If you asked me where is the bloggers nest?

I will say it is at Blogging Den! It is a community blogspot where all bloggers from various blog genres are stumbled and mixed together. The contents are interesting and not boring. Well, that’s what you expect when more than a blogger posting blogs. From the looks of it, this will also increase your technorati and mybloglog friends. All in one blogspot!

I’m one of it, so expect my post there also. But from all my post there, I will surely co-pas (copy and paste) it here.

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We, Kaktus Aja, are currently promoting our services from the local newspaper, Cikarang Pos. Well, the ads were supposed to be in this size:

But we will be posting the ads at these sizes:







It’s done! You will found those ads rotating once every two weeks in Cikarang Pos.

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Since more than a half PC users in the world are using Microsoft products (just my thought, no further study had been done), there are three things that you should try and see the result by yourself:

1. A restricted folder name

Start any OS from Microsoft, let it be Windows NT, XP, 95, 96, 97, 98 or maybe even Vista. Open your explorer and create any folder in your hard disk drive with the name “CON” (without the quotation mark, all caps). When you’ve tried this, what do you think about it?

2. A little conspiracy, eh?

A Microsoft’s rich text editor called Notepad, have you heard it? It can be accesses through Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > Notepad or push the Windows Key + R and run the Notepad program. Then type this words: “Bush hid the facts” (once again without the quotation mark, case sensitives). Save it into any text file (.txt) name and open it again. Can you read it? Tell me what it’s said if you can read it.

3. The typical sentences that you always saw, but this many?

This one, even Bill Gates team doesn’t know. Open any Microsoft Word program (97, XP, 2000, 2003, or 2007). Type this formula “=rand(200,99)” (lastly, without the quotation mark). See what it looks like.

 Email This Post Posted by firewalker | 3 Comments »

My friend, who is a not-self-proclaimed photoshop expert, once told me:
“You are thinking too highly of yourself by making a Pen Tool tutorial, try making something simple that anybody can grasp”

Well, he does have a point. Only 1 from 15 people that I asked knows about Pen Tool, most of them didn’t understand what I wrote previously. At least I tried a little bit.

I will start by this Hair Color Changing tutorial.

PREFACE

Before you start, please remember that in designing there is no definite way of doing something. If I say do A to get B, you can also do C, D, or the combination of E and F to get B. After you understand this concept, start your Photoshop!

1ST MINUTE

Choose a Picture. Open a picture from File menu or pressing CTRL+O. I choose the picture of Aya Ueto, a Japanese artist I admire, you also can Wiki her.

2ND MINUTE

Select the hairs. This is what I am talking about in the PREFACE, you can always do the alternatives. My first way is by activating the Quick Mask Mode button; it is located at the lower left of your Default Workspace.

Default Workspace is the default setting of toolbars, menu, and shortcut keys from Adobe Photoshop. You can always turn to default workspace by accessing the Window > Workspace menu.

After you activated the Quick Mask Mode, it means that any brush effect you created will form a masking. The brush will shows in red by default. Now click on the brush tool.

If you confused on where each toolbar are placed, press F1 for Adobe Help Center

Choose the brush with Right-Click on the workspace, it will show you a detailed menu and brushes selection. You can also click the triangle beside the brush to open the menu. Choose the brush that shows in the picture:

Then begin selecting the hairs with brush. Brush over the hairs carefully and precisely. You can always change the brush size by pressing “[“ to decrease and “]” to increase .

Then click on the Quick Mask Mode button again to deactivate the quick mask mode and previewing the selection you have made with brush.

Inverse the selection by choosing the Select > Inverse, or pressing the Shift + Ctrl + I. You will get only the hair as selection. From that selection, press Ctrl + J to create a copy layer based on your selection.

8TH MINUTES

From the copied layer, you can modify the color by experiment with adjustment menu. It is located in Image > Adjustments. I’m sure you will be satisfied with the result, but I also recommend using Hue/Saturation or Photo Filter (from the adjustment menu). This is my setup for Photo Filter:

8.5th Minutes! It’s done! Thank you for following my tutorials. Okay, now you try!

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If I want to focus on some skills, I might lost track on other application. But clients won’t always be the same at all time, you never know which skills are applicable in the future. Furthermore, it will be a waste of time if I learn all the application throughly. If the client is asking some new application which I am not familiar with, I might get into trouble meeting the deadlines.

How am I respond to this? The answer is easy; instead of lurking on each application, I might just asked people who specialized in that application for their tips and trick. Then I can focused on one application that I prefer. Either way, people may also seeking for my guidance as I am focused on the application. All of this activity, mostly appeared in community forum.

What are the forum for graphic design? Here are my complete lists:

DeviantArt
Try joining the artists community that match your style. For example, I am joining the Vector Artists because I prefer vector arts, and I subscribes their newsletters for latest news and events.

CGSociety
Specialized on 3D arts such as Modelling, Animation, and Video Edit. The people here were awesome that they might be hired to the big animation studios in Hollywood.

Animepaper
Cute and colorful Anime and Manga wallpapers are born here. The Photoshop skills in this forum are considered as high class or master. They gives rate for each wallpaper being submitted. And they also do re-trace for scanning materials such as CD/DVD covers, Art Books, Posters, and many more.

Vexels
Vexels is an art consists of vector shapes, such as my secret art. The term is not populary known in graphic design world, but their classification makes the forum becomes more and more creative. Their art are usually beautiful, like paintings.

Click here for the list of Indonesian Graphic Design Forum.

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