Photoshop: Little Known Tips, Tricks & Techniques
January 21, 2010
We love the folks at Smashing Magazine online. Here they provide a great listing of shortcuts for Photoshop CS4 that even Adobe doesn’t tell you about, “Obscure Photoshop Time-Savers.”
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BEFORE ROMERO: Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s zombies from All Winners #1, Summer 1941
December 28, 2009
Click on image for larger size. The bottom 2/3 of page 8 of Captain America and the Case of the Hollow Men.
“How to kill a dead man? That was the horrible problem which CAPTAIN AMERICA and BUCKY had to solve before they could defeat the hideous menace who was the lord of death . . .”
Tiger Beat magazine — 44 Years of FAB! GEAR! Teeny Bopper Greatness
November 8, 2009
“They’re exciting! Helpful! Daring! Cunning! BUT. . . what is a GROUPIE?”
Founded in September 1965 and continuously published since them, Tiger Beat magazine has been serving the female ‘tween market place and “stoking the the star-making machinery behind the popular song”* prior to the invention of the word ”tween.’
When I first encountered it in the mid-sixties it was comic book-sized with garish color covers with B&W interiors on 68 pages of pulp paper. Today it is on slick stock, full color with the ever popular pull-out posters suitable for decorating suburban bedroom walls of adolescents across America. While I sit here and wonder: Are Pretty Boys Out?
There was a dance party TV show host, Lloyd Thaxton who was cover featured for the first 12 issues as Lloyd Thaxton’s Tiger Beat. When Lloyd left his TV show he was dropped.
Of interest here is the November 1965 issue that has 2 pages and 4 pictures on Bob Dylan; an article by Earl Leaf titled, “Groupies! Who Are They? Where Did They Come From? (6 pages); Beauty Secrets of the Stars with Lesley Gore, Barbara Parkins, Annette Funicello, Mia Farrow, Sandra Dee and Ann-Margaret and a feature called This Popsy Topsy Music World that mashes together Tom Jones, Jackie DeShannon, Dino, Desi & Billy, and Tina Turner with Bobby Sherman singing and Keith Richards backstage.
Even my own question is not too controversial for TB’s hard-hitting journalism. See this cover-featured article: Are Pretty Boys Out? George Chakiris, James Darren, Richard Chamberlain VS. Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, Sonny Bono and Freddy (of Freddy & the Dreamers) Click on image for larger size.
The current version is certainly more polished graphically but the content, of course, is pretty much the same. Even the logo has only been changed (improved) slightly. Thought it could be argued that nobody remotely like Keith Richards would be covered today alongside the Jonas Brothers, Hillary Duff and Miley Cyrus. It’s the triumph of the Pretty Boys of both sexes.
Sorry, Lilo. You are strictly a feather weight in comparison to The Human Riff. Click on image for larger size.
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* Joni Mitchell, “Free Man in Paris”
Below, just because we quoted her above, we present a beautiful version of Ms. Mitchell’s classic “Big Yellow Taxi.”
Watching this is it any wonder that I (along with most white adolescent males) was in love with her and her music in 1970?
And please note: long before Carl Sagan popularized the notion that we are literally “star stuff,” Joni sang that “We are Star Dust, Million year old Carbon. We are Golden, Caught in the Devil’s bargain. . .”
Coolest CD Case EVER! Has built-in Theremin
August 31, 2009
From synthgear: “Moldover’s new CD, over 3 years in the making, not only delivers gorgeously diverse music with meaning and musical mastery, it completely redefines what it means to “play an album”. . .Moldover’s CD packaging itself IS a new musical instrument! The CD is mounted on a custom designed circuit board, intricately patterned and powering a ‘light-Theremin.’ Yes! You play the artwork and it makes sound! Only the musical supervillain genius of Moldover could develop something so stunningly innovative.”
40 Free Cartoon And Comic Fonts from Hongkiat.com
August 27, 2009
The good folks at Hongkiat.com, (Online Tips for Tech Users, Designers, Bloggers) have complied an excellent resource for cartoon and comic book fonts here. They are definitely worth checking out. Thanks, Hongkiat!
40 New High Quality Photoshop Tutorials
August 10, 2009
Here’s an excellent collection of 40 new Photoshop tutorials from Noupe, a few screen shots of examples appear below. For the link, go here.
I’ve gotta say that I’m not a fan of the letter spacing in their logo but I’m also a dinosaur who remembers when all type was spec’ed by hand. There was print media before desk top publishing, kids.
Great Collection of over 300 High Quality, FREE Splatter Brushes for Photoshop
August 2, 2009
The good folks over at Smash Apps have put together a collection of over 300 splatter effect brushes for Photoshop from 20 different sources. Well worth checking out, here. Did we mention they are completely FREE!
2 Ways to Create Realistic Depth of Field
July 27, 2009
Minervity has an excellent set of tutorials on creating realistic depth of field in photographs that don’t have any naturally. The steps are clearly explained and anyone with a basic knowledge of Photoshop can easily add this to their skill set.
For the article, go here.
500+ FREE Watercolor Brushes for Photoshop from Designm.ag
May 30, 2009
The good folks at Designm.ag have collected over 500 free high resolution water color brushes for some program called Photoshop.
Have you ever heard of it? You have? Well, then this link may be of some use to you.
Seriously, there are some outstanding brushes here. Definitely worth checking out and downloading a few sets to play around with (see samples below).
One thing I know is we’ve come a long way from Mac Paint 1.0 in January, 1984. . .
Yellow Mug software’s SnapNDrag – A better, free screen grab utility for OS X
May 29, 2009
The good folks at Yellow Mug software have a great little shareware screen-grab utility called SnapNDrag for Mac OS X. It improves on Grab with a better interface, more options and improverd functions (you can more easily capture timed screens).
Sometimes it’s the little things that add productivity to your day. Highly recommended!
