How to Create Your Own Textures

I typically shoot landscape photography.  And when I’m shooting a landscape, I’m looking at the big picture – where the horizon is, where the sun is at, the reflection on the water – everything.  However, textures aren’t about the big picture, though, they’re about the detail.  And we’re not always used to looking at the details.  A wall for us is usually the background – or something that’s just in the wall. But walls can make for some great textures, like this:
The walls in my house are old plaster walls, so mine might have a bit more texture than yours (and a bit more peeling paint, apparently, too – that’s artistic, though, right?), so try looking up and down instead.  The ceilings in my house range from subtle textures…

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-create-your-own-textures#ixzz0W04RRcho

The Most Epic Treehouse Ever Constructed

Ever wonder where the world’s greatest treehouse is to be found? Ever wonder who the tenacious soul behind it is? Could you even, in a moment of fantasy, have gotten yourself to fancy the long tree house you made as a kid as being the world’s greatest treehouse? [See More]

InDesign CS4 Power Shortcuts

In InDesign CS4 Power Shortcuts, Adobe product manager and designer Michael Ninness reveals hundreds of tips to boost productivity, including the top 20 power shortcuts every InDesign user must know. From placing multiple images to the hidden power of Quick Apply, each one of these videos covers an important topic, and includes just the right amount of information to make anyone a true InDesign power user. InDesign users are always looking for faster, more efficient ways to do everything, and this course offers just what they’re looking for. Exercise files accompany the course.

[view tutorial]

Photoshop Mobile for iPhone and iTouch

Adobe has released its new Photoshop.com Mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch. The new application allows users to edit and share photos directly from their device, integrating with Adobe’s Photoshop.com online service to store the original photo online, as well as edited versions; users may also save edited photos back to their devices’ photo libraries [read]

jQuery Essential Training

In jQuery Essential Training, Microsoft professional Joe Marini presents the power of the jQuery library, an open-source JavaScript project that greatly simplifies the process of adding advanced functionality to web sites. Joe teaches how to use these new features to build pages that work across browsers with the functionality that today’s users (and clients) are looking for, from complex animation effects to dynamic page formatting. Joe pulls all of this together, showing how the jQuery UI plug-in can expand and streamline the capability of jQuery, and then integrating jQuery design tools into a complete sample web site. Exercise files accompany the course.

[view tutorial]

85 Useful Free Mac Apps for Designers

Came across these useful tools -

With many applications emerging one after another, it’s not really difficult to find free apps out of the net. Perhaps, those free applications are suitable for us compared to commercial ones.

Knowing there are quite a number of designers out there using a Mac, we compiled free Mac applications for designers. In this compilation, you can find useful Mac applications that can be downloaded and used for free.

[get list]

myPANTONE for iPhone: Review

MyPantone opens to an attractive and colorful (natch!) interface starting with a rainbow guide at the top. Swiping your finger across the rainbow animates a fan deck facsimile in the middle of the screen from which you can zero in on the colors you’re interested in. As you move your finger across the guide, you can watch as colors dynamically change in either a fan view or a chip view; and easily toggle between these views. This gives you three ways to navigate your color system on the touch screen. You can set the rainbow guide to showcase a variety of Pantone’s major color libraries: Pantone Matching System for Coated, Uncoated and Matte Stock; the Pantone Goe System for Coated and Uncoated Stock; Pantone Pastels for Coated and Uncoated Stock; and the Pantone Fashion + Home Smart Color System. You can choose which system to reference by tapping an icon at the upper left-hand corner of the app’s main screen.

Once you’re in your chosen color library, you can start mixing and matching colors. A palette consisting of five blank color swatches sits at the bottom of the screen, giving you a place to drag and drop selected colors from the fan deck or color chips. You can create up to 10 palettes. You can also create palettes by extracting colors from photos in your camera roll, or from a picture you take on the spot. You can auto-extract a set of five colors or alternatively choose the colors you want to sample. Touch a photo, and a loupe appears letting you navigate the picture to select the colors you’re interested in. [read review]

Creating a First Web Site with Dreamweaver CS4

Creating a First Web Site with Dreamweaver CS4 with: Paul Trani

Creating a First Web Site with Dreamweaver CS4 shows the basics of doing just that—building a first web site. Adobe Certified Instructor Paul Trani walks through the important steps of creating a web site from concept to publishing, using Dreamweaver CS4. He teaches how to create basic web pages, add text and image content, use Cascading Style Sheets for design and layout, create a photo gallery, and even check the final site for browser compatibility. He also demonstrates how to create a contact form to encourage viewer feedback on the site. Exercise files accompany the course. [view]

Adobe to buy Omniture for $1.8 billion

Adobe has agreed to buy Web analytics company Omniture for $1.8 billion in cash, the companies said Tuesday.

The price San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe is paying for the company—$21.50 per share—is at a 45 percent premium over Omniture’s average closing price for the last 30 trading days, Adobe said.

Adobe, known for multimedia design, Web-development and document-creation software such as Flash, Dreamweaver and Acrobat, said the purchase will help the company add Web analytics and optimization capabilities directly to those products.

For designers, developers and online marketers using its tools, this new capability will help them streamline how they create and deliver relevant content and applications, Adobe said. Advertisers, advertising agencies, publishers and online retailers can improve the experience of their end users and get more out of their digital media through the new analytical capability, the company said. [read]

Adobe releases Lightroom 2.5, Camera Raw 5.5

Adobe Systems on Tuesday announced the release of Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5, updates to its photography and digital photo decoding software, respectively. Both are available for download through Adobe’s Web site or through the update mechanisms in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2.

Adobe’s Tom Hogarty posted the information to the Adobe Blogs. The “final” release of Camera Raw 5.5 comes following the release of a “final candidate” version for testing.

Both releases update support for new digital camera models. Newly supported cameras include Nikon’s D300s and D3000, Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic DMC-GF1… [read]