Comments on: Practice is the only way to improve your Photoshop skills

By: lewro

lewro — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:13:31 +0000

@Peter sure – there is creative common license on the content so you can use it just need to mentioned creator, if its only for your personal use (wallpaper etc) go ahead and download the original size from flickr. Enjoy!

By: Peter Petrelli

Peter Petrelli — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:52:56 +0000

Cool graphics. Can we use these?

By: lewro

lewro — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:55:32 +0000

@petr Cool! If you have created a group on Facebook before go for it. If not I can take a look at it. I have not done that before. It might be fun. I have a feeling that there is plenty web designers who loves coffee as we do.

By: Petr Lysak

Petr Lysak — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:02:02 +0000

Ok, Facebook?

By: lewro

lewro — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:51:25 +0000

@petr I see what you mean about Helvetica but somehow I still love it and enjoy every-time I see it used on posters, logos or shop windows – for opening hours :)

Illustrator is big challenge for me. I am planning to learn it in the short future. I like to draw and there is lot I could do there with vectors. Considering buying pen-tablet once I learn the basics of Illustrator.

BTW I see you love coffee as well. We should establish web design coffee lovers group :)

By: Petr Lysak

Petr Lysak — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:31:57 +0000

Helvetica rules most of us. I do use it a lot mostly for commercial designs. But now, I am starting to realize, that it is pretty overused so trying to look for some other faces. The fact is that I am still usually ending up with Helvetica :)

When talking about application usage, I do prefer Illustrator even for photo collages nowadays; there surely still is a need of Photoshop cooperation at all stages. I have found Illustrator to be more friendly when composing because it offers the place to store all elements out of the canvas format. Have never tried Fireworks.

By: lewro

lewro — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:40:31 +0000

I do not have much experiences in Fireworks but as I can see in blogosphere the amount of people using Firework is growing. One of the big leaders is John Hicks. As you can see on his work you can probably do all in Fireworks what you can do in Photoshop these days. I have seen other graphic applicatiosn but I would say these 2 and Illustrator are the market leaders. I know there are some free software out there as well but they do not offer the same possibilities.

At the end of the day these are just tools and the most important is the way you can look at things. I think the most important is to see the light, drop-shadows, colours and positions or layouts.

Lets take colour as one simple example. There are not many solid colours around us. Everything comes in gradients because of the reflecting daylight. What colour is the reflecting light? Is it the same colour as the subject itself? Not really. I always try to look closer and try to analyze those small things…

By: Ilya

Ilya — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:18:07 +0000

I do all of my designs in Fireworks, and my photo manips/brush play in ps. Time is definitely an issue, and I’m always wondering if Fireworks is holding me back from being more creative.

http://flickr.com/photos/knownasilya/sets/72057594053216790/

By: lewro

lewro — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:04:17 +0000

I see what you mean. There is not enough time. I always wish that day has at least 50 hours :) I usually do this early mornings before I go to work or gym. As long as it takes less then hour its fine. It is not always easy but it helps when you see a progress.

By: Ash

Ash — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:50:12 +0000

This is something I have always liked the idea of doing but never actually made the time to do. Although my graphic design skills definitely need improving I only tend to sit and play whenever I have a specific project to work on which usually limits the amount of experimenting I can do.