Adobe Illustrator – Image Trace and Live Paint

Posted on October 19, 2017January 12, 2023 by Mark

Adobe Illustrator Image Trace and Live Paint Adobe Illustrator has a really useful tool that can enable you to import your pixel based images or drawings and convert them to vector artwork on the Adobe Illustrator Artboard. It works best when the artwork is simple or black and white, Adobe Illustrator will struggle to convert a full color photograph in to vector artwork, it will do it but the results won’t look amazing. As with most tools in Adobe Illustrator the Image Trace tool is amazing but does have its limits. With the Live paint tool in Adobe Illustrator you can easily paint a...

What are Adobe Photoshop Layer and Vector Masks?

Posted on October 13, 2017January 12, 2023 by Mark

Adobe Potoshop layer mask with selections

What are Adobe Photoshop Layer and Vector Masks? Using Adobe Photoshop Layer and Vector Masks we are able to temporarily hide and show parts of a layer without permanently deleting any of the pixels, essentially an Adobe Photoshop layer mask is an attachment to a layer that defines the visible elements of the layer. Each layer in a multi layered Adobe Photoshop document can have its own layer mask, the mask only influences the the image on the layer that it is attached too. There are two types of Adobe Photoshop layer masks, layer and vector. A layer mask also known as a pixel mask is a...

Photoshop Healing Brush and Patch Tools

Posted on October 5, 2017October 13, 2017 by Mark

Adobe Photoshop has an array of magical tools, in my opinion though for the ease of use and the amazing results the Healing Brush and Patch Tools are the most impressive tools Adobe Photoshop has to offer. Using Adobe Photoshop's Healing brush tool still amazes me how it does it, minor blemishes and imperfections just disappear before your eyes! Its difficult to explain how these tools work in Adobe Photoshop but essentially they help to correct problems and imperfections in images by merging them in to the original image and sampling the texture around the area. That probably doesn't...

How to create a reflection effect in Adobe Photoshop

Posted on September 29, 2017October 9, 2018 by Mark

jQuery(window).bind("load", function(){ setTimeout(function(){ jQuery("#leicester-adobe-indesign-training-course-iframe").attr("src", "https://www.youtube.com/embed/jRJSuTrFREo"); },8000); }); The shiny table or reflection effect can be found on countless modern professional-looking ads and websites. Digital artists use this effect in adobe Photoshop to make objects and text appear as if they are sitting on a very shiny, reflective table. Adding reflections to objects in Adobe Photoshop can instantly transform your designs from looking ordinary or out-of-place to...

How to use the Effects Panel in Adobe InDesign

Posted on September 21, 2017July 26, 2018 by Mark

How to use the Effects Panel in Adobe InDesign Applying effects in Adobe InDesign is something that is fairly straight forward, a simple drop shadow can be applied at the click of a button. However many are unaware of how we can use the Adobe InDesign Effects Panel in a much more advanced way to create some much more stunning effects. When we open the Effects panel in Adobe InDesign (Window>Effects) by default the 'Object' line is higlighted, so if we click the 'fx' button at the bottom of the panel we get a list of Adobe InDesign Effects that we can apply. In this instan...

Recolour artwork tool in Adobe Illustrator

Posted on August 11, 2017October 10, 2018 by Mark

How to use the Recolour Artwork Tool in Adobe Illustrator jQuery(window).bind("load", function(){ setTimeout(function(){ jQuery("#recolour-artwork-tool-adobe-illustrator-iframe").attr("src", "https://www.youtube.com/embed/jYFzSGWcM_0"); },5000); }); In Adobe Illustrator there is a very handy and under used button that enables you to quickly and easily recolour any artwork using the colour groups in your swatches panel. The key to using the recolour Artwork tool is to organise your swatches in to groups, the tool only works with solid swatches in Adobe Illustrator an...

Using the Start screen in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign

Posted on July 19, 2017August 8, 2018 by Mark

Why getting the correct 'Design intent' in the Start screen of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign is so important... When usint the Start screen in Adobe programs its really important to get the Design intent correct, essentially it comes down to one of two intents, we have a 'Print' intent or a 'Web' intent, also it can be referred to as 'Hi res' and 'Lo res'. Essentially the 'Design intent' is dictated by how and where we are going to be publishing the document, if we are using Adobe Photoshop and we choose a Print intent (see screen grab below) the presets change to being all ou...

FREE Adobe Stock Templates for Photoshop and Illustrator!

Posted on July 6, 2017October 15, 2021 by Mark

Adobe have now made a certain amount of Adobe Stock Templates available for free for all Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers! Adobe stock is a new service from Adobe that is available as an add on to your Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, there are various pricing tiers made available to suit different requirements that include images and Adobe Stock Templates. Adobe stock assets can be downloaded and used for any of your design projects, the assets can either be in the format of royalty free images to use and edit in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or placed in to any Adobe Indesign la...

How to create an animated GIFF in Adobe Photoshop

Posted on June 16, 2017June 23, 2017 by Mark

Tutorial: How to create an animated GIFF in Adobe Photoshop First of all we are going to create a new document in Adobe Photoshop, for this animated GIFF we are going to optimise it for Facebook so the size of the document is going to be 450 pixels by 450 pixels. You can adjust the size accordingly depending on where you will be publishing your animated GIFF. Next we are going to start adding the content to our animated GIFF, for this GIFF I am going to want to have this picture of a Parrot on every frame so in Adobe Photoshop im going to go File>Place and place the image in to crea...

Tutorial: How to draw a stunning Vector iPhone in Adobe Illustrator

Posted on June 7, 2017August 8, 2018 by Mark

How to draw a stunning vector iPhone in Adobe Illustrator Select the rounded rectangle tool in the Adobe Illustrator toolbar, click once in the middle of your Adobe Illustrator Artboard, you should see the window above. Set the width as 97mm and the height as 185mm and the corner radius to 10mm For the rounded rectangle set the fill colour to black and the stroke to 2mm and choose the gradient swatch that goes from black to white, all panels can be found in Adobe Illustrator under Window>Swatches and Window>Colour Choose your ellipse tool from the Adobe Illustrato...