Veerle's blog

The Snap to Grid is a handy (Photosop) function, but have you ever been a bit frustrated because it gets in your way? OK maybe you think, no problem I just hit command + shift + semicolon to switch it on or off. OK that’s one way, and the most common way indeed.

Some of you may know that Smart Objects work with stuff placed from Illustrator but that’s not all Smart Objects has to offer in Photoshop CS. When designing a mockup you probably work with images, then later in editing you scale the image to what you think is right. How many times have you dreamed of a possibility to scale it back with any loss of quality?

We all know that you really can’t do it, the image would pixelate and soften instead. This instance was true until CS2 entered the scene. Yes it is true now you can place a photo in Photoshop and make it a “Smart Object”, just select the layer of the photo and go to the “Layer menu” and choose “group into New Smart Object”.

When you do this it is linked to the embedded high-resolution original. So now when you resize it’s still crystal clear even if you scale it a dozen times. But wait there is more, you can also rotate images or even warp them, it always pulls data from the original so that everything stays crisp. It allows me to rethink the way I work and I can do things that weren’t possible before CS2.

One more thing, if you duplicate a Smart Object and make a change to the original all duplicate layers update automatically. So go ahead and update, warp, swap, etc. all without the fear of quality loss.

Type has always been a important part of Graphic Design so that’s why it is time that little bits and pieces about type find a place here too. A great start and secret for success is talking about a quality free font. The font that I’ve found on Fontshop sure is quality because it is a Type Directors Club 2 2004 winner.

This tutorial was prepared and finished some time ago, but since I am so busy lately, it seems like the perfect moment to release it on my blog.

Inspiration can be found in simple things, like color for instance. This tutorial is about creating a simple header for a website, but it might as well be used for a brochure. Starting from a picture with colors you like, here is an easy technique to achieve some trendy effects:

• Web browser version
• PDF version

Enjoy!

UPDATE: the comment function is now restored. They were down for a while due to a MySQL table crash. The first one in 1,5 year, so all in all not bad.

Who says you only need Photoshop for your designs for the web? Say you have to create a small button to promote a book and you want the font in a tiny pixel font sharp and crispy. On the other hand the illustration needs to be as flexible as possible. So do I choose Illustrator or Photoshop? The answer is simple choose Illustrator and use the Rasterize effect. Select your text path using the Selection Tool and choose ‘none’ as anti-aliasing option. It’s as easy as that!