Top 10 Free Resources for PSD Downloads

Posted on October 24, 2016October 25, 2016 by mark williams

You may have caught our blog a few weeks ago where we listed some of the top free online resources for Adobe InDesign templates (and if you missed it you can check it out here – Top 5 FREE InDesign Template Resources). It went down so well with our readers that we’ve decided to produce a follow-up post, this time listing the top 5 resources for free PSD downloads that you can use for Adobe Photoshop design. It’s important that you source PSD files when working with Photoshop. PSD stands for Photoshop Document, and it means that the file will be a layered image file, and is the default forma...

5 Signs it’s Time Your Business Invested in InDesign Training

Posted on October 12, 2016August 17, 2018 by mark williams

Businesses and SMEs in particular often run on tight margins. There are so many things that need to be paid for – marketing, office space, IT, staff, the list goes on – that turning a profit and making sure you’ve got enough money to pay yourself at the end of each month is no mean feat. Indeed, if it wasn’t for your entrepreneurial spirit, you wouldn’t be succeeding at all. But, an entrepreneur you are – and, as such, one of your key priorities is always to make savings wherever you can in your perpetual drive to improve your bottom line. It is with this in mind that you realise that...

How to Place Images in a Grid in InDesign

Posted on September 22, 2016October 24, 2022 by mark williams

One of InDesign’s most useful features for creating all manner of documents – be they PDFs, brochures, eBooks, pamphlets or what have you – is the ability to place multiple images at once in a grid frame that is automatically created to your specifications. And the best news is that it is very simple to do. In this blog we’ll walk you through step-by-step exactly how to place as many images as you like in InDesign, all arranged neatly in a grid with the frames filled proportionally. Sound good? Cool – let’s get down to it. How to Place Images in a Grid in InDesign First up, open a n...

Top 5 FREE InDesign Template Resources

Posted on September 14, 2016July 26, 2018 by mark williams

Mastering the holy trinity of Adobe’s creative design software is no mean feat by any stretch of the imagination. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign – each of these are massive programs, hugely powerful and capable of being used to create pretty much anything in graphic design that you could possibly think of. The designer needs to be able to use all three. In Illustrator it’s vector-based artwork. In Photoshop, it’s raster-based. And in InDesign, you put all of your artwork together to make your beautiful brochure, magazine, poster, eBook, or what have you. As you can imagine, or even alr...

How to Create Pattern Swatches in Adobe Illustrator

Posted on August 31, 2016October 15, 2021 by mark williams

What is a Pattern Swatch in Adobe Illustrator? In dictionaries, swatches are normally defined as being sample pieces of cloth, fabric and sometimes paints, designed to provide examples of a larger design – i.e. for use in the physical world. In the realms of Adobe Illustrator, a swatch is basically the same thing, only applied to the digital space that you’re working with. Adobe Illustrator swatches are any named patterns, colours, tints or gradients that are created for use on a single document. document.getElementById("thinkific-product-embed") || document.write('');50% OFF WI...

Using Adobe Illustrator For Fashion Design: How To Draw Flats

Posted on August 12, 2016August 8, 2018 by mark williams

When we think of Adobe Illustrator, it’s normally graphic design that jumps to the forefront of our minds. Indeed, that is how the tool is more often than not promoted by Adobe itself, so it’s only a natural connection to make. However, such is the power, complexity and versatility of the program, Adobe Illustrator can and is in fact used for many different design projects that perhaps fall outside of what we generally consider to be ‘graphic design’. One such usage can be found in the realms of fashion design, where indeed Adobe Illustrator is used to great effect. One of the most fund...

Introducing Adobe Spark (Spoiler Alert – It’s Completely Free!)

Posted on August 1, 2016January 20, 2023 by mark williams

2023 Update! Adobe Spark is now Adobe Express! Spark no longer exists, there are many new apps developed since the original writing of this post. There is Adobe Rush which is a mobile simplified version of Adobe Premiere which you can create videos and edit them adding cool effects. These videos can be uploaded directly to social media from your mobile. Adobe Express is the free App (with a premium option) that enables you to create graphics quickly and easily mainly using templates. Its very much Adobe's response and retaliation to CANVA. Personally I think Adobe Express is a mu...

Getting To Grips With Photoshop Content-Aware Technology

Posted on July 25, 2016July 26, 2016 by mark williams

Photoshop CC. It really is the only photographic manipulation tool that you will ever need, and with each new update it just gets better and better. Most of our students that walk through our doors here at Creative Studios Derby want to know how to do one thing (or rather a couple of things) with Photoshop – remove unwanted images from images, and/or move objects within images to a different place within the same image. Indeed, this seems to be the most magical attribute of all of Photoshop’s abilities, and everyone wants to know how to do it. Now, this type of photo manipulation has alw...

How To Use Adobe Stock With Creative Cloud Libraries

Posted on July 15, 2016November 28, 2022 by mark williams

Artists, graphic designers, marketers and enthusiastic amateurs alike all need the same resources when firing up Adobe Creative Cloud to get started on their brand new creation – raw material. Whether we’re designing a new brochure in InDesign, creating an event poster in Illustrator, or summoning our inner genius to craft our very own masterpiece in Photoshop, we always need something to work with. Now of course, you, like many users of Creative Cloud, might like to create absolutely everything from scratch. You may like to only use your own photographs, your own sketches, your ow...

How To Create A Fanzine With Adobe InDesign

Posted on July 9, 2016July 14, 2016 by mark williams

No more sticking text onto bits of paper and photocopying, there is now a much easier way of creating your very own Fanzine – all you need is a few basic skills in Adobe InDesign. For those of you who are a bit hazy on what a Fanzine is, let me explain. Fanzines have been around for more than 100 years. They first took the form of science fiction publications in the late 1920s, and are essentially amateur magazines produced by fans. Indeed, Fanzines – or ‘Zines’, as they are also known – have become an exclusive form of magazine up until the present. The most influent...