Thinh Nguyen

The art of the title sequence

2009-04-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across this article about art in movie title sequences. Some of them are simply amazing. Check it out. David Airey's blog.

8 Simple Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs

2009-04-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

I came across this really nice article by Smashing Magazine about typography. " 8 Simple Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs "

How to enhance eyes in Phototoshop

2009-04-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

In this article, I'll show you how to enhance eyes in your photographs in a very simple technique.

Use the dodge tool, set on 'highlight", and dodge the reflective areas of her eyes and lips.

With this simple technique, you can now bring out highlights in your picture with ease.

Something inspirational!

2008-11-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

If you ever loose hope and feel like you can't pick yourself up when you fall down. Here is the story of Nick Vujicic.

Top 50 Text Effects on Photoshop CS3

2008-11-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

So I've search around and gathered the 50 top most awsomus maximus text effects around. The results are pretty dang awesome if you ask me. Some of these are just simply amazing! If you have one that I'd missed, please leave a comment and let me know. Enjoy!

The Grass Text

Watercolor

Frilly Bits

Dream

TEtextXT

Hell Fire

Thinh's Photoshop CS3 Secrets Revealed!

2008-11-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

Portraits filter method:
So... you wanna edit like a pro huh? Then be sure to follow this Thinh's Photoshop CS3 Secrets Revealed Series. In this article I'll show you one of my many tricks to give your photos that pro look. Warning: I'm not saying this method should be used on all your photos, sometime it works and sometime it's better to use other techniques.

We'll be working on this image on the left to make into the one on the right. Of course to follow what we're doing you need to have Adobe Photoshop CS3. First we want to open the image. You can work on the image provide above, or one of your own.

Go to FILE>OPEN or hot key COMMAND+O on the Macs and CONTROL+O on the PC.

One of the habit you should pick up when working in Photoshop is hot key-ing. Hot keys can cut your work time down tremendously, especially if you have tons of photos to edit. A few seconds here and there can add up. So the first thing I want you to do is hit COMMAND+J (Macs) or CONTROL+J (PC) to duplicate the layer. Make sure you have the layer (the "background" layer) selected first. I want you do to this twice. We want two copies because we'll want to keep the bottom layer untouched just in case we need to refer back to it later. This is another good habit to get into when working in Photoshop.

So far we just have two image laying on top of each other. Now we need to go into the blending mode selection box and choose the overplay option. What this does is overlay the pixels from the top image through to the second layer. This will darken the picture and raise the contrast a bit as you can see from the image below.

So here we can see the result of the OVERLAY. Now it's contrasting quite nicely but it is a little too much. So we want soften up this layer. One way to do that is to use the blur filter.

So go to FILTER>BLUR>GAUSSIAN BLUR.

Depending on the image, the radius you want will differ. For this specific image, I decided to go with 4. It really up to you to decide what looks good.

It looks awesome, but I still think it's way overboard still, so to lighten it up, we'll go over to the OPACITY bar and dim in down to 50%. You can play with this until you get the result you desired. So there it is. Now you have a powerful tool to use to boost your photos. Be sure to subscribe to this site via RSS (that orange icon thingamajig on the far left of the menu to get the latest tutorials and updates.

How to select color themes for your webpage.

2008-11-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

In this article we will be talking about color themes. We will focus on some method you can use to select a nice color theme for your web page or graphic art. To begin there are some basic rules about colors.

Left: The Theory of Colours by Goeth Farbkreis Right: Modern Color Wheel

Color Theory:

Complementary Colors: The complementary colors refer to colors facing each other on the color wheel. They complement each other. They basically do what their name say. They bring out the best from each other.

Here we can see three examples of complementary colors. We can see RED & GREEN are complementary to each other, while PURPLE & YELLOW and BLUE & ORANGE are also complement each others.

Analogous Colors: These colors are the one located next or near one another. These colors often blend in softer with each other.

Monochromatic: This refers to where you stay with one color but uses different tint or shades.

So now that we know a little about the color theory, we can start choosing colors that do what we want to do. If we want a page that pops out, then we probably want to go with some complementary colors. You should choose monochromatic if you want stick with a single color theme. Often it is good to use a hybrid between Analogous and Complementary colors.

Techniques:

One technique you can use is borrowing from existing themes. Not saying you should go steal people's color theme, by borrowing we mean from nature, from everyday objects or places. We'll show you what we mean. For these, we just clip a small portion of your favorite picture. With this, you just have to trust your eyes on which section to crop.

After you have crop the section you want, the colors should look similar to the color theme you want to achieve. Now go to change the image size and shrink it to about 3-5 pixel width or height. When you zoom all the way in, you'll have a nice color theme without the noise. And there you have it. A nice and easy way to have organic yet dramatic color themes.

What Makes a Blog Good?

2008-11-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

So in this article, I will be exploring what makes a blog good. I will be searching for 10 top notch blog and break down what makes them good. What drives the reader there? Is it the articles, tutorials or community? What's make people go there and read...

I will first look at some graphic design blog some entertainment blog and some others.

Money Design Around the World

2008-11-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a look at some of the currency around the world. I remember watching a show about how the US currency is the most boring in the world. While the rest of the world use bright and beautiful color in their design, we Americans have stuck the cash money green...

US Dollar

Mexican

Japanese

Germany