Best of TUTS – December
December signals the start of ‘holiday mode’ for a lot of people, but there are no holidays for TUTS! Throughout the month we released dozens of new tutorials and informative articles. Here is a selection of the best — just in case you were too busy eating Turkey and chocolate!
PSDTUTS – Photoshop
Web Design Week on PSDTUTS + You Can Now Sell Photoshop Templates via ThemeForest
For as long as I can remember we’ve gotten requests for more web design posts here on PSDTUTS. Well web design fans, it’s your lucky day because all this week we’ll be bringing you articles and tutorials on just that topic. What’s the occasion? Well today our sister site ThemeForest is adding a whole new section – Photoshop Templates – meaning you can now sell your straight Photoshop designs via ThemeForest.
How a Simple Layout Can Be Mixed and Matched with Patterns, Photos and Backgrounds
It’s pretty amazing how much colour and background can change the look and feel of a website. In this tutorial we’re going to put together a quick, simple but effective layout and then create variations using backgrounds, photos and patterns. We’ll also look at how to make seamless tiled backgrounds out of a photo, methods for ending a single photo and simple ways to create pixel patterns. In short it’s a jam packed tutorial!
Photoshop Paper Texture from Scratch then Create a Grungy Web Design with it!
This year has seen a big increase in grungey / textured / hand-drawn styled website designs. By nature I tend to design a cleaner look myself, but I thought I’d try my hand at grunge today and write up a tutorial on creating a simple paper texture from scratch in Photoshop then marrying it with a web layout to create a neat design.
Then later this week we’ll take this same web design and I’ll show you how you can take remixing even further than just changing backgrounds and colour schemes, that in fact you can change the entire style of a design. But first let’s make our paper texture site!
Five Looks, One Layout: How to Develop a Library of Web Design Styles at Your Fingertips
Earlier in Web Design Week we saw how a simple layout can be mixed and matched with different backgrounds, patterns and photos, today we’re going to take that one step further. We’re going to completely change the look of a website by changing not just the background, but the overall style of the design.
We’ll begin with the Grungy Paper Texture Site we created in a past tutorial, then we’ll change the design to look minimal, metallic, abstract, and web2! And after that we’ll talk about the process of learning a library of web design styles. So let’s get started.
Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide
The Pen Tool makes appearances across almost the entire Adobe product range. Its function and behavior varies depending on the application, but by mastering it youll find you work quicker, smoother and with better results. This guide will give you a comprehensive basis for working with the Pen Tool in Photoshop.
AETUTS – After Effects Tutorials
How to Create Explosive Flower Fireworks
In this tutorial AETUTS Editor Lloyd Alvarez shows you how to create a unique twist on the traditional fireworks display. The tutorial shows you how to create fireworks with Trapcode Particular, and how to reflect this effect over water.
Create an Elegant Signature Written With a Whisp of Smoke
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a written title that appears to be written in smoke with the use of Trapcode Particular. The final effect can be used for many purposes, particularly to create a very unique personal signature for your work.
How to Create Glowing Elegant Lines
In this tutorial you’ll be creating elegant glowing lines using shape layers within After Effects. We’ll create a few basic arc layers and then stylize them by using the find edges effect, glows, and blending modes. I enjoy this technique and you can easily adapt this concept to many different shapes to create some stunning looks.
How to Create a Cinematic Opening Title
In this tutorial AETUTS Editor Lloyd Alvarez shows you how to create a cinematic opening title using Trapcode Form similar to those used in movie trailers and openings.
After Effects for Beginners: Getting Started
When we launched we asked you to tell us what content you wanted and quite a few of you told us you wanted the basics. Well we are listening and this is the first installment of a 3 part series for after effects beginners. Each section lists at the top the topics that are covered in that section. Even though this series focuses on the latest CS4 release, most of the concepts apply to all the versions of After Effects.
This first part of the Essential Training series will teach you how to get started in After Effects. You will learn all the basics you need to be able to use After Effects and understand the cool tutorials posted here on AETUTS.
AUDIOTUTS – Audio production tutorials
8 Easy Steps to Better EQ
Knowing how to use an equalizer is a fundamental skill for anyone working with audio, yet it is one of the most abused. Here are some tips and tricks for using your EQ more effectively. You’ll notice there are more don’ts than dos on this list; that’s because EQ is best when used in moderation.
West Coast? East Coast? Hip-hop Explained
In the realm of popular music, perhaps no genre has been as popular in recent years as hip-hop. However, hip-hop is hardly a new phenomenon, so in this article, we’re going to take an in-depth look at its history and try to make sense of it all.
Warping Tunes for Live Sets With Ableton Live
Ableton is fast becoming the tool of choice for the digital DJ and has just about every tool you could ask for when putting together a live show or DJ set. One of the most important parts of getting things right on the night is syncing individual beats or entire tracks and if you want to get things 100% locked down the best strategy is to warp your files before the show.
Warp markers are small flags that Ableton uses to cut audio into small portions, these portions can then be shifted back and forth as the tempo of your project is changed. This basically means that the audio takes on an elastic nature and can be played back at any tempo without suffering from the degradation and anomalies related to traditional time stretching.
20 Worst Music Videos of All Time
It’s hard to imagine a world without music videos. But there was a time when artists had to rely on, you know, their music to convince people that their stuff was worth buying. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, it’s all about image. If you look right, chances are you’ll probably sell some records. With that much riding on your visual presentation, you would think musicians would go all out when it comes time to make a music video, and most of them do. Except for…
How to Remake Soul Survivor by Young Jeezy and Akon
When rapper Young Jeezy went into the studio with Akon to create “Soul Survivor,” the concept behind the song was a dark one. Most evident in the music video (based on the Roc-A-Fella film “Paid In Full”), the song is essentially a story about life on the streets.
Thus, when Tha Bizness and DJ Toomp handled production for the song, they needed to create an instrumental that would live up to that feeling. In this tutorial, we’re going to break down just what made the song feel so dark, and also what sort of elements went into creating a #4 Billboard Hot 100 song.
VECTORTUTS – Vector & Illustrator
New PLUS Tutorial – How to Create an Illustrative Vector Pattern Design
We have another great PLUS tutorial exclusively available to members today. If you want to create professional vector patterns in illustrator, then this is a comprehensive tutorial for you. It details how to create an illustrative pattern design. A complete and precise workflow is covered.
Illustrate and Animate a Bouncing Ball: Part 1 – Adobe Flash
Part 1 of this tutorial will take Flash novices through the fundamental principles behind drawing and animating vectors in Flash. We’ll be drawing and animating a bouncing beach ball. Prior knowledge of Flash will of course help, but the following techniques should be accessible to everyone and with most software versions. Part 2 coming soon…
Interview with Masha Gubar, AKA Limkis
Masha Gubar (AKA Limkis) is a talented digital artist from Russia. Her painterly style of vector illustrations are like poetry in visual form. Her vivid artworks are the indicators of what immense possibilities vector illustrations and programs like Adobe Illustrator are capable of.
In this interview, she sits down with me (virtually), where she goes down memory lane and recounts when she started her journey in the creative field. She shares her very first vector works, her thoughts on arts, creativity, challenges, and her road ahead!
How to Turn Glasses into a Great Geek Icon
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to make a cool, or should we say geeky, glasses icon. You should be versed in Adobe Illustrator’s tools to complete this tutorial. You’ll learn how to take creative license and create an illustration that uses a photo reference, but differs a bit in the final design.
How to Make Realistic Skate Wheels in Illustrator
Using Illustrator’s 3D Revolve tool, we will create a set of realistic skateboard wheels and map our own artwork on the wheel. We will cover advanced techniques, such as using the revolve tool, preparing the artwork, mapping it to the 3D surfaces, and some cool tricks for adding the finishing touches.
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