lewro’s blog - 2.1 - web designer beginner

As part of my voluntary period I have started to work on 2 new projects. I spent lots of hours working with layers inside of my Photoshop files that I almost feel like I am sitting on one of them right now.

When I have turned back on my first design proposal I can not stop thinking how could I do it without layers management but I remember it was not easy. For those of you who do not have any idea what I am talking about let me describe it in a very simple way. Almost anything you create in Photoshop, either it is text area, rounded shape area or any other, they are all placed in their own separate layers. You can image that after couple of hours the number of layers will grow significantly. If you do not keep organized you will end up in the designer’s hell. OK, OK I am exaggerating but the true is that work will become very hard and extremely time consuming.

The best way is to create folders and subfolders and keep that way all the layers organized. Another very important thing is to name the folders with real names which represent the page divisions such are header, logo, footer etc. If you do it this way then looking for a particular object is just a matter of one or two seconds and not minutes as in case when you keep all the layers together in the main view.

I do not think that it is necessary to name all the layers but at least the folders and subfolders should be named. Another advantage of this system is that you can for example adjust opacity of the whole group of layers at once, or you can duplicate the group and use the same element somewhere else on the page. Good example is a button or the header background.

If you are interested what are the results of my latest work in Photoshop you can find them here and here.

Have you ever entered web site and spent minutes looking for contact details? So here comes the solution how to make easy for visitors to find them quickly and easy way.

The solution is called microformats

I have just recently discovered them on the couple of my favourite web sites. I found them very interesting and useful so decide to implement them straightaway.

What are the microformats about? Microformats gives you the possibility to implement your contact details or events into your web site the way that they can be imported as hcard - for contact or as hcalendar - for calendar events to other peoples address books and calendars. Obviously if the format is supported which in most cases is supported.

Firefox’s extension.

My favorite web browser is capable of exporting microformats true the extension (which you can download right here). It displays the microformats icon whenever they are presented on the site and allow you to display them with a single click. The information is then displayed in it own panel and can be exported and saved to your computer. Could not be easier!

Not everybody uses Firefox so it is recommended to display a link to microformats feeds. I use Technorati’s   feed for that.

How to create microformats contact?

It could not be more simple. Here is the code. You will get the point just looking at it. You can just use this code and change the contact details. You can even include more information which I have not included. For more information visit microformats home page.

This way you can display information not only about your contact details but about any person mentioned on your site as well. That is ideal for organising conferences and seminars. So do not wait and go for it!

I started to take pictures with my digital camera about a year ago. I was always wondering why are my photos not as colourful and sharp as photos of some others. I was thinking that it is because of the quality of my camera. (Sony Cybershot 5mgpx, 3x optical zoom).

But when I started to learn Photoshop I have realized that most of the photos I like must have been touched by some kind of image-editing program like Photoshop.

Before and After

I have developed some kind of editing routine before I post my photos on flickr. It consist of simple 3 steps.

• Adjusting the Levels
• Adjusting of Colours Balance
• Adjusting of Brightness and Contrast

Obviously there must be lost of other preferences which professional photographers use but for us beginners this is pretty much enough.

So here are the pictures - the original and after adjustments

You will find the Adjustment Menu inside of Image Menu

Adjustment of levels

Adjustment of colour balance

Adjustment of brightness and contrast

You can find the final picture here.

The only problem of this technique is that when you save the file there is no way how to get to original version of your shot unless you have created a copy before. But there are some other ways how to get the same effect and keep the original file. You have to use the Photoshop layers for each of the adjustments. This way you can always switch any of them whenever you want.

You might say…

You might say that photography is not about technology and I would agree with you 100 percent. I personally think that it is more about the way you can see thinks around you, about your imagination, it is game with a light, colour, view from different angles. But if the software helps you at the end to get from the photo the atmosphere you wanted at the first place then I think is worth trying.

Inspiration

If you are interested about professional photography check this address out Artfoto - Lubo Spirko. It is a photo studio of one of the best Slovak professional photograph who gave me few lessons couple of years ago.

Do you guys know about any other ways how tolet me kn make photos look better then ow. Thxs