http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/category/photoshop/ All about Adobe Photoshop - tutorials, tips, resources, free Photoshop brushes, patterns, actions, Photoshop Lightroom, reviews of the latest Photoshop versions, Photoshop plugins, resources, photography and Photoshop, digital cameras, and more. en-us Photoshop Copyright 2000-2008 Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns. All rights reserved. Shirley Kaiser 2007-05-16T18:35:38-08:00 720 daily 2 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://brainstormsandraves.com/xml/brainstorms88.gif http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/category/photoshop/ 88 31 All about Adobe Photoshop - tutorials, tips, resources, free Photoshop brushes, patterns, actions, Photoshop Lightroom, reviews of the latest Photoshop versions, Photoshop plugins, resources, photography and Photoshop, digital cameras, and more. Wondering whether or not to upgrade to the new Adobe Photoshop CS3? Wondering which version of Photoshop CS3 (Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended) might be best for your particular needs? Considering whether or not to buy Photoshop CS3 for the first time? Curious about what the experts are writing about the new Photoshop CS3? Below are some well done reviews by top-notch experts who go into detail about the new features, improvements, and the pros and cons of Adobe's new Photoshop CS3. (1078 words, 49 links, 19 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/05/16/photoshopcs3/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/05/16/photoshopcs3/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-05-16T18:35:38 I've received numerous inquiries about how I created the entry post calendar icon look for Brainstorms and Raves. So today's post shares the basics of the CSS and the two tiny background images I created to achieve the calendar icon look. (1308 words, 2 links, 12 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/22/csscalendar/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/22/csscalendar/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-02-22T08:24:29 Andy King has a new article out on a fabulous color tool that automates the enhancement of color harmonies for photos or images. Automatic Color Harmony Tools first explains a bit about color harmonies and color psychology, and even snails' involvement in creating purple dye. Andy then describes how the color harmonization process works and provides several image examples along with the math calculations behind creating the best harmonic scheme. He goes on to describe how this automated tool preserves the original colors, the spacial coherency, and density of hues while automatically harmonizing the colors -- all without user intervention. The before and after samples give an idea of the results. Amazing. (260 words, 5 links, 1 image) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/01/16/colorharmonies/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/01/16/colorharmonies/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-01-16T12:25:37 While there are certainly quite a few color tools available for creating color schemes and color matching, there's a new one out now by Genometri - GenoColor that takes a very different approach to creating color schemes. GenoPalette will help you create eye-popping color schemes, color combinations, match existing colors, fine tune colors, and calibrate colors. Read more about it, along with links to other helpful color tools, in today's post. (278 words, 7 links) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/06/25/genocolor/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/06/25/genocolor/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-06-25T19:43:38 Looking around for a Photoshop plugin to create several favorites/shortcut/bookmark icons as favicon.ico files, I found a great plugin that works beautifully, and it's even free: Free Photoshop ICO Format plugin via telegraphics.com.au. They state that it works with all versions of Photoshop, including CS and CS2, and that it also works with Paint Shop Pro. Actually, you'll find quite a few interesting plugins there for Windows and Mac. The complete post has a few resources on creating them yourself and the art of creating icons, along with links to icons that you can admire for inspiration. (233 words, 6 links) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/08/22/favicon/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/08/22/favicon/ Shirley Kaiser 2005-08-22T21:06:35 As I was doing final cross-browser testing for a redesign of SKDesigns, my website design business, the design implementation was working quite well in nearly every mainstream browser for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even the Lynx text-only browser. Unfortunately, though, I found problems with three old or little used browsers, such as Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac that destroyed the CSS-positioned layout. I toiled over how to best handle these browser bugs, especially since my upcoming Web design book -- currently in production at my publisher -- stresses the importance of usability, readability, and degrading gracefully for older browsers. Today's post covers part of my decision-making journey and choices of approaches for dealing with these CSS bug-riddled old and little-used browsers. (2731 words, 53 links, 5 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/08/14/csstesting/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/08/14/csstesting/ Shirley Kaiser 2005-08-14T21:08:16 Whether or not you know its name, you've undoubtedly seen P22's Cezanne font, a faithful rendition of the French artist's handwriting, used in various media, from TV to CD covers to websites and more. Tuesday P22 announced a new and improved version of this popular font as P22 Cezanne Pro, created by James Grieshaber, longtime collaborator with P22 Type Foundry. Read the complete post for an example of this beautiful font, my review, and P22's press release. (738 words, 10 links, 2 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/05/26/cezanne/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/05/26/cezanne/ Shirley Kaiser 2005-05-26T14:11:26 There's so much to explore and inspire you just by playing around within Photoshop. Here are a couple of recent Photoshop CS tutorials and books that I discovered as I looked around for new and improved features with Photoshop's Dynamic Brushes. (399 words, 8 links, 3 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/23/photoshop/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/23/photoshop/ Shirley Kaiser 2004-08-23T12:29:13 Meandering through the Naturescapes.net website mentioned in my previous post, Amazing New Shadow/Highlight Tool in Photoshop CS, I came across Lessons from the Field: Avoiding Some of the Perils of Digital Photography, by Ellen Anon, an insightful article about venturing out or traveling with a digital camera. You'll find five invaluable tips to help you avoid problems with downloading images to your laptop, compact flash card readers, external hard drives, batteries and external power sources, and more. Her helpful tips can help you eliminate potential problems, especially when you're away from your computer traveling. (359 words, 9 links, 2 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/10/camera/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/10/camera/ Shirley Kaiser 2004-08-10T20:19:37 Have you ever taken a photo that ends up too dark or the highlight is too strong while the shadows are too dark? Haven't we all?! The new Shadow/Highlight tool that made its debut in Photoshop CS is truly amazing and incredibly helpful with adjusting shadows and highlights. Today I explored this new tool further with a variety of my photos and was astonished with its powerful capabilities. Used in combination with other helpful tools in Photoshop CS, you can more easily transform your photos to be better balanced and even spectacular. Below are a few helpful resources to help you gain some insight into using this new Photoshop tool, with a few thoughts tossed in along the way. (470 words, 8 links, 1 image) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/09/photoshop/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2004/08/09/photoshop/ Shirley Kaiser 2004-08-09T17:32:32