Okay, I found this quite interesting blog post that I think everyone who does web coding should read.

You can find the article here.

So for now on I’ll try to post here stuff about anything and everything I’m interested in that think I should share.

Looks like theres gonna be a whole bunch of new cool features in Photoshop Cs5.

I personally liked the content-aware filling the best.

Read the whole article here.

First grab the pen tool and draw the trunk of the tree.

Then choose a color for the trunk by double clicking the shape layers color swatch.

Select a color for the trunk and press OK.

Set your foreground color to green.

Then draw your first leaf.

Now choose the layer of the leaf and duplicate it by choosing Layer > Duplicate layer and then press Ok.

Now choose the duplicate layer and scale and rotate it so it becomes the second leaf.

Then choose both of the leaf layers by pressing Shift and duplicate them by choosing Layer > Duplicate layers and then press Ok.

The thoes layers selecter choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and scale and rotate both layers so they look a little more unique.

Now draw the bottom and top leaves.

Then create a new layer and put it on top of the trunk layer.

Now choose Filter > Render > Clouds and then Filter > Render > Difference Clouds

Then create another layer on top of the clouds layer.

Choose Edit > Fill… and set Use: to 50% Gray

And then choose Filter > Noise > Add Noise

After that choose Filter > Blur > Motion Blur

Now check both of the layers by pressing Shift

Then choose Edit > Free Transform and transfom layers to fill the trunk layer.

Now set the blending mode of both layers to Overlay and play with the opacity until you’r satisfied with the result.

Then select the upper layer and choose Layer > Merge Down

Additionally you can go Filter > Liquify and tweak the texture but it’s not necessarily needed.

Then create a new layer on top of the Trunk texture layer we just created and call it Trunk shadow.

Now choose a big soft low opacity brush and paint shadows to the trunk.

Then choose both the Trunk shadow and The Trunk texture layer by pressing Shift and choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask.

Now choose all of the leaf layers by pressing Shift and choose Layer > Merge Layers and call that layer Leaves.

Then create a new layer above it and call it Leaves shadow.

Then paint shadows for the leaves using the same brush you used to paint the shadows for the trunk.

Now select all of the layers but the backround layer and choose Layer > Duplicate Layers and press Ok.

Then choose Layer > Merge Layers and call that layer Palm shadow and drag it below the Trunk layer.

Then choose Edit > Fill and set Use: to Black and check Preserve Transperency and press Ok.

Then choose Edit > Free Transform and play with the layer until it looks like a shadow.

And finally you might want to lower the opacity of the shadow a little.

Final image

Sorry I didn’t bother to make any aspect ratio conversions so the wallpaper is full screen only on widescreen displays.

The wallpaper

LimeV2

LimeV2 Blue

LimeV2 Graphite

Last Christmas I gave you a wallpaper and this year I’m going to do that again but this time I’m going to give you something more than just a single wallpaper.

I’m not sure about what it’s going to be, so I thought that you could throw out some ideas what you want and then I could choose the best ones and implement them.

So leave a comment what you would like and maybe I’ll choose it.

I’ve almost finished the administration side of this site. The reason why it have took so long to develop is that I hate debugging and how much it takes time to develop cross browser compatible ajax applications etc… But anyway I thought it would be a good moment to start writing some real stuff or anything more than nothing here :D

I think I’ll change this site to a more like a personal blog so the content would be pretty much anything.

I’ve also thought about changing the language from English to Finnish, but I’ll let you decide, so leave a comment about in what language you would like to read this blog.