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Jill Greenberg look Photoshop tutorial

2009-11-05T18:45:21Z

Jill Greenberg is a famous photographer best known for her recognizable portraits look which is achieved with sophisticated lighting and intensive Photoshop post-processing. In many of Greenberg’s photos you see a simple single colored background with a vignette of light coming from the center. It is possible to create Jill Greenberg effect solely with Photoshop tools outside a controlled lit studio and this Photoshop tutorial will guide you through all steps needed. This is tutorial for intermediate/advanced Photoshop users. I intentionally do not include beginner level details to make a workflow simple and straightforward.

1. Remove background
To start with Jill Greenberg look Photoshop tutorial, you need to select your subject and remove background. Make sure you do this step as well as next very carefully and accurately.

2. Create new background
Use Radial Gradient tool and gradient from blue to white to create look of backlit photo. Don’t forget to create new layers for every step.

3. Retouch subject
Start by reducing noise and using magazine style Photoshop tutorial, specific plugin or this Photoshop action. Then smooth skin, select and increase saturation of eyes.

4. Dodge and Burn
This is the most important step in this Photoshop tutorial to create Jill Greenberg look. Done correctly this creates a soft high-pass look without the use of shooting with a ring light.

In this step you basically need to dodge light areas and burn dark ones. Though sometime you need to lighten dark areas as well.

Switch to Lab mode, select Lightness channel and paint with Dodge tool light areas and with Burn tool dark ones.

Select Highlights in tool palette if you’d like to lighten and Shadows if you need to make lighter dark areas. Exposure settings should be in the range 5-15% To accentuate any area paint it several times. highlight Hair, cheeks, and other area logically and naturally to be lightened or darkened. Return to RGB mode.

Important: to view results of your work in full color while you’re dodging and burning in Lightness channel create new Window (Window->Arrange->New window) and select all channels for this window.

5. Add Local Contrast
Use Unsharpen mask with Amount 53, Radius 22 to increase local contrast in the photo.

6. Apply Highpass sharpen
Sharpen photo like a pro using Highpass filter. You’re almost done.

7. Slightly reduce Saturation
Using Hue/Saturation tool, reduce Saturation to -10. This will make colors smoother.

Jill Greenberg look Photoshop tutorial before and after

Topaz Detail Photoshop Plugin Review

2009-11-03T21:10:23Z

Topaz Detail is a new Photoshop plugin from Topaz Labs. As it name says Topaz Detail aims at increasing or decreasing level of details in the image. It also provides tone control based on color and crisp black and white conversions. It could be also described as Clarify slider in ACR/Lightroom on steroids but more controlled and not changing color/brightness.

The main advantage of this plugin over some similar tools is that Topaz Detail does not create visual artifacts like overshooting or halos. That means you can create more natural looking ultra sharp looking/ detailed images. The algorithm behind Topaz Detail decomposes the luminance of the image into three layers of details: coarse, med, and fine. Then using Topaz Details sliders you can control the strength of these layers in the image.

Topaz Detail uses the normal Topaz Labs software interface the same as Topaz Adjust Photoshop plugin with presets down the left side with examples, a large window for the preview of your photograph and sliders at the bottom to make adjustments.I usually click on one of the presets and then make minor adjustments from there. Presets include: creative detail accent, mico-contract enhancement, edge softener, soft looking, deep-blue sky, black-and-white contrasted, bold detail, and interior strong detail.

Topaz Detail before

Topaz Detail after

Topaz Detail black and white conversion

Using Tone tab you can change overall luminance tone by adding/subtracting color in luminance channel. So unlike more universal Topaz Adjust which can be used both creatively and correctively, Topaz Detail is not supposed to change look of you photos drastically but enhance micro-contrast and correct images to look as natural as possible.

Topaz Detail before

Topaz Detail after

Sometimes using Topaz Detail you can see increased noise after applying it. That’s because along the fine details in the image Topaz Detail also boosts noise. Using clean images to work with this plugin is a must.

Some technical specification of Topaz Detail: It supports smart filters and both 8-bit and 16-bit RGB color modes, MAC and Windows versions are available. Topaz Detail also supports Windows 64 bit and is optimized for multiple CPUs.

Verdict: Topaz Detail is highly innovative product in the detail refinement and creative sharpen of photographs at very moderate price $39,99. In addition Topaz Detail has stunning black and white conversion. It shows great features right out of the box and has a lot of potential to play with.

60 cute Halloween wallpapers HQ

2009-10-25T21:51:15Z

Amazing Halloween wallpapers are here to spice up and refresh your desktop on the eve of the coolest holiday. Besides Halloween icons and Halloween Photoshop tutorials, be sure to add cute, creepy and spooky Halloween wallpapers to your to-do list. You’ll find below links to quickly download 60 awesome free Halloween wallpapers or as usually you can download all Halloween wallpapers in one pack (20MB). So what are you waiting for? Go and decorate your desktop with awesome Halloween wallpaper. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×960

Zombie Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

3D Horror House Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024 x 768

Evil Jack Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Horrific Gothic Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Bone Dance Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Dark Zombie Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Halloween Kitten Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Scratch Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Tim Burtons’s Nightmare Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1080

Scary Clown Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Happy Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×800

Cryogenic Awakening Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Horror Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024 x 768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Halloween House at the cemetery Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×800

Happy Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Horror Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1019×736

Happy Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Gothic Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1680×1050

Halloween All Saints Day Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Halloween Witch Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×960

Halloween Night Sky Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×681

Think Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×960

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Mushrooms Halloween Night Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Halloween Decorations Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Happy Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Sinister Visions Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 2048×1536

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Open Door Midnight Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Halloween Witch Broomstick Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

House of lost souls Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×800

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Halloween Warrior Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1280×1024

Pumpkin Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 2560×1600

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Glowing Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1600×1200

Creepnight Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1024×768

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Halloween Pumpkin Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 2000×1600

Happy Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1680×1050

Halloween Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1920×1200

Midnightstouch Wallpaper
Wallpaper size: 1680×1051

30 Photoshop Halloween tutorials: horror, creepy and scary

2009-10-22T19:14:02Z

Halloween Photoshop tutorials are here to spice up your Halloween. Using Photoshop and these 30 stunning horror tutorials you can make surprise for your friends or colleagues and pop up party photos. While skeletons are unpacked from closets and pumpkins are being carved, set the scary mood on your blog or laptop following any of these Photoshop tutorials. You might need some Halloween icons as well.

Skull Face Photoshop Tutorial
This tutorial will show you how to change someone’s face in a photograph to grim figure.

Scary Stuff: Zombies and Vampires in Photoshop
In this tutorial you’ll see how you can transform pictures of ordinary people into pictures of the living dead – either vampires or zombies.

Halloween Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Zombie
This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to turn people into zombie with open skull.

Halloween Pumpkin
This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to create JackoLantern using simple technique combining a few shapes and some layer styles.

Photoshop tutorial – turn woman into a vampire/witch
This tutorial will show you how to turn a woman into a vampire/witch.

Crack and Peel look
Give skin a cracked or peeling look with this Photoshop tutorial.

Drawing a Halloween cartoon – The witch
In this Halloween Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to quickly draw stylish witch.

Turning Portrait into Stone Statue
Following this tutorial you can make a statue from a portrait with Photoshop.

Freakish Zombie in 11 Steps
With this tutorial you will turn any man or woman into zombie with blood and bruises just in 11 steps.

A Slick Supernatural Text Effect
This tutorial will show you how to create a smoky night effect on text to give it a supernatural sort of feel.

Alien Invasion Photoshop Tutorial
Learn how to turn a nice landscape image into an impressive horror stage.

Turn a girl into a witch in Photoshop
With a few bleedings from the eye painted in Photoshop attractive girl turns to another one scary witch.

Bloody mouth Photoshop tutorial
Using this tutorial you will create bloody-mouth look with dark and dynamic style of flow.

Dark book of Photoshop
All in one tutorial pack will teach you a number of scary effects including daemons, zombies and flame.

Vampirize Gwen Stefani
This Photoshop tutorial shows how you can make a perfect “vampire look” of anyone’s.

Halloween Photo Effect: The Evil Eye
This tutorial will show you how to create glowing eyes (AKA the Evil Eye) effect in Photoshop.

Learn how to Zombify people
Learn how to make people looks scary and create horror zombie like effect.

How to turn anyone into elf
With this Photoshop tutorial you can quickly turn anyone into nice looking elf.

Devil’s Yellow Eye Photoshop tutorial
In this tutorial you’ll see how to turn any pretty eyes into more sinister devil’s yellow eye look.

Glowing Monster’s Eyes at Night
Follow this Photoshop tutorial to make any portrait look dark and creepy.

Photoshop Tutorial: Good and Evil
This tutorial will show you how to split a portrait photo into two personalities dark and evil and light and sparkly.

Mysterious horror landscape
With this Photoshop tutorial using composite technique you can turn any landscape into dark fantasy place.

Making a image look evil
How to make an image look evil and pretty dark you will learn in this Photoshop tutorial.

Scary Clown Photoshop tutorial
Turn any portrait into scary clown and amuse your friends or children with a sinister and creepy look.

Alienize: Transform a person into an alien
This tutorial will show you how to create a very cool looking alien using Photoshop.

Horror Movie Style Cut Head Effect
Create scary picture of person holding head in hands and fountain of blood with this Photoshop tutorial.

Horror TV Animation Photoshop Tutorial
Create a cool, horror movie TV animation effect with this Photoshop tutorial.

How to Create a Horrific Zombie Poster
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to re-create a classic zombie poster using multiple elements.

Making a room look evil with Photoshop
Make a boring room or hallway look evil with the use of a Photoshop grunge effect in this tutorial.

Design a poster for a horror movie
This tutorial will show you how to design a poster for horror movie with scary look and feel.

Halloween free vector Icon set

2009-10-22T19:11:37Z

Halloween free vector Icon set contains 12 high-quality elegant raster and vector icons. Halloween icon set is a new and sparkling icon collection containing 256×256 pixels PNG, AI (Adobe Illustrator CS) and SVG file formats. That allows you rescale icons to any size without details or quality loss.

All the icons included in the set have a clean, modern look and have consistency in color and details. The icons are free for use in any non-commercial and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites without any restrictions. Though you cannot sell or redistribute the icons without permission.

Download Halloween free vector Icon set

Top 10 Project Management Books

2009-10-14T01:24:08Z

Project management books that are truly worth reading by every project manager are included in this review. These books is a great starting point for a new project manager, source of inspiration as well as tips and tricks for experienced PM, great help for project manager who’d like to refresh some topics and get some new ideas and best practices or to pass PMP exam. Some of these project management books can also help your stakeholders understand better basics of project management. If you have a favorite book on project management not included in this review please add it in the comments.

Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management (2nd Edition)

Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management is great well-written and well-paced project management book which can be used in different ways: a fine introduction for educating new project managers, a refresher for experienced project managers, a recommendation reading for clients to help them understand project management. Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management is jam-packed with theories and a wealth of practical experiences and lessons learned.

Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management will show you exactly where to start–and walk you step by step through your entire project! Expert project manager Gregory Horine shows you exactly what works and what doesn’t, drawing on the field’s proven best practices. Understand your role as a project manager, gain the skills and discover the personal qualities of great project managers, learn how to organize, estimate, and schedule projects effectively, manage deliverables, issues, changes, risks, quality, vendors, communications, and expectations.

PMP Exam Prep: Rita’s Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam (6th edition)

This is the 6th edition of the PMP Exam Prep (based on the 4th edition of PMBoK Guide), which has become the standard training material to help project managers pass the PMP exam. This edition contains hundreds of updates and improvements – including new exercises and sample questions. Reviewing topics not covered in the PMBOK, helping you identify potential problem areas in your knowledge, offering hundreds of sample questions that appear on the exam; critical time-saving tips for sitting through a four hour exam plus games and activities available nowhere else, this book will help you pass the PMP exam on your FIRST try.

PMP Exam Prep goes beyond the material contained in the PMBOK incorporating input about project management from around the world. The emphasis on this publication is the tools you need to pass the exam and apply project management principles to real-world situations. If you are prepping for the PMP exam, this book is a must. This self-contained course explains the PMI certification process, offers exam-taking tips and focuses your attention on key project management concepts.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management (3rd edition)

This is one of the bestselling books ever published on the topic of project management. It presents you with a wealth of proven techniques for managing projects from establishing project objectives to building schedules to projecting costs. The book includes all the basics on defining, planning, and tracking a project, as well as building stronger project teams. This new edition includes new chapters on Agile Project Management, PMI exam prep, and more.

For someone new to Project Management it has a logical, step by step flow backed up with relevant visuals and great case studies ranging from the development of the Boeing 767-400 to how Seattle’s Safeco Field keeps their grass green. For the more seasoned PM it is a treasure trove of problem-solving techniques, examples and formulas. Like the rest of the Fast Forward series, this book is designed to let the reader extract maximum information in minimum time. There is a strong use of graphics with tables, charts cross-heads, and bullet points. Important passages are flagged in bold and/or emblazoned with the words key concept.

Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management

This book is a reality-based guide for modern projects. You’ll learn how to recognize your project’s potholes and ruts, and determine the best way to fix problems – without causing more problems. Manage It! will show you how to beg, borrow, and steal from the best methodologies to fit your particular project. It will help you find what works best for you and not for some mythological project that doesn’t even exist.

Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management book author Johanna Rothman is a project management consultant. She has seen many different companies trying many different project management lifecycles. Instead of outlining one way to do things, Rothman describes a continuum of project lifecycles from waterfall (what she calls “serial”) to agile. She talks about when each is appropriate, things to watch out for in different contexts, and when the odds are against success in each kind of lifecycle. Other topics that are explored in the book include schedule games and how to avoid them, how to manage meetings, how to integrate testing into your project.

The One-Page Project Manager: Communicate and Manage Any Project With a Single Sheet of Paper

This book should be required reading for every manager who wants to improve project performance, accurately tell their story, and do it efficiently. The One-Page Project Manager shows you how to boil down any project into a simple, one-page document that can be used to communicate all essential details to upper management, other departments, suppliers, and audiences. This practical guide will save time and efforts, helping you identify the vital parts of a project and communicate those parts and duties to other team members. It’s adaptable to virtually any process in your organization, including ISO and SAP.

The book is an easy read, does not try to re-teach project management but explains the use of the form. The book simplicity makes it easy for non-professional and beginning project manager’s .For those with experience this is certainly a method to adopt for rapid, vivid, and persistent communication. If you’ve ever needed to manage several projects at once, you know the dilemma: there has to be a better way to track the projects quickly, concisely and reliably, but finding and learning that better way always seems too tedious, costly, or complicated. This book solves that problem.

Project Management Case Studies (3rd edition)

Compiled by Harold Kerzner, the leading authority on project management, Project Management Case Studies presents the most comprehensive collection of project management case studies available today. Featuring more than 100 case studies, this essential book illustrates both successful implementation of project management by actual companies as well as the pitfalls to avoid in a variety of real-world situations.

Most of the case studies were drawn from the author’s consulting practice and generally focus on at least one or two specific points. Other than on-the-job training, the author states that case studies and situations are the best method to learn project management. The book based on the PMPBok processes gives real life examples of issues which a project manager is more likely to come across. It covers a wide span of applications including medical and pharmaceutical, aerospace, manufacturing, automotive, finance and banking, and telecommunications.

Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme (5th edition)

The fifth edition of this popular project management book gives a comprehensive overview of all of the best-of-breed project management approaches and tools today, including Traditional (Linear and Incremental), Agile (Iterative and Adaptive), and Extreme. Step-by-step instruction and practical case studies show you how to use these tools effectively to achieve better outcomes of projects at hand. Plus, the book provides full coverage on managing continuous process improvement, procurement management, managing distressed projects, and managing multiple team projects.

The author has provided an exemplary text that provides an incredibly thorough illustration of the elements, processes, and learning objects comprising project management. The book takes a complicated subject and breaks in down into so much detail that anyone can absorb the concepts. The material on adaptive project management offers a way out for those projects where the method of implementation is so unknown that traditional full-court project management practices will only hurt and not help. Much of the information on adaptive and extreme project management is similar to the “extreme programming” methodology, but specifically targeted towards a project manager.

Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls Every Project Faces

Scrappy Project Management book is about what REALLY happens in the project environment, how to survive it, and how to make sure that your team avoids the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces. This book is the resource for the power starved PMs who need to learn how to street fight for resources, deal with customer insanity, and dodge the falling rocks as you stay on top of everything. A fighting spirit and a confident strategy is the return on this investment. This is a book for professionals who want to achieve greatness and demonstrate fearless leadership: for their companies, for their customers, for their teams, and for themselves.

What’s great about this book is the style in which it’s delivered. The real world stories, anecdotes, famous quotes and the author’s unique sense of humor to illustrate the points and make them more memorable. The book also provides a set of checklists, sample diagrams and templates to be used in managing the project and communicating with the team and executives. This book covers the major points to help achieve success. If you’re a team lead, project or functional manager, this book will arm you with valuable insights and motivate you to avoid common and deadly project pitfalls.

Results Without Authority: Controlling a Project When the Team Doesn’t Report to You – A Project Manager’s Guide

“Results without Authority” is a powerful source of tools and common sense advice for people managing projects without formal authority. The book stands out by methodically and thoroughly exploring the issue of control throughout the project life cycle. This practical project management reference brings together a lot of ideas and concepts worth considering for readers who are confronted with projects over which they have little to no formal authority. Throughout the book, author keeps your attention with clear, concise writing and the occasional unexpected laugh.

This book is full of sound, practical, project management advice for carrying out IT and similar type projects. It is also laced with the practical wisdom that only comes from years of experience. Kendrick weaves theory and practice to build a comprehensive set of tools, templates, and checklists that can be used by everyone from the newly appointed project manager to the steely veteran. “Results Without Authority” must be required reading for all project managers, whether they have authority or not.

Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Microsoft’s biggest projects, Scott Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to lead critical projects from start to finish with a particular focus on web and software projects. The book includes critical and common challenges of leading projects and managing teams, diagrams, photography, and war stories of success and failure. This book offers practical tools and methods to make sure your projects succeed.

Making Things Happen doesn’t cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask. Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm’s reach throughout the life of your project.

5 Great Tips for Modern Business Card Design

2009-10-01T20:13:09Z

To start with modern business card design, I’d say that business cards are obsolete. The role of paper business cards decreased drastically with the appearance of social networks, and virtual business cards. So business card design should change as well. I don’t know about you but I don’t keep business cards anymore. I use them to add the person I met to LinkedIn or my Google contacts. I want to see the person picture, his background, not just email address or phone number. After I used business cards to put someone in my database it goes straight to the Recycle bin. Is there sense to spend a lot of time on creative design, expensive materials or ways of printing? I don’t think so. Further I put down some tips based on my own experience for the modern business card design.

Business card design should be simple and readable

Business card should not make people puzzled. You obviously don’t want them spend time trying figured out what you wanted to express by using some fancy design. Name, logo of your company and contact information, there should not be any extra elements. If you want to stand out, business card won’t help if you are not stand out yourself.

Business card design should NOT evoke negative emotions

Don’t forget: positive impression for one person could mean completely opposite for another. The impact of controversial design could be tremendous. The last thing you need is to evoke negative emotions. The more neutral business card design is the better.

Business card design should be NOT expensive

Why invest efforts in the thing which is obsolete? Not expensive business card design does not mean you should by DIY business cards and use your home printer. Most of the time, digital printing on the rather thick paper would be sufficient.

Business card should contain up to date and correct information

Nothing could be worse than email, phone number or website address in your business card which doesn’t work. I don’t know about you but it’s either my personal information changes or I want to tweak design. Usually I still have quite a lot of unused business cards when I already needed to print new ones. So save a dime and don’t print too many at once.

Don’t pack too much information into business card

The white space rules everywhere, including business card design. If you’re trying to tell the story on your business cards or pack there as many digits as possible believe me it’s not the right vehicle to do so. Does your business partner really need to know 5 phone numbers, 3 emails, 2 faxes plus full address wit postal code? Choose only most important for your communication channels and stick to them.

Bonus tip: Maybe ten years ago it was cool to see all these strange forms, material and colors business cards as well galleries with creative business cards designs for inspiration. But now it’s no more than a bad practices so don’t forget to check out:

How NOT to do business cards design 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Top 10 Web Design Elements: Current Trends vs. Past

2009-10-24T23:00:32Z

What are the current trends in using web design elements? How far modern web design trends went from the past? I looked through hundreds of both very popular and niche blogs, corporate websites, start ups. I handpicked web design elements dominating at the moment. They look even more interesting in comparison with the past web design trends. Please add in the comments your examples and elements you think should be included in this list.

Web Design elements: current trends

Green grass, leaves and trees

Have you seen any site on environment topic which doesn’t use this web design element? Recently it became trendy to use it on all kinds of websites not just green ones. Sites which are using green grass, leaves or trees as web design element: Mint.com, Agilezen.com, Picnik.com.

User icons

User icons as main web design graphic element are used not only on social media websites but on every website which would like to emphasize its user base or community size. Sites which are using user icons as web design element: Facebook, Newsgator, MLB.com

Slideshow

Corporate websites are using slideshow on the main page to display featured products while blogs and news sites are using it to feature posts. Sites which are using slideshow as web design element: ATT, Dell.

Made up character

More and more sites are using some fairy tale or fantasy character to stand out. Sites which are using made up character as web design element: Twitter.com, Mailchimp.com, Nybbletech.com.

Big vibrant icons

Some websites are fully packed up with a number of icons, do visitors love them? Sites which are using Big vibrant icons as web design element: 37signals.com, Expressionengine.com, Officevp.com

Bonus. White/gray space

You can hardly find any big site which uses for background any color except white. Sometimes the only difference between very similar looking websites is its logo. Examples: apple.com, Bell.ca, Techcrunch.com, Mashable.com

Web Design elements: past trends

Smiling business people

Smiling business people was the most common image on almost every corporate website. Sites which are still using smiling business people as web design element: UBS, Mailermailer,

Globe

Globe image as a symbol of international operations was very popular some time ago. Sites which are still using globe as web design element: Globallogic.com, Buzzding.com

Puzzle

Symbol of the whole and its parts, as well as unknown, puzzle is still used as a web design element. Sites which are using puzzle as web design element: Wikipedia, Firefox addons.

Light bulb

Symbol of creativity, new idea or just utilities is also remains as quite widely used web design element. Sites which are using light bulb as part of their design: Ginspire.co.uk, Constratega.com

Gears

If there’s a need to show any process, gears is fail free choice of many web designers. Check out: Wpcoder.com, Gatewaycg.com websites.

How to Optimize Images for Web – Image Optimization Ultimate Guide

2009-09-17T22:46:22Z

Optimizing images for web you’re making your web site load faster. Visitors don’t want to wait much. In addition you reduce bandwidth usage and consequently your bills. The more visitors your site or blog gets the more important is to optimize and reduce image size. Understanding basics of image compression and which formats to choose lets you not only significantly cut down on image size but even improve image quality. In addition, interactive flash projects (especially banners limited in Kb size) are where image optimization could have the most immediate and practical impact.

Crop out excess white space
Sometimes you have extra space or padding around graphics so that they don’t touch accompanying text or web page elements. Instead, crop out that space and use CSS to create the padding around the graphic.

Resize images in Photoshop not in browser
Don’t use HTML or CSS properties to resize images within the browser, instead resize your images in Photoshop or other software exactly to the dimensions you will use on your site.

Choose the right format
JPEG is the format for photos. JPEG can contain millions of colors and it has great compression. Most cameras store photos in JPEG format. It’s a lossy format (important! 100% quality doesn’t mean lossless), so you lose quality with every edit. JPEG doesn’t support transparency.

GIF is the format for animations. GIF is a palette (also called “indexed”) type of image. It contains up to 256 indexed colors. GIF is a lossless format, which means that when you modify the image and save it, you don’t lose quality.GIF is now used more for “loading…” animations instead of blinky banners in the past. GIF also supports transparency: a pixel in a GIF image is either fully transparent or fully opaque.

PNG 8 is the format for logos, illustrations, icons, buttons, backgrounds, graphs. PNG8 is a palette image format with lossless compression, just like GIF. Unlike GIF, PNG 8 usually yields a smaller file size and supports alpha (variable) transparency (semi-transparent pixels appear as fully transparent in IE6).

PNG 24 is used when you need alpha transparency and more than 256 colors. PNG 24 is also the only one choice when you need superior image quality and file size isn’t important for you. PNG 24 size is usually bigger than PNG8 and JPEG. Truecolor PNG 48 is a lossless compression type that can have millions of colors (16 bit per channel) and can be perfect intermediate for the multiple edits.

Use Save for Web instead of Save as in Photoshop
Save for Web command in Photoshop (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S) is provided for optimizing images to desired size/quality. In addition to providing fine tune control and preview to experiment with image file sizes and quality, Save for Web command in Photoshop tries to reduce file size by stripping out al unnecessary metadata information as well as image preview (which can double file size).

Use fewer colors for indexed images and try Local (Selective) palette
If you’re optimizing icons, buttons or other artwork in PNG8 try to reduce colors numbers down to 32 or 64. Often you will cut out image file size significantly without decreasing visual image quality. Using the selective palette lends itself better to blockier pixels which make image compression a lot more efficient as compared to Perceptual or Adaptive palettes which tend to be too diffuse.

Convert PNG to Grayscale if you don’t need color
Set Grayscale color mode in Photoshop (Image ->Mode->Grayscale) for images prior to saving them in PNG. It can save you some Kb, especially for semi-transparent images.

Try PNG 24 instead of PNG 8
Sometimes small size images or gradients actually compress better as PNG 24 than PNG 8 because of the way that the lossless compression algorithms work and the overhead that a color index adds.

Use Posterization to reduce number of colors in PNG
Posterization reduces the amount of colors, converting similar colors to the single one. To use this technique apply Image->Adjustment->Posterize with the amount of Levels around 40 before saving image. Watch out: color alternation is possible, especially if you’re trying to stitch image with a HTML background. Included in free Photoshop action to optimize images for Web.

Remove dirty transparency to optimize PNG image
This technique helps to remove all hidden data in a transparent area to reduce file size. It works not with every image well so try to experiment. Ctrl+Click on image thumbnail in Layers palette to create a selection, then invert it: Select ->Inverse. Switch to Quick Mask mode by pressing Q key. Refine selection to include only transparent pixels by applying Image->Adjustments->Threshold (amount 255). Exit Quick Mask mode by pressing Q again and fill the selection with black. Invert the selection again and add mask. You can reduce the PNG image size by more than 50% using this trick. Included in free Photoshop action to optimize images for Web.

Avoid saving JPEG as Progressive
By saving JPEG in Progressive mode Photoshop adds multiple copies of the image at lower resolution to make the image appear quickly on the screen, while progressively improving in quality. While sometimes it can give you slightly lower file size, most of the time the file size will be bigger. Progressive JPEG files are not displayed on many mobile devices.

Use Eight-Pixel Grid to optimize JPEG image
JPEG image consists of a series of 8×8 pixel blocks and each block is optimized independently when image file is saved. Many advanced utilities for JPEG optimization have selective optimization feature which lets you apply different quality in different image regions. Align the image with the eight-pixel grid before saving (especially rectangular objects) and you will cut the file size down improving image quality at the same time.

Reduce noise to decrease image size
Noise requires from JPEG algorithm add more recourses to store it leaving less space for really useful information, i.e. image itself. It means by eliminating noise you will not only decrease file size but improve overall visual look of the image. You can use a number of different Photoshop plugins such as Noise Ninja or Imagenomic Noiseware professional. The easy way to reduce noise in Photoshop is to change color mode to Lab and then apply Filter->Median (2-4) to Channels a and b. Included in free Photoshop action to optimize images for Web.

Blur the background
Blurring the background of a JPEG image helps the JPEG compression engine to make the image smaller. Because of the way JPEGs are compressed, blurred images will be smaller than non-blurred. To use this technique Select your main object, Invert the selection by pressing Ctrl+I, apply small amount of Gaussian blur (1-2px). Now you can save your image as JPEG with smaller file size.

Add blur when Saving for Web
Because the JPEG compression algorithm has an easier time when compressing areas with subtle transitions in colors and tonal range, adding a small amount of blur (0,2-0.3) to your images can help reduce file size. Decreasing Saturation and Contrast slightly can also have a good impact on the size of JPEG images.

Use special tools to optimize images further
There’s number of excellent online tools as well as downloadable utilities which can help you greatly reduce your images file size without any loss of quality. Most of them don’t have any settings you just need to point these tools to your image folder or website and get optimized processed images.

Smush.it is online tool that uses optimization techniques specific to image format (PNG, GIF, JPEG) to remove unnecessary bytes from image files without any loss of quality. You can use Smush.it as a part of YSlow Firefox plugin or WordPress plugin.

punypng
punypng uses several web optimization techniques to reduce the file sizes of your images including choosing and converting to the best image format. Punypng developers claim that it is currently more efficient than Smush.it.

PNGSquash
PNGSquash is a lossless PNG compressor app for OS X that combines the top PNG compressors (PNGCrush, OptiPNG, AdvPNG, and PNGOut) into a streamlined interface for quick and effective compression.

PNG Monster
PNG Monster is a PNG compression GUI designed to very easily lossless compression of large numbers of PNG files automatically with the lowest possible file sizes. PNG Monster uses a variety of command-line applications (PNGRewrite, PNGCrush, OptiPNG, PNGOut, AdvPNG) compressing with slightly different compression methods.

SuperPNG
SuperPNG is a free Photoshop plugin for saving significantly smaller PNG files compared to Photoshop’s native save feature for PNG’s. It also includes some advanced PNG-creation features such as 16-bit color support, variable compression, gamma correction, and metadata saving.

SuperGIF
SuperGIF is a free drag and drop utility for Windows and Mac OS users that optimizes your GIF images. it can compress GIFs 50% more in some instances. The free version can only compress one GIF at a time (no batch processing).

jStrip
jStrip is a free tool to reduce the file size of JPEG images without sacrificing image quality. jStrip works by removing unneeded data from JPEG files without quality loss or recompression.

Top 50 Stupid, Bad, Banned Ads and Commercials

2009-09-09T19:49:27Z

Most stupid, bad and controversial ads and commercials are handpicked for this review. Most of them either produced a lot of buzz and went viral or were banned. Lack of creativity, bad implementation or just awful idea, there’s tens of reasons why these ads and commercials have appeared. While there’s tons of post for people looking for inspiration, I decided to do completely opposite. Sometimes the best way to learn is to see how NOT to do something. If I missed your favorite stupid or bad ad, please add it in the comments. Enjoy!

Dancing Pope Ad

A nightclub leaflet showing the late Pope John Paul II holding a bottle of beer and dancing with a blonde woman has been banned.

O M G I G P Internet Explorer 8 Puke Vomit Girl

The most disgusting ad in a series of stupid Microsoft’s ads for Internet Explorer 8.

Google Pays me $150/Hour

‘Google has blessed me with a $5000 a month at home job. Anyone is eligible.’ Internet ad spotted in the wild.

Salem Oregon Shopper Ads: Mike’s Stupid Cb Shop

Stupid ad of guy making repainting which leads to stupid website and stupid gallery. Literally!

People In Newspaper Ads Who Look Like They’re Farting

A gallery of newspaper ads with people looking stupid and odd.

DirectTV Chile: Villains in Christmas.

“Some are good only at Christmas. DirectTV is good all year”. Even the most evil characters get together to spread love in Christmas!

The Hours ad on the eve of Oscar season

‘A woman’s whole life… in a single day…Just one day, and in that day, her whole life’ Sounds smart or stupid?

McDonald’s iced plastic coffee as product placement

Fox TV news anchors enjoy two plastic cups permanently filled with some kind of bogus drink.

Movie “Rules of Attraction” poster

Poster from series World’s Raciest Ads, it was banned in America for using stuffed animals to turn on a nation of plushy fetishists.

Be the Root poster.

It’s a poster for Evergreen, a Canadian nonprofit that promotes “deepening the connection between people and nature.”

Montana Meth Project

Multiple stupid ads revealing the severe physical and psychological impacts associated with Meth use. Instead of reducing meth use it could even be making the drug more acceptable.

I cannot believe you don’t have life insurance

The image of angry boy went viral as another example of stupid ads not working but making a lot of fun.

Speed bump

This video has a mixture of Germans, mad scientists and speed bumps to make perfect stupid ad.

Unfortunately placed ads

If you put together anti-obesity and fast food ads that’s making an excellent stupid combination.

Human puppet

One more stupid anti-drug commercial which instead of showing horrible things connected with drugs makes a lot of fun of it.

Travelers Insurance: “To catch a geek, you have to think like a geek.”

Offensive and stupid magazine ad with the implication that geeks are somehow a threat and that’s why you need to buy their insurance.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Guerilla Marketing

The discovery of a series of suspicious objects (stupid guerilla campaign) in crowded public places have set off a wave of bomb scares across Boston, snarling traffic and subways across the city.

Brazilian Institute for Oriental Studies

Winner of Phallic Logo Awards is a very serious institution but its logo is more than bad and stupid.

Zooppa croudsourced ads

People powered brand energy on Zooppa often fail, check out for more stupid ads and commercials.

Too Civilized for Coffee?

Todd & Holland Tea Merchants Stupid Ad with implication that everyone who drinks coffee is not civilized.

iPod and kids deaths

One more stupid print ad with intention to depict teenagers dying as a result of listening to iPods whilst they cross the road.

Bad and stupid anti-smoking ad from New Zealand group ASH

Don’t use 9/11 as an advertising tool. Not even for a good cause, like this anti-tobacco ad.

The best ad ever made on anti-smoking

This ad made by Indian Cancer Association turns to be actually promoting smoking (watch till the end).

Anti douchebag collar clips

What is advertised? If you decided that its collar clips you’re wrong, it’s Miller beer.

Whiz Biz: Morning after

Stupid ad with bad idea and direction but at least sexy model. BTW, if you don’t get that it’s ad for hygiene products.

Mexico reconquers California with help of Absolut vodka
The offensive stupid billboard ad for Absolut vodka is a colorful map depicting the whole of California as still part of Mexican territory.

Just opened, near Kimaya Kothrud

Will you go after this badly photoshopped ad to McDonald’s to see some creepy clown baby?

The Ellen Feis Apple switch advert

A few moments in the life of one girl who lost her school work to a crashing computer. Why the hell she didn’t press Ctrl+S more often?

Obay fake pills ads

A teaser ad of fake pills were spread in Toronto to make parents realize that forcefully making students do something is wrong.

Trojan oinks up men pigs ad

This stupid ad features a bunch of attractive women unhappily surrounded by a group of pigs. The women try their best to ignore the pigs’ pick-up lines, until one buys a condom.

How Not to Advertise on the Internet

As this blog post explains online game ads can go just nuts.

Sony PSP White is Coming ad campaign

One ad from the campaign shows the white woman gripping the black woman’s face in a dominant gesture.

Twix Offers Interactive Date-rape Tutorial

Twix ad campaign “When you need a moment to chew it over” suggest that men are either too stupid to think of the proper things to say, or they are manipulative jerks who need twix-time to plan their next lie.

Stamford Hotel ad

This stupid ad makes completely opposite effect as intended to attract new hotel visitors.

Pregnant Boys in Milwaukee

If a man gets pregnant, it should be a lot of fun but unlike Junior movie with Schwarzenegger this teenagers get pregnant ads look just stupid.

Funny, Stupid, and Banned Commercials

Part 8 of stupid, funny and banned commercials compilation. Definitely must see!

Lotto ad

Embarrassing Dude following couple everywhere ad doesn’t make other impression as a lot of fun.

iRobot Roomba TV commercial

According to iRobot’s new advertising for its adorable little auto-vac, Mom is in charge of cleaning up after her pig children and jackass husband.

Mr. T Speedwalker Snickers Ad

A British commercial for a chocolate bar featuring The A Team star Mr. T has been pulled over concerns it could cause offence to homosexuals.

Fosters chilled

Keep the beer chilled in the shadow of big boobs, isn’t it stupid?

Flat Buns Carl’s Jr. Commercial

Ad features a teacher shaking her booty in front of a classroom of ogling, pubescent white boys rapping about how they like “flat buns” while their teacher bumps and grinds.

Coca-Cola: The Great Escape

Nonsense student film like ad promoting Coke for homeless people.

It’s 30 for a reason road safety advert

Uk road safety advert from 2000s highlighting the ‘It’s 30 for a reason’ message. A little girl explains that if she’s hit by a car at 40mph there’s an 80 per cent chance she’ll die. If hit at 30mph there’s an 80 per cent chance she’ll live.

Microsoft in Poland ad: Asians Ok, Blacks Maybe Not

Microsoft has removed the head of the black man for the Polish version and photoshopped in a white guy’s head instead.

Dust Jeans: Let’s Hold Hands

Badly photoshopped ad looks like guy is carrying around somebody’s severed hand.

Paradise Lakes Resort G-string contest ad

A clothing-optional retreat in Florida has had its membership in the American Association for Nude Recreation suspended over “sexualizing the nudist experience.”

Coors Light Beer advertising ‘Colder than people from Toronto’

Ad in British Columbia which pokes fun at Toronto was taken down after numerous complaints.

Tom Ford fragrance ad

One of the 34 Advert Graveyard banned ads (check out everything!).

Panasonic Viera’s He Didn’t See That Coming

Wannabe viral but low-production, badly acted commercial for Panasonic Viera’s fail.

Bonus

How much advertisers are paying for your attention?

The 5 Most Annoying Banner Ads On The Internet

The Ten Worst Ads on MySpace

13 Insanely Horrible Local TV Ads

Scary Nike Running Commercial, one of the 5 scariest adverts

Topaz Adjust Photoshop Plugin Review

2009-08-31T15:11:54Z

Topaz Adjust is a Photoshop plugin that lets you make gorgeous looking HDR photos just from one image. Besides HDR look Topaz Adjust lets you create high contrast, ultra sharp looking images similar to Dave Hill look photo effect. In general, Topaz Adjust provides powerful control over image exposure, detail (or better say microcontrast), and color which you can use either in creative way (create from original image something completely different looking) or use it slightly to correct your photo and make it pop.

The Topaz Adjust UI is very simple and intuitive. Topaz Adjust comes with tens of presets. You can add to the 23 provided presets by saving your own settings or importing others from the Topaz online community. It shows how given combination of settings will affect your photo as thumbnail along left side and a preview in the right. Clicking thumbnail will apply chosen preset to the image almost instantly.

After you applied any of the presets you can tweak the setting to your taste. You have 4 main tabs (and many sliders inside each) to play with: Exposure, Detail, Color and Noise. Context-sensitive hints, which pop up whenever you hover your mouse over a slider control or button, are very helpful to learn what each and every setting is supposed to do. There is also option to save temporary snapshots and compare two groups of settings.

Topaz Adjust: before

Topaz Adjust: after

Topaz Adjust: before

Topaz Adjust: after

Some technical specification of Topaz Adjust: It supports smart filters and both 8-bit and 16-bit RGB color modes, MAC and Windows versions are available. Topaz Adjust also supports Windows 64 bit and is optimized for multiple CPUs.

Verdict: taking into consideration its fantastic features, ease of use and bargained price (49,99$) Topaz Adjust is highly recommended for anyone who is working with creative photography and photo post production.

Topaz Adjust useful links
Topaz Adjust presets
Topaz Adjust tutorials

MODx Web Development book

2009-08-26T18:08:41Z

MODx Web Development book from Packt Publishing provides great documentation for MODx CMS users (if you’re not familiar with this flexible and powerful CMS, check out How to make website with MODx CMS in 10 minutes. MODx Web Development book starts from how MODx fits into family of content management systems and goes to step by step explanation on how to setup, customize and manage site on MODx. The book also contains a lot of code examples and illustrative screenshots.

While no knowledge of PHP or programming is needed to start with MODx Web Development book, by the end of reading it you will know everything needed to create a powerful, dynamic website. This book can be extremely useful both for beginner and advanced users since it outlines most required solutions, tips and tricks in one place.

The book was written by Antano Solar who is a tech evangelist of open source community and CTO of NuVeda Learning. Antano Solar won two Yahoo hack awards as well as the award for developing a Hybrid Search Engine from scratch in 24 hours.

MODx Web Development book consist of 13 Chapters and here’s summary of what these chapters cover:

What is MODx? This chapter covers general concepts of web development, and also tells why MODx is a good tool to develop your web site.
Getting Started In this chapter, you will learn how to set up a working platform for developing web sites with MODx.
MODx Basics This chapter explains documents and containers. You will also learn how to create, edit, and manipulate documents, and manage their configurations.
Templating In this chapter, you will learn how to create/add templates. It explains template variables, snippets and chunks.
Authentication and Authorization This chapter shows how to modify the site to have a signup and login form and how to enable blogs to be posted only by friends. This is a sample chapter of this book available for free download.
Content Aggregation This chapter explains how to create aggregation and feeds using Ditto snippet and how to tag documents and use tagging in MODx.
Creating Lists This chapter covers creating lists of documents and how to make make list creation fexible using Wayfinder.
Snippets This chapter covers use the hundreds of snippets available. It also suggests how to search for snippets not included in MODx default package.
PHx In this chapter, you will learn how to format the values in template variables, make conditions and accordingly present a different output either from the HTML in the expression or from a chunk or snippet.
Simple Recipes This chapter explains how to use all you already have learnt to integrate a forum, an image gallery, or forms that can send a mail, create web user profiles, and identify similar posts for blogs.
Creating Snippets In this chapter, you will learn how to create snippets, the different ways of displaying their output, and how to implement them. You will also learn how and why to use the available MODx APIs.
SEO, Deployment, and Security This chapter shows how to make the site optimized for search engines using clean URLs, meta tags, sitemaps, and other tweaks.
Plug-ins and Modules In this final chapter author writes about plug-ins and modules, events and plug-in configuration.

Verdict: MODx Web Development book is highly recommended for everyone who would like to learn MODx CMS and use it for web development.

How to speed up Firefox by cleaning its databases

2009-08-26T13:51:39Z

Firefox start up speed and operating speed is usually much faster after clean install rather than month of usage. As it turns out the time at Firefox start up is used to load .sqlite bases from your profile which are used to store the history, bookmarks, anti-phishing, etc. With intensive Firefox usage all these databases are growing in size, getting a lot of empty space and become fragmented. There’s special command which solves this problem. VACUUM command recreates all the .sqlite databases but without fragmentation and empty spaces. The improvement is Firefox you can feel right after doing the follow steps. It’s strange that Mozilla developers haven’t implemented this feature within Firefox.

Download the last version of SQLite for Windows. Put file sqlite3.exe in C:\Windows directory.
Using any text editor, create bat file (for example, ‘optimize firefox.bat’) containing this script:
cd /D “%APPDATA%\Mozilla”
for /r %%i in (*.sqlite) do echo VACUUM; | sqlite3 “%%i”
cd /D “%HOMEPATH%\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla”
for /r %%i in (*.sqlite) do echo VACUUM; | sqlite3 “%%i”
Close Firefox and run your bat file create in the previous step from drive C.

For Linux the script will look this way:
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/
for i in *.sqlite; do echo “VACUUM;” | sqlite3 $i ; done

For Mac:
find ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles -name ‘*.sqlite’ -exec sqlite3 {} VACUUM \;

SQLite for Mac and Linux can be downloaded here.

Bonus tip: Open about:config, find javascript.options.jit.chrome and set it to ‘true’. It will turn TraceMonkey fast engine for Firefox interface as well (it’s turned on only for pages by default).

Top 20 Wireframe Tools

2009-08-11T14:49:01Z

Wireframes can be created in many ways with several tools depending upon one’s communication needs and budget. Most simply, pen and paper are key tools for creating web wireframes. In addition some designers and developers are using Illustrator, Fireworks or PowerPoint to create wireframes. There are also interactive wireframe tools available for use by designers, programmers, and project managers, which allow collaboration with clients prior to the website programming stage. Wireframe tools included in this list allows you to make wireframes from low to high fidelity, work in collaboration with your team and clients, get feedback from stakeholders. In some cases, wireframe tools lets you prototype a website i.e. make links clickable to share with clients before building the final product. What’s your favorite wireframe tool? Please speak out in the comments.

Pidoco
Pidoco is a real time collaborative online platform to create interactive web and software prototypes, and to test, discuss and optimize them.

ProtoShare
ProtoShare is a collaborative online tool to build website wireframes and dynamic, navigable website prototypes that team members can then review and comment on in real-time.

iPlotz
With iPlotz you can create clickable, navigable wireframes to create the experience of a real website or software application. You can also invite others to comment on the designs, and once ready, you can then manage the tasks for developers and designers to build the project.

Hot Gloo
Hot Gloo is the online wireframe application currently in free beta. You can drag and drop elements, scale, link, name and rename them. You can also edit, comment & share any moment of the developing process with colleagues and clients.

Denim
DENIM is a free multiplatform desktop app that supports sketching input (through pen tablet), allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming. Unlike a paper sketch, this electronic sketch is interactive and can easily be annotated and modified using editing gestures.

Pencil
Pencil is a free Firefox addon for making diagrams and GUI prototyping. Its features include: built-in stencils for diagramming and prototyping, multi-page document with background page, on-screen text editing, undo/redo, installing user-defined stencils, adding external objects.

Gliffy
Gliffy free wireframe software makes it easy to create website wireframes and to share web mockups with anyone. You can export your wireframe for future use in other applications as well.

Omnigraffle
Omnigraffle (100-200$) is a diagramming and wireframe application built specifically for Mac OS. Using drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface users cans create simple and complex diagrams, flow charts, organization charts and illustrations. Import, export of Visio files is supported.

MockupScreens
MockupScreens (89-369$) lets you sketch screen mockups of your application and organize them in scenarios. Users can experiment interactively with clients and quickly visualize scenarios of applications before the coding has started.

iRise
iRise (6.995$) is visualization authoring tool which simulates the workflow and basic behavior of proposed business applications through direct communication with stakeholders via interactive requirements gathering sessions. iRise also helps to create a high fidelity version of the simulation.

Axure RP Pro
Axure RP Pro (589$+) is a rapid wireframing and prototyping tool which provides drag and drop environment, automated specifications, HTML prototype generation and collaboration options.

Jumpchart
Jumpchart (free-50$) is intended for quick mapping, prototyping and collaborating. A Jumpchart allows you to export your wireframe as CSS/XHTML, and automatically generates its own sitemap.

EightShapes Unify
EightShapes Unify is a free downloadable collection of templates, libraries, and other assets for Adobe InDesign CS3-4 that helps to create website wireframes faster.

WireframeSketcher
WireframeSketcher (free, some conditions) is an Eclipse plugin for creating wireframes, screen mockups and UI prototypes. It helps you quickly create screen mockups and UI prototypes right from within Eclipse IDE.

Microsoft Visio
Microsoft Visio (259-559$) is an app that uses vector graphics to create diagrams. Professional edition has additional templates and option to connect diagrams to a number of data sources and display the information graphically.

Balsamiq Mockups
Balsamiq Mockups (79$) is an Adobe AIR application for creating wireframes features hand-drawn, sketch-like interface elements library. The wireframes made with it look very much like a draft.

mxGraph
mxGraph is free a JavaScript library that uses built-in browser capabilities to provide an interactive drawing and diagramming solution. mxGraph works straight out of the box, no client configuration or installation required.

Justinmind Prototyper
Justinmind Prototyper (690-1290$) is a desktop tool to design wireframes and run simulations for web, desktop and mobile applications. The product lets you define user interface elements using a drag and drop environment with component libraries, and attach actions to components.

ForeUI
ForeUI (79-1311$) provides an easy-to-use environment to rapidly create prototype of your website or software. You can do most of things with mouse drag-and-drop, single click or double-click. ForeUI support various UI styles for prototyping, wireframe is the default UI style.

FlairBuilder
FlairBuilder (99$) is a cross-platform tool for rapid authoring of interactive wireframes and user interface prototypes. It features multiple projects and pages support, fast preview, web 2.0 as well as plain looking elements.

Justproto
Justproto (19-99$) is a web application to create and share online web wireframes using library of prototype elements with the multi-level structure. You can use Masters to avoid repletion of work.

Lucid Spec
Lucid Spec helps you rapidly prototype software and produce a concise, clear functional specification. Lucid Spec does this by combining screen design, application simulation, and user interface description all-in-one.

Why wireframes are essential in web development?

2009-08-11T14:51:15Z

What is wireframe? Why wireframes are essential in web development? How to use them to speed up web development? Those are questions we will talk about in this post. There are also basic tips on how to make a wireframe and which tool can be used to create wireframes. Using wireframes you can get people thinking and generate requirements. Getting sign off on a set of detailed wireframes can save a lot of time and money. Forcing clients to think about the site’s functionality at a page level will avoid endless changes and tweaks.

What is wireframe?

A website wireframe is a basic design draft done before any artwork and used in web design to show the structure of a website, custom user paths, most important user interface elements, their position and relationships between website pages. Wireframes lay out in black and white schematically most important elements in the interface such as header, footer, contact form, navigation. Wireframes also helps to maintain design consistency throughout the site. Wireframes are essential starting point in the website development stage. Wireframes help to reduce scope creep, gain client feedback, and implement design changes prior to the website programming stage when changes are typically more complicated and costly.

How wireframes can help you?

Wireframing is a process that can significantly decrease the amount of time required in design and development by removing potential visual distractions and focusing the attention of project stakeholders on vital functionality and strategic marketing factors. Creating wireframes is the best way of reducing discussions about look and feel, and focusing on how the site will meet its business goals and user requirements, which functionality needs to be added and what is odd.

Therefore you will avoid unnecessary rounds of revisions since wireframes create user expectations and familiarity with the site. Set of wireframes for any project also acts as a way to communicate with clients and stakeholders such as content creators, engineers, and developers. Once wireframes have been completed and sign off of all stakeholders, the transition into visual design will be much easier and efficient. Using detailed wireframes will frequently flush out new requirements and questions that nobody has thought about yet. They also help to keep a paper trail of functional and design decisions that are made.

How to make wireframe?

You need to start with a big picture such as site map and most important navigation then going into smaller details. Concentrate on position of elements and the percentage of space that each element takes up. Instead of actual graphics use simple boxes and shapes with labels. Essential wireframes elements are: navigation, header or logo, footer, content areas, search box, user login area.

The simplest tool to create wireframe is pen and paper. It lets you to make a number of wireframes very quickly. Most graphics software such as Illustrator or Photoshop includes all tools needed to make wireframes such as shapes, lines and text for labels. There is also number of online and desktop application which only purpose is to create wireframes. These wireframes tools can include collaboration feature and option to create basic prototypes.

Pen and Paper wireframe

Detailed wireframe made in Adobe Illustrator

Check out website build up according to these wireframes.