OmahPSD

Case Study: Retouching Photos, Art or Science?

Admin-OmahPSD — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:00:08 +0000

Retouching photos wasn’t always a hot trend amongst designers but in the same time, this activity wasn’t ignored, lots of designers and photographers being very passionate about it. There is no mistake saying that retouching photos is at the crossroad of design and photography, as web design is at the crossroad of design and programming. Of course, logo design is at the intersection of design and branding and so on. The fascinating aspect of retouching photos is that, in my humble opinion, it is the most subjective type of work realized by a designer. When making websites or logos, there are some basic rules, but when you retouch photos there is nothing more than the common sense and the talent of the designer. Despite of this aspect, retouching photos is, undoubtedly, like a drug for the passionate. Willing or not, retouching photos is a combination of art and science. This association is flattering for the experts, but how could a beginner embrace a career in retouching photos? Should he be an artist, a designer or just a very good user of Adobe Photoshop? How could someone learn a special kind of art? The good news is that no one was born expert in retouching photos, all of us was at a moment a rookie that wasn’t sure about what should he do next. The bad news is that everyone that realizes an income from retouching photos worked hard and sacrificed many nights only to become more competitive. The delimitation between art and science is very superficial and no one may clearly draw the separation line. In spite of that, I insisted in making a clearer separation; I don’t have precise evidence, but, according to my humble judgment, it really works. So, it’s about science when you ask questions using “what” and “which” and art when you ask questions using “how”. It sounds weird, but I will present my deduction and I believe that the majority of you will get my point. From my point of view, retouching photos may be divided into three periods.

#1. Determining the type of project

The designers ignore this aspect and it’s a very BIG, BIG mistake. It’s true that you don’t effectively work and everyone wants to be productive but don’t fall into this trap. Being hasty doesn’t implicate saving time. A better approach is to let the “science part” determine the type of project. Retouching photos is an immense field and each project has its particularities. There are various types of projects: some images simply need some editing and nothing more (e.g. removing the backgrounds of the products from an online store), others need special improvements (e.g. retouching photos for a wedding album) while other images should be totally transformed (e.g. transforming the face of a good-looking girl into a zombie). Of course, there are many others in between situations; in this case it is better to rely more on “science”. Once you established what should be retouched, instantly the next question appears: “how to do it?” Well, here “art” takes the stage. Definitely, this is a very uncertain realm and any advice is relative. The single universal valid advice is to keep working and get inspiration from other talented designers.

#2. What should be retouched

Once established the general framework, the next stage supposes to establish which components should be modified. Of course, the pronoun “which” lets you know that we are talking about the science. Yep, at this phase the designer delimitates which aspects must be modified and which not. This is very simple to do: simply duplicate the image to retouch and mark the parts to modify. Not rocket-science, but very efficient. Here is very common a fundamental mistake: even if you can do a specific thing, it isn’t equivalent that you should do it! Yeah, the beginners, especially, fall in love with a specific technique and use it everywhere possible which isn’t good. Keep in mind, if you can, it doesn’t mean that you should! It is about the “science” to determine what should be modified, the “art” consisting in how to effectively do it. To better understand the matter of “art”, you may compare the retouching of pictures with the situation of a producer. You have the know-how, the actors (in our case, the pictures), the screen-play (in our case, the duplicate image where is marked what should be modified) but all these are in vain if the producer doesn’t have the brilliancy of adding all these “ingredients” into a great movie. I hope you got the point!

#3. Which commands and effects should be used

This aspect is mostly art related: you have the commands and the effects to apply, it’s quite probable to have some studies in the design field, but you should know how to use each one. In retouching photos, it’s extremely rare to use just a single effect/command, therefore the combination of these is the real secret behind a good retouching. I am sure that amongst the readers, some of them are experts in dealing with images while some are still at the beginning of the career and quite probable, after reading the post, they are in doubt. Well, there is still good news for them: yeah, everyone is able to become a very good expert in this field. The secret recipe is simple, but not very easy to accomplish: practice a lot and get inspiration from the most experienced. In order to complete the post I added here some examples to prove the beauty of retouching- I am a big lover of “Before and After” type of images, so I allowed myself to present some of them. Study carefully the tips above and enjoy the images below! - Written by Daniel -

Online Resume Design Business Gives Job Applicants a Chance to Shine

Admin-OmahPSD — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:59:28 +0000

As human beings, we're all susceptible to the power of imagery. Graphics and other visuals can move us to make purchases, sway our opinions, and drive us to take specific actions. This is a fact that marketing and advertising companies rely on to make billions of dollars in revenue for their clients each year. So it is a little surprising that the idea of using a visually stunning resume to land a job is a relatively new concept. Still, the early results suggest that more companies are using the information presented in the resume to judge an applicant's creativity, qualifications, and perceived interest in the position available. With this in mind, many experts are recommending that job applicants now dust off that old resume and give it a visual makeover by adding design elements such as color and graphics. Unfortunately, resume design is a very difficult concept to master, as it requires artistic talent as well as technological know-how in order to incorporate graphics into a written document. That is why businesses such as ResumeBaker.com are now popular choices for would-be job applicants looking to land their dream job. This website offers a unique service where customers simply browse a listing of dozens of designs available for use, choose one, and then upload their text resume to the company's server. After that, experts at ResumeBaker.com will custom typeset each letter of the resume into the new design, ensuring that it not only looks great but is also easy to read. With ResumeBaker.com, it has never been easier than right now to update your old resume to something more contemporary and visually appealing. They handle every design aspect for you and the turnaround time is usually just a couple of days. While other companies may offer similar services, none can match the breadth of templates available to choose from as well as the professional typesetting service which ensures that each resume looks the very best possible. When looking for work, you owe it to yourself above all else to develop competitive advantages over other applicants. The design service at ResumeBaker.com is one such advantage which will help to open doors to greater opportunities in the job market. As long as resumes are still reviewed by actual humans, you'll be able to impress upon the hiring professionals your desire to work for their company by presenting to them with a more aesthetically pleasing resume to read. A personal approach is always appreciated, as it shows that at least you've put greater thought into your application than most people, who simply send out dozens of resumes for positions without even reading the details. So distance yourself from the herd and increase your odds of getting hired by utilizing this amazingly affordable service from ResumeBaker.com.

13 Amazing iPhone App UI Concept Designs

Admin-OmahPSD — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 05:38:11 +0000

To help you find the inspiring iPhone app designs, today we have collected 13 Amazing iPhone app UI concept designs that creating by designers around the world for small projects or just for fun. In this collection you'll find all details and completed page app concept designs with stylish and cleanly designed that will bring creative inspiration for your own projects.

Medical App by Gabor Jutasi and Daniel Kövesházi

Invoice App by Tomas Zeman

DeviantArt iPhone/Concept App by Samuel Bednár

Location Finder iPhone App by Yasser Achachi

Notekall App/Contact List Manager by Michael Nunes

Alarm Clock App by Samuel Bednár

Coffely App by Jakub Antalík

T3 Player App by Eder Rengifo and Bryn Bodayle

Fitcalori App by Cüneyt SEN

TurboDoktor App by Karol Ortyl

FLOW : : TASKS App by Egor Razzhivin

Prague Zoo App by Alina Kotova

Bike Now! App by Radek Skrzypczak

What’s your favorite App UI concept designs? Do they look out-of-the-box? Do you have another cool iPhone UI designs? Please share with us in the comment below.

Six Amazing Tips to Retouch Your Photos

Admin-OmahPSD — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:34:14 +0000

Off-topic: I think that it is somehow unfair to promote so actively Adobe products in the web design blogosphere, but the "cruel reality" is that, in the most cases, Adobe created some software that simply don’t have rivals. In conclusion, you may use other software to enhance your pictures but definitely, Adobe Photoshop is the best tool. At least, in my humble opinion... Retouching photos is one of the most interesting works for a designer or for a Photoshop user. Usually, the powerful effects of Photoshop make miracles and really enhance a picture, but the final result must satisfy the tastes of viewers. Of course, every time a part of them will be satisfied while others wouldn’t fully appreciate the work done. Briefly, it’s impossible to content everyone. In fact, it is the particularity of retouching photos: it’s a science, the designer uses techniques and software to do his work, but in the same time it’s art because the inspiration and the personal contribution of the designer plays the most important role. I think that there is no doubt about the complexity and the difficulty of retouching photos. Besides that, the field of retouching is impressive. Usually people refer to retouching when dealing with improving the look of human subjects but also refers to any modification of a picture in order to enhance it. No matter if you are an experienced and creative specialist in retouching or a simple beginner, the tips below are very useful. A very common mistake in retouching photos is the negligence of the basic principles, therefore pay tenfold attention to these. The interesting side is that in retouching images the most important quality of a designer isn’t the talent, it’s the patience. Yep, no matter how talented you are, if you don’t have enough patience to work in small steps then you should rethink your strategy.

#1. Start with a clear idea, set up a framework

In retouching photos it can’t be an absolute scale to may say, i.e., it’s 90% wonderful and 10% decent, everything is relative. In spite of this complete relativism, no one should abandon the idea of having a clear plan to follow when modifying an image. A professional designer that retouches photos before starting the effective work creates a complete plan to follow and have in his mind a clear idea about how the final result should look. It shouldn’t be complicated, but it must exist. Instead of writing some words on a plain paper I prefer to make a copy of the images to modify and effectively note on it what should be corrected. The images bellow is suffice to better understand my viewpoint.

#2. Be very organized

Another mandatory condition to create interesting projects is to be perfectly organized. There is nothing wrong to have more than 100 layers for a single project; imagine how long it will take to find a specific layer when you have to search from “layer 1” to "layer 123"? A better approach is to name them accordingly as "eyes", "upper lips" etc... A professional photo retouch requires much time and it would be highly recommended to reduce the wasted time. It’s simple, you should be more efficient! A great way to save time is to adapt the workplace to your preferences, so start working on it!

#3. Don’t be hasty- use small steps to achieve a great result

As I previously mentioned, the “huge leaps” don’t exist in retouching photos. Every pixel is important and a good project doesn’t contain “ignored” pixels. Using big brushes, powerful blur effects and large selections are the perfect recipe to fail. It’s true, these save time but the quality will suffer considerably. In conclusion, if you indeed care about your projects don’t hurry to finish them; work on a small scale, zoom in and out until you are convinced that it’s OK then go to the next step.

#4. Don’t use your favorite tool, use the suitable one

Every one of us has a favorite technique or tool and it’s quite probable for a designer to use intensively in his projects the respective one. It’s quite normal, isn’t it? Well, in retouching images this fact isn’t a useful approach. No matter by preferences, in retouching images it is mandatory to use the proper tools and not the preferred ones. This situation is obvious when dealing with cloning and sampling tools, you should make a clear difference between them even if you are more accommodated to a single type. By the way, we are on the way of writing a complete guide of explaining each tool from Adobe Photoshop, what do you think, would be it useful to you? Please use the comment form to let us know your ideas.

#5. The final image should look nice at both 33% or 330% size

Usually, to modify efficiently a picture it is required to work almost at the level of pixel, zooming in very much. This is a good habit, but lots of designers simply ignore that. In fact, what people really see is the image at its natural size. Many designers didn’t care too much to refine details and the big picture is awful. The conclusion is simple: the final image must look perfect no matter the scale of zoom used!

#6. And one more thing...don’t forget to save

It sounds as a silly advice but I am pretty sure that lots of hours were lost just because the user forgets to save his work. Don’t forget…! On the other hand, being a subjective job, I strongly recommend to merely judge your work as objectively as you can. It may happen that you may not to be satisfied with what you have done at the moment and delete all the layers used. This is a grave mistake, the best mentality is to save everything you do and let some time before judging…maybe tomorrow you will have a different idea! Believe me, it really works! I hope the above tips to help everyone interested in retouching photos; it’s only the basis of this difficult job, therefore don’t expect to do miracles if you respect them. The success is dependent of the talent and experience and both of them will continue to develop only when working! You got the point, nothing is achieved without work! - Written by Daniel -

Quick Tips: Create Pixel Pattern in Photoshop

Admin-OmahPSD — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:51:23 +0000

Patterns are a great way to make your web background more beautiful. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create some pixel patterns using Photoshop with the estimation time 5 - 10 minutes. Let's get started!

STEP 1:

Start with prepare canvas. The canvas can be any size but not less than 10x10 pixels, because our pattern size are not less than 10x10 pixels. In this tutorial I use 100x100 pixels, it will facilitate when "Zoom in" and "Zoom Out". After determining the size, next is click "OK" button.

STEP 2:

Enlarge the size of canvas view to the max

STEP 3:

Create image using "pencil tool",

STEP 4:

With the format pencil tool; diameter 1px, brush color black #000000 and opacity 100%,

STEP 5:

Create a new layer, this layer will be used as a place for our shape pattern later.

STEP 6:

Create image as shown below on the layer that we have create on the STEP 5,

STEP 7:

With "Rectangular Marquee tool", create selection like the image below

STEP 8:

Then crop the image by choosing Menu "Image" and sub mene "Crop",

STEP 9:

Click the eye image on the "Background" layer, so that the image we have created on "Layer 1" look transparent,

STEP 10:

Then create the image to the pattern by choose Menu "edit" and sub menu "Define Pattern",

STEP 11:

Will appear a tab like the image below, then please write the pattern name and click "OK", that's it your pattern finished. You can see the pattern that you have made on the pattern gallery that available on your Photoshop. Addition, below are the basic forms of the pattern as in the first image above.

Conclusion

I hope with this quick tutorial will be useful for you, especially for newbie that want to learn web design. Stay tune in the next tutorial, I'll share with you how to create the graphic pattern by using recurrence objects, dont miss it! ^_^)v

Five Magical Tips to Better Handle the Typography in Adobe Photoshop

Admin-OmahPSD — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 05:17:21 +0000

It’s impossible for a web designer not to hear about the new style adopted by Microsoft called Metro. Surely, it wasn’t invented by Bill Gates company but undoubtedly, they are the ones that brought again this current into the light. Personally, I like this idea and even if we like or not, Metro will be here for some years. There is no bad or good style, it’s only about the realization of the designer that might be decent or awesome, it depends on each one’s talent, skills and inspiration. Metro style has the great advantage that brings back the simplicity and highlights the role of typography. It’s enough to check some websites build under the influence of Metro style to see that it’s fully true! In consequence, any web designer should pay closer attention to this fact and why not, to come back to typography. In order to help everyone to remember the basics of working with typography in Adobe Photoshop I created here a list of five tips to follow. Definitely, these are only a pale remembering of some rules so I strongly recommend checking and applying them in your projects. Of course, if you have another idea, feel free to put it in the comment form and submit to us.

#1. Nothing is magic, everything is experiment

Many designers don’t have enough cool blood to believe that they may also create stunning typography related works. The wrong conception is that other people have so much talent that it is impossible to compare with them. Wrong!!! In any activity field, it isn’t only about talent, the most important is the patience and the concentrated endeavor. Therefore, when working with typography be prepared to “waste” much time just searching for the best font and other similar stuff. The key of success is to experiment…yeah, this idea isn’t very satisfying, but it’s 100% valid!

#2. Set up very clearly the purpose of each letter

Another precious tip regarding working with type is to set up very clearly the destination of each letter. In fact, each letter has two different meaning: it’s part of a letter group and represents a specific sound but in the same time it has another sense that is transmitted by its shape. Imagine a poster for kids entertainment that is very nicely realized but the designer use the Verdana font…no matter how warm and kid targeted is the message, the font makes a big discrepancy and the overall result is decent. In conclusion, think twice about each letter you write.

#3. The level of discussion: point type and paragraph type

In Adobe Photoshop there are two cases when you effectively work with types. The first one, more used, is point type. That means that all the types used are forming a single line and each letter is easily customized according to the designer preferences. The paragraph type is used when working with big amount of text is required. Creating a paragraph type is very simple, just drag with your mouse the dimensions of the text box you need. It’s very common to use paragraph type when adding text for the content of a layout website (yeah, lorem ipsum dolor or any dummy text). To better handle the paragraph type you may use the Paragraph options. Even if it doesn’t seem too powerful, a good Photoshop use may obtain fabulous effects. Did you know: The options from Paragraph allow the text formatting very similar to the Office Word? Using Paragraph you may align the text according to your preferences: “Right align text”, “Left align text” etc? Adobe Photoshop cares very much about details, in Paragraph setting there is an option called “Roman Hanging Punctuation” that adjust the alignment of quotation marks?

#4. The magic box- Character

Fortunately, when working with types the possibilities of enhancing them are almost limitless. Despite that, there is an entity that has the biggest influence in setting the look of any type- Character. Inside “Character” you are allowed to modify the font used, the size of it, adjust the space between letter or words. Besides these very useful commands, there are some not frequently used adjustments but it’s better to have an idea about. Did you know: Inside “Character” you may create a “Faux Bold” or “Faux Italic” of a font in case it misses the bold and/or italic format? The Character options allow not only modifying the type and the size of the fonts used but also the space between letters, words and lines?

#5. The possibilities of Layer styles are almost magic

In design projects the letters don’t only help in writing a message, usually they are used to attract viewers. In this case, the designers should find newer and newer ways of enhancing the types used. Clearly, one of the best solutions is to use the magic powers of Layer Styles. It has so many powerful and interesting options that it is impossible not to find a new wonderful combination. It’s just a matter of time and experience. I strongly recommend playing with various combinations of effects; trying is the best teacher in these kind of projects. Did you know: You may copy layer styles and paste onto another layer? It’s enough to right click on the effects you like and you will notice an option “Copy Layer Style”. Further, you may go to other layer and paste it. These are just a few ideas about type…fortunately or not, we have two important news for you, one is positive and the other one is just “half-positive”. The full positive news is that we will give more attention to the type in the next articles, therefore you have a great reason to keep in touch with us. The half-positive idea is that you may read tons of articles about types, fonts and everything related to typography but unless you don’t practice, everything is useless. In conclusion, don’t waste a single day without following a tutorial or trying to do it yourself in order to create a wonderful project! - Written by Daniel -

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Admin-OmahPSD — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 04:37:25 +0000

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Admin-OmahPSD — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:15:22 +0000

The idea for OmahPSD came about create a place to collect High Quality PSD resources created by other designer around the world.
As a designer and developer, you always looking PSD resources to make your work easier and give you some inspiration. So the site aims to provide you with daily High Quality PSD resources to enjoy and use, we thrive to bring you only the best of the best Free and Premium High Quality PSD design.

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