Archive for the 'Photoshop/Illustrator' Category

Meh

Adobe has revealed a new logo for the Photoshop family of products.

pslogo.gif

I love Photoshop. I do not love this logo. It reminds me of something I’d throw together if someone gave me two minutes to come up with a logo and was holding a gun to my head the entire time. And insisted that I use something other than Photoshop to do it.

pslogobig.gif

How un-Adobe is this cheesy abomination? Whoever designed it probably thinks, “Get it?!? You see, some people will see a ‘P’ as in ‘Photoshop’ *snark*snark*, while others will see a camera shaped object. Plus, I got to use all those canned 3-d filters that were included in my old Fireworks MX!!”

To me, it looks like a comic-book speech bubble; which just matches perfectly with the “See What’s Possible” tagline.

Well, at least the theme for the logo isn’t a highly overused cliche.

classicpbs.jpgmodernpbs.jpgplogo3.jpg
plogo1.jpgplogo2.jpg

H/T: BrandNew

Save Pluto

Hilarious Photoshop contest over at Worth1000: “Promote and advertise the ninth planet.”

copyright worth1000

Funny stuff.

Link

< - Home

Photoshop goodness

Do methane lakes exist on Titan? The Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has returned data and imagery indicating that it is a possibility.

I found myself imagining what a methane lake would look like from the shoreline… frigid, viscous liquid; hissing a drizzly mist as Titan’s strong winds rolled over it; with Titan’s yellow mist blurring the sky and scattering sunlight everywhere:

If you want the image for desktop wallpaper, choose your size and download:

Note: to find out which version to use, right-click on your desktop and select Properties. Click the Settings tab, and note the setting in the Screen Resolution box.

If you are using Internet Explorer, once the image appears, you must mouse off of the image. When you mouse back over the image, an Expand box will appear in the lower-right corner of the screen. Click it. After the image returns to 100%, right-click the image, and select Set as Background.

< - Home

The best Photoshop sharpening technique

Mis-sharpening is one of the most common image enhancement errors. For some reason, people seem to go crazy with the sharpening tool… “I must sharpen, sharpen, SHARPEN MORE!!”

What they don’t realize is that fake sharpness is not real sharpness. The goal of sharpening should be to bring out fine details that are already present in the image. Too much use of the sharpening filter doesn’t bring out existing details, it creates them. And creating things isn’t enhancement, it’s retouching.

Continue reading ‘The best Photoshop sharpening technique’

Conversation with Warnock

Info design

Two years ago, information design guru Conrad Taylor had a fascinating conversation with John Warnock, founder of Adobe Systems. They discussed Warnock’s history with Adobe, and the evolution of type design and desktop publishing.

Mr. Taylor has published an edited transcript (68 KB PDF) of the interview at the Electronic Publishing Specialist Group site.

Reading Warnock’s take on the history of information design, and his frustrations with current paradigms, is fascinating. Here’s a snippet from the transcript:

John: And I think right now – well, you read an HTML manual, and the author will proudly say that you have no control whatsovever over what the consumer of the HTML will do with your stuff; and they say that with a kind of pride like, that’s the way the universe should be. And I just think that’s nonsense.
Conrad: I see it both ways. For example I’m involved with some BCS initiatives doing work on disability, and we need for some people to be able to transform documents so they can make sense of them because of their special needs. But you want some kind of welldesigned norm from which to deviate.
John: You need to have it both ways. You want to make it possible for people to see it the way the designers wanted it, � la PDF files; or, if you want to say, Gee, here are the rules of engagement, you can deviate from those design rules, only to the extent you have to to get to disability functions, and to other things.
For instance, in the world of the Web today there’s no concept of scaling. Photographs don’t scale on the Web; nothing scales. And the world needs that. I mean, really – for accessibility, for reflow, for re-layout, for all of those things. And right now it’s a shambles. And that needs to be fixed.

Quoted material credit & copyright Conrad Taylor, EPSG

< - Home

Photoshop goodness

The newest “fad” in the digital art world is the faux mixed media collage look, made famous by Tiphanie Brooke’s work over at antigirl.

Mixing faces and good photography with vector shapes, abstract items, and text is the hallmark of this style. Here’s my first crack at it:

Faux Mixed Media Collage

Click to embiggenate. (170 KB JPEG)

< - Home

Photoshop goodness

More Photoshop imagery. I painted a large, dry, double-planet, orbiting an unseen star. In the distance, a typical binary star system shines. I used the LunarCell engine to render the planet’s surface, and my own processes for the other objects.

If you want the image for desktop wallpaper, choose your size and download:

Note: to find out which version to use, right-click on your desktop and select Properties. Click the Settings tab, and note the setting in the Screen Resolution box.

If you are using Internet Explorer, once the image appears, you must mouse off of the image. When you mouse back over the image, an Expand box will appear in the lower-right corner of the screen. Click it. After the image returns to 100%, right-click the image, and select Set as Background.

< - Home