In this article we will show you how to draw Chinese cookies in Photoshop.

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Last night, Presselite sent us an email announcing every 12-year-old boy's dream: A 99-cent iPhone app that can see through clothes. Naturally, we thought it was a joke, because 1) the iPhone doesn't yet have the capacity to x-ray (they're saving that for the 3G-XXX) and 2) even if it did, there's no way Apple would approve something so perverse (at least not without offering it exclusively to the TSA as a cheap alternative to full-body airport scans). But the rest of the Internet is lauding "Nude It" it like it's kind of real. How is this possible?

Well, for one, Presselite's marketing campaign--albeit skeevy and deceptive--has been pretty smart. The whole app was inspired by a YouTube video that went viral last month, in which a bunch of twentysomethings use an imaginary iPhone app (also called "Nude It") to see through each other's clothes. The video was an elaborate spoof, obviously, but now that there's an actual "Nude It" iPhone app, it comes across as a legitimate demo. Presselite even linked to it in the press release they sent us, as proof that this app was "amazing."

Also, Presselite tells us exacty what we want to hear, legitimacy be damned. Here's the description they sent, which is the same one that appears in iTunes (emphasis mine):

Nude It is a funny Augmented Reality application for the iPhone that lets you see through clothes. Simply point your iPhone at a friend (less than 6.5 ft / 2 m from you), and using Nude It scanning technology, you will see him or her totally in the nude. Please, note that you must clearly see your friend's face on the screen to get good results.

To illustrate this point, they include two carefully Photoshopped images (above).

Tack on Apple's stamp of approval, Presselite's relatively legitimate reputation (previously, they've developed iPhone games and subway map apps), and our general human willingness to buy into things that sound too good to be true--especially if they involve nudity!--and it's no wonder "Nude It" has made such a splash.

Alas, it's all for nought. We bought and tested the app in the name of truth and justice, and we can exclusively reveal that it's a crock of sh*t. Here's how the description should read: "Simply point your iPhone at a friend or random Internet photo, and using basic AR technology, we'll superimpose a stock image of a chiseled body over his or her torso." Case in point:

[via Presselite]

Amazon's Kindle hit an important and startling milestone yesterday: On Christmas, the company sold more Kindle books than physical books.

Yes, this is obviously the result of everyone who got a Kindle for Christmas (lots of folks) firing it up and ordering a bunch of eBooks on a day in which most physical-book readers weren't shopping. But it's still important and impressive.

The Kindle's economics are still lousy for Amazon: The company loses money on new releases and makes only a modest amount on older titles, thus losing an estimated $1 per Kindle book.

That said, Amazon's strategy is clearly to drive "ubiquity," and based on stats like those above, it is succeeding. The more Kindle books Amazon sells, the more leverage it will have over publishers when it tries to force them to cut wholesale prices. If Amazon's Kindle momentum continues, the day publishers have to capitulate will come sooner rather than later.

And, despite publishers' cries, this is not necessarily bad for publishers: If publishers cut wholesale prices, Amazon will be able to cut retail prices. If the retail prices are cut to nominal levels—$2.99 or $3.99 per copy—sales velocity should soar. Publishers and writers will make less per unit, but the increased volume should make up a lot of the difference.

Amazon's release below.

See also:
Amazon's Latest Kindle Deal Is Watershed, Will Increase Pressure On Publishers
Amazon Making No Headway With Publishers On Kindle Book Pricing

Amazon Kindle is the Most Gifted Item Ever on Amazon.comOn Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical BooksSEATTLE, Dec 26, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that Kindle has become the most gifted item in Amazon's history. On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York TimesBestsellersand New Releases.

"We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "On behalf of Amazon.com employees around the world, we wish everyone happy holidays and happy reading!"

On Amazon's peak day, Dec. 14, 2009, customers ordered over 9.5 million items worldwide, which is a record-breaking 110 items per second.

Amazon Worldwide 2009 Holiday Facts (includes www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.co.jp and www.amazon.ca):

 

• Amazon shipped to over 178 countries.
• One of our most remote shipments contained the EMU Australia Toddler Boot and was delivered to Atqasuk, Alaska.
• On the peak day this season, Amazon's worldwide fulfillment network shipped over 7 million units.
• Amazon shipped over 200,000 units to APO/FPO addresses.
• 
  
  
• Amazon shipped more than 99 percent of orders in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide.

Amazon.com 2009 Holiday Facts (www.amazon.com only):

 

• Amazon customers purchased enough fruit cake to equal the weight of a 1967 Volkswagen Bug.
• Amazon customers bought enough gingerbread house kits that if stacked on top of each other would be as tall as the Sears Tower.
• 
  
  
• If all the computers customers purchased this holiday were stacked one on top of the other, they would be more than twice as high as Mt. Everest.
• Amazon customers bought over 50 times more Light Therapy devices this holiday season than there are sunny days in Seattle the entire year.
• For the holiday time period alone, Amazon customers purchased enough shoot-and-share camcorders to supply 50 years' worth of non-stop YouTube watching.
• Amazon customers bought enough Levi's jeans to clothe everyone at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
• Amazon customers purchased so many Blu-ray disc players that if you lined them up side to side, they would stretch for more than 27 miles.
• During the 2009 holiday season, Amazon customers bought enough 8 GB iPod touches to play 442 years of continuous music.
• 
  
  
• In 2009, Amazon customers purchased enough heart rate monitor watches to put one on the wrist of everyone who finished the New York City marathons in 2008 and 2009.
• Amazon customers purchased enough Frustration-Free Package items to eliminate over 32,000 pounds of frustrating plastic materials, such as plastic clamshells.
• The last One-Day Prime order that was delivered in time for Christmas, was placed on Dec. 23 at 9:17 p.m. Pacific and shipped to Boca Raton, Florida for delivery on Dec. 24. The item was a pair of Yellow Gold 8-8.5mm Freshwater Cultured Pearl Stud Earrings.
• The last Local Express Delivery order that was delivered in time for Christmas, was placed by a Prime member and went to Seattle. It was a Kindle that was ordered at 1:43 p.m. on Christmas Eve and delivered at 4:57 p.m. that evening.

Amazon.com's Hot Holiday Bestsellers (Nov. 15 through Dec. 19, based on units ordered):

 

• Electronics: Kindle Wireless Reading Device; Apple iPod touch 8 GB; and Garmin nuvi 260W 4.3-inch GPS
• Toys: Scrabble Slam Cards; The Settlers of Catan; and Scene It? Twilight Deluxe Edition
• Video Games and Hardware: Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board; New Super Mario Bros; and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Sports & Outdoors: Razor A Kick Scooter; Victorinox Swiss Army Champion Plus Pocket Knife; and P90X Extreme Home Fitness Workout Program
• DVD: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince;" "Star Trek;" and "Up"
• Books: "Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin; "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown; and "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
• Music: "I Dreamed A Dream" by Susan Boyle; "My Christmas" by Andrea Bocelli; and "Crazy Love" by Michael Bublé
• Jewelry: Sterling Silver Marcasite & Garnet Glass Heart Pendant; 10k White Gold Diamond 3-Stone Heart Pendant; and 18k White Gold Round Diamond 4-Prong Stud Earrings
• Watches: Casio Men's Waveceptor Atomic Dual-Time Watch; Invicta Men's II Collection Chronograph Stainless Steel Blue Dial Watch; and Timex Kids' Camouflage Stretch Band Watch
• Beauty: Sephora Brand Color Play Palette II; Santa's Lump of Coal Christmas Soap; and Sephora Brand Ultimate Blockbuster
• Home & Garden: Keurig My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter; Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator; and Oster Electric Wine-Bottle Opener
• Clothing & Accessories: The Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee; Levi's Men's 550 Relaxed Fit Jean; and Levi's Men's 501 Jean
• Shoes and Handbags (Amazon.com and Endless.com): Steve Madden Women's Bonanza Tall Shafted Flat Boot; Hunter Original Tall Welly Boot; and EMU Australia Women's Hip Boot
• Health & Personal Care: Omron HJ-112 Digital Pocket Pedometer; Philips Sonicare Essence 5300 Power Toothbrush; and Farouk CHI 1 Inch Ceramic Flat Hairstyling Iron
• Gourmet Food: Bon Appetit Gift Basket; Grand Ghirardelli Chocolate Gift Basket; and 50's Decade Box Gift Basket
• Home Improvement: Black & Decker MSW100 Ready Wrench; Bosch Laser Distance Measuring Device; and Joby Gorillatorch Adjustable and Flexible Tripod Flashlight
• Automotive Parts & Accessories: Wagan 12V Heated Seat Cushion; 3M Headlight Lens Restoration System; and Autel MaxiScan MS300 CAN OBD-II Scan Tool
• Baby: Baby Einstein Takealong Tunes; Vulli Sophie the Giraffe Teether; and Baby Einstein Bendy Ball
• Software: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007; Adobe Photoshop Elements 8; and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
• Grocery: Coffee People Donut Shop K-Cups for Keurig Brewers; Coffee People K-Cup Santa's Buzz; and Vita Coco 100% Pure Coconut Water
• Wireless: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Unlocked Phone; Plantronics 510 Bluetooth Headset; and BlackBerry Bold 9700 Phone (AT&T)

Design is a fluid and shifting process in which layers are constantly modified and tweaked. As complexity builds, so does the need for preserving data in a flexible way. Learning non-destructive editing techniques helps you produce documents that bend along with your creativity. Photoshop Masks are the cornerstone of this process. Not only do they preserve important pixel data, but they allow for the creation of flexible interface elements as well. In this article, we’ll explore the technical aspects and creative advantages of incorporating masks into your workflow.

Photoshop offers five methods of masking: Pixel Masks, Vector Masks, Quick Masks, Clipping Masks and Clipping Paths, all of which define pixel opacities without affecting the original data. Each of them has its own pros and cons, and knowing which method to use is extremely important for creating clean, flexible and properly masked layers.

Pixel Masks

Pixel masks determine opacity values based on a raster image with grayscale values that correspond pixel for pixel to the original layer. This makes them ideal for masking complex photographic imagery (e.g. the hair on a model or leaves on a tree). Pixel masks allow 100 shades of gray, which correspond directly to opacity percentages. The ability to vary opacities is unique to pixel masks, making them an invaluable tool.

Pixel Masks are ideal for extracting complex photographic imagery. (Image Source)

While pixel masks can be easily modified, they aren’t ideal for every situation. Because of their raster format, scaling them can cause unwanted artifacts and interpolated bluriness. Smooth curves and perfect edges can also be tricky to create when painting a mask. Under such circumstances, vector masks would be preferable.

Pixel masks should not be used when you might have to rescale.

Creation

Creating a pixel mask is as easy as selecting the layer or layer group and clicking the “Add Layer Mask” button at the bottom of the layer’s palette. A second thumbnail will be added to the layer, giving you a preview of the mask. By default, this will be entirely white. However, if you happen to have a selection active when creating the mask, the selection will be used to define the grayscale values of the mask.

Once a mask is created, it can be edited as if it were any other pixel data by clicking on the mask’s thumbnail. You can then paint in black to hide areas or white to show them. The mask can also be tweaked using adjustments and filters such as Curves, Threshold, Unsharp mask and Gaussian blur.

Painting the mask black is much like using the eraser tool. (Image Source)

View Modes

While creating a mask, there are a number of ways to view the mask data. Option + clicking on the thumbnail will display only the mask on the canvas; this is great for fine-tuning areas but doesn’t allow you to see the actual layer as you work. If you’d like to see both the mask and the layer at the same time, you can view the mask as a Ruby overlay. Simply press with the layer selected to toggle the overlay on and off. The color and opacity of the overlay can also be changed by double-clicking the mask’s thumbnail. Additionally, if you’d like to temporarily remove the mask, you can toggle it on and off by Shift + clicking on the mask’s thumbnail.

Turning the mask off and the overlay on can help with fine-tuning. (Image Source)

Channels

Every time a layer with a mask is selected, the mask is shown as a temporary alpha channel in the Channels palette. From here, you can save the channel for later use by dragging the channel to the “Create new channel” button at the bottom of the palette or by selecting “New Channel” from the fly-out menu. You can also change the mask’s Ruby overlay settings by double-clicking the channel’s thumbnail. Because a temporary channel becomes available whenever a masked layer is selected, you can use some keyboard shortcuts to toggle between the actual layer and its mask. Pressing Command + will select the mask and Command + 2 will bring you back to the layer data.

A temporary channel is available whenever a layer with a mask is selected.

Vector Masks

Vector masks pick up where pixel masks fall short. By defining the mask’s shape using paths, vector masks provide a superior level of finesse and flexibility. They’re ideal for defining shapes with clean, crisp lines, such as interface elements.

Vector Masks are ideal for masking crisp-edged objects. (Image Source)

The disadvantage of vector masks is that they are unable to vary pixel opacities; they are basically either 0 or 100. For this reason, many masking jobs require a hybrid implementation. By using a vector mask to define the solid edges and a pixel mask for the more complex areas or for varying opacities, you can effectively extract objects while maximizing flexibility.

Creation

To add a vector mask to an existing layer, simply Command + Click the “Add Layer Mask” button at the bottom of the layer’s palette. If a path is currently active, the mask will be created using it. Otherwise, the mask will be empty. Paths can then be added, subtracted or modified by clicking the mask’s thumbnail.

Being able to create flexible interface elements is one of the best advantages of vector masks. Using the Shape Tool (U) set to Shape Layers allows you to quickly create a fill layer with a Vector Mask. These layers are far more flexible than a raster level and are perfect for creating buttons, rules and other elements that can be resized without interpolating data.

The flexibility offered by Vector Masks make them perfect for interface elements such as buttons.

View Modes

By clicking on the Vector Mask’s thumbnail in the the Layer’s palette, you can show or hide the paths saved in the mask. These paths can also be accessed from the Path’s palette, but only if the layer itself is selected. Toggling the mask on and off can be done by Shift + clicking the thumbnail.

Paths

Much like how layer masks appear in the Channels palette, a temporary work path would be displayed in the Paths palette when a layer with a vector mask is selected. You can then save the mask by dragging it to the “Create new path” button at the bottom of the palette or selecting “Save Path” from the fly-out menu. This temporary path can be accessed at any time by first selecting the Path Selection tool (A) and then pressing Enter; it can be dismissed by pressing Enter again. You can also quickly create a selection from an active path by pressing Command + Enter.

Applying

Before a vector mask can be applied to a layer it must first be rasterized by right-clicking the vector mask thumbnail and choosing Rasterize Vector Mask. If the layer already has a pixel mask, the two masks will be composited together to create a single pixel mask. It can then be applied like any other layer mask (right-clicking the thumbnail and choosing “Apply Layer Mask”).

Quick Masks

The Quick Mask mode allows you to create a selection using pixel editing tools as opposed to the primitive selection tools. This is a more logical approach to creating a complex mask with variable opacity. You can access this mode by clicking on the “Quick Mask” button in the Tools bar or by pressing Q.

Once in Quick Mask mode, you’ll no longer be editing the current layer. Instead, you’ll be editing a Ruby overlay that can be edited as if it were regular pixel data. By default, entering this mode will cover the entire canvas with a semi-transparent red color. You can then paint white to remove the overlay and black to add it back. The Quick Mask is essentially a more visual representation of a selection. Therefore, every area that you remove from the overlay is added to the selection.

Quick Mask mode allows you to quickly paint a selection. (Image Source)

Options

You can modify how the Quick Mask mode is displayed by double-clicking the “Quick Mask” button in the Tools bar. Here you can change the color and opacity of the mask as well as whether the mask color indicates masked areas or selected areas. Personally, I find painting selected areas more intuitive than painting masked areas, which is the default.

The Quick Mask Options menu allows you to change the color, opacity and target of the overlay.

Saving

After creating a quick mask, you can immediately apply it to a layer by creating a layer mask or save it for later use. By selecting Selection → Save Selection, you can save your selection as a new channel or apply it to an existing channel. This allows you to come back to the selection at any time by Control + clicking the channel in the Channel’s palette or by selecting Selection → Load Selection

Saving a Quick Mask creates a new channel.

Clipping Masks

You’ll often run into situations in which multiple layers require the same mask. You could group the layers and mask the layer group, but that is not always ideal. Clipping masks allows for a layer simply to adopt the opacity of an underlying layer. This is extremely helpful when using adjustment layers; by clipping them to a layer, you can apply adjustments to a single layer without affecting those below it.

The easiest way to create a clipping mask is to Option + click between the two layers in the Layer’s palette when the clipping mask cursor appears. Alternatively, you could press Command + Option + G to clip a layer to the one below it. Any number of layers can be clipped to one master layer, but a clipped layer can’t be used as a clipping mask itself.

Clipping Masks are great for constraining Adjustment Layers. (Image Source)

Clipping Paths

Clipping Paths are a lot like Vector Masks except that they apply to an entire document rather than a layer or layer group. They are primarily used by print designers to specify uniquely shaped objects that are imported into a page layout program. The path is imported along with the image to ensure a crisp clean edge.

To create a clipping path, first be sure that you have a path saved; having a temporary Work Path does not suffice. You must select “Save Path” from the fly-out menu in the Paths palette if your path is not saved. Then, from the fly-out menu, choose “Clipping Path.” Your document’s appearance will not change, but if you were to import the document into Illustrator using the Place command, it would be clipped to the path.

Masks Palette

The Masks palette, introduced in CS4, adds some useful features to help with creating and refining both pixel and vector masks. For the first time, you can feather a mask and change its density without losing the original mask.

The Masks palette was a great addition to Photoshop CS4.

Create/View Buttons

At the top of the palette are two buttons that can be used to select the layer mask or vector mask or to create one if one doesn’t exist.

Density

The density slider basically controls how strong the mask is. At 100%, fully masked areas will be completely transparent. When density is set to 50%, those same areas would be only 50% transparent.

The Density slider controls the strength of the mask. (Image Source)

Feather

Feathering the edges of a mask used to require applying a Gaussian Blur, which would destroy the original mask shape. With the Masks palette you can now change the amount of feathering at any time while maintaining the original mask data.

With the Feather slider, you can now change the mask’s softness on the fly. (Image Source)

Mask Edge

The Mask Edge menu provides some long-desired features that aid in refining a mask’s perimeter. They come in extremely handy when the extracted object is still picking up color from the masked background.

Radius
The Radius setting is similar to feathering, but it retains some of the edge’s crispness. This can be helpful with reducing awkward or overly sharp edges on complex shapes.

Contrast
Contrast simply modifies the contrast of edge elements, which helps crispen any soft edges. Using this in conjunction with Radius can help remove unwanted artifacts in the mask.

Radius and Contrast can be used to remove unwanted artifacts. (Image Source)

Smooth
Smooth simplifies the complexity of the mask’s edges. This can be useful if you’ve painted the mask by hand and need to quickly clean up some rough edges.

Feather
This feather command is nearly identical to the Mask palette’s primary feather command, but it restricts the blur more to the edge of the mask. The difference is slight yet noticeable.

Contract/Expand
The Contract and Expand slider allows you to grow and shrink the edges of the mask. This is extremely useful for reducing unwanted color fringes.

Smooth and Contract helps tighten up masks to reduce color fringes. (Image Source)

Preview Mode
At the bottom of the palette are five different preview modes that allow you to view the mask as a (1) selection with marching ants, (2) quick mask ruby overlay, (3) black matte, (4) white matte or (5) grayscale mask.

Check the mask in different views to ensure its quality. (Image Source)

Color Range

The Color Range menu is one of the most powerful ways to extract an image from an evenly colored background. With only a few clicks and adjustments, even the most complex object can be cleanly masked. For further details, see the “Techniques” section just below.

Techniques

Each masking job is unique and requires a different method of creation and refinement. However, some common techniques can drastically improve the efficiency and maximize the flexibility of your masks.

Color Range

When your masking task requires an object to be extracted from an evenly colored background (much like the video editing process of Chroma keying), the quickest means is often the Color Range command. First, use the Eyedropper Tool to select the primary color of the background. Then, you can use the “Add to sample” and “Remove from sample” tools to refine the color selection. The fuzziness slider lets you broaden the range of colors selected. If the color data is there to support it, this process makes short work of an otherwise tedious task.

The Eyedropper tools allow you to easily select the sky in the photo.

Color Range can make quick work of complex masks. (Image Source)

Channels

A mask is often hiding in one of the layer’s channels, just waiting to be unlocked. Depending on the image you’re using, you may be able to find a channel with strong contrast between the target object and its surroundings. You may even want to try temporarily changing the color mode to Lab or CMYK to provide alternative channel options. Once you find a channel with a strong enough contrast, Command + click it to create a selection. Then, apply the selection as a layer mask. You’ll then be able to tweak it as you would any other mask.

As the image below demonstrates, simply selecting a channel is not always sufficient for a clean mask. You may need to do some mixing with other channels.

(Image Source)

1. The original image has strong vibrant colors, making it a great opportunity to create a mask using channels.
2. The red channel has the foreground-to-background contrast, so we’ll start there. We’ve copied and pasted it onto a new layer and then inverted it.
3. The green cup is still very prominent, so we’ve converted the blue channel to a layer and will use it to negate the green and red cups.
4. By setting the Blending Mode on the blue channel’s layer to Multiply, we can effectively erase any extraneous white areas.
5. The two layers are then flattened and applied as a layer mask to the original image. This leaves us with a cleanly masked blue mug.

Pixel/Vector Hybrid

Objects will quite often have a combination of sharp edges and soft feathered edges. In instances like these, using both a pixel and a vector mask may be best. One common example of this is extracting a figure. You can use the pen tool to draw all of the smooth edges along the figure’s body and then use a pixel mask to paint in the fine details such as hair.

Multiple Masks

There may be times when you want to apply more than one mask to a layer. You could choose to apply the mask by right-clicking the layer and selecting Apply Layer Mask, after which you could apply a new mask. This, however, is not ideal because the data behind the mask will be lost.

A far better method is to create a Smart Object from the layer and mask the new layer. This allows you to apply two masks to one layer without losing data. In fact, if needed, you could repeat this process over and over.

Converting a layer to a Smart Object allows you to add multiple masks without losing data.

Layer Styles

If you have ever added a mask to a layer with layer styles, things may have gotten messy, especially if the mask had soft edges or varying opacities. This is because, by default, Photoshop uses a composite of the layer’s opacity along with any masks on it to define the area used by the layer styles. This is desirable but can also be a nuisance. To counter the default behavior, open the Blending Options menu for the layer, and apply either “Layer Mask Hides Effects” or “Vector Mask Hides Effects.”

Messes can often be tidied by using the “Layer Mask Hides Effects” option.

Blend Clipped Layers as Group

By default, Photoshop assumes that all layers in a clipping stack should be blended with the base layer before the base layer is blended with the layers below it. This makes sense sometimes, but other times you may need the clipped layers to adopt the shape of the base layer but not the blend mode. To prevent this behavior, open the Blending Options menu for the base layer (right-click the layer and choose “Blending Options”), and uncheck the “Blend Clipped Layers as Group” option. Now, each of the clipped layers will blend with underlying layers as if they weren’t clipped.

The “Blend Clipped Layers as Group” causes all clipped layers to blend together first and then blend with underlying layers using the base layer’s Blend Mode.

Type Masks

Grouped with the Type tool in the Tools bar is the deceptively named Type Mask tool. It allows you to create type just like the regular type tool; but once committed, the type is converted to a selection. This selection can be converted to a layer mask but will no longer be editable. This is not ideal. If editability is important, you may want to create a regular type layer and use it as the base of a clipping mask. This is the only way to mask objects to the shape of type without losing the ability to edit the text. Perhaps someday Photoshop will let us create an editable Type Mask for a layer.

Removing Edge Fringes

Even after using the “Refine Edge” command in the Masks palette, you may find random color fringes left along the edge of your mask. This is where some manual brushwork comes in handy. The Paintbrush tool can be used here, but I recommend the Healing Brush, Stamp Tool or Smudge Tool because they will blend better with the subject.

First, create a new layer and clip it to the masked layer. Then, set your tool of choice to sample all layers. You can now select your sample area and paint the fringes out; the original layer data will be preserved. Often, changing the brush’s Blend Mode will help preserve the detail of the layer.

Color Fringes can usually be smudged or painted away on a clipped layer. (Image Source)

Keyboard Shortcuts

• 
  View Layer Mask as an overlay
• Command +
  Set layer focus to Layer Mask
• Command + 2
  Set layer focus to layer data
• Command + Option +
  Create selection from Layer Mask
• Command + Option + G
  Make/Release Clipping Mask
• A, then Enter
  Activate/Dismiss Vector Mask
• Command + Enter
  Create selection from active vector mask
• Command + Click Mask Thumbnail
  Create selection from mask
• Command + Option + Click Mask Thumbnail
  Subtract mask from selection
• Command + Option + Shift + Click Mask Thumbnail
  Intersect mask from selection
• Q
  Toggle Quick Mask mode

Inside the Color Range Menu

• Option
  Toggle the Reset button and the “Subtract from Sample” tool
• Command
  Toggle between the Selection view and Image view
• Shift
  Toggle the “Add to Sample” tool

Further Reading

• Nesting Smart Objects for Multi-Mask Effects in Photoshop
• Using Masks to Improve Landscape Images
• Photoshop Masking and Compositing
• Masking a Tree
• Seamless Compositing
• Fluid Mask, by Vertus
• Selecting and Extracting Hair
• Mastering Photoshop With Paths

(al)

© Thomas Giannattasio for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: masks, photoshop

Round-ups of beautiful and useful icons are almost legendary here, on Smashing Magazine. While some readers complain about the annoying “list”-style of some of our articles, we are confident that useful round-ups of relevant resources are very valuable and useful for designers. This is why over months we collect useful links and then present them in posts in the magazine. Like it or hate it, but the feedback that we get from the design community when we publish such posts is mostly positive which is why we keep doing it.

This round-up covers 50 beautiful and useful icons that may turn out to be life-savers for your next design. We present photorealistic icons, mini icons and pictograms, symbols and signs, free templates as well as Christmas icon sets and desktop replacement icons. Please make sure to read the license agreements before using the icons – they may change from time to time. Did you find this post useful? Would you like to see more similar posts in the future? Let us know in the comments to this post!

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• Fresh Free High Quailty Icon Sets
• 50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design
• 50 Free High-Quality Icon Sets

Free High Quality Icons

iMod
146 freely available PNG-icons in the resolutions 256×256px and 512×512px.

Leica Camera Icon
A Leica rangefinder camera icon, available in the resolution 512×512px. Mac- and Win-versions are available.

Gifts boxes (Registration required)
9 various gift icons in the resolution 256×256px, .PNG. Free for private use; for commercial use a link to the designers’ site is required.

Musicons Icon Set (Registration required)
A set of 8 music-related icons. Available in the resolutions 256×256, 128×128, 48×48, 32×32, 16×16 as png, .ico, .hqx and .icns. Free for private use; for commercial use a link to the designers’ site is required.

Gamble icons

PixelShop Icon
Remake of Pixelmator icon in three different variations for Photoshop (or any other application).

Free Portfolio Icon Set
A set of 5 icons with portfolio sites in mind. The set includes PNG files of 512 pixels and 256 pixels, plus the source files (Illustrator). The icons are free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

MacBook

Pre Desktop Goodie
They’re not amazingly detailed or even polished at their maximum size of 512 pixels, but that wasnít my intention, either. Consider that a disclaimer before you start commenting that they donít look nice enough to you at that size ;).

STACKS

Sketchy Icons
…I’ve been doing this for quite a while. I’ve recently bought a tablet, and it turned out that my hand isn’t listening as it used to. So I’ve been doing this for practice. I designed some of the icons, modified some and just redraw the ones that i found pleasing. These are all the Icons I use at the moment, so if you want some other icons, just let me know.

iWork.com

Icons by Chris Williams
Various icons designed by Chris Williams and available for free download. Among them is this Jack Daniels icon in .ico and .icontainer.

Exclusive Free LBOI Icon Set For Designers
A little while back Iconshock contacted me and offered to do an exclusive icon set for LBOIís readers. So I set off to browse their website and their work. They do some amazing work in the icon industry. Their website boasts of 803824 unique icons in 232 categories. That is pretty impressive in itself. What I really liked was their active design community and blog where they offered significant number of free high quality icons for downloads every week, featured interesting articles about design and icons and showcased great designer talent. Go check out IconShock ís royalty free icons and custom icon design services.

Stock icons

Graphic River Webset Icons
Designed by Turbomilk, this set contains various social media icons that are available for free personal and commercial use. However, you must link back to the release page if using these icons in a commercial project. Available as .png in the resolutions 16×16px – 48×48px.

Kal Michael’s Icons
Various icons in various resolutions, designed by Kal Michael, available for free download and use.

178 Amazing Web Design Icon
The WooFunction Icon Set includes 178 amazing web-related icons in a sophisticated and glossy design style. All 178 icons are available as 32?32 pixel PNG files and we can assure you that they are indeed pixel-perfect. If you have an in-depth look at the individual icons, youíll notice that Liam has spent a lot of time paying attention to the finer details, which means that this is a really classy icon set. Here; have a look for yourself:

Gentle Romantic icons
This set contains 5 .png-icons in the resolution 512×512px. The icons are tiara on royal pillow, rose, champagne glasses (looks good on black and white background), heart with ribbon, Tiffany key.

Hand-Drawn Social Media Icon
The set comprising of 24 different icons, should cover most of the social networks that you frequent regularly and the default icon size has been set at 64 x 64 pixels.

Soda Pop Caps Icons
Together with the obvious Coca Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Pepsi caps (including Pepsiís horrible redesign), the set features Vita Cola, a Coca Cola knockoff created in Eastern Germany in the mid-Fifties under the Communist regime.

Jacal’s Castle (Win)
This castle icon is available as .ico and .icontainer. Free for personal use, free for public use with a link to the designer’s site. Mac-version.

Jacintosh (Win)
This castle icon is available as .ico. Free for personal use, free for public use with a link to the designer’s site. Only Win-version is available.

Designer’s tools icon – WD2

Shopping bag icon – WD1
This time it’s only one png icon, but it have 3 colors of ribbon handle and 5 sizes. I decided to do new icon series but this collection is called “weekly delicious”, which means will be new icon every week, so here is №1 – shopping bag, it’s easy in photoshop to change colors of ribbons so shopping bag will fit in your design. Add logo or company style graphic elements on it and it will fit anywhere

Switch icon

Hrvoje Bielen’s Icons
Various icons, designed by Hrvoje Bielen: crankset icon, propeller engine, jet engine turbine, aircraft, Twitter egg, Gibson Les Paul Guitar and othes. Resolutions: 16×16px — 512×512px, .ico, .png, .tif, .icns.

Cute Blogging Icon Set
This set contains 10 freely available icons. You can use these icons on your blog. Cute Blogging Icon Set inclides Design, Download, Freelance, Part-time, Hire Me, Not Available, About Me, Services, My Blog, Contact.

Sketchy Web Icons: 30 Hand Drawn Icon Pack
This Icon Pack includes 30 Hand-Drawn Web Design Icons. This is the perfect set for adding that handmade feel to your own creations online.

Mini Social Networking Icon set
This set includes 45 social networking Icons: Blogger / Blogspot, Delicious, Digg, Designmoo, Facebook, Design float, Linkedin, Mixx, Myspace, RSS, Technorati, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, Windows, Openid, Orkut, Skype, DeviantArt, FriendFeed and many more. Dimensions: 32×32px and 64×64px; .PNG icons.

Extreme Grunge Garments Icons
This high quality, hand made, icon pack is full with 9 Extreme Grunge Social Media Garments. Each icon is in .png format with transparent backgrounds, sized at 256×256px.

Videobox
This is the app icon for Videobox, the successor of FLVR.

Breakfast Icons
Featuring a genuine Moka Express coffee maker, coffee cup, chocolate chip muffin, toast and sugar pot in three versions: open empty, open full and closedóuse it as a trash can replacement!

Classic Cameras (PNG)
A set of camera icons in the resolution 128×128px. Versions: Win version (ico), Mac Version.

Moleskine Helvetica Icon

Generic Controller 2
Another generic controller icon, based on the PlayStation controller. Also with a folder this time.

Capsule
The inspiration comes from comic book : ” DragonBall ” , capsule is an amazing stuff in this book.

Photoshop Icon Goodie
A quick replacement icon for Photoshop. Free for personal use and customization only.

Usercenter Calendar

Sixpack status icon pack
Sixpack status is a small set of high quality icons which can be used for status messages. It is completely free for personal and commercial use. Icons are available in four sizes, 32×32, 64×64, 128×128 and 256×256px. They are also available in vector (SVG) format, which can be edited using applications such as Inkscape (they are actually made in Inkscape).

Free E-Commerce Icons
10 e-Commerce icons, available as the Adobe Illustrator source file (.ai). They may be used in any projects, whether commercial or private nature.

Gaming Icon Set
A set of 21 free gaming icons for you to use in any projects, on your application dock, desktop or whatever you like.

Voodoo Folder Icon Set
Voodoo system folder icon. Dock and Wallpaper included. Including sizes: 16×16px — 512×512px. Available in .png, .icns, .ico and iContainer.

folios
8 Adobe desktop replacement icons; .png in resolutions 16×16px — 256×256px.

Pictograms, Symbols and Mini-icons

Freshpixel.fr
Freely available icons in vector format by French designer Mister Size. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

DesignWorkPlan
This is a collection of 50 common used signage symbols, professional designed. The symbols signs are free of charge available as an OpenType font format, allowing you to easily add symbols & icons to your sign and wayfinding design. All the symbols have been designed & created by Sander Baumann and set to the proportions of a regular typeface, so you no longer need to copy/paste the symbols into your designs.

125 Public Information Symbols
This Japanese website made a collectio of public information symbols available for free download. The available formats are PDF, EPS and GIF. The set contains symbols of public facilities, transport facilities, commercial facilities, tourism, culture, sport facilities, safety, prohibition, warning and mandatory.

brsev
128 unique icons for apps, folders, settings, and the desktop. Each icon has two color variants, dark and light. Each color variant is available as a 128×128 PNG or a Windows ICO. The ICO combines 16×16, 32×32, and 256×256 resolutions; each icon was carefully tweaked in shape and style for the best display quality at the three resolutions listed.

Android Icons
All icons are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Feel free to use them in any form in you projects or even remix them. No need to link back to this page, but it would be nice.

149 Icons of Scary Celebrity
149 icons of horror and fantasy gridded up on large sheet and served up on a wall. Chop Shopís The Horror & Fantasy Collection screened print featuring 62 monsters, 35 vampires and 51 various icons of the undead all referenced from various sources of film, television, gaming, music, literature, legend and more. Perfect for taking to work, and killing productivity for an entire day.

Cafeteria Vector Icons
These are vector pictograms rather than icons but all the more useful for that. You can scale them to any size, change their colors and mess with them any way you want.

google-maps-icons
Map icons collection is a pack of 600 free icons for your placemarks. You can put them manually in your Google Maps with the “My maps” feature, or automaticly with the Google Maps API.

172 Country Flag Icons
172 final country flag icons which rendered at 256×256, 128×128, 64×64, 48×48, 32×32, 24×24, 16×16 pixels and formats are png, ico and icns. License: Free for non-commercial use.

United States Flags Icons
American states Icon set which rendered at 256×256, 128×128, 64×64, 48×48, 32×32, 16×16 pixels and format are png, ico and icns. License: Free for non-commercial use.

Fun
A set of small 16×16px icons: Wacom tablet, Dresser, iPhone, iMac, Dresser.

Mini Icon Set
A set of various mini icons: included sizes are 48px, 32px and 16px.

Christmas Icons and Vectors

Silent Night Christmas icons

Smashing Christmas Icon Set

Free Christmas Photoshop Pack
Need to decorate your website or banner with Christmas elements? Vladstudio Christmas Photoshop Pack will help!

Santa Claus Icons

The Real Christmas ë05 Reloaded
As a christmas Gift from Enhanced Labs, We decided to Add 7 Bonus Icons to the package, and Re-Release this icon set on christmas day. This icon set now includes 20 holiday icons.

Christmas Icons

Christmas Icons
Archigraphs Christmas icons Icons Set created for free use. For MacOs X, and Windows Vista. PNG files included.

Shiny Social Balls
Freeware. Social Christmas Icons. Available for Windows and Mac.

Xmas 2009 Icon Set

Would you like to see more similar posts on Smashing Magazine?

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• Fresh Free High Quailty Icon Sets
• 50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design
• 50 Free High-Quality Icon Sets

© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 99 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: Freebies, Icons

Collage is the combination of pieces of diverse materials and media, such as newspaper, magazines, package labels, fabric, paint and photographs, into one composition. The term itself derives from the French “coller,” meaning “glue.” It was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso at the beginning of the 20th century, when collage became a distinct part of modern art.

Collage promises to be an important creative outlet for many years to come because it allows artists to explore and experiment with creating truly new, exciting and often unexpected results. This article showcases the pioneers of the collage movement, current trends and examples, contemporary proponents of collage and a wealth of resources. Please feel free to use the comments area to suggest other collages or artists you like.

You may be interested in the article Pop Art Is Alive: Classics and Modern Artworks that presents 75 outstanding examples of classic and modern pop art.

Pioneers

Pablo Picasso

Early in 1912, Picasso created “Still Life with Chair Caning” (above) by attaching a piece of oilcloth with a caning pattern to an oval-shaped painting. It is said to be the first “modern” collage; however, the claim is not definitive, because George Braque was developing a technique using papier collé in the same year.

George Braque

Georges Braque developed paper collage (papier collé) using shreds of mixed media to produce the effect of actual paint, layered on the canvas with paint later being added. He first used this technique in his 1912 painting, Fruitdish and Glass (above).

Kurt Schwitters

A collage by German Dada and surrealist artist Kurt Schwitters entitled “Das Undbild” from 1919. Schwitters was famous for his collages, called “Merz Pictures,” in which he attempted to make coherent artistic sense of the world around him using fragments of found objects.

Eduardo Paolozzi

Paolozzi is regarded as the father of pop art in Britain. This piece, “I Was a Rich Man’s Plaything” from 1947, is considered the earliest standard-bearer of pop art. It was created from different pieces of commercially printed paper stuck to a single piece of card.

Henri Matisse

Late in his career, Matisse began to work increasingly with cut paper. He used sheets of paper washed over with gouache colors and then cut out his shapes and stuck them together, as shown above in a collage entitled “The Snail” from 1953.

Robert Rauschenberg

Most famous for his “Combines” series of collages (1954 to 1962), Rauschenberg extended the conventions of collage and found objects and incorporated trash and interesting urban debris, such as bottles, clocks, radios, clothing, wire and newspaper, into his work.

Richard Hamilton

Created in 1956 for the catalog of an exhibition in London, “Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?” was the first work of pop art (or indeed collage) to achieve iconic status. It consists of images taken mainly from American magazines and advertisements.

Romare Bearden

Bearden truly embraced the collage technique, because the layered, fragmented form allowed him to freely combine ideas, shapes and cultural references in a modern and accessible way. “The Calabash” (above) of 1970 is perhaps his most famous collage.

Current Trends

Now let’s take a closer look at current trends and examples. As you browse through the collages in this showcase, you may notice these trends:

Vintage

The use of vintage images, advertisements and materials is perhaps the biggest trend in collages today. Many collage artists take inspiration from vintage art because of its unique style and beauty.

Mixed media

Mixed media is simply the use of other media, such as paint, in a collage. Common media include pencil drawings, paints, pastels, charcoals and markers.

Advertising and slogans

Not surprisingly, slogans, branding and advertising play a major part in many of the collages featured here. Consumer culture has become a major force since its appearance in collages in the late 1940s.

Retro

Retro iconography and imagery have experienced a resurgence in collage, because their style is so distinctive from today’s culture and art.

Urban

“Found collage” relies heavily on urban wall art, such as torn posters, ads, paint, markers and signs. It is growing in popularity, partly because of artists such as Nick Riggio, who creates urban collage paintings.

Creative Collages

Inyourspace

Shikaz

Somavenus

Sparklingrain

Agosbeatle

Rworks

Kayla9283

I-heart-ringo

Bespatter

Thejader

Comagirl16

Rwork

Vuhwex

Medusa-terata

Somavenus

Bob55-joe

The-px-corporation

Eesss

Rworks

Hedgehogbeeblebrox

Mikem92

Somavenus

Aditya4art

Anacronico

Rworks

Lady-with-a-buzzsaw

Anacronico

Olliep

Somavenus

Gellnerism

Unreflected

Esraerben

Marek Haiduk

Igorska

Somavenus

Prettylittlependant

Ex-Agent

Papermache

Vivi-mari

Nauright

Rikcat

Infamecless

Littleblackbooks

Eric Pier

Mossy Oar

Pianofuzz

Marek Haiduk

Tutorials

Here is a selection of the best tutorials on creating outstanding collages.

• Mixed Media
  Use a combination of acrylic paints, brushes, gel and various scraps of paper and images.
• Digital Collage
  An in-depth tutorial from Teodoru Badiu on making his piece entitled “Atlas.”
• Fabric Collage
  A simple way to use old fabrics to create a unique work of art.

Dedicated Blogs

And now, a round-up of the best collage blogs:

• Not For Paper
• Collage Lab
• Daily Collage Project
• A Collage A Day
• Daily Collage
• Collage Clearing House
• Scrapiteria

Flickr Groups

And some Flickr groups dedicated to mixed media and digital- and paper-based collage:

• Collage Crazy
• All Collages
• Creative Collage
• Collage Kids
• Collage A Day
• Paper Collage
• I Make Collages
• Digital Collages
• Innovative Collage
• Photos and Digital Collages
• Vintage Collage Art
• Vintage Paper Collage
• Retro Collage
• Photoshop Collages
• Your Collage
• Collage Jerks
• Collage Brut
• Urban Collage
• Shape Collage
• Photoshop Collages
• Etsy Collage Artists
• Social and Political Collages

Contemporary Collage Artists

• Winston Smith
  Known for his politically subversive work, Smith has been one of the foremost collage artists since the 1970s.
• Cecil Touchon
  Founder of the International Museum of Collage and founder of the International Society of Assemblage and Collage Artists.
• Jonathan Talbot
  Respected author on collage who has exhibited at the National Academy and the Museum of Modern Art.
• Peter Clark
  His innovative use mark-making make for a collection that exudes character and wit.
• Mia Moore
  California-based collage artist whose complex works meld textures of old and new paper and layers of acrylic paint.
• Claudia Hellmuth
  A prominent artist who creates mixed media collages that are whimsical and colorful, with a dash of retro.
• Michelle Caplan
  California-based collage artist whose complex works meld textures of old and new paper and layers of acrylic paint.
• Dennis Sibeijn
  Netherlands-based designer working as an audio-visual designer at Technicolor, and co-founder and designer at Monument studio.

Further Resources

• Collage Art Organisation
• Collage Artists of America
• The International Society of Assemblage and Collage Artists
• International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction
• Cut & Paste: International Exhibition of Contemporary Collage

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related post:

• Pop Art Is Alive: Classics and Modern Artworks presents 75 outstanding examples of classic and modern pop art.

(al)

© Grace Smith for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 29 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: collage, pop, retro

Photoshop is a magical tool for digital artists and photographers, and it rules the digital imaging world. It is not just a tool, though; Photoshop is a blank canvas that invites you to perform magic with your creativity. It gives you room to creatively manipulate photos and explore the artist in yourself.

To celebrate the upcoming holidays, in today’s post we decided to step away from technical design/coding-related topics and showcase some beautiful digital illustrations and their creators. Hopefully, the artwork will inspire you and stir your imagination.

As you know, so many more brilliant illustrations have been done by digital artists doing great work, but we cannot cover them all in a single post, so we will try to showcase them in our future posts (if you want to). If we forgot to mention the work of your favorite artist, please do share it with the other readers and let us know their name.

Shadow Chen

Born in China, Shadow Chen did post-graduate work in product design. Upon graduating, he worked as a graphic designer in fashion and freelanced as an illustrator and graphic designer, doing packaging, branding, poster design, website design, fashion and more. He is working on his own brand and paints quite a lot in his spare time.

His work has been featured in websites, blogs, e-magazines and galleries in Europe.

Igor Scekic

Igor Scekic is 23-year-old graphic designer and digital artist who lives in Zagreb, Croatia. He is interested in digital art, graphic design, photography and other traditional art techniques. Art is his medium of choice for expressing his thoughts and feelings.

Change the World

Expressions

Armageddon Incoming

Digital Scenery

Stairway to Heaven

Music in my Head

Tiago Hoisel

Tiago Hoisel is a young and talented artist from Brazil. He has his own brand of Photoshop manipulation and has created s lot of great artwork so far.

Tiago Hoisel from Brazil

Pavarotti

Bee

Axl

David Fuhrer

Self-taught artist David Fuhrer was born in 1985 in the capital of Switzerland, Bern. Focusing on illustration and specifically on intricate detailing, David has produced some of the most inspiring and exciting work in the digital art community.

Fuhrer’s work is a treat for the eyes and mind. The depth of his work is as mesmerizing as the emotions his pieces elicit.

Drugg Free Zone

Air

Apace

Joshua M. Smith

“Hydro74″ is the Orlando-based designer otherwise known as Joshua M. Smith. “The sole purpose of my career,” he says, “is to push the boundaries in doing what I feel is relevant to the market as well as extract various elements and trends to be able to offer them up in my own personal work. But let’s be honest. I do what I love because I love it. Not because I have to do it, nor am forced to do it, but rather passionate about doing what I do. I firmly believe in having set style tones, yet a sense of diversity to make any various project unique to the demands that are set forth.”

Lucas Films / Indiana Jones

Black in Black

Myspace Secret Shows

Bobby Chiu

Bobby currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Bobby Chiu’s art career started at the age of two, with a box of crayons and his family’s white living room walls. He got his first professional art job at 17, designing for Disney, Warner Bros and Star Wars toys at Thinkway Toys in Toronto. Bobby has since won a number of awards for his independent work. He presently works as an illustrator for film and television, teaches digital painting online at Schoolism.com, publishes art books and works on some top-secret projects.

Sea Life

Twins – Totoro Forest Project

3 Samurai On Horseback

Sea Dragon

Jeff Huang

Jeff Huang is a graphic artist and illustrator residing in New York City. He specializes in digital illustration and photo manipulation and has knowledge of 3-D modeling and animation as well as motion graphics and compositing. Jeff has been freelancing professionally for almost five years now and has been featured in many publications such as Adobe’s Design Center, Digital Arts Magazine, Computer Arts Magazine and Advanced Photoshop Magazine. He is currently represented by Debut Art.

Fun in Park

Memoir

Erik Jonsson

Erik Jonsson, of Brooklyn, New York, freelances and studies digital media. He has a lot of mind-blowing artwork to his credit.

Hamlett

Festival Mantarraya

Data Airline

Maciej Hajnrich

Maciej was born in 1981 and works in Katowice, Poland. Self-taught, he is an established full-time freelance artist with five years of experience in print and Web design. In the last two years, his work has been commissioned by Back Row Productions, Platige Image, Weinsten Company, Warner Music Poland and Armada Skis, to name a few. He has designed illustrations for the musical “Pricilla, Queen of the Desert,” and he was a judge for iStockphoto’s Battle Royale, Widely published, Maciej is a member of the Keystone Design Union and Depthcore digital arts community.

Tri’angel

Winter Espionage

PURE eNERGY

QUESTLOVE from The Roots

James White

James White is a digital artist and graphic designer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. With 10 years of experience, James has worked on an array of personal art projects and clients, including Toyota, VH1, Armada Skis, Red Bulletin and Wired Magazine. He has been featured in Computer Arts, Computer Arts Projects and Advanced Photoshop magazines.

Curvature

Boing Boing Gadgets

Jericó Santander

Jericó Santander was born in 1985 in the Canary Islands, Spain. His passion for art began as a child. He graduated with a BA in art and moved to Madrid. During his two years in Madrid, he studied at an illustration academy, while working as a full-time graphic designer at a small creative agency.

The idea of mixing digital painting, photography and 3-D in one work excites him and helps him to develop his ideas. Jericó recently moved back to the Canary Islands, working as a freelance illustrator, but always finding time for his personal art.

Own World

Nereid

We all Fall

Marco Escobedo

Ever since he was very small, Marco Escobedo, who hails from Lima, Peru, has been interested in anything to do with drawing and painting. More than a hobby, drawing became a passion for him, as he observed the work of other artists and realized that illustrations should be his career. His study of it in several workshops helped him penetrate the depths of the field.

Women

Color explosión

Mistico

One hundred years of solitude

Centauro

Suliman Almawash

Based in Kuwait, Suliman Almawash is a dynamic digital artist and master of surreal and conceptual art. He has created a lot of amazingly creative digital artwork.

The weakness of silence

Linking Meditation

AROUND THE WORLD

Kerem Beyit

Kerem was born in Ankara, Turkey, and started drawing from early childhood through the influence of comic books. At Gazi University, he studied graphic design for four years. He subsequently worked in various places doing graphic and illustration studies, book covers, local comics, as well as magazines and books for children. He has been working in the digital space for four years now and has honored with awards from CGSociety, CgChannel, Gfxartist, Cggallery, 3DTotal and CGArena. His work has been published in several magazines and selected for inclusion in Ballistic Publishing albums, Expose and Exotique.

Battle Dragon by Kerem Beyit

The Dragons of Ordinary Farm Cover

LEGENDS OF NORRATH (SONY ONLINE ENT.)

Kode Logic

Kode Logic is a graphic designer from Melbourne, Australia. He first started drawing when he was six years old and still hasn’t let the pen out of his hand. He transferred to the digital platform and has been working on it for the past four years. He is continually learning new skills and different styles along the way. He has been striving to create his own style, and his thirst for knowledge is never quenched.

Let Her Go

Closed its Doors

First Wave

Justin Maller

Justin Maller is a freelance illustrator and art director based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been creating digital art for over eight years and has worked professionally in a studio and privately for the last three. He is represented by Jeremy Wortsman of the Jacky Winter Group.

Hair Culture

X&HELL

FAST & FURIOUS

THE ELDER PRIESTESS – WITH HOLLY BYNOE

Archan Nair

Archann.net is the creative showcase of 26-year-old self-taught artist, multi-disciplinary designer and illustrator Archan Nair. Based out of New Delhi, India, Archan is co-founder and creative head of the design and art agency Cropped Circles.

Specializing in art direction, illustration and digital art, he has produced quality illustrations and design projects for many brands, including Pepsi, Tiger Beer and GQ. He has been featured in publications such as Advanced Photoshop, Flair, Vanity Fair and Juxtapoz and has been featured by music artists such as Kanye West.

Gaia

Sweet Sensations

Illusory

Jason Engle

Jason has been creating art for the publishing and entertainment markets for the past 10 years. His work has been featured on some of the most prominent websites devoted to science fiction and fantasy art, and he has been included in several notable books of collected art, including both the Spectrum and Expose series, as well as his own book, titled “Infernum: The Art of Jason Engle,” which showcases the first five years of his career. He has had hundreds of clients over the years, including Sony Online Entertainment, World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade.

Maciej Mizer

Maciej Mizer is a graphic designer based in Lodz, Poland, and specializing in illustration, 3-D graphics, Web design and photography. His work has been featured in loads of major publications, including HIRO Magazine, Computer Arts Magazine, Web Design Index 8.

Can You Dig It

VII / XIII

Whisper

Rado Javor

Rado Javor is a digital painter from Slovakia. He has his own style of digital art and has done a lot of great work so far.

La Rochelle

Ambush

David Waters

David is a freelance illustrator based out of Moscow, Idaho, USA. He is currently in his senior year at the University of Idaho studying graphic design. You have probably seen the work of this very creative artist a number of times without knowing it. David loves swimming and finding new movies and music to occupy his time.

Photomanipulation

U.N.I.T.Y

Mario Wibisono

This dark-luminous guy offers some of the brightest eye candy around. He focuses on drawing girls and women, “a most wonderful subject that everyone (but mostly boys) loves to discuss (and fantasize about).” Whether it’s a hyper-realistic portrait or a fantasy-realism style, he is sure to dedicate all his expertise to producing the finest work.

Shiba Tsukimi

Hida Eijiko

Purgatory

Andreas Fernhede Dagman

The Super Awesome is the online portfolio of 25-year-old aspiring graphic designer and illustrator Andreas Fernhede Dagman. A student in his second year of digital media studies at Hyper Island in Karlskrona, Sweden, he recently completed a seven-month internship as an interactive designer at Sid Lee in Montreal, Canada.

Omega Coded

Cynthia Sheppardt

Cynthia is 25-year-old digital illustrator with a extensive background in traditional art media and a passion for the fantastic. She hails from Fairfax, USA.

Half Her Heart’s Duet

Cruciata Navaar

Wonderland Deconstructed

Queen of Thorns 2

Alex Ruiz

The visions of Alex Ruiz range from dark and disturbing to vomit-inducing cuteness and hilarity. In his paintings, the creatures of his mind crawl off the page and transplant themselves into the unsuspecting viewer’s brain, even taking up residence there. Alex is a freelance concept artist and illustrator living in Los Angeles, California. He lends his talents to the film, television and interactive games industries.

Elephas Maximus

Industrial Beach

Mech-Dragon Battle

Sakke Soini

Right now, Sakke freelances and balances his time between Web design, illustration, event management and promotion, DJ’ing and VJ’ing. He has worked with international acts such as Fred Falke, Busy P, The Toxic Avenger, Kris Menace and Anoraak (all from France); The Big Pink (UK), The Proxy (Russia), Handsome Furs (Canada) and Moulinex (Poland).

EVOLUTION, Los Angeles

Music with Colors

Pete Harrison

Ever since he was young, Pete was creative and wanted to pursue this creativity in life, By the age of 10, he knew he wanted to be a graphic designer and so tailored his education around this goal. At school and in his A-levels, he studied art and design. He went on to university and studied MediaLab Arts. These four years of his life can be best described as a metaphor.

137-Circus

Sugar

Unity

Sleep is death

Aaron Sikstrom

Aaron Sikstrom is a traditional artist whose work is quite modern. Influenced by pop art and surrealism, he has developed a style that blends fantasy and pop surrealism. Each image tells a story and shows his dedication to the craft.

Aaron’s work have been exhibited in publications such as “Ballistic Digital Painting 2″ and galleries such as Compound Gallery (USA). He is confident that his art will continue to attract new fans and bring him closer to a professional career in the arts.

Beautiful

The birth of venus

The guardian

A girl and her bunny

Goro Fujita

Goro was born in Japan and moved with his family to Germany when he was two years old. He have been fascinated by drawing ever since he was a child.

He graduated from German Film School in 2005 and then specialized on 3-D character animation. Since then, he has worked as a freelance character animator and visual development artist on feature films and TV commercials in Germany. He currently works as a visual development artist at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City, California.

The Hunt

Hidden Nature

Juji & Ophelia

Would you like to see more similar showcases on SM?

(al)

© Aquil Akhter for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 80 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: artworks, illustrations, Inspiration, photoshop

.:♥мÑ�Ñ•. вℓiикєÑ�♥:. IS BACK!!! posted a photo:

Entry for Photographers of Second Life September contest..Theme:Horror. Color: black and white/sepia.

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Continue reading Next-gen iPod touch photos supposedly leak out; Cocktail part of Apple announcement? (Updated)

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Next-gen iPod touch photos supposedly leak out; Cocktail part of Apple announcement? (Updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Everybody knows that sex sells. For this week's Photoshop Contest, I want you to make some gadget ads that take boring devices and give them some sexing up. You know, real classy like.

Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Sexy Ads in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, PNGs or GIFs, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. And keep things safe for work, please; we want humor, not porn. Get to it!

For this week's Photoshop Contest, I asked you to make some real-world gadgets a lot less practical. And you know what? I'd try my hand at a five-screened DSi with a five-pronged stylus.

The iTunes icon is old and busted. I mean, didn't iPods kill CDs or something? And like, 7 million of the 8 million things iTunes does have nothing to do with tunes. So let's make a new icon!

Send your best design of a new icon that really represents iTunes to me at contests@gizmodo.com with "iTunes icon" in the subject line by next Tuesday morning. Save your entries as JPGs, PNGs or GIFs and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. On Tuesday, I'll pick the three best/most awful entries as our winners and post the rest of the best in the Gallery of Champions. Get cracking, in case something comes along and slays the iPod.

It’s been several weeks since I was hired here at 37signals so I thought it might be interesting to share some of my experiences so far.

Ready, set, go!

One of the best things has been how quickly I’ve been able to jump in and start contributing. The very first project I worked on was a refresh of the Account screen in Basecamp. What started as an exercise quickly escalated to a new design that we wanted to actually put into the app. So it wasn’t long before I moved from Photoshop right into the app code to integrate the new design. This required me to build on my limited experience with Ruby on Rails, setup my computer for development, learn enough Git to be dangerous, and get a feel for application structure and conventions. None of this could have happened without the patience of my co-workers and the solid development structure/process that is in place here. Here are a few general observations:

• The 37signals community is huge! Every change is noticed — sometimes within minutes of being launched. Receiving instant feedback to your work is great (at least so far :)
• Git has been a surprisingly nice addition to my workflow. The ability to quickly switch branches and compare my version to the original has saved me countless hours
• There are new things being added to the apps constantly. It’s exciting to see all of the new features and improvements every day. It can be hard to appreciate all of this activity from outside the company, but we’re working on that
• No longer supporting Internet Explorer 6 is liberating!

In the first ten days or so I was able to design and implement a single screen redesign, get it deployed and write it all up at Signal vs. Noise. It’s pretty great to feel like you’re contributing and making a meaningful impact so quickly.

Working remotely

One of the biggest changes for me when joining the company was working 100% remotely. 37signals is based in Chicago, but half the team works outside the office — even the Chicago crew isn’t in the office every day. So it has been great to join a company that knows how to work with a widely distributed team. As you might assume, communication is the key to making the team effective and productive. Here are a few ways we stay connected:

Campfire

I have to admit that I didn’t get Campfire before I started working here. I’d been a long time user of Basecamp and Backpack, but Campfire never clicked for me despite a couple of attempts to bring it into a team workflow. What I was surprised to see is that Campfire might be the most important app that we use.

Our “All Talk” Campfire room is where the entire team gathers each day — we all stay logged-in anytime we are “at work”. Throughout the day we post questions, share screenshots, get feedback, collaborate on copy, and troubleshoot code. Campfire also talks to our apps so we get notifications when they are updated as we develop. It also serves as a way to quickly note to the team that you’re heading to lunch or will be away from the computer for a short time. But it’s not all business. We also find time to talk about the latest gadget/news/link/app/controversy and generally have a good time. Campfire is where all the typical conversations that happen in a physical office occur, but the difference here is that everyone can hear them, anyone can pay attention to what they want to, and it’s all archived so we can search through it later.

Campfire is also used along with instant messaging for the one-on-one and sidebar conversations when we want to chat, but stay out of the noise of the All Talk room. Jumping into our Small Talk room to work through a bit of code lets me work directly with a co-worker AND allows me to save a link to that conversation for future reference. This has been immeasurably helpful for me as I dig more into the tech side of our apps. Screen sharing via iChat is another great way a couple of us can quickly work together on a tricky bit of code.

In/out

Another key part of knowing and sharing what is going on with the comapny is with Backpack’s Journal screen. The journal lets everyone on the team set their current status (e.g., “Reviewing design comps”, or “Out to lunch”) and log the last few things that they have recently completed. There is no forced structure to it, we typically just update it a couple times a day as necessary. It’s a great way to get a quick snapshot of what is going on, who is working right now, and what they’re working on.

Of course we also follow project updates in Basecamp and keep an eye on external communications by checking into our Highrise account. Everything is out there for us to keep up with as we need to or want to.

Perfect balance

At 37signals I really feel more connected and current with what is going on than in any physical workplace I’ve been a part of. It is effortless to keep up with what my co-workers are doing and how what I’m doing contributes to the whole. I’m free to keep up with projects and learn new skills as they fit my interests. We collaborate how and when it makes sense, and stay away from each other when that’s the best way to work. That makes for a really effective working environment.

For this week's Photoshop Contest, I asked you to create some video games that may have existed if game consoles had been around for hundreds of years. And man, some of these actually look pretty awesome.

First Place — Jeffer Mitchell
Second Place — Eric Benge
Third Place — Alex Roemer

Here’s a quick post, just to let everybody know that I’m still alive.

During my long silence here, a lot of things have been happening in the WordPress community. First and foremost is the upcoming WordPress 2.8 release. There are several nifty new features in there. The most notable (for me) are probably:

• Built-in theme browser/installer
• Drag-n-drop widget management
• Syntax highlighting when using theme/plugin editor
• Image cropping in media uploader
• New theme functions for author metadata
• New OOP WP_Widget framework for plugin authors
• More support for custom taxonomies
• New combined i18n/escaping theme functions
• Script loading improvements

The first four  are the main “visible” features for this release. Most of the other changes are “under-the-hood” sorts of things, mainly of interest to plugin and theme developers.

In other news, today marks one full month that I’ve been working for MailChimp. I’m still getting a handle on things, but I’m starting to get a few things done, migrating some old back-end management code into the framework used by the bulk of our system.  And to bring things back around to WordPress again, I’ll give you the tantalizing teaser that MailChimp is sponsoring the development of a new WordPress plugin. I don’t want to say too much about what it is at this point, but the Photoshop mockups looked pretty cool.

As I get myself organized again (stop laughing, Susan), I will be posting this blog more. And as if my time wasn’t stretched enough already, I’m also planning to do some guest blogging for The WordPress Doctor.

 

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We Decided to design our own calenders this time around. So get them directly from Deviant Art. Dont forget to deviantWatch our profile

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What We Will Be Designing: