Quick Tip - Changing the size of the font preview
Posted by Jennifer | June 23, 2006 | Leave A Comment
If you find that the size of the text in the font preview is too small, or too large, you can change this setting in Photoshop CS2. Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K Mac OS) to open Photoshop’s preferences and choose Type from the pop-up menu. Make sure that the checkbox for Font Preview Size is selected, you can then choose, Small, Medium or Large in the pop-up menu.
Web Design: How do I add my site to Google’s search results?
Posted by Jennifer Farley | June 22, 2006 | Leave A Comment
How do I add my site to Google’s search results? This is a question that many of our clients ask.
It’s really easy to submit a site to Google - you can do it here and it’s free.
To get the answer to the question straight from the horse’s mouth, you can read Google’s own guidelines. They actually say that it is unnecessary to submit your site to Google (I’d still do it anyway!). Google uses software known as “spiders” to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to the index.
If a site is missed by a spider it could be because of one of the following reasons;
- The site is not well connected with other sites through an inbound linking structure.
- The site launched after Google’s most recent crawl was completed.
- Poor web site design makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl your content.
- The site was temporarily unavailable at the time of crawling or an error was received.
Laughing Lion Design submit all their clients websites to Google and the other major search engines.
Photoshop Tutorial : Using Solid Colour Layers
Posted by Jennifer | June 21, 2006 | Leave A Comment
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to generate a solid colour layer in Photoshop. This is a special layer which allows you to quickly and easily change the background colour of images with the colour picker.
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to generate a solid colour layer in Photoshop. This is a useful way to change backgrounds on images. I’m using an image of a purple car which has areas of transparency which lets the yellow background layer show through.
1. In Photoshop, click on the Layer1 layer in the Layers palette to select it. 
2. Click on Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer menu.
3. Choose Solid Color from that menu. 
This will open the Colour Picker
4. I chose a blue colour and clicked OK.
A new layer called Color Fill 1 has appeared in Layers Palette. This layer has two thumbnails and a link symbol associated with it. The thumbnail on the left is a solid color fill. The white thumbnail on the right is a layer mask. You can see the solid color fill through the mask because the mask is set to white. The reason for using a solid color layer is that it gives you the flexibility to easily change a solid fill.
5. Click on the new Color Fill 1 layer and drag it down below the Layer 0 (the car layer). Now the car is at the top of the stack in the Layers Palette and the background appears blue. Using this new layer it is now extremely easy to change the background colour easily and quickly.
6. In the Layers palette, double-click on the thumbnail on the left side of the Color Fill 1 layer. This will open the Color Picker again. Choose a new colour and notice the live preview of the colour changes to the layer. This is what makes it so good. Click OK when you find a colour you like.
Design Resources: Design Observer has a new look
Posted by Jennifer | June 20, 2006 | Leave A Comment
The Design Observer has recently been redesigned (in fact a lot of re-designing seems to be happening around the web at the moment). The new design is simple and elegant.
On the new design the editors say:
“We’ve stuck with this design for over two years, despite many complaints that we were 1) not being designers, and 2) that reversed-out type is difficult to read. However, when we started, we were determined to focus on the content first, and the form second, and this default template has served us well.”
Very nice, it is too.
Web Design : No Site, No Sales
Posted by Jennifer Farley | June 19, 2006 | Leave A Comment
Researched commissioned by the hosting company 1&1 has found that 85% of 1848 people polled said they would be wary of buying from a company that did not have a website. The web is now so intrinsically linked to business that not having a site means that customers will not buy from you.
The research also revealed that one in five small businesses had no idea of the importance consumers place on having a website. Consumers expect every business to have a professional web presence and second-rate sites are seen as a turn-off.
One of the problems with not having your own website is that you lose the chance to build trust with potential clients. People won’t buy if they don’t have a sense of trust. If you look at the Ebay, much of the buying (and selling) is based on the feedback and ratings system.
Even a basic static site is extremely useful. There is a real commercial reason for having an online presence today.
Photoshop : Tutorials - Create a simple 3D logo
Posted by Jennifer | June 19, 2006 | 1 Comment
This tutorial shows you a quick and easy way to create a simple 3D logo using the Distort Transformation in Photoshop.
1. Create a new document – 500 pixels by 500 pixels. Click on the Foreground Colour Swatch and pick a dark green colour. (I chose a green with the RGB value #336633).
Fill the background with the colour you selected by pressing Alt+Backspace (Windows) or Option+Delete (Mac).
Press “d” to set the Foreground and Background colours to their default of Black and White.
Press “x” to set your Foreground colour to white.
Select the Horizontal Type Tool (
) and select the following settings on the tool options bar.
Font Family – pussycat, Size 250 (you will need to type this into the Size field and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac)), Text aligned Centre and Anti-aliasing set to Strong.
Add some type to your image.
Click on the Create A New Layer button in the Layers Palette.
A new empty layer will appear in the Layers Palette.
Select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the toolbox.
Press Shift and drag out a circular selection that’s larger than your type (illustrated below). 
Click on the Edit menu and choose Stroke. In the Stroke dialog box, choose 20 for your Width, set the Location to Centre and set the Colour to white. Click OK. This puts a white stroke around the circular selection you made.
Press Ctrl+D (Windows) or Cmd+D (MAC) to deselect the circular marquee.
Click on the type layer in the Layers Palette and then Shift+click on the white circle layer to select both layers at the same time. Click on the Link Layers button at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Now that the layers are linked you can merge them together by pressing Ctrl+E (Windows) or Cmd+E (Mac).
Press Ctrl+T (Windows) or Cmd+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box.
Hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd(Mac) key and click on the bottom-right corner point of the Free Transform bounding box, and up and to the right. (Holding down Ctrl causes the contents of the bounding box to distort.) The logo will appear to tip forward. Do the same thing with the upper left handle of the bounding box until you get a sense of perspective on the logo. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (MAC) to commit the transformation.
(Optional) For an extra effect, add a drop shadow. In the Layers Palette, click on the layer with the merged text and circle to make it active, and then click the Add a Layer Style button (
) at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Drop Shadow from the pop-up menu.
Play around with the Drop Shadow dialog box to see which settings work best. I used the following settings:
Your final logo should look something like this:
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
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