Design Resources : Randa Clay Design
Posted by Jennifer | June 8, 2007 | 2 Comments
Randa Clay Design is a great design blog bursting with information. There is a very nice sense of community on this site with lots of comments and input from designers.
I was particularly interested in the design posts but also got a lot out of the How Tos and the Tips and Tools. I learned a lot in my first visit alone.
Photoshop Training : Total Training Goes Online
Posted by Jennifer | June 8, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Total Training are now offering their full range of courses online. Their videos cover everything from Print Design to Web Design to Communication and Development Tools. In the past I’ve bought their videos on Photoshop and Illustrator and found them to be entertaining and incredibly informative. It’s a nice way to learn, looking over the instructor’s shoulder.
They currently have a deal where if you buy $150 worth of their instructional DVDs, you will get ONE YEAR’s access to their online library. That will give you access to over $1000 worth of DVDs online.
The full range of Total Training Videos can be viewed here.
Photoshop : Tutorial - Reflective Text
Posted by Jennifer | June 8, 2007 | 7 Comments
Today’s Photoshop tutorial shows you how to give the impression of reflected text. This is a very popular effect around the web at the moment and it’s easy to achieve using a couple of transformations and the gradient tool.
1. Create a new Photoshop document size 500 x 300 pixels with a white background.
2. Select the Type tool from the toolbar. 
I’m using a sans-serif font called Berlin Sans FB Demi which can be found on dafont.com and a dark red colour (RGB #990000), font size 80 pts.
3. Press Ctrl + J (windows) or Cmd + J (mac) to duplicate the text layer.
4. Right-click on the text layer in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize Type from the drop-down menu.
5. Choose Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical.
6. Select the Move Tool 
in the toolbar and use the down arrow keys move the upside down text downwards.
Hold down the Shift key while you hit the down arrow to jump 10 pixels at a time. Move the upside-down text to the point where there is just a small gap between each piece of text.
7.Choose Edit > Transform > Perspective. A set of handles will appear around the upside-down text. Select the bottom left corner and drag it out a little bit to the left. Press Enter (windows) or Return (mac) to complete the transformation.
8. On the upside-down text layer, Ctrl + Click (windows) or Cmd + Click (mac) on the preview thumbnail. This will select all of the upside-down text.
9. Choose Select > Modify > Expand and expand the selection by 1 pixel.
10. Press Delete to get rid of the upside down text but leave the empty area selected.
11. Select the Gradient tool 
.
In the Tool Options bar choose Foreground to Background (your background colour should be white before you do this).
12. Drag a straight line from the top of the selection to near the bottom of the selection.
13. Press Crtl + D (windows) or Cmd + D (mac) to deselect the selection.
14. Reduce down the Opacity of the upside down text to about 20% (make it a higher percentage if you want to see more of the “reflection”.
15. Click on the Layer Styles button at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Inner Glow. Set the Glow colour to white, Mode to Screen and Opacity to about 40%.
You should now have a nice piece of reflected text something like this:
In this tutorial I’ve made a reflection with text, but the idea is basically the same for any object that you want to reflect.
Currently out of action!
Posted by Jennifer | June 5, 2007 | 4 Comments
I had laser eye surgery this week - LASEK and am currently seeing the world through blurry post-op contact lenses, hence there have been no posts this week. Am absolutely itching to start using Photoshop again but I have to stay away from the computer for a few more days (ignoring this medical advice just long enough for one quick post though!)
Any of you photoshoppers or designers had laser surgery on your eyes? How did it go?
Design Resources : BittBox.com
Posted by Jennifer | June 2, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Bittbox.com is a great design blog featuring tons of vector art and lovely high resolution brushes for Photoshop. The watercolour brushes are superb and create a lovely textured feel when you use them in a design.
The author has recently set up a user showcase area on Flickr where you can show off the use of their many great freebies. Well worth a visit.
6 Lovely Dark Wordpress Themes
Posted by Jennifer Farley | June 2, 2007 | 1 Comment
Here’s a small sample from the literally thousands of dark themes available from wordpress. These templates are mostly black or very dark grey and yet they stand out because of their elegance and look that little bit different from the rest of the mob. Some of these themes you may have come across already and a couple of them are fairly new. Read more
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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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