Posts Tagged ‘artwork’

Capturing a detailed photograph of the moon with a compact camera is a challenge as documented in this moon HX9V Cyber-Shot photo tutorial. The Sony DSC-HX9V Cyber-Shot compact digital camera which features 16x optical zoom may provide one of the best options for amateur photographers on a limited budget.

A higher end digital camera with a telephoto lens at 5-10 times the cost of a compact camera would make taking detailed moon photographs easier. The series of photograph edits in this photo tutorial were from one picture taken with the Sony HX9V, and presents early attempts that came about somewhat by accident.

Versions here are approximately 1/8th actual size and cropped as widescreen for a better fit.

Original Photo of the Moon

The moon original photo above was taken handheld at 6:48 p.m. on 1 Nov 2011 using the HX9V auto mode at 16x zoom, then cropped, and then digitally enhanced in Xara Xtreme.

Here are the tutorial steps and 2 edits of the original that resulted in the final version.

Cropped Photo of the Moon

I opened the original moon photograph in IrfanView free edit software, created a 16:9 custom crop selection under edit, and then chose the apply to photo option. Next, I held CTRL to maintain proportions, and dragged the window to compose a large centered selection of just the moon. Finally, I chose the crop selection function and saved the results as the cropped version shown above.

Enhanced Photo of the Moon

Next I opened Xara Xtreme, a graphics program I’ve used for more than 5 years, and imported the cropped photo into the work area. I experimented with dragging different shades of black onto the photo which tints the entire picture. Darker tints ruined the details. 30% black turned out to be ideal though at first the blue background simply turned to grey.

Adjusting the brightness slider in Xara to negative -87 retained the moon detail and turned the grey to black to simulate a night sky. The image was enlarged to 4608 x 3456 size and exported at 96 dpi resolution.

What accident did you mean earlier, you ask? The original photo of the moon was taken at dusk simply as a test while out photographing a Florida sunset. The daylight moon seemed appropriate for attempting a point-and-shoot photo using the HX9V auto settings. The results were better than expected.

Of a half dozen shots the one selected and used here provided the clearest details. I’d left my tripod at home, so perhaps the details could have been even better using a tripod and time delay instead of handheld.

The final high resolution version of the moon in actual size has not been uploaded to my Flickr account. Technically speaking, the black tint makes this an illustration, and I prefer showcasing original photos only without modification or enhancement.

This moon HX9V Cyber-Shot photo tutorial is one step towards testing the manual settings for a high quality photograph without edits, and taken at night. Stay tuned. The next full moon will occur on 10 November, 2011.

Back by popular demand, readers may now download free custom business card artwork with the release of my free 2012 business card artwork download.

New BONUS! I’ve added 3 new colors for 2012, so besides the original grey marble, white granite, and plain white, take your choice of marble in pale green, light blue, or pink salmon for 6 versions of the free business card artwork.

Click on the graphic to the right for an enlarged (low-res) view of all 6 colors!

FREE ARTWORK LINK

Use this link for free 2012 business card artwork to download now. (zip folder, 2.9mb)

Artwork is enlarged 300 dpi high resolution in CMYK 4-color for at home or professional printing.

Unlike some free resources, you do not have to register or reveal your email address to enjoy another set of free business card calendar artwork to add to the back of your 2012 business card.

Questions or blog comments are welcome.

Web design is an art that requires being creative while providing a digital product that will compete successfully against others in the same field. Being creative means having an endless stream of web design ideas to capture the essence of the customer’s business in an attractive format.

The goal is a unique high quality web design that helps sell or presell a product or service. To achieve that goal don’t shoplift parts for your web design like graphics, photographs, illustrations, or html code. It is a crime to “borrow” copyrighted content from websites. Easy access does not mean that the content you discover and admire is free to use.

For amateur or do-it-yourself web designers there’s often the temptation to take shortcuts. The internet provides an almost endless world of content that appears free for the taking. There’s no storefront or door to breach, or any safe to crack to get to this wide choice of material for a web design.

Part time web designers who equate easy access as permission to use are either unaware or don’t care about violating copyright. There are viable alternatives for sources of public domain content, royalty based content, or paid content that allows you to use creative materials made available by others.

Some owners may provide creative content with or without restrictions. An example might be the yearly custom business card calendar designs that I offer my site visitors. Others could be manufacturers who allow their distributors to use product photographs. The bottom line is if you did not create or purchase rights to your web design content be sure to have permission in writing to avoid violating copyright law.

The following web design tutorial demonstrates how to do a real estate website graphic edit to enhance a photograph of a Florida home to use in a new custom web design. As you view each part of the illustration concentrate on the lawn. The color of the lawn is all that changed.

The above photo collage shows the original photo (left) with a less than ideal lawn likely taken off-season because the grass is dull, not green. The after version (center) shows the identical photo with a lush, green lawn. The final graphic (right) shows the mask overlay used to create the perfect lawn effect.

How the enhanced web design illustration was done:

1) The dull lawn (left) was traced using vector graphics software to zoom in 500% and create a mask.
2) The mask was used to crop an overlay of very green grass from a photo of a perfect lawn.
3) The cropped overlay then had 20% transparency applied so the shadow of trees appear “on the lawn” for realism.

Use the help files of your vector graphics software to learn about masking and then try the advanced techniques in this real estate web design graphic tutorial.

Spice up your blog design with photo or graphic illustrations to enhance the look and value to readers. This blog illustration design tutorial shows how I did just that on my personal blog Growin’ Up in Maine on a recent blog post about a childhood story called First Plane Ride Ever.

Follow the link above to read the story and see the blog design illustration.

The finished Piper Cub plane illustration is shown larger than actual size as used on the blog post to make the tutorial easier for viewers to imagine how to combine elements into an illustration.

Here is the step by step plane illustration tutorial in 4 graphics marked A through D and explained below.

• Graphic A: Original Piper Cub photo from Wikimedia Commons prior to any crop or edit of markings
• Graphic B: Graphic elements including the plane cropped, text to be added, and alternate plane markings
• Graphic C: Crop of personal sky and fluffy cloud photo I took and chose as a replacement background
• Graphic D: Final illustration actual size 300×200 as used on the blog post for a more dramatic look

The original Piper Cub photo (A) was cropped to remove the background, and then (B) graphic elements for the illustration were created: plane (resized and different angle), text caption, and new plane markings “July 1957″. The photo (C) is an original that I took recently of a blue Florida sky and fluffy clouds used as a replacement background, and then (D) shows the finished illustration actual size. Edits were done using Xara Xtreme software.

The personal blog about Growin’ Up in Maine has over 100 childhood stories that feature a photo or graphic illustration on every post. While having a graphic for every post adds pressure to staying creative, even an interesting graphic on every other post is better than none. Perhaps this blog illustration design tutorial will help readers become inspired.

UPDATE 29 Aug 2011 – Need 2012 business card artwork? Follow this link for Free 2012 Business Card Artwork that was just released.

Original Post: It’s that time of year again when I release free custom business card calendar artwork, so the 2011 business card calendar download is now available.

As always, you do not have to register or reveal an email address, so click the card graphic to the right or use this link for your free 2011 business card calendar download (zip folder, 1.3mb size). Artwork is in 300dpi JPG CMYK 4-color ready for print.

Just like last year the zip folder includes 3 versions with your choice of backgrounds in light granite, grey marble, or plain white. The free 2010 business card calendar for this year is still available for download, also.

Each card design is oversized at 3.625″ x 2.125″ for USA standard business card size to allow bleed for 1/16th trim on each side to 3.5 x 2.0 after printing. Like the artwork? Please take a moment to comment about the free 2011 business card artwork or tell a friend and send them a link to this page. Thanks.

Struggling to add illustrations or graphics to your website design or blog posts? Consider Flickr public domain photographs.

The photos are mostly collections from public archives and as explained on the Flickr usage page http://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/ the photos became public domain for one of these reasons:

1. The copyright is in the public domain because it has expired;
2. The copyright was injected into the public domain for other reasons, such as failure to adhere to required formalities or conditions;
3. The institution owns the copyright but is not interested in exercising control; or
4. The institution has legal rights sufficient to authorize others to use the work without restrictions.

Free to use does not mean free to package and resell as a collection. Please respect copyright when using content for your projects online or in print other than material you own. The Flickr commons is a great resource for photographs to use in your website design or blog posts, but be warned to watch the clock. It is easy to become engrossed in thousands of options and you could end up spending long hours away from your design.

An email received today was from a customer who watched one of my graphics tutorial videos recently where I use Xara Xtreme, and then asked for a comparison of Xara Xtreme and Photoshop for creating website graphics. Here’s my reply.

I chose Xara based on price and functions after downloading trial copies of each. Both are vector graphics software. Photoshop is the “standard” for high end professional design, yet for what I do designing web graphics and artwork for print, the cost and functions of Xara were more than sufficient and made it a clear choice.

It’s easy to understand why the advanced print artwork capabilities of Photoshop are needed for full time graphic design. Based on need, Photoshop had more than I needed or would ever use, while Xara was sufficient without more technical functions or a steeper learning curve.

View examples of my artwork for a feel for what can be done in Xara. 9 out of 10 logo designs on my site including these 50 custom business cards and another 50 card designs were drawn freehand in Xara to ensure crisp clean lines in the final artwork.

The video flash animation in the intro and outro of new videos done for my puppy’s Life with Corky website used Xara. Here’s an example 23 second puppy video on YouTube to demo flash creation and export. Special effects for the moving text and puppies popping up was created with Xara.

If you’ve only seen the first photo edit tutorial, an improved video of photo masking techniques shows more detail of how to use Xara for photo edits including cropping backgrounds, so that may be of interest, too.

I’ve been using Xara Xtreme for more than 5 years with professional results online and in print. Photoshop is excellent, yet more than I need for web and print graphics.

Graphic design is a very small part of my business, yet my trifold brochure design tutorial is very popular, and a reader recently emailed me for help with ideas for brochure template design inspiration.

For do-it-yourself brochure design, there are some online resources to consider for inspiration. If you use Microsoft Word they have a fairly good selection of standard templates for brochures with a choice of 65 different brochure templates created for various versions of Microsoft software products.

In addition to brochures, you may search for other graphic artwork ideas and templates for cards, mailers, stationery, newsletters, flyers, data sheets, and much more.

UPDATE – 2011 Free Calendars Released: Visit this new blog post for free 2011 business card artwork.

Each year I release free custom business card calendar artwork in August, and the 2010 business card calendar download is now available. You do not need to register or reveal an email address, so click the image below or use this link for your free 2010 business card calendar download (zip folder, 1.1mb size). Artwork is in 300dpi JPG CMYK 4-color ready for print.

The zip folder includes 3 versions of the 2010 business card calendar artwork with your choice of backgrounds in light granite, grey marble, or plain white as illustrated above. Readers can still download the free 2009 business card calendar for this year, also.

A special thanks to the many readers who took the time to email me to express their appreciation for the free calendar downloads, the visitors who left blog comments, and the many blog and website owners who link here, also.