There are quite a few trends in web design right now. Some still use a lot of twirly flowerly ornaments, others, following the trends dictated by psdtuts.com and abduzeedo.com have proceeded to glowing lines and starry psychedelic effects but the problem remains with creating the shape in the first place. While some designers, like myself, prefer working with Photoshop shapes, it looks like brushes are still a far more popular and accessible tool for many, so here are the top 10 brushes releases for Summer 2008, which can help you greatly in your artwork or web design.1.  Twirly Glowing Lines Photoshop Brushes

 2. Abstract Glowing Lines Photoshop Brushes

3. Scanlines Photoshop Brushes

Read the rest of this entry »

This is yet another very small freebie made in Photoshop in less than 10 minutes, but I am sure the outcome will be used on hundreds of blogs! All I did was drawing a circle, applied styles I previously posted and added a bit of a gloss. That’s all. The feed shape itself was a bit tricky but like I said, it didn’t take long at all. In the zip folder you will find 3 icons without shade and 3 with shadow (as you see on the previous picture, all in PNG format against transparent background so they are more than read-to-use. Hope you like them!

 FREE DOWNLOAD (124 kb)

There are so many tutorials and guides online that teach you how to make effective use of the web 2.0 design. While most these tutorials are useful, at the same time they kill the originality in web design. For example, most “guides” tell you that web 2.0 is about having a glossy badge, stripes background, and bold fonts. Result? There are countless hundreds of designs with badges, stripes and bold big letters… and they are no different from one another. It does not matter if you make a web 2.0, web 1.0, or web 75.0 design, it all comes down to being original and memorable.

However, if can’t really find anything particulary original to symbolize your design, it’s “safer” to go with the current trends of web design. So here is a very small fragment of web design layout, and how to turn a regular layout into a web 2.0 layout.

This is what we had…

And this is what we are going to do…

We are going to work in Photoshop, using nothing but layer styles; focusing on mild gradients and shadows.

Start off by Read the rest of this entry »

After the successful release of “Precious Heart” on my other blog, I decided to make a sister icon with a clover leaf. When I was in Prague last time I saw such an impressive variety of Swarovsky glass and it inspired me to make a graphic with similar structure, deep and subtly sparkling. Anyway, the download is free and you can use it any way you like The preview image is desized, otherwise blog template gets reformatted, you can previous the full version here.

Download FREE

Although I mostly prefer to make artistic PSDs, we can’t ignore the big demand in web 2.0 design elements, be it for software or website graphics. So, I decided to make a mini-icons set with animals. These icons cover the majority of web design trends, including rounded corners, juicy colours combination, folded edge, very light gradients on the icon and text, combination of bold and thin text in one line. I hope you will enjoy this file and as usual — feedback is welcome.

Please note that you must not use these icons for commercial use.

Download Free (100 kb, zip folder with the 3 icons in PSD format)

The so-called “vintage” effect is becoming more and more popular, however, not everyone knows how exactly to achieve it. It takes more than a mere sephia effect and adding grain-like, semi-visible  noise. So, allow me to introduce: Hand-coloured Vintage Photoshop action. Action includes: Aging; Colour; Cracks; Bending and as a bonus you have the facility of adding Old Paper Style effect. Moreover, bending the photo, as well as adding the shadow, gives the picture not only a vintage-like result, but also a very nice 3D effect. This can ideally work for a minimalistic wallpaper, portfolio website layout or a collage.

TIP! If you want to see all the steps in the action and learn something (actions are great learning tools), check the “step by step” or “pause for XXX sec” on the playback options. Commands within an action can be also toggled on or off, giving you the option to play each command or bypass recorded commands within the action during playback.

Download the action over artist’s page here. Please remember that this action is for personal use only, if you wish to make use of it for commercial purposes, you need Jenny’s permission.

This action is currently the most popular ove the entire deviantART website. I guess so many artists can’t be wrong, but let’s see what’s so good about it? It gives a fantastic effect of 60’s and 70’s photos, the kind of effect you; get when you use old Russian Camera of the “Locomotive” type with high quality 70’s film. It’s somewhat greenish yet reserves the perfect contrast and shades of red. Turning blue into torquise and adjusting skin colour to beautiful sunlit effect.

If you are working with photos (people or landscapes) and want to enhance colors or bring your picture 30 years back in time, this Photoshop action is going to be your favorite.  Download here, and don’t forget to fav or comment on author’s page.

As you can see from the few examples in the Demo Image, this Vintage Wash Photoshop action gives your creativity and artistism a lot of space for customizing the result.. Each Action will create a layer on top of the one you’re working on, so that you can delete it in case you did not like the effect or want to try another one. Moreover, it’s it’s only one additional layer on top of your photo, it allows you to play with the opacity until you achieve the desired result. To download the Action set, please visit the author’s page here.