Graphic Design |OT| Be, INdesign

CyReN said:
I have a interview for a photograph place next week, anybody know where I can get high res pictures of faces/families to practice that haven't been touched? I have some experience but I rather learn a bit more before I go in. It's only a part time gig.
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There are some Flickr groups for this, I think, and I saw a FaceBook friend doing adjustments on images supplied by "Fro Knows Photo" (... yeah, I don't know either).
 
CaptainMintMan said:
I'm taking a Graphics Design course next semester and I figure I get a head start on things. What are some programs and tutorials I can start learning the basics from?
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Photoshop and Illustrator.

Use illustrator for logos and vector images that will be scaled up and down.

Use photoshop for pixel related work with images or if you're just doing a repeating textured background.


ConvenientBox said:
Odd, it doesn't do that for me - which browser are you using?
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You should scale down the logo. It's taking up way too much real estate and shoving the rest of the stuff on the homepage down. Here's what it looks like for me, full screened on a 1920, and the height is 976, still have to scroll.

LreBG.jpg


That yellow line is where the page should end. 640px for optimal viewing from most. At least that's what I was taught.
 
CyReN said:
I have a interview for a photograph place next week, anybody know where I can get high res pictures of faces/families to practice that haven't been touched? I have some experience but I rather learn a bit more before I go in. It's only a part time gig.
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just type in a celebrities name and add "no makup" that's what i always do lol
 
Devolution said:
That yellow line is where the page should end. 640px for optimal viewing from most. At least that's what I was taught.
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Yes, this was the case back in 1998 when the most popular monitor size was 1024x768. Soon and in most cases now, 960px is even considered old.

I designed the site to be best viewed at 1280x1024. I've abandoned the "optimal" old fold line much like I've abandoned ie6 support. Thanks for the suggestions though.
 
ConvenientBox said:
Yes, this was the case back in 1998 when the most popular monitor size was 1024x768. Soon and in most cases now, 960px is even considered old.

I designed the site to be best viewed at 1280x1024. I've abandoned the "optimal" old fold line much like I've abandoned ie6 support. Thanks for the suggestions though.
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It's still relevant with mobile devices (960 by 640 being a good ratio). Do what you want but you'll be isolating and annoying a lot of people. And it's still huge regardless unless everyone you know looks at websites full screen.
 
I agree on the mobile aspect, though I didn't do it for this particular site, all my new sites are responsive. Works 10000% better.
 
I'm probably doing something really obviously dumb, but I can't for the life of me figure out why PS is stretching my images. The bottom in this shot is the image in Photoshop, and the one above it is the resulting file when I save it as a .png or .jpg.

what.jpg


help?
 
Check to make sure that the Pixel Aspect Ratio you're saving it as is the same as what you have it as in the working PS document. For example, if you're working with square pixels in PS, but saving it as wider pixels, it will appear stretched.
 
OH geez. Yep, that's it.

For some reason, "Pixel Aspect Ratio" was changed to 0.91 by default on new documents, and that was messing things up.

thanks.
 
Maybe you guys can help me. I'm been asked to make a banner possibly 6 foot by 3 foot. What is the best possible way to set this up in photoshop? Do I use 200-300 dpi and is there anyway to work in a smaller size then rescale it later?
 
Spacebar said:
Maybe you guys can help me. I'm been asked to make a banner possibly 6 foot by 3 foot. What is the best possible way to set this up in photoshop? Do I use 200-300 dpi and is there anyway to work in a smaller size then rescale it later?
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I'm not sure what type of content you're handling, but I would just make an illustrator file at 300dpi and work from there. You might want to play it safe and build your work space at 6.5x3.5 or 7x4 just to allow for any extra bleed room you might need. Since it primarily operates with vectors, you can easily scale content with minimum risk to quality. It depends upon your source material, but yeah.

You can certainly still do it in PS, but it will likely be more demanding on system resources, depending on your source material.


If you know who you're going to be using to print with, you might contact your printer and ask them what would work best for their setup. They should be able to help you know how best to set up, save, and deliver the work to get it done.
Also, be sure to ask them how much bleed space they will need on the final file for printing. They might just want .25 inches or they might want more for something that big.


edit: If you must do it in photoshop, and you want to work smaller to larger, just make it small. Just build a work space with similar dimensions, design it out how you want the final to look, and rebuild it to scale. It will be much faster since you'll have a "map" of what you want, but make certain your source material will scale to that size for the final 6 x 3.
 
Spacebar said:
Maybe you guys can help me. I'm been asked to make a banner possibly 6 foot by 3 foot. What is the best possible way to set this up in photoshop? Do I use 200-300 dpi and is there anyway to work in a smaller size then rescale it later?
Click to expand...

If it's entirely vector-based, I would work in Illustrator; if you're using photographic elements, you can use Photoshop. When I did 20'x10' roadside billboards, I set them up as 25ppi (6000x3000px), but some elements were only 12.5, and they looked fine.

As viewing distance goes up, the required resolution goes down, so figure the distance out and then find a calculator online and go from there.
 
sorry if this isn't exactly the right place to ask but i guess most people here are illustrator pros. :D
anyway, i'm having trouble doing something that to me seems really simple and quite like features already in illustrator, just not exactly what i want.
i'd like to know if there's anyway you can trim a layer to the shape of the one beneath it, removing any overlap. i've messed around with the pathfinder tools but none of them seem to remove the right bit (the part of the shading layer that spills over the body of the lickitung here). any idea what i need to do?

H9CrZ.png
 
show me your skeleton said:
sorry if this isn't exactly the right place to ask but i guess most people here are illustrator pros. :D
anyway, i'm having trouble doing something that to me seems really simple and quite like features already in illustrator, just not exactly what i want.
i'd like to know if there's anyway you can trim a layer to the shape of the one beneath it, removing any overlap. i've messed around with the pathfinder tools but none of them seem to remove the right bit (the part of the shading layer that spills over the body of the lickitung here). any idea what i need to do?

http://i.imgur.com/H9CrZ.png[IMG][/QUOTE]
Select both layers (The main Lickitung pink and the shade layer) Then press the Divide button in Pathfinder. This will break up the shade layer into two objects. Select the excess shade object and delete.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Z3Cdq.png
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Question...

what do you guys do for textures? I found a free seamless texture pack the other day (from http://lostandtaken.com/) and I've been loving it. I've used two textures on a web design I'm working on, and I design characters in PS and used a fur texture to give the character a sweater and it looks great.

So I feel a little weird though, as in I would rather make my own textures. Is that stupid though and most people don't make their own? I've messed around using "Define Pattern" on photos I've taken, but I don't get how to make them seamless or even look decent really.
 
Futureman said:
Question...

what do you guys do for textures? I found a free seamless texture pack the other day (from http://lostandtaken.com/) and I've been loving it. I've used two textures on a web design I'm working on, and I design characters in PS and used a fur texture to give the character a sweater and it looks great.

So I feel a little weird though, as in I would rather make my own textures. Is that stupid though and most people don't make their own? I've messed around using "Define Pattern" on photos I've taken, but I don't get how to make them seamless or even look decent really.
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Buy a scanner and go to town.
It's much more satisfying to use your own found textures. If you pay attention, you'll notice that there are many textures that people use commonly across web/print/everything. You're going to be inherently losing quality in your work when you use something that's widely available, but that might not always be a concern in your work. When I have to do things that are going to be for a specific event that isn't going to be public in any way, I don't care if I go to a free use texture site. If it's going to be for a client in the public eye, I like to get my own stuff, when possible. Sometimes you just can't get access to things.

If you feel you must use someone else's textures, try to make them your own. Don't just throw it on top of something and "multiply" it. Lost and Taken has some great stuff, but it's tempting to use some of the things exactly as they are because some of their things (like in the misc. section) already look manipulated.


There are so many ways to go about actually integrating texture into your work that it would be kind of crazy to tell you how to do it. The best thing I can suggest is just play around with things. Mess with layer effects, mess with duotones, mess with masking, and just play with things. The more versed you are with the software the more you'll have an idea of how you can pull in things to achieve an end goal.
 
Does anybody know if InDesign CS5.5 lets you export things out directly as HTML5? I can't seem to find any direct answers to this online beyond some uninformative Adobe videos. Everything RE: Indesign & HTML5 seems to be regarding the Digital Publishing Suite stuff... but I want to know if I can just export as a straight HTML5 document.
 
I'm doing a film poster, and the 'assets' were downloaded in a single PDF. The logo I have to use is on that PDF, but it appears rasterized and is of very poor resolution. I emailed the guy asking for a vector version of the logo, and he said "There should be an eps version of the logo included in the assets."

I had no idea you could embed an EPS file in a PDF, and nor do I know how to access it if it really is there. I don't particularly want to reply to him asking how to find it, otherwise I'll come across as the complete noob that I am.

So... how do I see this EPS file? Thanks.
 
Pazuzu9 said:
I'm doing a film poster, and the 'assets' were downloaded in a single PDF. The logo I have to use is on that PDF, but it appears rasterized and is of very poor resolution. I emailed the guy asking for a vector version of the logo, and he said "There should be an eps version of the logo included in the assets."

I had no idea you could embed an EPS file in a PDF, and nor do I know how to access it if it really is there. I don't particularly want to reply to him asking how to find it, otherwise I'll come across as the complete noob that I am.

So... how do I see this EPS file? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Have you tried opening it in illustrator?
 
I see. Well it just appears to be one page if I open it in Illustrator, two layers if I open it in Photoshop (one layer is the rasterized logo, the other is just some dimensions).

Is there another way of seeing an embedded EPS? I mean... it shouldn't be hidden right? If there's really a vector version of the logo in the PDF I should just be able to see it?
 
Pazuzu9 said:
Is there another way of seeing an embedded EPS? I mean... it shouldn't be hidden right? If there's really a vector version of the logo in the PDF I should just be able to see it?
Click to expand...

I think that if you can select different elements when you open it in Illustrator then you've got access to all there is to be had from the PDF.
 
I've had instances where designers from outside agencies send me flattened jpegs wrapped in eps files...


The emails I sent back weren't pretty...
 
Can anyone recommend some great books on typography? Not one with just pictures but one that really gets down into every thing about it.
 
OK GraphDesGAF, I have a request. It should be pretty simple.

All I need is a large (512x512 or higher), vector* (or raster) version of the Chrome reload button. That's this little guy:

xKlrS.png


You'll have to put the icon under a liberal license, although Google may own rights so I'm not sure... hrm...

Whoever does this, I can send you the t-shirt I'm using it on. For free. It's (sort of obviously) web development-based, so you can not accept it if it's not your thang.

Thanks. :)

* I realize vectors can be any size, but 512 is what I have in mind.
 
silly question about print work:

i have to design a 8.5x11 cover for a client with a vector illustration that i made for him. what would be the best way to make sure the colors on the illustration as well as the cover stay consistent? 99% of my work is web and illustration based so im pretty ignorant about what measures i have to take for print work.

i only have photoshop and illustrator so would those programs be sufficient?
 
effingvic said:
silly question about print work:

i have to design a 8.5x11 cover for a client with a vector illustration that i made for him. what would be the best way to make sure the colors on the illustration as well as the cover stay consistent? 99% of my work is web and illustration based so im pretty ignorant about what measures i have to take for print work.

i only have photoshop and illustrator so would those programs be sufficient?
Click to expand...
I would just say design in a CMYK color mode file format. If you design in an RGB mode and try to print, you will likely get a less consistent image since it was designed using colors from the light spectrum instead of what is capable with print.

If you already have the files designed, you can just switch the color mode on the fly, and it will try to preserve it as close as possible. If things changed somewhere, you can still tweak it back to being close to the original as possible.


Also, when it comes to printing, I'm wanting to say you should tell photoshop/illustrator to read the colors. You might be best off just asking the printer when you're there, but I'm pretty sure you want PS/AI to handle colors... It's easy enough to just change the thing in the drop down for the printer, so just ask. : P
 
Andrex said:
OK GraphDesGAF, I have a request. It should be pretty simple.

All I need is a large (512x512 or higher), vector* (or raster) version of the Chrome reload button. That's this little guy:

xKlrS.png


You'll have to put the icon under a liberal license, although Google may own rights so I'm not sure... hrm...

Whoever does this, I can send you the t-shirt I'm using it on. For free. It's (sort of obviously) web development-based, so you can not accept it if it's not your thang.

Thanks. :)

* I realize vectors can be any size, but 512 is what I have in mind.
Click to expand...
Here ya go

Link to vector: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2956417/googlerefresh.eps
Example Image said:
googlerefresh.png
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I have a question, and I hope you guys can give me some feedback.


1) I'm planning to apply for a "Visual Communication" bachelor degree, which they label as an access to Art Director.
I don't know if that's what I want, but I've been told, (since my strengths are being creative, coming up with stuff, ideas) this is what I should try and aim for.

But I have also been told, that every web designer wants to end there, and just delegate all the work to others. That it's basically like being a movie director. "here is my vision - now do it minions!".
That seems awfully ambitious.



2) I'm very intimidated from people i've met who have said that becoming a web designer, multimedia designer, and so on, is pointless. that everyone can put up and download photoshop themselves and do it. and that the industry is in shambles. Would I be a fool to pursue this field?

After all, when I went to film school I was always the guy who tried to make movie posters, props, art, and that sort of stuff. I like twinking and twirling and manipulating, but I think its too late for me to truly get good(im 25.. so its late to start getting good). I get scared when I see 12 year olds who are like Photoshop masters at the tools. I've been using it for a long time (for fun and recreation) but I've never really gotten neaty gritty with it. Last time, that was doring CS3. So CS5 now seems really scary.



3)most of the people who I have met who had this degree, have abandoned it, or finished it never gotten work in practice. Maybe it's just Scandinavia, but the education has little respect, because a lot of it is like e-learning, or not very ambitious 2 year mini educations were people are just becoming proficient, but not really gods, and they dont really seem to get a lot of schooling on fonts, colors, picture symbolism, two rules of thirds, and all these things that i find fascinating.




It has taken me a lot of years to find out that I have a large creative outlet and weird ideas (that doesn't mean good ideas.. people just often say they are different, strange, or not what they would have thought off). my brain is not normal, and I dont think I would have much fun going for a regular university degree with lots of theoretical and non-creative mumbo jumbo. Maybe I have ADHD. Probably. hmm.
 
I'm not really qualified or experienced to give you any real solid advice on that stuff, VW, but you might see if you can meet with a counselor or a professor in the department to maybe learn more about the subject and see if it interests you more. No matter what you end up doing, it's not crazy if you enjoy doing it at the end of the day.

I did want to address this, though:
Vigilant Walrus said:
After all, when I went to film school I was always the guy who tried to make movie posters, props, art, and that sort of stuff. I like twinking and twirling and manipulating, but I think its too late for me to truly get good(im 25.. so its late to start getting good). I get scared when I see 12 year olds who are like Photoshop masters at the tools. I've been using it for a long time (for fun and recreation) but I've never really gotten neaty gritty with it. Last time, that was doring CS3. So CS5 now seems really scary.
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Don't ever worry about being proficient with photoshop or any one specific tool/program. I've heard countless times that people aren't looking for someone that knows a program, they want creative minds. Any job place could have you run through some tutorials and teach you the basics, but nobody job will teach you to be a creative thinker or problem solver. If you've got the ability to come up with better ideas than someone that's a photoshop god, you're the more valuable resource, at the end of the day.
Besides, just tinkering around with photoshop is the best way to get acquainted with it.
 
Vigilant Walrus said:
2) I'm very intimidated from people i've met who have said that becoming a web designer, multimedia designer, and so on, is pointless. that everyone can put up and download photoshop themselves and do it. and that the industry is in shambles. Would I be a fool to pursue this field?
Click to expand...

Here lies the difference. There are designers, then there are photoshop users who are always at the mercy of the latest tutorials and trends. Don't confuse the two :)

The industry is very saturated now, but certainly not dead. There are many, MANY of the "photoshop users" rather than designers, and I see and work with them every day. They can do the day to day tasks, but absolutely melt when they have a bigger project, such as a major site redesign or brand to create.

One design across all screens is the in thing now.
 
Is it acceptable to post the link to a commercial website that you designed?

Something that I've been working on very hard over the last month and a half has just gone online and I'd love to get GAF's feedback, but I don't want to break the rules... does that count?

Before I post that, here is a link to my little pet project... my so called "business" SouthEastCustoms, I've never been taught anything myself so I've just been learning by putting it together. I can design pretty well but I can't build a website to be damned. I mean, I can do it in the 'old school' hard way using HTML and creating every page and then when you change something you have to change every page manually, but I have no idea how to use CSS styles and stuff. As of yet, only the 'Computers' link works properly and then really only the 'Internet' and 'High End' links work properly. I really should get it finished.
 
ColonialRaptor said:
Is it acceptable to post the link to a commercial website that you designed?

Something that I've been working on very hard over the last month and a half has just gone online and I'd love to get GAF's feedback, but I don't want to break the rules... does that count?

Before I post that, here is a link to my little pet project... my so called "business" SouthEastCustoms, I've never been taught anything myself so I've just been learning by putting it together. I can design pretty well but I can't build a website to be damned. I mean, I can do it in the 'old school' hard way using HTML and creating every page and then when you change something you have to change every page manually, but I have no idea how to use CSS styles and stuff. As of yet, only the 'Computers' link works properly and then really only the 'Internet' and 'High End' links work properly. I really should get it finished.
Click to expand...

Unless you're trying to shamelessly plug the business I don't see why you can't post it for critique purposes.
 
I've just submitted an iBook for approval. It's a photography book with interactive maps designed from the ground up in iTuned author. It's pretty basic but I wanted it to be claen simple and work with built in widgets.

iSC8llCPCpQj8.png


iOnlfKN6YgRdS.jpg


iw2iu26NJajIO.png


iZNDConNbnOmH.png
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