Art, Photography, Craft and Design Articles.

Archive 1.

001 Action Script In Photoshop?
002 Graphic Designs Standards
003 Getting Good Picture Results
004 Craft Supply Checklist for Kid's Crafts
005 Make Your Own Greeting Cards
006 A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos
007 New Collection of Paint Patches for Studio Artist 3.0
008 The Top 3 Best Photo Editing Softwares
009 Guide To Buying A Digital Camera
010 How To Make Your Own Font
011 Vector Drawing Programs
012 How Do You Use The Gradient Tool In Photoshop
013 Screen Printing Gets a Rival
014 A Closer Look at Image Resolution
015 More on Vector Graphics
016 Blending Colors
017 7 Tips for Shooting Great Digital Photos
018 Getting To Know Cmyk
019 Amazing Corel Draw Brushes
020 Almost A Misconception: Corel Draw
021 Perfect Color Combinations (Is it really important in designs?)
022 Texturing and Lighting in Discreet 3ds max 6
023 Edit-able Art
024 Lay-Out Tips
025 Playing With The Color And Image
026 Vector Drawing Programs
027 What Is The Perfect Letterhead For Your Business
028 How to Create Well Represented Logos
029 Graphic Designers 101
030 Designing Digital Pieces for Digital Presses
031 How to Design Posters?
032 Photoshop: Secrets Of The Pros
033 How to Take Great Flower Photos
034 How to take Great Photos of your Child
035 Photography 101 Part 1
036 Photography 101 Part 2
037 Photography 101 Part 3
038 How to take Great Photos of Your Pet
039 Better Photos with your Digital Camera
040 How to Paint Your Cat
041 Basic Rules on Page Layout and Color

Action Script In Photoshop?
by: Blur Loterina

Are you tired of doing the same task over and over, say scanning? You might be wondering whether there’s a program that will repeat the job for you. Well, there’s one, the Actions by Photoshop. Curious? Then, read on.

An action is referred to as a recording of a series of commands that is used to capture repetitive tasks. These commands are to be applied to a series of files and will guide users in a step-by-step manner. It also allows you to play back recording. Here are some techniques.

Create a new action by clicking on the Create New Action Button located at the bottom of the palette. Then, make a set by clicking the Create New Set button on the Actions palette. A dialog box will appear. In here, you must type a specific name for every set. In the Action dialog box, you should assign an action to a particular set, define a function key and apply a color.

Next is to record the action. Photoshop automatically records your steps. Every step you take will be recorded as well as the settings. If you made any mistake, you will be able to correct them later.

If you are through, click the Stop buttjon at the bottom of the Action palette.

Check the Action so that it will function well. Make sure that it lives in a Set. It must contain at least one command. Every command must have settings associated with it and a check mark next to it.

An action can be edited. You can reorder commands, delete commands, reset a command setting, add a command in mid-stream, insert a stop, record again and troubleshoot it. To reorder command, in the Action palette, grab the command with the cursor and drag it up or down. In deleting commands, just select a command and press the Delete key. Double click on the Command in the Action if you want to reset it. To add a command in mid-stream or anywhere in the action, select the command and click the action button. Inserting a stop will allow you to apply settings to a step. To Record Again, simply select Record Again on the Actions Palette. Photoshop will allow you to reset the settings. Photoshop has a sort of diagnostic tool that will help you see what was causing the trouble in your Action.

You can play the Action in three ways. You can play it from the palette, just set your file up and click on the Play button. You can also use function keys. The dialog box will allow you to assign a function key so that you will be able to play the Action by simply pressing the key. You can use the button mode that is selected from the Actions side menu.

Techniques like this can save your time and effort.

About The Author

Blur Loterina
You may wonder why I write articles. Besides from the fact that it’s my job, I used to write short stories when I was younger. I think it would be helpful if I said I’m a big fan of Zach de la Rocha and Rage Against the Machine. This would explain my own views about a lot of things. Their songs were about national issues, politics and human rights. They support the American Indian Movement and Che Guevara, the face you see on t-shirts. Not that it concerns me. I only like their music and idealism.

I like to read anything that contains words in the old English form, though I can’t understand it. You know, the King James Version of the Bible with words like thou, thy, thine, wilst, etc. The words used are different. The construction of the sentence is different, too, which makes sentences sound artistic. I also like gothic metal, a music genre, because most of the lyrics contain such words. It is not only the words that fascinate me; it’s the hidden meaning it contains. It’s like an abstract painting; you don’t get the real picture until you see through it.

I’m not an artist, I’m not a poet. I just love writing anything I want. I wasn’t born a genius, I just want to know and understand something I don’t. I like to find the difference between similar things. It’s like counting birthmarks on each identical twin.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

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Graphic Designs Standards
by: Blur Loterina

Do you find it hard to create your own graphic design? Before you can come up with a good graphic design you must first understand the basic principles in creating the design, as well as the factors it must contain.

Design is defined as a plan or pattern formed for the purpose of making or doing something. It explains how things are done or how to come up with something.

A design must have a purpose, or else it will be useless. It must contain enough information. You can use visual languages, such as chart, table or graph, for it to become more understandable. It should also explain the details. Start from the general idea, then, give the specific details. Make sure that each detail is related to the main idea.

There are many types of design, such as a graphic design. A graphic design results from the features of lines, colors, shape, materials or texture.

What makes a graphic design attractive and lively is the color. Here, you can apply the color theory. Every color has its own characteristics, such as visible spectrum, dimension, inherent and emotive qualities. The primary colors are the red, blue and green. If you mix these colors, new hues are created. You can either have lighter or darker colors or contrasting colors. Take the white color for example—it is the opposite of black. Any color can appear lighter or darker depending on the field it is on. For example, when you put pink beside green, pink is the lighter color. But when you put pink beside white, pink will look darker.

Your graphic design should contain design elements, including line, shape, texture and size. A line is a curved or straight mark that connects two points. Shape is a form that has height and width. The three basic primitive shapes are rectangle, circle and triangle. Texture is measured by the look and feel. It is basically the roughness or smoothness of the surface. Space refers to the area or distance between or around things. The size refers to how large or small the thing is.

The principle of composition and layout includes the emphasis of the elements, the balance or the equal distribution of weight, the pattern or rhythm, and the unity or the relationship between each element.

Decide on what perspective to use. There are four basic perspectives; the one point perspective, the two-point perspective, the three point perspective, and the 3d illusion.

For the text, consider the type of font and the style you have to use. There must be consistency in the height and width of the letters.

Be more creative, make use of the theories. Follow the rules in designing. You will know that a design is effective if you have successfully communicated your idea to your target audience.

About The Author

You may wonder why I write articles. Besides from the fact that it’s my job, I used to write short stories when I was younger. I think it would be helpful if I said I’m a big fan of Zach de la Rocha and Rage Against the Machine. This would explain my own views about a lot of things. Their songs were about national issues, politics and human rights. They support the American Indian Movement and Che Guevara, the face you see on t-shirts. Not that it concerns me. I only like their music and idealism.

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

admin@printingquotesonline.com

Getting Good Picture Results
by: Gem Tullao

There was this guy who owns a state-of-the-art, high-end digital SLR. Since it was my first time to meet him, I initially thought that he could be a photographer, hobbyist or by profession, when he brandished the hi-tech gear. This initial impression only lasted until I saw one of his shots – man, there was no composition! What waste of money – unless of course, he manages to get acquainted with photography, even the basics at the least. Otherwise, the digicam ends up as the display instead of it churning out images for display.

Before you can even jump to tinkering with digital photography techniques, it would be good to learn basic composition skills to produce good-looking photographs. By composition, we mean that the elements in the captured image are interacting with each other in harmonious relationship. There is a focal point and overall balance. Framing the subject matter helps improve the appearance of your photograph. You can try canopies of trees, arbors, or rows of trees for such effect. Weeping willows are just one example of elements effective for framing, with their drooping branches that can form into a dramatic frame for the composition. Your focal point does not necessarily have to be always at the center, but make sure that you still achieve a visual balance. Also, your finished product will turn out better if you keep looking for the best vantage point to create your desired composition.

To yield better picture results, it is imperative that you learn the tricks of your camera by reading the user’s manual carefully. Some people would waste time wondering why their pictures turn out bad with their digital camera, when all they needed to do was read the manual to know that they have to press halfway first to lock into focus. This attitude is perhaps influenced by the false assumption that digital cameras are supposed to make perfect-looking pictures with the least effort, and without the hassles associated with conventional cameras. It would also help to check out the website of your camera’s manufacturer to gain information, tricks and techniques that may not have been discussed in the manual.

The most common mistake in digital photography has got to be blurs. Pictures turn out blurred when the photographer does not keep a steady hand while shooting. It will help if you hold the camera closer to your body, bringing your elbows as near to your chest as possible, so long as you can still view the LCD. Another sure way of ensuring the camera is steady is with the use of a tripod. Tripods are useful when creating special effects, which you can do using special effects features already built inside your camera or by switching to the manual mode.

Once you feel you have outgrown the auto mode function, it would be interesting to experiment with the manual mode, so you can create more interesting photos. For instance, by slowing down the shutter, you can create impressive pictures of flowing water, or create interesting photos of moving objects. It is advisable that you use a tripod if you are going to expose the subject for longer than one second. You can also experiment on the use of the flash. Do not be too dependent on the auto mode to decide when it is appropriate to turn on the flash. Most digital cameras offer excellent close up functionality through the macro mode, so you might want to take advantage of this and experiment on your own. You can use the macro mode to get really close to a minute subject matter, as close as the camera will allow.

With digital imagery, it becomes easier to enhance and alter photos with the use of computer software. Here, you will not need worry about red eye, and you can even remove blemishes like magic. However, software can only go so far, and it is still best to perfect the picture at the point of capture – it will save you a huge amount of time editing.

Digital cameras offer broad possibilities for creating great images. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not take full advantage of these possibilities and end up with mediocre photographs. Do not assume that the digital camera will do the magic for you. A lot of the work will have to rely on the user, so you should exert some effort to learn some tricks and techniques to see the full potential of your gadget.

About The Author

Gem Tullao
Versatile and hardworking. Two words that clearly describe Gem's work attitude. She can just write and talk about everything. Her green thumb for writing can turn seeds of ideas into excellent writing pieces. She loves to read books especial novels that are set back into the Medieval Period.

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Craft Supply Checklist for Kid's Crafts
by: Pam Lester

I often get asked, "What types of craft supplies do I need to keep on hand for kids crafts?"

So, I've come up with a list of basic crafting supplies that will keep your kids creative and crafting up a storm!

It's a good idea to keep all of your crafting supplies organized and labeled so they are easy to find. I suggest three sizes of containers: plastic shoe boxes, empty baby wipe containers, and baby food jars. I also recommend a file folder to organize papers and cardstock. These storage containers will help sort and organize most craft supplies. There are also may commercial storage cabinets and units that will also work well!

* crayons
* markers
* pencils
* colored pencils
* paint brushes
* assorted colors of tempera paint
* glue sticks
* white glue
* low temp glue gun
* assorted colored construction paper
* cardstock
* drawing paper
* newspaper
* assorted sized wiggle eyes
* assorted pipe cleaners
* paper plates
* foam plates
* tape
* ziploc baggies
* scissors
* stapler
* glitters
* fun foam
* string or ribbons
* pom poms
* colored felt squares
* plastic beads
* popsicle sticks
* stickers
* buttons
* clothespins
* magnets
* feathers
* straws
* sequins
* paper hole punch
* safety pins

"Now that I have all the supplies, what do I do with them?", Well - visit http://www.theideabox.com and get TONS of free craft and activity ideas to make with your children. Have FuN!

About The Author

Pam Lester is a mother of 2 and former art teacher. She is creator and owner of of http://www.TheIdeaBox.com - visit for more free crafts and ideas!!

pam@theideabox.com

Make Your Own Greeting Cards
by: Flora Tan

Card making is a popular craft that anyone can enjoy without spending alot of money. Most of the supplies needed for card making can be found around in your home. Look in your childrens' rooms or schoolbags and you should be able to gather the basic tools and materials.

Listed below are some basic card making supplies that you need to make your first card.

1. A4 size white cardstock
2. double sided foam tape
3. a pair of scissors
4. color pencils, watercolors, or crayons
5. steel ruler
6. cutter
7. rubber stamp
8. black inkpad
9. black writing pen

First, cut the white cardstock into 2 pieces. Fold one piece of cardstock into half at the centre to make a single fold 4" x 6" greeting card and put it aside. Then ink your rubber stamp with the black inkpad and stamp on the other piece of white cardstock. Color the stamped image and trim around the black outline. Now attach the colored image onto the front of the single fold card with double sided foam tape. Place it in the middle of the top portion of the card. And finally, write a greeting below the stamped image. And voila ... your first handmade greeting card.

Now make more of these and send them to your friends. Let them know how much you love and treasure them and their friendship.

About The Author

Flora Tan is a passionate cardcrafter who spends most of her time making beautiful handmade cards. To find out more about card making, just visit her card making website: http://www.making-greeting-cards.com

A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos
by: Gary Hendricks

One problem I faced when starting out with digital photography was how to touch up my raw digital images. Perhaps an image was slightly dark, perhaps it had to be rotated or cropped. Digital photos usually require some form of manipulation before final output. So here's a short guide which I've compiled to help you touch up your photos.

Step 1: Start Up Your Image Editor

The first step, of course, is to fire up your favorite image editing program. For beginners, it's best to get a program like Ulead PhotoImpact. It's a great tool that allows you to achieve professional photo effects using simple, easy-to-follow steps. You may also want to check out my scoop of the top 5 beginner photo editors for Windows. Open the picture you want to edit within the program and save a backup copy.

Step 2: Remove Red Eye

If you're taking photos of people, chances are you may have taken a photo with red-eye problems. This is easily removed with image editing software. In Paint Shop Pro, select the Red-Eye Removal tool in the menu and voila, the program does all the work for you. In Ulead PhotoImpact, there's an equivalent tool called Remove Red Eye in the Tool Panel.

Step 3: Rotate and Crop

If you've taken a photo in a wrong orientation, it's easily corrected with little loss in quality by using a rotate tool. You'll also want to do some cropping of your photo to remove cluttered surroundings that draw attention away from your subject. For example, I find cropping very useful if my subject is occupying only the middle portion of the photograph. Cut away the two sides of the picture and you have a much more professional look.

Step 4: Play with Color

Don't be afraid to experiment with colors. Image editing programs put a lot of power in your hands. You can make the leaves purple, change the entire photo to black and white, add a sepia effect - almost anything you want. A good photo editing program will have automatic color balance options to adjust color defects in your pictures.

Step 5: Blurring Effects

Sometimes I like to add a blurring effect to my photos. What you can do here is to select areas of the photo which are unimportant and blur them out. This will bring more attention to the main subject of your photo. For example, if I had a picture of a flower and I wanted to play down the details in the leaves in background, I might add a blurring effect to the background.

Step 6: Sharpen Up

Sharpening the image is the next step in the photo touch up process. Contrary to popular belief, you can't actually sharpen an out of focus image. What I typically do when sharpening an image is to selectively sharpen. That is, I select a part of the image, maybe a person's eyes and sharpen only that area. Leave unimportant areas unsharpened.

Step 7: Resize

Depending on your needs, you may want to resize your photo. If you're emailing a picture to a friend, you'll want to resize the picture down to a much smaller size. If you're printing the photo on a greeting card, you can scale down the image to the size of a 4x6 print.

Step 8: Save Your Work

Ok, you're pretty much done. Remember to save your work in the appropriate image format. Use the large TIFF image format if you want to retain all details for subsequent image editing. On the other hand, you can use the JPEG image format if you want to just send the picture via email or upload them to your website.

Conclusion

Alrighty then! Now you know the secret to touching up and preparing your raw digital photos for output. I'd say that not all the above steps are truly necessary in a given situation. Remember to use your discretion to see which is necessary. Don't be afraid to experiment and learn - practice makes perfect when it comes to touching up your photos.

About The Author

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.basic-digital-photography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.

gary_hendricks@basic-digital-photography.com

New Collection of Paint Patches for Studio Artist 3.0
by: Carla Ballatan

New innovations regarding motion graphics for Synthetik Studio Artist are always welcome for easier creation of masterpiece art works that will exactly show what we have in mind, like paint dripping down the canvass or slipshod scattering of paint or the splattering patches of paint with very particular desired effects by the artist. It is a great help that Dave Nagel, have always strived to write about and develop new paint patches to attempt more and more types of motion graphics to challenge and encourage more user-artists for Sythetik Studio Artist .

Dave Nagel noted that not too long ago, he has written about techniques for creating write-on and paint-on effects for motion graphics. He further demonstrated what he wrote about by using custom brushes to reveal underlying footage, as though the paint were dripping down or splattering across the canvass. He also showed some methods of splattering paint around the canvass. On his latest paint patches – Nagel Series 12 – he have expanded the brushes he had used in the previous tutorial.

The newest collections of Studio Artist Paint Patches are 20 brushes designed to splatter and drip. These brushes are also designed to reveal source image, scatter the contents of the canvass and applies liquid strokes to the artworks being created.

Three primary categories characterize these new brushes: the blow pens, reveals and drip paints. The blow pens’ use is to scatter paint on the canvass. Reveals, according to its term, reveals source footage of your work especially for creating transitions. The drip paints are designed to create liquid strokes on the canvass – paint splashes and drippings. These would help in making your artwork for lively and realistic.

These brushes are designed to work only with Studio Artis 3.0. Previous versions, other than Studio Artist 3.0 won’t let these brushes function properly. However, they can be modified by path pressure and pen tilt or other interactive modifiers. These new set of brushes can be customized further in the Studio Artist’s Paint Synthesizer depending on your needs for it.

For artsy types and frequent users of Studio Artist, it is best to ask for more tips in using these brushes in order for you to expand knowledge on its usage. These innovations will surely maximize your abilities in making artworks with much more extraordinary creativity.

For downloads, installation and usage instructions, please understand that Synthetik Studio Artist 3.0 is a Macintosh-only program, running in Mac OS9 and Mac OS X. Upon downloading “NagelSeries12.sit” file, decompress it using Stuffit Expander. Download Stuff Expander free from http://www.aladdinsys.com/downloads/index.html.

About The Author

Lala B. is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a non-government organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.

Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.

Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns -- imagined and observed, to bear witness.

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The Top 3 Best Photo Editing Softwares
by: Maui Reyes

Being a photo editor is not rocket science. All it takes is a lot of creativity and a mastery of some of the best photo editing software available in the market.

Photoshop Elements 3

This is almost like a primer for Adobe Photoshop—so beginners, don’t feel intimidated. Elements does have some of the features that Photoshop is well known for, which comes quite handy when you’ve decided you’ve like to try your hand on something more upscale than cropping and resizing.

It’s so easy to use this program, what with it being simple and easy to navigate. And talk about user-friendly—at start up, a “recipes” palette asks if you’d like a step-by-step tutorial of the program.

Elements can also import stills from video clips, as well as PDF files. And when you’re feeling a bit lazy (or is just plain ignorant about how to use some of the tools), a “Quick Fix” wizard can help you adjust the essentials: lighting, focus, color, and rotation of images.

For those who like their photos in widescreen editions, Elements’ Panorama Tool helps you seamlessly put together photos to create a panoramic photo. It blends in the colors, as well.

And when it’s time to print and show off your photography skills, you can pick one of the “picture package” templates to automatically print them in a specific size.

PhotoImpact 10

A little bit more technical than Photoshop, PhotoImpact needs a lot of patience to master. This program is best for eager learners with a lot of time in their hands to figure out the “too-technical” features that would scare away first time photo editing users.

However, PhotoImpact does have its gems. An ExpressFix features shows you several options to fix exposure, color, saturation, focus, and skin. It also comes equipped with a 360 panorama program. Probably the shiniest gem in the package would be the “Beautiful Skin” effect, which removes red patches and evens out your skin tone. Can you say airbrush?

While PhotoImpact doesn’t support PDF files, it does allow you to grab images off the internet. Type in the URL of a webpage, click on the image you want to get, then edit away.

It’s a little tricky to use at first, but once you get a hold on PhotoImpact’s tools, you’ll be thankful you took the time to learn.

Digital Image Suite 9

Microsoft’s own photo editing software is like digital spoon feeding.

Image Suite 9 is a very basic image editing software that hardly requires a tutorial. While it does work wonders for those who only want to share pictures online, it could be quite frustrating for those who want to flex their creativity muscles a little bit more.

Image Suite 9 lacks some features that you might want to use later on. That said, there still are a bunch to keep you happy. While there’s no auto color fix option (quite essential to fix the crappy lighting most digital cameras capture), there are still the basic features of cropping, adjusting brightness and contrast, and removing red-eye.

The most advanced this software can get would be removing blemishes, whiten teeth, and eliminating wrinkles. The layering option is hardly even handy—you can layer on photos, but it’s virtually impossible to unlayer them.

This program will work perfectly if you want hassle-free, basic photo editing.

About The Author

Maui Reyes has written various articles of different topics. She has a clever writing skills that isnt just good for marketing strategies but also in reviews of products, news, technological innovations, health problems, legality issues and many more. Another factor that made her land into this job is her flexibility in her writing just about everything under the sun.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

artciles@ucreative.com

Guide To Buying A Digital Camera
by: Maui Reyes

If you’re one of those people who have never owned a digital camera in their life, go to a corner and cry for ten minutes. Then get back to this list before hopping into your car to purchase one.

• Find out what you’ll be using it for. Walking into a camera store can be quite overwhelming—hundreds of cameras ranging from the size of a credit card to as wide as a computer manual. It may be cute to carry around a sleek little red digicam, but you will have to consider what you’re actually going to use it for.

Do you need a compact one to store in your handbag? Are you planning to take professional photos for work? Does the number of features matter to you? Do you want a camera with manual functions? You don’t want to bring home a camera that doesn’t satisfy your needs, or purchase one with so many features that you won’t be able to use.

• Be familiar with camera specs. All those fancy words on the box might make it look like your wallet sized camera will turn you into a professional shutterbug. Mega Pixel is the maximum resolution per photo--the higher the MP, the bigger the prints you can get without it looking blurry. If you’re only planning to exchange photos on the internet, then a 2MP camera is fine. Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom are two different things—most pros snub Digital Zoom, since this is actually a software function that crops the image, which makes it lose its quality.

• Budget. We’re not going to lie: digital cameras don’t exactly come cheap. When budgeting on which camera to take home, consider the features, its size, its Mega Pixel count, and the brand.

Most photographers swear by one brand over the other—if you’re particularly loyal to just one brand, then you can shun the others and bask in just one aisle. But if you’re a little bit more open-minded, then you’ve got a bigger playground to frolic in.

You’ll also need to see what kind of memory card (which is sort of like the “film” of the camera) the camera needs, and what kind of batteries fuel it. Most digital cameras use AA batteries, so investing in a bunch of rechargeable ones is key.

• Try it out. Most people make the mistake of reading the box, swiping their credit card, and coming home to find out that they’re not comfortable with their latest purchase. While in the store, try taking a bunch of photos. Make sure it fits well in your hand, and it’s easy to use. The most user-friendly cameras out there are Canon, Casio, and Kodak—but you might want to try out others. Take your time in familiarizing yourself with the possible units you’ll be taking pictures with.

About The Author

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

artciles@ucreative.com

How To Make Your Own Font
by: Maui Reyes

If you’ve always thought your handwriting is so much better than the many fonts out there, then maybe it’s time you made your mark: literally. Creating your own font isn’t as hard as it seems—all you need is a pen, a paper, a little program-know-how, and a comprehensible penmanship.

Oh, and Macromedia’s Fontographer and Adobe Illustrator.

1.) Write down the alphabet. If you have a WACOM or any other drawing tablet, then you can just doodle right on to Photoshop or whatever photo editing software you have. If you don’t have one, then a pen and paper will do—plus a scanner. Scan it using the highest resolution possible, so you’ll get a pretty accurate scribble for your font.

2.) Edit it. If you think your penmanship is perfect the way it is, noise and all, then skip this part. But if you think it needs a little more work, go ahead and clean it up using Photoshop or whatever photo editing software you use. Now you’ll have to save each letter as an individual file.

3.) Open Fontographer. This is where your font comes to life. Go to the File menu and choose “new font”. Double click on letter “A”, and a window will pop up. It’s time to get busy.

4.) Cut and paste, edit if you like. Copy the letter “A” that you have in Photoshop or whatever program you used, and paste it in the Fontographer window. This is the “guide” for your font—it’s not actually a font yet. Now select “Outline” from the layers menu, then click on “Auto Trace” from the Element menu. This lets Fontographer trace the edges of your font for you. Twiddle with the settings on Auto Trace to achieve your desired tracing effect. If Auto Trace didn’t seem to do such a good job at certain corners, you can always correct it. Use the arrow tool to edit points. This takes practice to master, so be patient.

5.) Hint, hint. Bring up the Kerning dialogue to preview your font. Now that your letter “A” is born, you might want to make its widths and locations uniform. This is where “Hinting” comes in play. Selecting lines to make measurements uniform will greatly help make it look more professional. Click on the “Hint” on the layers panel and mark lines on the horizontal and vertical stems (do this when you’re done editing the points on your font).

6.) Christen your baby. You’re almost ready to generate your font. Highlight your alphabet and make sure to hit Correct Path Direction, to punch holes through the R’s, O’s, D’s, and so on. Under the Metrics menu, select Auto Kern. Then comes the fun part: under the Element menu, select Font Info, then General, then type in the name of your font. When you’re done, generate the font by going to the File menu and clicking on Generating Font Files.

About The Author

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

artciles@ucreative.com

Vector Drawing Programs
by: Blur Loterina

One of the best tools in creating and modifying a vector-based image is the Adobe Illustrator. Artworks done through the Illustrator can be used for print, multimedia and online graphics.

Illustrator is used to open and manipulate vector-based drawing. Vector-based images are series of points connected by lines. It is also called object-oriented or draw images. It uses geometrical formulas to represent images.

Vector files have graphical elements called objects. These objects have properties including color, shape, outline, size, and position on the screen as well as the definition of the object. It is also a self-contained entity, which means that the properties of the object can be moved and changed without affecting the other objects while the clarity and crispness are preserved. This characteristic makes a vector-based image suitable for illustration and 3D modeling. An image is created by connecting vector point with straight or curved lines. Vector point or anchor point is the basis and the most fundamental component in every vector image

Unlike bitmap images, vector-based images are resolution dependent. The quality of the image increases as the resolution increases. So it looks better on devices with higher resolution. It can also be resized and stretched and does not become grainy. Since bitmap images are composed of dots, it losses its quality and proportion when stretched.

Vector images can also be converted to bitmap images. Almost all graphics system and animation software use vector graphics because it can be manipulated.

Importing of vector images into EPS, GIF or JPEG is not a problem. Vector images created by Illustrator or Freehand are composed of multiple objects. This allows the EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) vector image to be reduced or enlarged without sacrificing the quality.

Vector images are commonly used in GIF or Graphical Interchange Format files because they both consume a small file size, which is an advantage in Web page making.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), mostly photographic images that undergoes editing, use vector images because of its resolution dependency.

If you want to make graphs and charts for presentations and printed publication, Illustrator is the right tool. You can also convert scanned art line into vector artwork. It is also used to rotate, distort and create special effects with text. However, Illustrator is not suited for page layout programs. A page layout program is where you make your catalogs, brochures, etc. You can import text or type text directly into the page layout document.

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admin@shortrunondemandprinting.com

How Do You Use The Gradient Tool In Photoshop
by: Blur Loterina

There are different ways in eliminating opacity on images. One of the basic techniques is the use of the gradient tool. A gradient tool is used to edit or modify a part or the entire layer of an image. It is located in the tool bar and there is a window provided to customize your gradient.

Different gradient shapes include diamond, reflected, linear, etc. There is also the gradient blending modes for foreground and background colors. Just double click the tool bar in the color picker to change the color of the foreground or background. You can have your foreground transparent. its color fades so you will be able to see the layers below. Fading is done by swiping across the pixels.

Different locations for gradient include Adjustment Layer, Fill Layer, Layer Styles Menus and Tool Options Bar.

There are two gradient types or settings, solid and noise. Solid is a gradient generated algorithmically, while noise is from RGB values. Solid gradient is used for manually set colors, while noise is for numerous color bands.

Before you can use the gradient tool, convert first the background layer to a regular layer. Then, create a gradient layer. Choose any gradient style and make sure that the gradient layer is transparent. The transition between color bands can be determined by adjusting the smoothness. Short strokes result to sharper gradient and long strokes result to smoother gradient.

The Gradient Editor dialog, which can be extracted when you click the gradient itself, is used to modify gradient. Drag the top Opacity Stop if you want to lengthen the opaque portion of the gradient. To decrease opacity, just drag the white Opacity Stop. There is a small diamond that appears between the stop markers called the Gradient Midpoint. This midpoint can be used to adjust smoothness of the gradient by simply dragging it the left or to the right. If you drag it to the left the smoothness of the gradient is increased and when you drag it to the right the smoothness decreases.

To edit multiple layers, group them first by selecting them and then type Command-G or Control-G. If you want to ungroup multiple layers, just type Shift-Command-G or Shift-Control-G. If you want to modify you’re your work, use the Gradient Editor. Double click the gradient layer and choose new gradient style.

You can make your own gradient and add it to the pre-defined gradients by saving it and setting the style scale and angle of your gradient.

About The Author

For additional info and comments about the article you may visit http://www.losangelesprintingservice.com

admin@losangelesprintingservice.com

Screen Printing Gets a Rival
by: Nash Ville

Before anything else, let’s have a brief description of the screen printing and heat transfer processes. Screen printing refers to the forcing of inks through a stencil that is in a mesh material. Heat transfer, on the other hand, is a method of applying an image in T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, hats, bags and more by releasing an ink, dye, toner, etc. from a special transfer paper via heat. Now, let’s move onwards…

According to the article “Screen Printing vs. Heat Transfer” by Bruce Roberts which was posted at www.bfprinting.com, the author has mentioned some pros and cons in using the screen printing and heat transfer methods to produce printed apparels. The article has stated that screen printing is advisable if you are planning to do mass production of T-shirts. He has added that digital heat transfer must be considered for printing short runs because it avoids the expense and extra work of preparing screens and cleaning up ink and chemicals. With financial considerations, much money is needed in screen printing than in heat transfer if you want to set up a business. The screen printing process was also explained in Roberts’ article.

Advantages and Limitations of Screen Printing

Screen printing is suitable for most projects which will be exposed to outdoor elements because of its inks that can last outdoors up to seven years against fading. Its other advantages include larger or smaller design format, use of half tones and blends, versatility and adaptability, great design reproduction capabilities, being good with fine detail, being economical on larger orders, and being permanent when applied properly. So, if you need printing on ridged materials like wood, glass, plastics, etc., it is absolutely the perfect choice for durability and value. However, it doesn’t work well on coarse textured substrates.

Advantages and Limitations of Heat Transfer

The heat transfer process offers unlimited print color combinations, photographic quality reproductions, and the versatility to print small quantities with multicolor designs. It also allows an opportunity to have small quantities of shirts made with colorful designs at affordable prices. Moreover, heat transfer printed shirts are fully washable and can be ironed after a wash while screen-printed shirts cannot be ironed. However, this process doesn’t work properly on dark shirts.

There you have it, folks! With this information on screen printing and heat transfer, the choice is still left for you to decide on which process best suits you. I agree that both methods of printing can be truly fun and rewarding but then, there will always be one that will stand out from among these two. What do you think, is it screen printing or heat transfer?

About The Author

Nash Ville
Well, I must say that I am not a born writer. I didn’t acquire this gift hereditarily either. However, I’m an adventure book lover and used to read everything that I come across in the Internet that sounds interesting. I think, I only developed it through constant practice and exposure to numerous writing stuff. I was chosen to compete in press conferences that showcased my need-so-well-developed writing skills. I became part of our school publication staff. I started as a news writer and photojournalist of the school paper. Soon, I was appointed editor-in-chief. It was during this time when I realized that I needed to be more efficient in writing because duty called for it. I should say that this event in my life opened me wholly to the wonderful world of writing.

With all these, I can’t say that I have mastered writing because of these writing experiences. I believe that this craft is also a continuous learning process. I’ve been working hard to become amore efficient and competent in writing, most especially now that I’m working as a content writer for this company. I’m doing articles for printing companies, medical sites, legal sites, and many more.

For additional Information about the articles you may visit their website at http://www.brochuresprintingonline.com

joel@brochuresprintingonline.com

A Closer Look at Image Resolution
by: Nashville

Image resolution refers to the size your image appears on a computer monitor rather than the physical dimensions an image will print. The pixel dimensions of an image identify the resolution. Many digital cameras let us change image resolution. So, before we take a picture, we must determine the quality of an image first by using the highest quality setting available on the camera. Therefore, set your camera for the best image quality if you want to obtain high quality photos.

According to the article “Image Quality – An Explanation” by Julian Foster which was posted at www3.teleplex.net, a truly high-resolution digital photo can be anywhere from 12MB (for a 4-by-5-inch image) to 70MB (for a two-page-spread photo). The CD ROM photo collections currently on the market have files ranging in size from 500K-22MB. He added that image resolution, the amount of information in a digital file, is measured in dots per inch. Screen frequency, the density of the lines of dots used to print a continuous-tone photograph, is measured in lines per inch. Newspapers typically use a coarse line screen of 85 lpi; in-house publications, 100 to 120 lpi; and glossy magazines & good quality offset lithography, 133 to 155 lpi.

Proper resolution is truly important for good printing. And to achieve this, you must always remember some rules that include the following: the text must be 400dpi at the final size in the layout; the images must be 300dpi at the final size in the layout; the dimensions of the resolution and size are inversely proportional to each other so, if you enlarge an image, you lower its resolution and if you reduce an image, you increase its resolution; how an image is originally acquired will determine its resolution and thus, the size it can print at for clear and crisp printing; and low resolution images print with jagged edges and appear fuzzy.

Indeed, when deciding on the print size of your image, you must choose a size that is appropriate to the resolution of the image you are supplying. The size to which your image can be printed without a loss in quality depends on the resolution of your image. Remember that the higher the resolution of your image is, the better the quality of the image when printed.

Most digital cameras allow you to select a combination of resolution and quality from the settings menu. In order to obtain an optimal print out, you must set your digital camera at the highest possible resolution and quality. Always remember that the higher the quality, the larger the image file will become. So folks, make sure you have sufficient room on the memory card!

About The Author

Nash Ville

Well, I must say that I am not a born writer. I didn’t acquire this gift hereditarily either. However, I’m an adventure book lover and used to read everything that I come across in the Internet that sounds interesting. I think, I only developed it through constant practice and exposure to numerous writing stuff. I was chosen to compete in press conferences that showcased my need-so-well-developed writing skills. I became part of our school publication staff. I started as a news writer and photojournalist of the school paper. Soon, I was appointed editor-in-chief. It was during this time when I realized that I needed to be more efficient in writing because duty called for it. I should say that this event in my life opened me wholly to the wonderful world of writing.

For additional Information about the articles you may visit their website at http://www.brochuresprintingonline.com

joel@brochuresprintingonline.com

More on Vector Graphics
by: Nash Ville

According to the blog entitled “Vector Graphics” which was posted by Neil last December 2, 2004 at www.eightlines.com, the author mentioned that he just found this program called InkScape which appears to be an open source vector drawing program.

Inkscape is a program for viewing, creating and editing 2D vector drawings. It is an open source Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) editor with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, Visio and other drawing programs. Its supported SVG features include text, paths, layers, ellipses, gradients, grouping, rectangles, transforms, basic shapes, node editing, bitmap images, alpha blending, svg-to-png export, freehand curves, and many more. And, as an added bonus, both vector and bitmap objects can have alpha transparency and can be arbitrarily transformed. Graphics can also be printed and exported to png bitmaps.

“Vector" drawing in InkScape means that when you create a shape like a rectangle, it retains its identity. You can easily go back and resize it, change its color, or move it around without disturbing the rest of the drawing. One of Inkscape's distinguishing features is that it stores its drawings in a web-friendly XML format – the SVG format – which is a standard that is gaining support worldwide, in proprietary and public software alike. The open source community is now adopting this format for everything from desktop icons and company logos to web page animation and artistic illustration.

The main motivation of Inkscape is to provide the open source community with a fully XML, SVG and CSS2 compliant SVG drawing tool. Its additional planned works include conversion of the codebase from C/Gtk to C++/Gtkmm, emphasizing a lightweight core with powerful features added through an extension mechanism, and establishment of a friendly, open, community-oriented development processes. In addition, this application runs on Unix (including Linux), Windows and Mac OS X; however, the primary development platform is Linux.

With the introduction of Inkscape, the world of vector graphics will definitely continue to become more interesting and compelling. Finally, I would like to commend the developers of InkScape. And, I am looking forward for greater things to happen to this software application. More Power and kudos!

About The Author

Nash Ville

Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com

jona@catalogprintingexperts.com

Blending Colors
by: Nash Ville

When you are familiar with software applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Flash and other drawing programs, I know you are also very much familiar with the swatches. Swatches contain selection of different colors that you can use during the creation of your web design, graphic design, and animation. Know what, we have a new innovation in these swatches. This is the so-called Color Blender.

According to the blog entitled “Color Blender” which was posted by Neil last October 27, 2004 at www.eightlines.com, the author mentioned that this Color Blender allows you to take two colors and see blends of up to 10 different ones from which you can get their HTML Hex codes.

How can you do it? It’s actually as simple as 1-2-3. The following procedures were also mentioned in the said article. First, you need to pick a color value format, input two valid CSS color values in the format you chose, and pick the number of midpoints you'd like to see. During this step, the palette will show the colors you input as well as the requested number of midpoint colors and the values of those colors. All numbers are rounded to the nearest integer. When you click on a square in the "waterfall" display, it will fill in the appropriate value for whichever input is highlighted. And, when you switch between value formats, it will translate whatever values are in place. Clicking on the "Clear" button removes all values and colors, but does not change the current value format.

With this, graphic art professionals and web developers can now experiment more in the color combinations in their projects thus, making them more creative and innovative in their line of work. I would like to commend the programmers of this simple yet so important program. More power!

About The Author

Nash Ville

Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com

jona@catalogprintingexperts.com

7 Tips for Shooting Great Digital Photos
by: Gary Hendricks

Do you have trouble shooting good digital photos? Perhaps you've been taking digital photos for some time, but never really got the beautiful shots you wanted. Maybe you somehow messed up the photos you took of important events, like your daughter's birthday or your trip to Paris.

How do you begin to take good photos? Well, the first thing to remember is this: It's the photographer that takes great photos, not the camera. Think about that for a minute. It's true isn't it? I've seen some people take great photos with a simple point-and-shoot camera, while some take lousy shots with the most expensive SLR.

Fret not! Read these tips on shooting digital photos and apply them the next time you have a chance. Before long, you'll be shooting photos like a pro!

1. Know Your Camera

Does this sound familiar? You buy the latest digital camera out there, come home, rip off the box, then proceed to fiddle with the device. You briefly flick through the hundred page camera manual and then never look at it again. Not a good idea! If you buy a digital camera, you owe it to yourself to understand its ins and outs. Learn how to control exposure, how to use different camera modes and how to use the flash. The knowledge you gain about the camera will be invaluable when you're out in the field taking those special photos.

2. Learn to Control the Flash

One of the most important things you need to know about digital photography is to control the flash. Personally, I hate to rely on the automatic flash that comes with the digital camera. Depending on the situation, you need to switch off or switch on the flash.

For example, when taking outdoor photos, it is sometimes good to turn on the flash to illuminate the subject, especially if he or she is in the shade. On the other hand, you can also choose to turn off the flash when taking indoor shots. Sometimes, using the flash indoors will result in unnatural skin color and harsh glare in your photos.

3. Play with the Macro Mode

Almost all digital camera these days have a macro mode. This setting is ideal for taking close up shots of objects like flowers or insects. On my Canon PowerShot S500, it's represented by a flower symbol. What you do is to pick a subject, turn on macro mode, then get as close to it as your camera will allow. Make sure you allow the camera to focus properly before depressing the shutter button fully.

4. Hold the Camera Level

A basic rule of photography is to hold the camera level. Since most digital cameras come with a LCD, you can use it to properly frame your shots. Next time you're taking a shot, try to look for the horizontal lines and use them as guides. A good example is to make use of the horizon when you're taking a photo of a sunset.

5. Use The Tripod

I recommend this tip to all budding photographers - camera tripods are an essential tool in your photography arsenal. When will you need a tripod? Well, it's useful if you're taking shots under low-light conditions or trying to capture fast moving objects. I like to use a tripod when taking night shots city streets, for example. Always try to look for a tripod that's convenient to carry around. For personal use, you don't need a huge one - just a simple compact one that's easy to pack.

6. Play with the ISO Setting

I find the ISO setting in digital cameras very useful. The ISO setting of a essentially camera controls it's sensitivity to light. If you're taking a photo of a still object, like a flower, then always use a low ISO setting. It allows for a longer shutter speed and produces a cleaner image. If you're shooting a moving object, like a baby playing with a toy, then a higher ISO setting of say 400 would be better. Do take note, however, that a higher ISO setting gives a faster shutter speed and requires less light. This will produce noiser photos.

7. Have Enough Memory Capacity

Just like you must have enough rolls of film when using traditional cameras, make sure you always have enough memory capacity in your digital camera. It's terrible to be on a holiday taking great photos and suddenly realizing you've no memory space left. Here are some general guidelines for digital camera storage.

* 2 megapixel cameras - get at least a 64MB card
* 3 megapixel camera - get at least a 128MB card
* 4 megapixel camera - get at least a 256MB card
* 5 megapixel camera and above - get at least a 512MB or 1GB card

Conclusion

Whew. A pretty long article. I hope I've managed to give you some good tips on shooting great digital photos. Always remember what I said - while the latest and greatest digital cameras have amazing features, you still need a skilled photographer to take nice pictures. Apply the above tips to your everyday shooting and learn to be a better photographer.

About The Author

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.basic-digital-photography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.

gary_hendricks@basic-digital-photography.com

Getting To Know Cmyk
by: Blur Loterina

You may wonder why colors are grouped into different modes. And no, there’s no racial discrimination involved. For the nature of design to flow in an organized manner, there are primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, etc. If you are not familiar with the family of colors, here is one way of understanding how they are grouped and how they are used.

The most common color groups are the RGB, HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness), CMYK and CIE L*A*B. Vector and bitmap graphics are always associated with the RGB and CMYK, so we must familiarize ourselves with these modes.

CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The letter K was taken from the last letter of the color. The first letter was not used because there are other colors that start with the letter b. in this way, confusion of the colors will be eliminated.

CMYK colors are the inks used in the printing process to produce full-color photographs and designs. In the principle of graphics design, these colors are called subtractive colors. When you combine two of any of the first three colors (cyan, magenta and yellow), it will produce the three primary colors (red, green and blue), called additive colors. In other words, CMY is the product of combining RGB and RGB is the product of combining CMY. When the CMY colors are mixed you will have black. But there are still other colors produced from CMYK.

Graphics files are best printed in the CMYK mode. CMYK is referred to as the standard color model, or the four process color, used in offset printing.

Why do we use CMYK color model? We use this type of mode because it produces the greatest number of printable colors. But it is not applicable to all types of printing, particularly when only a single color is needed and when the spot inks, such as metallic silver and gold, are used.

All display devices, such as your computer monitor, use the RGB (red, green, and blue) mode. CMYK is based on printing and ink absorbing into paper. Before you can have your graphics printed in CMYK mode, you must first convert the RGB colors into CMYK colors. This is done through color matching. Color matching is the process in which colors are used to produce another color without altering the original color. You can also convert the colors using the Adobe Photoshop or a desktop printer. In converting colors during printing you must have different sheets of film for each color. The sheets must be arranged in the CMYK format.

About The Author

For additional Information about the articles you may visit their website at http://www.brochuresprintingonline.com

joel@brochuresprintingonline.com

Amazing Corel Draw Brushes
by: Blur Loterina

Buena Software introduces another plug-in for after effect, the Au Naturel. Au Naturel is a set of seven built-in effects. Effects include adjust exposure effect, levels effect, Gaussian Blur effect, Directional Blur effect, transform effect, composite effect and time lapse effect.

Au Naturel’s Gaussian blur is better than that of the discreet Combustion’s built in Gaussian blur because it works in 32 bit floating point linear RGB color space. Meaning the result is more natural. The blur effect can be applied with either a single or all of the channels.

If you want to constrain the blur to a particular angle use the Directional Blur effect. With this effect, changing the frame edges is not a problem. You can even imitate the edge pixel.

The adjust exposure effect is basically the regulating of the f-stop of the footage. F-stop is the opening of the lens. If you are holding a camera, you need to adjust the opening of the lens to capture dark or bright scenes. The same with images in computers, you can adjust the scene of an image. For a better result in changing scenes, the highlight should be brighter and the shadow should be darker. Au Naturel gives you this kind of result without affecting the quality of the image.

The Levels effect is just the applications levels control. The only difference is that in Au Naturel you are allowed to use values beyond the minimum and maximum pixel value range. In other words, you can set levels without limitations. These values can also be preserved.

The Transform effect is used for the rotation and scaling, although other supported application already contains this ability. It also allows you to translate and skew your image with sub-pixel accuracy. In Au Naturel, scaled images are more detailed and sharper. It gives you high quality transformations.

Au Naturel has the most unique compositing tools. Compositing linear RGB with each alpha channel is allowed. To simulate the interactions of the lights in the scene, each color channel must have alpha channel. This is basically the balancing of the color to create the right light for the scene. Just like in the actual filming, you need to adjust the light that is appropriate for the scene.

The time lapse effect is the blurring of the image temporarily. This effect produces light streak on bright objects and softer areas for localized motion.

The Au Naturel collection contains adjustable channels to produce more powerful and natural effect. It is compatible with Adobe After Effects, Apple’s Final Cut Pro and other programs.

About The Author

Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com

jona@catalogprintingexperts.com

Almost A Misconception: Corel Draw
by: Blur Loterina

Corel Draw Version 4.0 is said to be the most ambitious computer software. What makes it ambitious is that it promises to be the ultimate tool for any computer graphics design and that it claims to be a bug-free software. The promotion was impressive but it appeared to have disappointed many CorelDraw users.

Many thought that Corel Draw version 7 will not be of any difference. Surprisingly, it gave them another dose of hope, a new and better software to give them professional-quality logos, special effects and illustrations.

This version focuses on interface, speed and maintenance. It is composed of Corel Photo Paint 7 and Corel Dream 3d7. One of the features included is the Template Wizard script. This allows you to create templates from saved files, reducing the time wasted in making templates. It also enables you to work on templates you created on other Corel draw versions, just add the templates on your template wizard. New template samples as well as templates for Paper Direct papers are included.

There is the Welcoming Screen that explains how vector images differ from bitmap images and how you can export them. Customizing keyboards and tools are also discussed. The purpose of the color manager is to instruct user how to manipulate color producing devices so that it will work well with Corel software. Also, there are shortcut keys and management tools for saving and organizing files.

Corel Draw 7 offers a much better scripting tool. You can use these tools to set styles and dimensions. You can set up your page using the property bar.

A scrapbook feature, which gives access to Draw 7, was included. Draw 7 is a collection of fills, cliparts, photos, designs and outlines. Use the Options Dialog Box for instructions on how to nudge or duplicate drawing options or adjust backups.

A new version was created, an upgrade from Photo-Paint and Corel Draw, the Select version. It contains a full version of the two programs. It’s not just a drawing program; it is also used for desktop publishing and professional photo image editing. It has a built in thesaurus and spell checker as well as 450 ready-made professional looking templates. However, this version does not have other features included in the original Corel 7. The graphics library is limited and has fewer fonts as compared to the latter.

With Corel Draw 7, you can create realistic shadows and fix text inside objects or closed path.

About The Author

Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com

jona@catalogprintingexperts.com

Perfect Color Combinations (Is it really important in designs?)
by: Nash Ville

Color communicates so effectively so, it’s truly important to make sure that it says the right thing.

Choosing the colors that blend well together and draw the attention to your design is truly important. Doing so is like picking out the clothes that you’ll wear on special occasions and other significant events. If the overall colors clash and are too distracting, your design will definitely become not compelling but annoying instead. It’s actually all about finding the right color combinations!

With the various ways to come up with good designs these days, color combination has opened up to new levels. I know that you’re aware of the fact that mixing odd colors is very much okay but you always have to make sure that it’s actually done in just the right touch. If you’ll mix safe colors only in your design, it may sometimes end up looking ordinary too fast. Combining bright colors, on the other hand, must not appear like they’re competing with each other because it’ll just finish up looking too busy and very disturbing.

When you consider using bright colors in your designs, try to limit it to only one dominating bright color. Then, keep the rest of your color scheme in a more neutral one. When you have a bright layout design, you must select a more conservative shade for your text so that the text will not compete with the design. With this, the text will surely look very pleasant. There are times when you might want to inspire “shock and awe” in your audience. In such cases, colors that never look good together and seem uncomfortable with each other can be the perfect bet for your designs. But when it comes to unique ideas and complex interactions, the right color combinations are truly valuable weapons to be used in your designs.

Generally, you have to make sure that the color combinations for your designs fit the intended content and the expectations of the viewers. You must also think carefully about why you're using a given color or selection of colors and to whom that color is being delivered. Never use colors that don’t add to or support the information being presented. Always keep in mind that how you combine colors has a significant impact on how it will be received by your audiences. Try to be consistent throughout the design with your color combination choices. Without forethought, your designs might only weaken the message you want to convey or worse, make it ineffective altogether.

Truly, choosing the right color combinations for your designs can get overwhelming fast!

About The Author

Nash Ville

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

anna@printingquotesonline.com

Texturing and Lighting in Discreet 3ds max 6
by: Nashville

Global illumination tugs along cool products for the modern people. They are geared toward hard core production and fill just about any visualization, animation and visual effects’ needs.

Texturing and Lighting in Discreet 3ds max 6 by George Maestri as published in Computer Graphics World, covers everything needed to texture, light, and render realistic scenes in 3ds max. The title steps you through designing materials, mapping textures, and lighting scenes as well as creating shaders, lights, and cameras for both Mental Ray and Max’s Scanline renderer. Advanced topics include complex mapping, multi-pass rendering, caustics, and global illumination.

GEORGE MAESTRI, as written in rubberbug.com, in which he is the president, has worked as a writer, director, and producer in both traditional and computer animation for such companies as Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Disney, Comedy Central, Film Roman, Curious Pictures, MGM, ABC, CBS, and Fox, among others. He has written and edited several books and dozens of articles on computer animation for magazines such as Computer Graphics World, DV, Publish, and Digital Magic, among others.

Maestri also authored Splutterfish's 3ds max Renderer. He writes: In addition to global illumination, Brazil can calculate the scattering of light within a room as well as the scattering of light through objects such as glass and water. Brazil can also calculate the scattering of light within a surface. Called subsurface scattering, this is terrific for materials that are only slightly transparent, such as marble, wax, and human skin. Brazil has its own camera, which mimics real-world cameras. The camera supports depth of field and even allows you to match the f-stop of your real-world camera. Brazil's custom lights can mimic all the standard 3ds max lights, but also add the ability to create area lights. Unlike 3ds max's lights, Brazil's allow you to focus, and give you more robust options in calculating the falloff of a particular light source. Of course, the test of a renderer is its final output. The images I created with Brazil were excellent and highly realistic. Not only that, but I found it fairly easy to get decent results the first time I used the product. This renderer produces highly realistic images and would be excellent for anyone doing photoreal work.

Technology, really is taking us to a different level of technological advancement especially in the virtual space and digital world where a thin line separates reality from fantasy…More to expect in the coming years huh!

About The Author

Nash Ville

For comentaries, explanation and additional info about the article you may contact the author at http://www.mypostcardprinting.com

anna@mypostcardprinting.com

Edit-able Art
by: Carla Ballatan

Ways to Edit Art Graphics

If you’re an individual who’s someone less than an art graphics expert, you might think that a good piece of digital art is just something that didn’t take as much as a drop of sweat from digital artists. You might think that all it takes is raw talent and the absence of which results in nothing but digital garbage. This article aims to illuminate the fact that the techniques on designing an unforgettable piece of digital art also have a significant weight on the magnificence of its output.

Art graphics does not only serve as visual delight for your readers to lure them into appreciating your articles or websites. It may also serve to illustrate and get browsers “really” interested to dig in. Get the drift? Well, like in newspapers, the cartoons serve not only as entertainment but also to sum up several heavy-going political and economic news that some readers to not care to read. By having the cartoon turn the whole thing into a light-hearted presentation – the readers gets caught and reads the articles anyway.

But are you fed-up of conventional graphics clip-arts from computer hardware that is not anymore eye-catching? Illustrating articles are tricky business – thus, we give you some tricks on how to edit and create fascinating graphics.

Turn clip-arts into “cut & paste” art – here’s how! Sometimes, looking for the appropriate graphics needed to illustrate important points in your article could get you in a dither. Now, with a bit of luck and skill, create your very own clip-art masterpiece. Look for graphics of similar styles and pair them out depending on what effect you would like in the outset. Then, after finding the right pairs, cut them out, either by scissors or in your computer software and merge them according to the effect you like.

Try exporting logos into GIF 89 (under the file menu) format instead of doing a “save as”. But remember the logo you need must first be in RGB format before you export it. The effect? The logo will be turned into a small, easily downloadable GIF file with indexed color and transparent background.

Create composite colors electronically. There are two easy ways to achieve this: first is to make an exact copy of the black version of the item you want to appear as a composite. Then, place the over the top of the black one and change its color to the color you want it to overprint in at whatever screen tint you desire. If you use QuarkExpress, the trapping function for that image can be defined as “overprint”. In PageMaker, create a 100% tint of the PMS color you want to overprint with and the click the “overprint” box in the definition. Make sure your item’s cloned copy that you want to appear as a composite is also in that color.

Second is mixing colors ahead of time for your very own produced graphics. In Photoshop, the “duotone” function works well for photos since it allows you to assign a specific color to each of the two copies of the photos you are combining. In Illustrator drawing programs, however, mixing colors is trickier. The composites won’t really translate into your layout program unless you “mix” process colors. This means a four-color process, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black.

With all these said, I hope I don’t have you under the impression that I am downplaying raw designing talent with digital technology expertise. I too know for a fact that excellent designs still stand out and it takes more than clicks and shortcuts to get them done. I only stand to encourage frustrated designers and to impart the message that with the help of available graphic designing software, they too can come up with something that’s more than mediocre.

About The Author

Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

anna@printingquotesonline.com

Lay-Out Tips
by: Carla Ballatan

Effective Lay-outing for Newsletters

If you’re thinking that plotting a plan for something as simple as a newsletter is very elementary then you’re dead wrong. It takes more than just your basic ABC’s to create a truly effective newsletter that can stir a response from your target readers.

The making of an effective newsletter takes careful planning. Writing, designing and printing a piece would take time and effort since these can’t be done in an instant. But your effort may all be put to waste if you do not have an appealing layout. Mind you, some readers are very particular with the layout presentation in order to get them interested in browsing on.

Newsletters may be judged by content design and layout. No matter how good your content may be, if your layout is not appealing enough for the reader, they might not look on another moment. Everyone is not born with the talent of creative, high quality layouts that are pleasing to the eye. But there are several important and basic things to know in order to improve your newsletter layout.

Keep it simple but eye-catching. Use basic but noticeable graphics. PC Software and hardware may be utilized to achieve a desired effect that will not border into hopeless complicated graphics. You can create and derive graphics from a variety of programs like Illustrator, Photoshop and others. You can get some stock illustrations from Dynamic Graphics and subscribe to two monthly services: Electronic Clipper and Designer’s Club. Regarding stock photos you can get very good ones from Photodisc and Digital Stock. For better assistance in your newsletter layouts, Pagemaker may be used, while for small, fancy design projects, use QuarkXpress.

Have visually appealing texts. Whenever possible, break articles up by using subheads or by separating self-contained portions of articles into sidebars. But do not succumb to the temptation nowadays of screening back clipart behind the text. You may fancy that the users would get interested by this complex artistic display. But, this style would make for uncomfortable reading. And don’t think this adds to the visual value of your newsletter…More often than not, it adds to the readers’ disgust.

Use efficient sizes for your newsletter. 8.5”x11” or letter page and 11”x17” or ‘tabloid’ are the sizes that are most efficient to print and mail. The letter page (8.5”x11”) is better for newsletters with long articles and very few graphics. A ‘tabloid’ (11”x17”) is preferable for newsletters that contain varied article lengths and lots of nice graphics.

Newsletters should have at least four pages to give the readers something to open up and dig into. Keep in mind that a four-page tabloid newsletter needs the same amount of copy and graphics as an eight-page, letter-sized newsletter.

Have reader friendly column width or combination of widths for your newsletter. Try the two-big-one-little column format for this. Make two big columns roughly 2-3/4” wide and a thin one roughly 1-1/2” wide. Use the thin column for side heads, poking artwork into, pull quotes, or info boxes. This format would leave some white space along the edges of your newsletter – a real help for readers especially if you’re into black ink printing only.

It is also worth mentioning that like in all other things we encounter, it is more preferable to stick to an easy and uncomplicated way of designing newsletters. The K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple St*pid) principle relates to more things that you are aware of. So now that you know the basics on newsletter design, get down to business and start your newsletter make-over.

About The Author

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

anna@printingquotesonline.com

Playing With The Color And Image
by: Blur Loterina

Does your image appear good on the screen, but looks blurred, jagged or fuzzy when you print it?

To clearly see the difference of the quality of image on screen and on print, take an image from the internet. Zoom it out or make it larger. Can you see how series of little squares appear on the image? Try to print it and you’ll see that the color will fade. There will be a change in the resolution.

Resolution is, basically, the sharpness or crispness of an image. When an image is shrunk, the color looks lively. When you blow it or enlarge it, the color will fade and the image will look unclear.

Resolution is defined as the number of pixels contained in the monitor. Pixel, from the words “picture element”, is the basic unit of programmable color in a computer image. The resolution is measured by the number of dots per inch (dpi), which is equal to the numbers of squares of color in an inch. A standard resolution for an image should be 300dpi and 400dpi for images containing text.

The resolution of an image is inversely proportional to the size of the image. In other words, when you increase the size of the image the resolution decreases, and vice versa. For example, if you enlarge an image, the size, of course, increases. But the quality or sharpness of the image decreases, giving you a blurred image.

When you extract images from the internet, most probably, you will have a poor quality image. Internet images are mostly saved in GIF or JPEG file format, which only consumes 72dpi. The purpose of saving image files on this resolution is to make the image easy to extract. Meaning, these images are not for print use.

Scanners, digital camera, computer monitor and other display devices use the RGB (red, green, blue) color mode, while in the printing process CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) color mode is used. Meaning, you have to expect change in the color of the image when you print it. To reduce the problem, you must convert your image from RGB to CMYK. There are image editing programs that offer color conversion, such as Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint.

Do not expect to get good images from the internet. You must resort to other sources like real photos or pictures from magazines. When you scan, compare the size of the photo to the size of your layout. If the photo is larger than your layout, scanning at 300dpi is enough. If it is smaller, adjust your scanner’s resolution setting and percentage size. If there are texts over the image, lighten the image so the text will be readable. If you do not know how create good prints, you can resort to a printing press.

About The Author

Blur Loterina

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

anna@printingquotesonline.com

Vector Drawing Programs
by: Blur Loterina

One of the best tools in creating and modifying a vector-based image is the Adobe Illustrator. Artworks done through the Illustrator can be used for print, multimedia and online graphics.

Vector images can also be converted to bitmap images. Almost all graphics system and animation software use vector graphics because it can be manipulated.

Vector images are commonly used in GIF or Graphical Interchange Format files because they both consume a small file size, which is an advantage in Web page making.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), mostly photographic images that undergoes editing, use vector images because of its resolution dependency.

About The Author

Blur Loterina

For additional information about the article log on to http://www.shortrunondemandprinting.com

admin@shortrunondemandprinting.com

What Is The Perfect Letterhead For Your Business
by: Blur Loterina

If you want to make a letterhead, think of a unique and pleasing design that would fit the nature of your business. Search on effective letterheads to serve as your guide.

Consider making a letterhead with raised letters that are rounded on the front. For the materials, you will need foam, sandpaper, scroll saw or cutter, spray paint, varnish, cardboard, carbon paper, push pins and wooden plank for the panel. In making the outline, you can use the Corel Draw or any other computer graphics programs.

After making the layout, start printing the letters. You can either manually draw it or make use of the computer if you wanted a fast and accurate output. Print the letters individually on a carbon paper so that you can easily trace them on the foam.

After plotting the letters, use a scroll saw or cutter to cut them. This step is quite difficult because there is a possibility that the letters will be deformed. Make sure that the back sides of the letters are well shaped and flat. For the front, you will have to round it.

Sanding of the letters is very time consuming. In this step, use a sand paper to smooth-even the letters and to make the curves for the front side.

Have a copy of the outline of the design. You can print it on a plain white paper. Fill the letters with dark colors so that it will be easy for you to determine irregularity in the shape of the sanded letters. Make the letters on your outline a little larger so that you can easily see the difference.

When all the letters had been cut, rounded and smoothed, put them on top of the corresponding letters on the outline. In this way, you can see the bitten off or “chipped” part. The only solution you can make is to re-sand it.

The next step is to prime the letters. Since foam is very light you will have to anchor them so that the letters will not fly all over the place. To do this, put the letters on top of the cardboard. Pin the letters from the back so you can prime the whole front part. Priming involves several coating.

Sometimes you cannot prevent the letters from breaking, especially in the priming process. Glue the broken parts together. When the glue becomes dry, carefully smooth the surface.

Then, start painting the letters. Use a spray in painting. Choose a color that will not make any irregularities, like glued part, noticeable. Use push pins to hold the letters during the drying process.

You are now ready to make the panel. Use a hard wooden plank. Trace the shape of the panel, and then cut the wood. After cutting it, smooth the surface and edges. Paint the panel with varnish and let it dry. Draw the design and outline on the panel. Then paste the letters on the panel.

About The Author

Blur Loterina

For additional information about the articles you may visit http://www.uprinting.com

anna@uprinting.com

How to Create Well Represented Logos
by: Paul Hood

Creating a well-designed logo is a must for all businesses who want to enhance its image. A good logo adds a professional look to letterhead, business cards and marketing materials. It's important for your logo to be unique and appropriate to your business.

With this in mind, you can consider seeking the services of a graphic designer well-versed in designing logos. Making a good logo for your company is a task that you can opt to delegate to skilled experts.

Have a brainstorming with your designer to find the best design suited to you and your company. Choose a logo that you feel comfortable with and one that best meets your need. You should be comfortable with your chosen design as you’ll be spending a lot of time with it.

There are certain issues that will have to be answered when making a company logo. This will serve as a gauge to determine if the logo is doing what it was intended to do. First, it must be clear if the logo is accurately portraying the real essence of the company. The main purpose of your logo is to make your company look good. What you are trying to do here is to let your customers see the real you through your logo. Next, see to it that your logo will look well in different sizes. There will be instances when your logo will have to be reduced or enlarged according to certain situations and it is important that it still will look great with all the manipulations done with it.

In making your logo, a key factor that must be given attention is originality or uniqueness. You certainly would want people to recognize your logo and associate you with it. It should be eye-catching and interesting and have a pleasing quality.

An important note that should be kept in mind is that the making of your logo must not be hasty. A great deal of planning is required for you to have a satisfactory output. Many difficult times will surely arise but it will be easy to overcome them if you know what you want to do and you stay on focus.

About The Author

Ariel Velasco goes by the author alias of Paul Hood. This author is into books and writing. Reading is an essential part of his life and this has lent a considerable influence in his writing. Well traveled and would always want to travel more. He loves learning more about people and their ways. Took up a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology to further this fascination and had a fulfilling educational experience having been exposed to a wide spectrum of people. Always ready for new opportunities to learn and have a great deal of interest in different fields of expertise.

For comments and questions about the article you may contact the Author through their website at http://www.brochuresprintingonline.com

joel@brochuresprintingonline.com

Graphic Designers 101
by: Nash Ville

Being a graphic designer entails hardwork, dedication and the passion for what you are doing. Some people might think that it’s just easy to do all those web and graphic designs. Well, it’s not! As a graphic designer, you have to cope with the constant technological advancements so that you you’ll have a chance in the tough competition. One of the latest technologies today is full color printing. To know the worth and benefits of full color printing is critical in the graphics industry as it increases the appeal of any designer’s artworks because it has the amazing capacity to capture an audience and maintain viewers and readers.

To maximize the value of color in your printing jobs, it is necessary to understand the way color is transformed from your monitor to the paper it is printed on. When designing your graphics on the computer, the colors appear in RGB (red, green and blue) format. This is how your television set and the monitor generate images. When viewing the printed output on paper, it appears in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) format. It is essential to recognize the effects that the abovementioned change in the color format has on your design if your project is color critical and colors must be as close as possible to your initial expected color. In order for your target color to match the printed color, be sure to set up your file in CMYK format as printing companies will print directly from the file without comparing it to the onscreen image.

Pantone process color guide is a useful tool for maintaining your desired color image. This guide contains CMYK values for more than 3,000 colors which allow you to see the printing color that most accurately matches your desired color. Also, the guide shows how the color is affected by the different types of paper your image might be printed on.

Here are some helpful tips you must always remember when preparing files for full color printing to maximize the printing quality of your designs. First, ensure that the resolution is at least 300 dpi. Then, set up your file in CMYK instead of later converting it to CMYK. Next, check the CMYK % values against a Pantone book. Also, convert the files by yourself instead of letting the printer to do it for you. Finally, try using a calibrated monitor and colors within the CMYK color space.

Using color in printing is said to increase readership and information retention. And, to understand the difference between the various color formats and learn to use the appropriate tools other than your eyes to define colors will allow you to avoid common mistakes which can be a graphic designer’s worst nightmare.

About The Author

Nash Ville
For questions and comments about the Artcile you may contact The Postcard Printing Moderator at 888 888 4211 or visit http://www.mypostcardprinting.com

anna@mypostcardprinting.com

Designing Digital Pieces for Digital Presses
by: Granny's Mettle

Designers value the litheness of digital presses that let them print shorter four-color runs. But choices of paper and preparation of files require special care. This is why designers are taking advantage of the versatility of digital printing more than ever. The ability to print four-color on shorter print runs gives them an imaginative freedom their budget might not have allowed on offset presses. As more digital papers enter the market and more print options become accessible, there are more things to consider.

You can choose any paper that the printing company guarantees will work with their digital press for the type of job you want to print. Each digital press manufacturer evaluates and recommends paper selections (coated and uncoated) for their line of equipment. Some printing companies experiment and are willing to guarantee work done on papers they recommend, in addition to the papers the vendors recommend.

One of the most significant tips for designing an efficient, artistic, high-quality, and cost-efficient variable data piece is to bring all parties involved in the project together from the start. You have to discuss first what components of the piece are variable -- is it text, graphics, images, or all three. Also, the number, size, and location of the variable data fields should be clarified. These measures will aid define the production resources required and the type of digital color press and variable data system that can be used.

A point to remember when designing for variable date printing is to resist the temptation to over personalize and over design. Do not show off. Each element should have an unyielding purpose underneath the marketing strategy behind the piece. Well designed variable data projects are transparent to the receiver. The goal is not to impress the receiver of the marketing piece with what the technology can do; rather, it is to get the recipient to act and buy something.

Most digital presses convert Pantone colors to their CMYK equivalents and print them that way. Some will allow you to specify the conversion formula yourself or tolerate the press operator to do so. Since Pantone-to-CMYK conversion is also a technique used for offset printing, you may have no problem with the print quality of a converted color.

The print resolution of digital presses is improving constantly, so you might be more anxious about how well people can read, the type rather than how well the press can image it. Type sizes of 10 and 12 point, the usual size of body text, will be fine. Avoid using type smaller than four points. What resolution to use, in the capture or scan of a photographic image, is one of the most bewildering specifications in the graphic arts because scanning equipment and imaging equipment have evolved over the years? Some printers and graphic artists are still using standards that were applicable years ago with older equipment, but are now passé.

Combining offset with digital printing sounds like an exact science, and in fact, each application needs to be run like an experiment. Sound scientific procedure calls for controlling all of the variables, and in this print application, it's fundamental for consistent success. If you're doing strictly black-and-white variable information, and already have offset equipment available, then combining digital printing with lithography makes a lot of sense.

About The Author

For questions and comments about the article you may contact The Digital Printing Company Moderator at 310 575 4440 or visit http://www.digitalprintingcompany.com

carmelo@digitalprintingcompany.com

How to Design Posters?
by: The Color Printing Moderator

Whether you want to create a poster as a piece of artwork, a personalized gift, or as an ad for a small business, there are decisions to make before you begin. Moreover, there are the key elements you have to consider whenever you are creating a poster: First, poster should deliver your message. Second, it is well laid out. Third, it is self-explanatory. Fourth, appropriate to the target audience. Lastly, the words and pictures will print. Remembering these elements will guarantee that you get the best from your work.

When planning a poster it is vital that you have a clear concise message. More often than not, you will have less than a second to get your audiences attention. Once you have your customer’s attention you need to deliver your message to them in as little time as possible or draw them in to find out more by studying it deeper. Either way it needs to be apparent what you are telling them or showing them as it's unlikely you'll be there to give details. Even if the poster is just there for decoration it needs to look right. Whatever the message or content of the poster you must make sure that it is targeted correctly. Make sure your poster stands out from the crowd and is easily read. Remember you can even make black and white posters interesting, and color is always an option. In addition, you can now turn your photo, picture, artwork, image, etc. into a huge poster. Customized and personalized posters are now all the rage.

Before you bring your poster for printing always look at the way it makes your point and have someone else view it as a sanity check. A poster is an important tool; use it carefully. Also, check spelling and grammar carefully. A poster printer is not a laser printer. You only get one chance to print it right. Lastly, verify that any images you use are appropriate for the size you will be printing to.

Graphics for posters tend to be large, so scan at high resolution to avoid sizing up and pixelating images. The images should be at least 150dpi at the final size. Make sure any text you are using is strong enough to be seen against the background. Remember most posters are viewed from a distance. Bold san serif fonts, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic for example, stand out well in dark colors against a lighter background. If you are using light type on a dark background it will become difficult to read. Provide as much information as possible in the form of images or graphics rather than straight text. Remember that a poster paints a thousand words. Make it interesting with cartoons, humor, photographs and color.

Another thing that you should consider is to avoid common mistakes. The number one mistake is to make your poster too long. Densely packed, high word-count posters are basically manuscripts pasted onto a wall, and attract only those viewers who are for some reason keyed up by manuscripts pasted onto walls.

Your printing company, in printing posters should use powered computers and the latest in digital enhancement techniques, to create the most stunning high quality inkjet posters from almost anything. Make use of its services and allow their poster printing media to take you to the edge of marketing your business. They must offer convenience and rapid turnaround on tighter budget digital printing. The process of creating and printing is quite a complex one with several pitfalls along the way but they must guarantee full customer’s satisfaction.

About The Author

For comments and questions about the article you may contact The Color Printing Moderator at 800 591 1644 or visit http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com.

anna@colorprintingwholesale.com

Mixing Grayscale and Colored Images
by: Anna Lim

Photoshop has really come a long way. It has been widely used because of its great and numerous capabilities. With it, we are able to come up with our unique works of art. Our imagination and creativity are really enhanced by this software application. We can make impossible things especially in photographs to be possible. It has become so important in graphic art, graphic design, web design, and photography.

The mixing of grayscale and colored images are excellently done in Photoshop. You just need to be familiarized with the numerous tools in this application to mix grayscale and colored images successfully. It will also take you some time before you master it.

Truly, great concepts always come from experienced people. I agree that texture is a continuing theme in Dale Glaser's works. I’ve seen it in the three images which are included in the article. In “The Barn”, you’ll see how the second image is perfectly matched to the mood and tone of the overall photograph. In the "Rest Stop", texture truly provides color and visual continuity. The image is certainly difficult to decipher at first look but the shapes help the eye understand the unusual planes which have been bent to support the structure. In "The Beach", texture is everything – providing both field and substance.

I agree that the article must have the title “Photoshop Collector” because Glaser, the featured Photoshop enthusiast, is the main subject of the said article. I’m impressed with Glaser’s works because of their unique concepts. The mixing of grayscale and colored images has a great appeal to me. There’s something in it that I can’t explain. All I know is that I love staring at those photos.

About The Author

For comments and questions about the article you may contact Anna Lim at 800 591 1644 or visit http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com

anna@colorprintingwholesale.com

Photoshop: Secrets Of The Pros
by: Anna Lim

Photoshop: Secrets of the Pros is a book that features one-on-one competitions between twenty top artists and designers. Designers include some of the most talented web, print, broadcast, 3D designers in the world. This friendly competition was called the Photoshop Tennis.

Sounds like another tiring outdoor game? It’s not an outdoor game and it’s not tiring. Well, it may be tiring in a way but not, at least, for those skilled designers.

The Photoshop Tennis was invented by Jim Coudal, founder of Coudal Partners, a Chicago advertising and design agency, one summer before the September 11 terrorist attack. He and a friend “whacked” a file back and forth to kill time. Then he invited designers he knew to play in official matches.

Photoshop Tennis is an on-line game in which players are mostly web designers. The object of the game is to add one layer of design on an image document that is sent back and forth by two players. Only one image document is used. Players are allowed to put different layers of designs such as background and foreground. Results are posted on a website in real time. The game ends whenever the players decide to end it or if it takes hours the decision will be based on the number of votes.

After the four test matches and four official matches were completed, designers from ad agencies and design shops visited his site. Some of them contacted Coudal for a chance to play in a match.

The book PhotoShop: Secrets of the Pros is all about this type of competition. It is the first book to feature such game. As explained by the author of the site http://photoshop.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=22104, in Photoshop Tennis in this book, two designers take on one another over the internet over a ten round or volley period. In each volley, the designer either creates a new theme (in the initial volley), or they take what has been sent to him or her and start playing off of what was previously created. The competition results to a different appearance each time out. Programs used in this competition range from Illustrator and Freehand to Flash to 3D Studio Max and Maya. The designers used the basic tools and the basic commands like, brushes, and fills instead of shortcuts.

The book is not about web designing, it is about the 10 different competitions played by 20 professional designers. It is about teamwork and adaptation of different styles from their competitors.

One thing that is frustrating about this game is that sometimes it takes hours for a player to finish his work while keeping the other player waiting and it will only take minutes for the other player to destroy the art work. You can tell a story out of it but most of the time players tend to make his own story. Next thing you’ll notice is that the story of the image focuses on the destruction of the flow of two different stories.

About The Author

For comments and questions about the article you may contact Anna Lim at 800 591 1644 or visit http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com

anna@colorprintingwholesale.com

How to Take Great Flower Photos
by: Kelly Paal

I know that many out there want to improve their photography in one aspect. Flower photography. With gardening as popular as it is this shouldn’t be a surprise. Flower photography while looking like one of the simplest forms of photography can quickly become one of the most difficult. Here are a few tips for you. (Keeping in mind that basic good photography skills are always used.)

1. Soft diffuse light. Today it’s very overcast outside, and if there were any flowers in bloom today would be the perfect day for capturing some great images. Soft diffuse light enhances color saturation, so if you wondered how or why pro photographers flower images seem so deep in color this is one of the reasons why. (There are exceptions to this rule. I do some flower photography is bright or dappled sunlight but I’m usually trying to get an effect of light passing through the petals.)

2. Slow film speed. 200 speed or less. The slower speed films have greater detail and for flowers you’re going to need to get close anyway and you want the nice sharp detail of a slower speed of film. I use 100 speed for my flower photography.

3. Tripod. Use one for this type of photography. Set up your shot, get everything in sharp focus, and then shoot. A tripod will keep your camera from moving on you and allow you to get the sharp detail you will need.

4. Look for great colors, a flower in full bloom next to a bud, and don’t shoot on windy days. Keep contrast and color in mind at all times and try different compositions each time you take a shot.

Flower photography can be a lot of fun especially if the flowers are your own.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography and Design Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. She owns her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

How to take Great Photos of your Child
by: Kelly Paal

Children are naturally photogenic. Ive worked in studios and children are so easy to photograph. What I hear from parents is that they dont think that their kids are that easy to photograph. Thats only because they dont know some basic tips.

1. Young children especially infants take beautiful photos while they are asleep. Keep the light natural avoid flash if at all possible. Keep the image tight on the child and crop out distractions. For infants when theyre awake youre better off having another person in image, it gives the child someone to interact with and you can crop the shot to keep the other person out of the image or you can keep the adult and child in the photo.

2. Toddlers look best when they dont know that youre taking their photo. Candid shots are the way to go for this age group. Keep your camera handy and when they start doing something cute snap the photo quick. Remember your child doesnt have to be looking directly into the camera to take a great photo. Dont ever say to the toddler, Oh how cute, now look here. It wont happen.

3. Children ages 4 plus are really good at sitting for photos. But if youre going to dress them up make sure that they are comfortable and dont put them in some outfit they hate, it will show in the image. Crop tight on your subject, keep the light natural, and if youre using a toy to get their attention make sure that it makes them laugh and doesnt scare them. (I learned that lesson the hard way.)

4. Older children are really good at dressing up for photos. The hardest thing will be getting a natural smile from them. Say, cheese is a sure fire way to get a fake smile. Most of us learned young to smile automatically at that cue. Here you have to get silly. One time I was working with a young boy and his older sister. She was a natural smiler and loved being dressed up. He was not happy and kept pulling at his tie. His mother straightened it for the tenth time. I posed them and addressed the young boy I said, Now on the count of three I want you to say, I hate this tie! His sister smiled surprised at what I said, and he grinned. I took the photo. He then screamed, I hate this tie! Again both smiled wide and I took a second photo. The images turned out beautiful.

I hope these tips help you to take better photos of your child. With a little practice and a few tips youll see better family photos immediately.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

Photography 101 Part 1
by: Kelly Paal

Equipment: camera, meter, flash, tripod

This article is a simplified photography course directed at new photographers out there who want to know where to start.

If you really want to learn photography the first thing you need is a good affordable and reliable camera. It must, and I repeat must, be able to shoot in fully manual and fully auto focus modes. (This leaves out any digital cameras on the market right now, sorry.) To really learn photography you must understand the equipment. You’ll need to learn how manipulating the shutter speed, aperture, and focus will have a dramatic effect on your photos. Meters, if you have a camera that can work in a fully manual mode it should have an internal meter suitable for what you will be doing. Tripod, you’re going to need one whether it’s portrait work or landscapes you’ll need one eventually. Luckily you don’t have to spend a lot here. Just something lightweight and durable. Flash, you can buy a separate camera mounted flash, which is great if you can afford it. Consider what kind of photography that you will be doing though. If you’re going to do mostly nature and landscape, you may only need the fill flash that comes with most cameras today. If you plan on doing portraiture alone you will want to consider a camera mounted flash that has an adjustable angle.

Film, film speed to be exact. Slower speeds (25 to 400) are intended for portraiture and landscape photography. Faster speeds (600 and above) are intended for actions shots and photojournalism. So first you need to know what you going out to photograph and make sure that you have the appropriate film for the job.

Now that you have the camera loaded with film consider shutter speed. Do you want to blur motion, or freeze it? If there is no motion at all what shutter speed do you need to expose the scene with natural light. From 1/60th and down to the bulb setting will blur most motion. For example if you want to blur the water in a waterfall, a setting of 1/30th should work. (You’ll need a tripod though.) 1/125th is a normal setting for most shots. On many cameras the 125th setting is marked in a different color to make it obvious. If you want to freeze action you’ll need to start with 1/500th and work up from there. The faster the motion the faster the shutter speed needed to stop motion. Many cameras go up to 1/2000th of a second. If you’re trying to use natural light alone in a scene you will want to determine the aperture first and then see what shutter speed you need to properly expose the scene for available light. (Keep in mind sometimes there isn’t enough light.)

Aperture, these are the set of numbers on your lens closest to the body of the camera. They can go from 1.8 to 22, and they are referred to as F-stops. These numbers determine how much light reaches the film inside of your camera. Most internal meters will blink on the appropriate aperture for the shutter speed that you’ve set, or the speed you’ve set will blink if your F-stop is correct for the speed. Both the F-stop and shutter speed can be changed to expose the scene correctly. Consider that the faster the shutter speed the more light will be needed to expose the scene correctly. This makes logical sense if you think about it. If the shutter isn’t open as long, fast shutter speed, then there is less light able to make it to the film and so the scene must be brighter to expose correctly. To learn, bracket your shots. Take the first shot at the aperture suggested by your meter, move one stop up, take a photo, one down, take another photo.

Flash, I personally like shooting with natural light whenever possible and at most I use a fill flash. But if you’re going to do portrait work then most of the time you may be indoors and you will need a flash sometimes. For the amateur the fill flash units that are on the top of most of today’s cameras are wonderful for basic work. You will have to read your manual on your particular flash unit to learn what it can and can’t do. This is where the camera that is fully manual and fully auto is great for the amateur. You can usually set it so that the camera will meter and set the flash output accordingly and then you still can control the shutter speed and aperture.

This week’s assignment: Have several rolls of 400 speed film, find a subject that you can work with preferably something that won’t move, and shoot one roll of film. Shoot some of the roll in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Bracket every shot, take notes on time of day and light conditions, and what your settings (aperture) were for each frame, keep the film speed the same for the entire roll. Have the film developed and examine the photos. You should be able to see a difference in each frame. You’ll need to repeat this procedure until you feel that you understand the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, and every camera and meter has it’s own quirks and differences, you’re camera will act differently than someone else’s. This way you will learn you own particular camera as well. Once you have a sense of how aperture works you won’t need to bracket every shot you take, you may only need to do it in cases where you want to be extra safe on exposing the subject correctly.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php

About The Author

kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com

Photography 101 Part 2
by: Kelly Paal

Basic Composition

Now that you are beginning to understand how your camera works you can begin to understand basic composition. I know that many people that I’ve talked to think that photography is just pointing your camera and taking a photo but it’s more than that. After you understand how your equipment works you can begin to get into the real art of photography and that art is called composition.

Basic principles:

1. Use all of your available space. Fill the image with the image. If the reason that your taking the photo is your daughter’s beautiful face then get closer. If you’re taking an image of the breathtaking valley before you. Fill the frame with the valley. Keep distractions out of the frame. They’re called distractions for a reason.

2. Look at the forms in your image. You almost have to look at the people or the landscape before you in their simplistic geographic forms. A good way to learn form is to practice taking photos of still life objects, that you can arrange into pleasing forms. A good photo is always a beautiful arrangement of form. Whether it’s the beauty of a woman’s face, her features being forms, or a wonderful landscape, trees, rocks, and hills being forms.

3. Line or direction, motion. The direction of the forms in your photos is very important. Never have action or motion moving outside of your image. It will direct the eye away from your image. Diagonal motion lines are good, curves and “s” curves are better. The last two is probably way landscape photography is so popular nature is full of curves. Also never put a horizon line in the center of your frame.

4. Contrast, the difference between black and white. Now it is possible to have a beautiful photo with little contrast if that is your intention, this works best with color. But a lot of shots, some really beautiful shots have a nice balance of black, white, and grays. This can be manipulated for artistic purpose of course, but in the beginning you want to focus on trying to take shots with equal amounts of black, white, and shades of gray. (Shoot a roll of B&W film to really learn this principle.)

5. Color, you may have to familiarize yourself with the color wheel. (See my article Graphic Design Using Color for more information it’s for graphic design but the first couple of paragraphs talk about basic color theory) Whether you’re shooting nature or setting up your own shots in a studio you need to know what colors go together and why. Many of us have an instinct as to what looks good. When in doubt follow your instincts. Start out by taking shots of things that you think have pretty or beautiful colors. Show the photos to others and see if they agree. Photographers learn not only what they think is beautiful but what is universally beautiful as well.

Now the hard part practice all these principles at the same time. It’s not easy! Now you really know why photographers take years to really learn their craft.

This week’s assignment: Let’s break this down into four assignments. You’ll need four rolls of film. Roll one, fill your available space. Shoot pictures of whatever you like, but get closer. Eliminate distractions from your image. Keep the focus of your image on whatever it was that made you want to take that photo. Roll two, forms. Here’s an old stand by that I did in college. Get out an assortment of vegtables and fruit from your kitchen. Put a sheet down on your table, no distractions, shoot an entire roll of the veggies and fruit making sure that your rearrange with each shot. Make sure you study your results and see which forms looked best. Roll three, Contrast, you can do this in B&W film if you want to. Take a shot of the flower in your garden in the early morning, afternoon, and sunset. Shoot some portraits at the same times, by candlelight too. When you see the results you will be surprised. Roll four, color. Use the vegtables again, this time paying attention to the colors. If you can tell me why a red tomato looks best on a green bed of lettuce or the orange sunset with the purple clouds is so captivating then you’ve figured out some of color theory.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com

Photography 101 Part 3
by: Kelly Paal

Content

Even if you feel that you already know what kind of photography you like to do, it’s always a good idea to try your talent at different aspects of photography.

Pictorial, this is a general term but it applies to any photographer who’s goal is simply to create beautiful photos. This breaks down into smaller subsets but the most popular form is landscape and nature photography. This is what I do and it’s tempting to go on and on but I will just say that this form of photography, to me, is a real art. At least that is goal to create art in photographic form. It is the goal of the photographer to use their abilities to capture an image in it’s moment of beauty and simplicity.

Portrait, this can be people and even animals. It also includes wedding photography as well. This is an aspect of photography that can be a lot harder than it seems. Not only do you have to know your basic photo composition but you need to understand what makes each person look their best. You must know how to bring out their personality and character in the shot. If you love working with people this may be your field. It’s fun and challenging.

Photojournalism, now this isn’t just press photography, though that is one aspect of it. It is also documentary photography as well, the latter doesn’t always need an event to occur right in front of you. Either way the purpose is to tell a story. Really good photojournalism shouldn’t need the text below it to tell you what is going on. It should be compelling and storytelling. Composition still plays a part, you can’t tell a story if the story can’t be seen. And while these photos can be beautiful in their technical aspects they aren’t necessarily beautiful images. The story telling is as important.

Abstract, probably not as common of a form of photography but I’m seeing it more and more. This is usually characterized by extreme close ups of detail of something, so much so that you can’t identify the original subject. But in this case that doesn’t matter since the abstract detail or pattern is the subject of the photo. (Color can also be the subject as well.) Basic composition still plays a part, maybe a bigger part in this form of photography.

This week’s assignment: Four rolls of film again. Roll one, pictorial, get outside and try your best using all your abilities to capture moments of beauty and simplicity. Composition is key here. Roll two, portrait, get somebody to volunteer for you. Remember composition but really focus on finding the shots that make that person look their best. Different light, background, camera angles, or even clothes. Roll three, photojournalism, outside or inside anywhere you see stories. This can be as simple as a child playing with their toys. Find the appropriate moment to take a shot that tells the story. Roll four, abstract, details, details, and more details. Get in close, make sure that you can’t identify the subject but find beauty in the color or details of the item.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com

How to take Great Photos of Your Pet
by: Kelly Paal

We all love our animals. They do such funny, adorable, and cute things. But somehow when that camera comes out they run and hide or they just seem to always be pointed away from the camera when you push the button. Well here are some tips to help you have a better chance at getting great photos of your pet.

1. Don’t wake your pet out of deep sleep and attempt to coerce him into performing for the camera. It won’t happen. Try to take photos of your pet during their routine playtime.

2. If there is enough daylight to take photos then turn the flash off. My cat has learned to close his eyes just before the flash goes off. He learned that little trick quick too! Many times a camera flash is just too bright for them, that’s why they point away from you when they know that you’re taking photos.

3. Don’t try to get them looking into the camera. If there is someone around who can play with your pet just get a shot of them playing with someone else. You can have the photo with the person and the pet or get close to crop the person out of the shot.

4. If your pet always runs away from you every time you pull the camera out try leaving the camera sit out where it can be seen. Take photos of other things in the home and try turning the flash off.

5. Be prepared to grab your camera and take photos when your pet is ready, read “doing something cute.” I’ve been able to get some of the best photos of my cat when he’s just doing something on his own.

Remember don’t put pressure on your animal to perform for the camera. Think more on the lines of catch them in their natural habitat. Our pets want to make us happy and you can easily confuse them by pressuring them to look good for the camera. Also be prepared to take a whole lot of bad photos for that one really good one.

About The Author

Better Photos with your Digital Camera
by: Kelly Paal

Everyone has a digital camera today and we all take a lot of photos. But if your photos still have trees coming out of your father’s head, mom has red eye, and your beloved pet is never facing the camera then here are some tips to help you take better photos.

1. Always be aware of the background. I know this is the hard one but it is critical. If you’re setting up a shot take a quick look at what is behind the people in your shot. So many perfectly good photos are ruined by a tree seeming to grow out of a person’s head. It can be as simple as the person taking one full step to the right or left to move the obstacle that would ruin your photo.

2. Use available light. If your digital camera has an option to turn the flash off and it’s light enough outside to read a book then use the available light and turn the flash off. In general camera flashes are too harsh for human skin and make all of us look pale. (Even better if your camera has a fill flash use that indoors where there isn’t enough daylight, and place the person by a window as well.)

3. Use ambient soft light. The reason that so many of use pose people under trees, and end up with the ruined photo with a tree coming out of dad’s head, is that we all instinctively know that soft light is best. Sunlight filtered through a trees’ leave is beautiful and warm. It warms up the skin and puts a soft light to the features. Indoors near a window with drapes has a similar effect.

4. Aim your camera slightly down at the person’s face. Now I don’t mean climb a ladder but just don’t ever, and I mean ever, point your camera looking up to a person. We all look fat and bloated at that angle. Also don’t shoot just face on to the person, try a little to the side, a three quarter view, so that you see more of their face. Remember camera higher looking down and a three quarter view, it will slim your subject.

5. Remember your focus, are you taking a photo of mom and the tree, then take mom with the whole tree. But if you’re taking a photo of mom next to a tree do we really need to see the entire tree? Get closer to your subject. We can see some of the tree bark with mom leaning against it, but showing the whole tree is a waste. Remember this tip with children, many people take a shot of their dear child for an expression on the child’s face, but in the printed shot the child is lost next to another kid, the swing set, and the dog. Remember get closer.

6. Never put your subject dead center. All family photographers do this and it’s as hard of a habit to break as remembering to look at the background. But if you’ve moved closer to your subject remember to put them just sightly off center. Not a lot just a bit. When you’re shooting even groups of people this is especially easy but odd numbered groups is a little more difficult. Just find your imaginary center line of your group and put that line just a bit off center in your view through your lens or screen.

With these tips you can be on your way to taking better photos today.

About The Author

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.
kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com

How to Paint Your Cat
by: Larry Chamberlain

Why paint your cat? After all cats are beautiful creatures if you want to appreciate the appearance of a feline, you look at the cat not at a painting.

Some of the reasons that you may want to paint your cat are:

To capture your pet at a particular age, in a particular pose, in a particular place. To have a permanent reminder of your companion when she has moved on to feline afterlife. To give as a gift to a fellow cat lover.

So you figure how hard can it be to turn out a pleasing semblance of your moggy? You are no Van Gough, but you know how to handle a paint brush. You have all the materials that you need in order to paint your cat, the paints, brushes, stuff for cleaning, you even have a home made easel. Boy, it sure is going to be fun to paint your cat.

There she is, curled up asleep by the window, a look of cat contentment upon her face and the sunlight giving her coat an extra gloss. What a magnificent painting of your cat you are going to produce. Quietly you set everything up, you have your canvas propped on your easel and your paintbrush in hand. You turn to face your subject, and...

She's gone. Your little darling had been snoozing in that spot for most of the morning and now that you are ready to produce your masterpiece, she decides that someplace else is where she needs to be! Well, she is not going to get away with it, you have decided to paint your cat, and that is just what you are going to do.

You search for her. Eventually you find your feline subject siting at the top of the stairs without a care in the world. Scooping her up, you carry her back to the sunlit window so she may cooperate with you and resume her pose. But cats don't cooperate. She paces up and down, and you know that the only thing stopping her from making a bolt is the fact that you are betwixt her and the door. The fact that you want to paint your cat is of no importance, the only thing that is of any concern to your cat is what she wants!

You consider for a moment the possibility of restraining her, like Guliver lashed to the ground by the little people. No chance, no chance whatsoever. So what to do? Of all the creatures on this earth the cat is the last one to be told what to do.

You conclude that the only thing that you can do to paint your cat, is to forget about producing a detailed precise painting. You will paint your feelings about your cat. This will not be a long drawn out process, get it on the canvass, let your subconscious communicate the essence of the feline! Looking at your cat and not your canvass, you start to paint. Rapidly you slash with your brush, you don't worry about the colors that you use corresponding exactly to those of you cat, it is the feelings that they represent that is important.

Meanwhile, your cat looks on bemused.

At last you are finished. Time to inspect your art work, you turn and look and your jaw drops. Well it could be some kind of animal, those lines in purple do seem to represent a tail. And that is an eye, no mistake about that, but whatever eye it is, it's not your cat's eye!

Ah well! At least you tried to paint your cat. Don't think of it as a failure, after all you did produce something, and who knows, your cat at least, may have enjoyed the experience! Meanwhile, your cat has resumed its perfect pose, asleep by the window.

About The Author

Larry Chamberlain is a lifelong cat lover and webmaster of http://www.best-cat-art.com Cat art posters, art prints, cat calendars and cat collectibles. Great cat gifts for yourself or your cat loving friends
Larry@best-cat-art.comLarry@best-cat-art.com

Basic Rules on Page Layout and Color
by: Granny's Mettle

For one to be able to stand out from the rest, one needs to go out of the box, break the rules, and some other clichés that apply to breaking out from the traditional. But before breaking any rule, you have to understand first the basic and foundation of the rule itself.

First off, let's talk about page layout.

The Rule – Too much boxes is bad for your health.

One designer said that a mark of a designer is when he or she starts to use boxes and rules in his or her pages. When you look at your page and realize the need to make something attractive and creative out of the boring stuff you've just made, and then decide to throw around a box or two or place rules between columns, then that's the time when your creativity is getting out from confinement.

Before using all the box there is in your software, just remember to do it in moderation. Anything in excess is a bad thing. Sure, boxes and rules are a good way to highlight important information. But if you're going to do it in all your pages, or put virtually everything in a box, then nothing will stand out from the crowd.

The Rule – Do not divide the page in halves.

The best way to infuse excitement and innovation in your documents is to divide the page into thirds. Afterwards, place the most important objects like the headings, photos, and visuals, at the top or bottom third.

Let's go to color.

The Rule – Contrasting colors make for greater readability.

Any designer knows that enough contrast between the text and background makes for easy reading of text and material. Often, dark text is used on a light background. And vice versa.

Although light text on a dark background is easy to read, this technique should be used sparingly. It's proven fact that the eyes get more tired when reading large quantities of text on a dark background, than the other way around.

The Rule – Use color sparingly.

For impact, designers choose to create their design on more than a single color. But color thrown around everywhere also loses its impact. The rule of thumb: for maximum impact, use color on headings, and the most important words in headings.

The Rule – Do not use complementary colors.

Colors that can be found opposite each other in the color wheel are called complementary colors. For example, blue is opposite orange in the color wheel. When used side by side, the complementary colors can create havoc in our eyes because it would be difficult to focus on both at the same time. In addition, the colors may seem to vibrate when viewed together.

The Rule – Do not use color screened more than 40% with text.

Anything darker than 40% color against a text can make it harder to read. However, you can vary this rule somewhat by calculating how dark the color will be. For example, green can be screened darker than blue to make the text stand out.

For best results, use a Pantone book for tints to show you different screens for every color. In addition, the Pantone book will help you see what is readable and what is not with both text and reversed text on the screens.

About Color Printing Wholesale

Color Printing Wholesale is a company that offers a wide range of quality digital printing services from brochures, flyers, business cards, postcards and posters, to digital, inkjet and web solutions, as well as laminating services. For further information, visit their website at http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com/category/BROCHURE/Brochure-Printing-Services.html.

About The Author

Granny's Mettle is a 30-something, professional web content writer. She has created various web content on a diverse range of topics, which includes digital printing topics, medical news, as well as legal issues. Her articles are composed of reviews, suggestions, tips and more for the printing and designing industry.

Her thoughts on writing: "Writing gives me pleasure… pleasure and excitement that you have created something to share with others. And with the wide world of the Internet, it gives me great satisfaction that my articles reach more people in the quickest time you could imagine."

On her spare time, she loves to stay at home, reading books on just about any topic she fancies, cooking a great meal, and taking care of her husband and kids.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com/category/BROCHURE/Brochure-Printing-Services.html

anna@colorprintingwholesale.com

A Crash Course on Graphic Philosophy 101
by: Lala C. Ballatan

Novice and professional graphic designers, we are aware that you know the basic principles of graphic philosophy. But then, as workers of art – though digital and graphic art already borders in commercial arts, there’s no harm in continuously improving our craft through constant study and practice, is there? Really great graphic designers I know have come to their status because of painstaking application and study of their past works.

We’ll review the theoretical concepts of graphics and graphic forms as a foundation on how we have to go about our graphic designs. To begin with, a graphic form is the shape that embodies a certain idea. We can take a tree and use it as an example. How many ways can we depict a tree? We can depict by a photo of a tree, or the silhouette of a tree, or even its outline. By having these forms that represent a tree, we are therefore conveying the idea of a tree.

A word of caution, though, the effectiveness of which the idea is communicated depends upon many levels of context.

The abstraction of an idea into a flat space, to make it a graphic form, is an integral part of Graphic Design. Usually, the goal is to communicate the idea as clearly as possible. So why not depict the apple as close to reality as possible with a photo? This clearly depicts an apple and leaves no room for misinterpretation. So why not use photos of everything?

The idea is usually not as simple as just an apple. The graphic form is merely a component of an entire design. In a design of a poster for example, the existence of multiple forms and large amounts of text can compete with one another for the reader’s attention. To increase readability, graphic forms are usually simplified into basic shapes, and flattened into a limited amount of color. They are made to work with type more harmoniously and further refined to convey the layers of information with clarity.

The concept of contrast also defines the graphic form of an idea. In a field of 10 squares and 1 triangle, the form that will be noticed is the triangle. A design placed on a wall, on a billboard, or on the internet, are usually lost in a field of other designs. In order to help define your idea over the others, forms that contrast those around it are effective. Basic factors such as typeface, color, scale, and form are elements that can easily help get a design noticed.

The representation of an idea goes beyond its place on the page or its place on a wall. There is the larger context to consider the audience. The ability of the audience to interpret your design is based on the ability of the audience to understand the forms in which an idea is embodied. Preferences of form, and the ability to understand form, can change by age group, location, and through time. We all understand the representation of dollars by a symbol: $. Though symbols universally communicate, they are become ordinary by usage. As the audience becomes visually educated and aware of these forms, the visual language of graphic design expands. However, the evolution of forms must also take place in order to keep interest.

In the overall scheme of things, fresh ideas and interesting graphic forms have always been able to attract attention. New ways of representation strike curiosity. But the goal is to communicate and the form is part and parcel of visual communication.

About The Author

Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a non-government organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.

Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.graphicdesignsunlimited.com

contactus@graphicdesignsunlimited.com

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