Tutorials

This Airbrush and Touch-Up tutorial covers one of my favorite Photoshop tools; the Heal tool. We are about to demonstrate the power of the healing brush using a photo of an old cracked statue, but you can gain the same effect on a human face, covering spots, blemishes, lines and wrinkles.

Often under used, it is one of the most powerful tools available to you in Photoshop and has been getting better and better with every new Photoshop release. Not only is it extraordinarily powerful, its extremely simple to use (as you are about to find out).

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This tutorial shows you how to create amazing photography lighting effects using a maglite torch and your camera.

I’m about to show you one of the simplest – but most fun techniques for creating amazing photographic effect.

There isn’t even any need for computer editing!

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Recently, I was dealing with a large dataset in ASP.NET.  I was using the GridView control to display the data to the user.  The user was required to scroll down the page and using pagination links to view all of the data.  Paging events are triggered as PostBack’s and if you are using the smart navigation features of ASP.NET, this causes some serious user experience issues.  Here’s how to fix it.

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Another tutorial request, this time for an iPhone style icon!

This simple tutorial covers the basics of using Photoshop CS4 to create lighting effects to give your graphics depth and shine.

We’ll also show you how to use your new iPhone icon in your iPhone application project.

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I was recently trying to create a sine wave frequency sweep audio sample file to test out a digital signal processing (DSP) filter I was trying to write.  Using Audacity, you can create plug-ins to achieve all sorts of cool effects.  After a little experimentation I came up with the following code:

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This tutorial will take us back to basics using some of the simplest yet most effective Photoshop CS3 tools available to us. The Burn, Dodge and Sponge tools.

Using these tools, we will turn an otherwise dull image into something far more beautiful.

Although they are examples of ‘destructive’ Photoshoping, when dealing with small areas of images, especially photos, it is far easier and more effective to ‘paint in’ these effects rather than using masks to create similar results. Continue reading »

If like me you are a bit of a Mac enthusiast then you’ll no doubt be a sucker for their graphical styling as well. This tutorial aims to give you of one possible way to emulate the Mac OS X desktop background style.

In this tutorial we will be using vector paths, blend modes, gradients and effects. Its a must read to see the many ways Photoshop can handle colour.

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Remove or disable Windows Search Indexer: If like me you are unfortunate enough to have to work on a machine with Windows Vista from time to time – then you may also be annoyed with Windows Search Indexer which will happily munch up your RAM and CPU whenever it feels like it!

It took me a while to work out how to kill/disable it so for anyone else out there who wants to know:

1. Click Start > Control Panel
2. Go to Click System and Maintenance
3. In Control Panel Home view, click Administrative Tools
4. Double-click Service (If asked for permission just continue)
5. Find “Windows Search” in the list
6. Right click and hit Properties
7. Click Stop
8. Select Disable from the drop-down next to Startup Type
9. Click Apply and OK

Enjoy your RAM and CPU! (Or whats left after Vista is done with it!)

A fantastic Mosaic effect that can be achieved with Photoshop. In this tutorial you will learn how to create a mosaic from a photo and then fade between your photo and the mosaic to achieve a really great looking transition that can be used on headers or other web graphics.

I used CS3 for this tutorial but the method can be replicated in lower versions.

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Taking a screenshot in Mac OS X is a relatively complex process compared to the straightforward ‘just press the key’ approach Windows users will be used too. However, once you know what to do, the screenshot functionality of OS X is considerably more powerful and versatile.

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