The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques is the ultimate Photoshop compendium for web designers.

It’s brimming with tried and tested real-world Photoshop solutions that will add impact to your next web design project. If you’ve ever been stuck for inspiration, have puzzled over just how to create a shiny aqua-style button, or wanted to create that seamlessly tiling background image you saw on a site recently, you need download this book.

Download Here 

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If your just a beginner I have made a very simple to follow beginners video for you covering some of the basics. I did this for my wife on a Sunday afternoon so you see my mistakes, hear the traffic etc but they will show you the basics and get you up and running quickly.

Click here to watch the video.

Here is the action script for the ebook covers I used in the above tutorial Download here. (zip file 117kb)

If you prefer reading here is a great pdf that will also take you through the basics.

Once you learn the basics our friends over at Watch And Learn Photoshop are releasing a few new products and have also released not one, not two, not three but seven free photoshop video tutorials/tips. Their videos are a lot more professional than my Sunday afternoon effort.

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I searched for years for software like this for my students and now you can profit from all my research. No this eBook cover is not made with the software but the header is and some samples below.

This Software is an open source, raster graphics editing program for Windows, developed on the .NET Framework. The Software has evolved from a simple replacement for the Microsoft Paint program, which is included with Windows, into a powerful editor with support for layers, blending, transparency, and plugins. It is available under MIT License.

Get your FREE Copy here

This Software Turns Non-Buying Website Visitors Into Happy Customers in a Matter of Minutes… Totally Hands Free!

• Increase your website conversions up to 20-40% in a little as 2 weeks!
• Dramatically reduce your shopping cart abandonment.
• Instantly increase the value of each website visitor.
• Improve your website visitor’s experience (builds trust and repeat business).
• Increase your customer loyalty and overall satisfaction
• Quickly grow a highly responsive opt-in list of interested prospects.
• Reduce labor costs.
• Save time by reducing questions and support requests.
• Up-sell or cross-sell similar and/or additional products to boost your revenue.
• Find out WHY customers are leaving your site.
• One installation works on ALL your websites… boost your entire business

P.S.- If you are questioning whether or not you can “afford” this program, please think about this…

How many sales of your product would it take to reach $97 of income? For example, if you’re selling a product for $97 it would only take ONE saved sale to make up for the cost of this program.

Whether you’re selling a product for $5 or $5,000… your Virtual Smart Agent will be putting more of those sales into your pocket.

And your virtual agent will keep saving sales forever… so how can you afford NOT to invest in this today?

Even if your not ready to purchase you should at least visit the site and have a look at this amazing software.

Click here to visit now with no obligation.

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Photoshop was first developed as software to design and edit images that were to be printed. It allows users to edit images several times over and save them repeatedly without losing any quality, so they were of a high enough standard to print. This use is still probably the most common, although recently, the Adobe Photoshop brand has branched out to include more applications that allow users to edit film and create professional quality DVDs.

The number one use of Photoshop is editing photos. Everyone has heard people claim that the reason celebrities always look so fabulous is because magazines make liberal use of Photoshop editing! But Photoshop is not just for airbrushing. It has a wide variety of uses in editing photographs, from fixing flaws, like red eyes or blurs, to cropping and refocusing photos. It is possible to crop something from one photo and add it to another, or use the color tools in Photoshop to brighten up a dull picture. Photoshop has revolutionized photography for professionals and amateurs alike; many photographers can hardly remember life without it.

A second popular use for Photoshop is creating graphics for web sites. Designers are limited only by their own imaginations. Photoshop allows designers to incorporate photos, clip art, and vectors and images of their own creation they draw using the pen tool to create the graphic that they have in mind. Because Photoshop uses so many file formats, designers can save their designs in files specifically suited to their task, be it web design or printing.

Graphic designing for print media purposes is a third common use for Photoshop. This can have a number of applications, from magazine and newspaper layout to designing images to be printed on items like mugs, buttons, shirts, or almost anything. Photoshop allows users to take an image and bend it to see what it will look like on the scale of and in the shape of the item it will be printed on, and then edit it accordingly. This tool is invaluable to magazine designers as they lay out text and images together and to clothing designers who want to see how images work on their items.

A fourth popular use for Photoshop is collaborations. Because you can save files numerous times without losing quality, and because the file formats are compatible on nearly every operating system, Photoshop users of all sorts can collaborate with co-workers all over the world. And the collaborations are not all about work, either. A popular game has grown out of Photoshop technology called Photoshop Tennis, in which two designers send an image back and forth to each other, each making a change each time, for a pre-set number of rounds. At the end of the game, an independent judge declares who made the most valuable contributions.

A fifth use for Photoshop is sharing digital photos. Photoshop allows users to download right from their digital cameras to the program and make large batch alterations, and then save these photos in compressed files so they are easy to share.

A sixth important, if specialized, use of Photoshop is creating 3D animation. Pixar format is supported by Photoshop and has been used to create many Disney movies, like “Toy Story.” Though every Photoshop designer does not use this feature, it has made an important impact our culture.

The Adobe Photoshop program has so many uses; it is nearly impossible to pick favorites. Everyone who uses the program has their own favorite set of uses, because everyone uses the software program as their own objectives for using it.

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Creating great icons is a real skill and Kearone of http://www.websiteicons.net/ has a great range of fantastic icons as you can see from the above example.

Here are a couple more:

You can get hundreds more here

Yep free icons from Ian Main

Go on, download em. I dare you!

Here’s the deal, they have been sitting here on my desktop for quite some time which is no good to anyone is it. Originally they were designed to make a quick buck and see if I was up to the job. They were inspired from Dan’s awesome set, Overcast and after learning from his The Anatomy of an Icon tutorial I had to give it a go. I suggest if you want a top quality set of greyscale icons head over to Simplebits and buy yourself a set from a pro.

What do you get?

Greyscale is a set of 40 greyscale icons which each fit into a 34 x 34 pixel area.

* 1 flat file gif containing all 40 icons
* 1 flat file png containing all 40 icons (All colours intact)
* 40 individual gif files
* The right to do what you like with them – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Australia

enjoy

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Download your full size sample here just click on the image and right click to save..

Here is a small sample of what you receive:

Only $17.95

for 101 professional Transparent Images

Secure Purchase Link

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Convertors

A document created using Microsoft? Word, structured using the inbuilt styles and headings and incorporating images (with alternative text) was converted to PDF using each of the convertors below. The resulting document was then checked in Adobe? Reader for a number of the accessibility benefits that the format can offer.

Cute PDF Writer

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Download.
• Are there any print preferences? No.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
• Are bookmarks transferred? No.
• Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? No, blocks of text are merged into one another and images are merged into the main text.
• Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
• Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
• Other comments: A commercial version (CutePDF Professional) is also available with additional functionality.

  Cute PDF Writer

Pdf995

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Download; this is a suite three programmes (Pdf995, PdfEdit995 and Signature995) each offering slightly different functionality.
• Are there any print preferences? No.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
  Are bookmarks transferred? No, but bookmarks can be inserted using PdfEdit995.
• Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed?No, blocks of text are merged into one another and images are merged into the main text.
• Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
  Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
• Other comments: Can upgrade to a commercial version; the free version contains pop up adverts.

  Pdf995

PrimoPDF

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Both software download and web-based services available.
• Are there any print preferences within the downloaded software? Some relating to image properties.
• Are there any accessibility options available in the web-based service? No.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
• Are bookmarks transferred? No.
• Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? No.
• Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
  Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Document colours can be changed.

  PrimoPDF

Do PDF

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Download.
• Are there any print preferences? Yes, scale and resolution can be changed.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
• Are bookmarks transferred? No.
  Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes.
  Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
• Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.

  DoPDF

Doc2PDF

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Web-based.
• Are there any accessibility options? No.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
• Are bookmarks transferred? Yes.
• Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? Yes.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes, but with some of the text merges incorrectly.
• Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
• Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.

  Doc2PDF

GoogleDocs

• Downloadable software or web-based service? Web-based.
• Are there any accessibility options? No.
• Is text recognised as text? Yes.
• Are bookmarks transferred? Yes (if created in GoogleDocs originally).
• Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? Yes but may require some correction.
• Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes.
• Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
• Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
• Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
• Other comments: Some images were missing from the PDF produced.

  Google Docs

Well Thats it. Of course you could use Open Office that has the pdf converter already available and is a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

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As an example for this tutorial I will add a reflection to text, however as I said before you can also use the same technique to add reflections to shapes or isolated objects.

Let’s start our little Photoshop training session

I have created a new document and just type PS Reflection as you can see in the screenshot below.

The first step is to duplicate our text layer. You can do that by simply pressing Ctrl+J or by going to Layer -> Duplicate Layer.

Now, select the Move Tool (V) and drag the duplicate layer below the original one like in the screenshot below.

(You can also add a bit of perspective to the reflection layer by transforming it (Edit->Transform->Perspective) if you want.

The next step is to add a layer mask to the duplicate layer. To do this simply click on the add layer mask button in the layers palette.
add layer mask button

Now pick the Gradient Tool and draw a gradient (black to white) in the direction that the arrow is showing in the screenshot below. (Hold Shift while you draw the gradient)

You should now have something like this.

Finally just reduce the opacity of the duplicate layer and you are all done. I reduced the opacity to 35% and here is my final result.
Final result of photoshop training session

There is no golden rule about the opacity % , just play with the opacity setting until you get your desired result.

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If you are aiming to earn from AdSense, then use Prosense theme from DoshDosh.Com.

I was just browsing WP themes last night and I did see some nice Real Estate ones, as well as a ton of other really nice themes at http://www.wpthemesarchive.com/brow…ry/business/

Themes offered from http://www.blogohblog.com .. I use one of his free themes on www.GurusLab.com he also offers a couple of paid themes that cost a lot less than some of those *cough*, premium designs out there.

Most themes can be adjusted to whatever you like using the css style sheets and a few graphics.

Contents and Video Titles

1. Changing a header graphic
2. Playing with CSS Style Sheets
3. Inserting code and scripts
4. Content Management CMS
5. Advanced Plugins
6. Graphics and logins
7. Desktop Blogging
8. RSS uses and stats
9. 404 pages Customize your error pages
10. Widgets
11. Resources and summary

Visit http://www.advancedwordpress to get your copy.

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