Hot answers tagged tools
26
One useful tool is Color Scheme Designer:
http://colorschemedesigner.com/
You specify a starting color and a type of color scheme and it will generate a palette for you and allow you to modify that palette.
The nice thing about this tool is that you can see how it chooses the other colors based on the color you select. There is also a tool to simulate how ...
18
I'm primarily a web developer and designer, so I do most of my work directly in Photoshop/Gimp cutting and clipping and filtering. I eventually stumbled upon the opportunity to purchase a very inexpensive reconditioned Dell Latitude XT, and my experience has been pretty positive. It allows me to much more easily create masks, draw layers, make my selections, ...
11
You need to read about a good book of color theory to understand at least the general principle, for example on what is Primary and Secondary color, Complementary colors etc... otherwise you will not get the importance of some palette choices that you will make.
On the web my favourite at the moment one is: Kuler of Adobe , as well I used to use ...
10
I'm going to disagree with everyone else and say that, if you're serious about graphic design or digital illustration, you should get a tablet ASAP.
If you're the creative type, then it's unlikely that your first experience drawing is going to be in a digital media, as you were probably exposed to analog media in art classes likely as early as kindergarten ...
10
Couple months back I bought myself Wacom Intuos4 (Large - A4 size) and I absolutely love it.
For photo editing in Photoshop, it's huge difference. It will allow you to a lot of things which just aren't possible with mouse, which is basically any manual editing.
My biggest issue while working with Photoshop was, that I just didn't like the way I had to ...
9
If you need help identifying a font sample, there are lots of resources.
Some are automated, you submit a sample screenshot or go through a series of questions that help narrow the possibilities:
http://identifont.com
http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
http://www.bowfinprintworks.com/SerifGuide/serifsearch.php
http://typenav.fontshop.com/
Some software ...
9
What you are looking for are "flatbed cutter" or "flatbed cutter plotter".
The "flatbed" part is important.
Standard vinyl cutter do not need a flatbed since the vinyl sticks to a backing paper. This enables the cutter to roll and unroll the material(vinyl) without having to worry about loose pieces of material jamming the mechanisms. The backing paper ...
8
For lightweight usage, I love Dropbox.
I can create a folder for a particular project, and then share just that one folder with those who need to get into it. They can't see folders I haven't given them access to.
Dropbox syncs in the background, so I know they'll always have the very latest. I have my Mac set up to notify me if anything in the folder ...
7
Absolutely, unequivocally, definitely start with pen and paper first. Art programs are great tools that can enhance skills by exponential orders, but nothing—nothing—beats the immediate results and response of working with pencil and paper. I have yet to meet a designer that didn't start with rough pencil sketches first. Being able to draw by hand is a skill ...
6
Don't buy netbooks/laptops, they aren't built to last as long as normal desktop pcs and can be more expensive for half the power. To counter the power outage problem (I had the same thing in Bulgaria) buy a UPS system for each machine. Two 23' monitors might be a luxury, but I'd say at least 21'. In my office I have one 23 and two 21, they offer a lot of ...
6
Layers Magazine had a good article on this a long time ago when I wondered the same question.
Step 1 Begin with the Product Art
For this tutorial, we created the artwork for the box in Photoshop that we’ll apply to a 3D object in Illustrator. The art consists of three separate flattened PSD files that we’ll place in Illustrator. The file for the front ...
5
Lauren's answer is correct, in that InDesign is a layout program, but in the last few years InDesign has taken on many more tasks than just layout-for-print. With CS3, Adobe built a "headless Photoshop" (the actual Photoshop code) into InDesign, giving us drop shadows, bevels, glows, feathering, etc., and they expanded these capabilities greatly in CS4 and ...
5
BaseCamp http://www.basecamphq.com is a must see for you, you can use 37Signals all tools for your needs, they are a digital agency that created Basecamp for their own needs, it can cover most areas of your stuff. But they are not renovating it as fast as market goes i think.. so there is competition..
Lately ApolloHQ is a great workflow application with ...
5
I don't know why Photoshop has never had a "rounded rectangle" selection tool. Seems like it ought to, doesn't it? But it doesn't. So, to answer your questions:
"Smooth" is designed to even out rough edges. It doesn't do effective job of rounding corners because that's not what it's for.
To create a selection with rounded corners, you have to start with a ...
5
What you need will depend on what you take, and who you have. Some schools will have better supplies than others, too.
Lots of people will probably come up with great answers, so I don't feel the need to be exhaustive. Some items that were and/or are essential for me:
X-ACTO knives (get lots of extra blades)
Black mat board
Spray adhesive (stock up on ...
5
I made this in about 3 minutes using the circle tool, direct selection tool and live paint. I don't know if there's a faster way, but this was pretty quick.
Basically, draw a circle and a smaller circle inside that circle. Draw a new circle that is the exact width between the left anchor point of the inner circle and the right anchor point of the outer ...
5
Paper, qualities and types, is a rabbit-hole that is very deep. Be warned. A high quality coated paper designed for ink-jet printers would take inks very well to reduce or eliminate the possibility of smearing while still keeping the lines crisp. Uncoated paper would absorb inks very well also, but would tend to bleed at the edges. Heavier paper in general ...
4
In addition to Lauren Ipsum's answer for looking up to the Info window, which shows the width and height, you can get the coordinates for different reference points by choosing:
Edit → Free transform (ctrl + t on Windows and ⌘ + t on OS X)
Then the X & Y coordinates for the specified/dragged reference point are shown in the Free transform ...
4
Photoshop CS5 has an extension called Kuler that does this.
You can reach it through the menu; Window/Extensions/Kuler
or through the website, http://kuler.adobe.com/
4
For managing digital assets (I haven't tried it out for client workflow yet, although that is theoretically also possible), I finally discovered the perfect solution (for my needs).
ResourceSpace is a PHP-based Open-Source application originally developed for Oxfam, who manage 60,000 images with it.
It's browser-based, multi-user capable, can create ...
4
They're two completely different worlds. I'd go for the electronic stuff first, and do the pen&paper whenever the electronic stuff wasn't available. This is only because you propably do more with the computer skills than with the "traditional" cave painting methods.
I'll clarify I started drawing with the tablet after 12 years of experience in ...
4
Significant or not really depends on the user but the intuos4 certainly has changed a bit since its previous version.
increased sensibility (2048 levels instead of previously 1024) I'm not noticing this much. But might be just my blunt nature.
The design and button layout has changed a lot. Now it is useable for both left and right handed people. The ...
4
I hope I understand your question right...
To set a fixed numerical crop area, you type in the dimensions you'd like in the top toolbar after you've selected the crop tool. (This is the toolbar that resides underneath the file/edit/image menus).
Then, when you click and drag the crop box it will keep to those dimensions, and the final crop will be that ...
4
according to what i understood,you can follow these steps crop your document in defined px or inch.
there are two methods of doing this i prefer using marquee tool with fixed size,please check SS,i tried to explain a bit :| sorry for these rude images i was running out of time.
this one is from crop tool it self you can set values according to your need.
...
4
That;s going to depend on the company. While it's by no means unheard of it's not what a typical office manager at a typical (non-creative type office) would see as a normal computer peripheral, so you may have to make a case for having your office purchase it.
If you're working at a very graphics-intensive shop, however, it probably would be considered ...
4
I work at a graphics intensive design agency.
Unfortunately, design tablets are not seen as essential hardware. Nobody here uses them, but I'm sure if I made the case that my speed and efficiency would improve with one, then a purchase may be made.
It depends entirely on the agency, but at the same time it depends entirely on the user.
4
There is nothing particularly special about making icons - they're just bitmaps on small canvases. And there’s certainly no need to submit yourself to the torture of MSPAINT (which should be reserved for free-handing intentionally bad drawings. ;-) ).
Depending on your budget, I would suggest these programs:
Paint.Net (free!)
Relatively simple & ...
4
I use two Wireframing tools
Balsamiq mockups - Simple wireframing tool, fast to use, cheap, awesome. http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups
AxureRP - Complex, very complete, almost a working web app, expensive, awesome. http://www.axure.com
Have fun :)
4
Tables! Laying out in tables in InDesign is awesome for forms. You can stroke the bottom of a cell for the text field, make small uniform stroked cells for checkboxes, and use a character or paste in an image for a radio button. Unless you merge cells weirdly, everything has to line up.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
