Slife – Free Software Tracks How You Really Spend Your Time per Project
July 14, 2008
Automatic Time Management — Thousands of designers, architects, consultants , developers, writers and many others use Slife to bill clients and keep track of time on projects.
Free Software from www.slifelabs.com (requires Mac OS 10.5)
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Need to Measure or Convert Anything? Use EZ-Calculator
June 20, 2008
EZ-Calculator This minimalist site offers one thing and one thing only: free, online calculators to solve most everyone’s measuring or conversion needs.
How often have you been trying to figure out your driving distance to Smertz, New Mexico, at the same time attempting to convert your Swedish krona into Algerian dinars, while you correlate your auto loan payments and the Consumer Price Index from 1974. If I only had a nickel for all the times it happened to me. . .
Now EZ-Calculator enables you to speed through this jumble of numbers, arrive at the proper answer and leave you with more time to enjoy the sights and smells of Smertz, NM.
40 Dark and Futuristic Photoshop Effects from Spoonfed Photoshop
June 11, 2008
Seamless compositing, a realistic star field, and scan line text are some of the more interesting tutorials of these 40 Dark and Futuristic Photoshop Effects from PSDTUTS, Spoonfed Photoshop.
Ilovetypography.com :: A Great Site for Type Lovers
May 11, 2008
Here’s an excellent site for type lovers and anyone who wants to understand more about the ocean of fonts and typefaces we swim in every day, online and in print. This blog is written by a Brit who now resides in Japan and we’ll quote below from his “About” pages to give you a sense of his take on the subject. Think you know type? Try tackling the Rather Difficult Font Game and see how much you really know. . .
I love Typography (iLT) was born on August 8, 2007; I, on the other hand was born in 1969. iLT was born from a desire to bring the subject of Typography to the masses. All too often, articles on typography are rather bland and, although informative, do little to elicit feelings of wow.
So, iLT is designed to inspire its readers, to make people more aware of the typography that is around them. We really cannot escape typography; it’s everywhere: on road signs, shampoo bottles, toothpaste, and even on billboard posters, in books and magazines, online…the list is endless, and the possibilities equally so.
Photoshop Tutorials: 33 Ways to enhance faces, eyes, skin & more
March 9, 2008
From PST, the Photoshop Talent blog comes an excellent set of tutorials that focus on what we do most often: enhance or improve the people in our images. Well worth checking out.
Abduzeedo.com shows how to creating smoke in PS
March 3, 2008
The Abduzeedo.com blog shows you how to create very convincing smoke effects in Photoshop. It’s a 7 step process and one that has many potential applications. It’s one of the best ‘smoke’ tutorials I’ve found on the web. Check it out and try it yourself!
Free, On-line Tutorials: Photoshop, Flash, CSS, PHP, Illustrator, Javascript and more
February 6, 2008
When I was a kid in the fifth grade my teacher, Mrs. Simpson told me that when I grew up education was going to be a life-long enterprise since, unlike previous generations, I would need to continually learn new skills in order to make a living.
As Mrs. Simpson was paid to socialize and indoctrinate our fifth grade class and turn us into good American consumers, useful knowledge was not on the curricula. However, in spite of that, she actually was right about that life-long education thing.
Dang.
Here’s a great spot to find free tutorials on a wide variety of software, the skilled use of which, will help you make the bread to become a good consumer. Remember, if a day goes by without you buying something, the terrorists win. Don’t let that happen. Go here www.good-tutorials.com and check out their collection of over 22 thousand tutorials.
Real World Color Management
February 5, 2008
Who you gonna call when you need a Macbeth Color Checker? Or a CMYK ramp? Why, you’re gonna call Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting, authors of Real World Color Management. They’ll even tell you how (and when) to use them. Look, this book is recommended by Design Tools Monthly’s Jay Nelson. What more do you require?
In their book you’ll learn to:
• Assess the components of your color management system for easy troubleshooting and optimal results
• Build fool-proof display, input, and output ICC profiles using the latest hardware and software solutions
• Evaluate and edit existing ICC profiles
• Implement the ideal color-management workflow for your environment
• Take advantage of color-management services built into your operating system
• Refine color-management practices used in popular graphics and publishing applications
“Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting have created a scientifically accurate, designer-friendly, and completely practical resource for anyone wanting to understand how color works or simply to get predictable color from their particular workflow.”
—Jay Nelson, Design Tools Monthly
“This is the best—absolute best—book on managing color I’ve ever seen!”
—Peter Bauer, Photoshop User magazine
VistaPrint – Fast, Cheap and Sometimes Great
February 4, 2008
If you haven’t already heard of VistaPrint you should definitely get out more. Their prices are very hard to beat and they frequently run specials where a $20 fee is reduced to $2. Once you’ve got an account with them you’ll get regular email offers for ridiculous price reductions.
Of course, in order to achieve these low, low prices VistaPrint gang prints your job with a skillion others so color adjustments are done for the total average image. Which may suit your image or not.
One thing I’ve found them very good at is reprinting a batch that’s clearly gone too red or too blue or too dark. This can play havoc with a tight deadline, so factor that in while you enjoy these deep dish discounts on your printing jobs.
Envelopes – Specs and Specialty Printing
February 4, 2008
There are times when you need the specs for envelopes that are not on the USPS site. At those times, I head over to 4envelopes.com. This company will print and produce your envelopes as well, but i just like the convenience of having the specs for all these various envelopes available in one place.
Now here’s an excellent source when you need some specialty envelopes, the kind that mimic (or perhaps evoke) the look of real priority mail and private delivery services. Eagle imagery predominates. Envelopes.com.
