November: Designing Holidays
In October we asked Design CAFE subscribers to comment on their favorite holiday promotions, folding cards, and creative ideas. We received a number of great idea starters, and here are a few. Watch for more as the holiday season continues... DT&G readers talk about great holiday promotions.
Don't forget, the Holidays Jumpstation and Holidays Loading Dock are open with lots of new and old stuff for you to discover. The link is in the newsletter
Fantastic Folds: Part One
Where do you look for creative ideas in crafting a unique, creative holiday greeting and promotional mailing? One of the elements of print media is folding. It comes along with the job, and if you incorporate a unique fold, your piece will be truly memorable. Here's the first part of our series on "Designing with Paper Folds"
Adobe Photoshop CS For Photographers
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Martin Evening's latest Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Mac and PC is a blockbuster with no padding or fluff -- all solid Photoshop training and pure inspiration for even the fine arts painter.
This month's Editor's Choice
Inspiration in a Bottle
Discover sources of inspiration that may just take you to the next level of creativity! Designer/Author Gary Dickson asks: "Where does your inspiration come from?" ... then shares his experiences with Inspiration in a Bottle
The Graphics Master is Back
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Now in its 8th edition, Dean Lem's industry bible is simply the best print production workbook ever produced! Through twenty-three printings of seven editions, the latest volume links the new digital prepress applications with essential traditional printing information. If you print, you need the Graphics Master 8
Using Postcards to Promote Your Design Studio
Martha Retallick, "The Passionate Postcarder" -- leading expert on post card marketing shares some important advice on saving a lot of time and money in your marketing. Before you splurge on the Yellow Pages or other media, read Martha's take on Using Postcards to Promote Your Design Studio
Picture Perfect Holiday Postcards
It doesnt take a lot of time, money or effort to create, print and mail a postcard. But when done right, postcards can be enormously effective
Color Photos Converted to Text
The Worlds first colour digital photo to colour text convertor is truly one of the most innovative developments in a long time! You simply must see Simon Leung's Artext Photo Converter
60-Seconds #169: SpamCop Full Circle
When my spam load hit 1,000 spams a day, I gave up the fight against spam and just started deleting them all. I was ashamed of myself because I had stopped helping my fellow netizen. But then I returned to SpamCop, and that began the rest of the story... 60-Second Windows
Printing Primer for Designers
Originally published in 1989, this printing primer for digital artists has been updated and annotated for today's digital desktop publisher. We've supplied an additional check list for publishing, press-checks, and a collection of references all desktop publishers need to know about: Print Primer for DTP
"DIGITAL DECEMBER" Contest:
While we want to continue getting your favorite Fantastic Folds for Greeting Cards, our December topic will shift slightly to great ideas using your digital camera. So, we're asking you to share your unique and creative discoveries for using Digital Cameras for the Holidays. Just answer any of those questions at our PRIZE REGISTRATION PAGE and you could get your comments published and be a lucky prize winner!
Babel Color Brings New Color
The BabelColor Company has rolled out the second version of "BabelColor", a color comparator and translator software designed for the Mac and Windows platforms. Babel Color Color Comparator
Beware: Online Criminals at Large
You are drawn into a web site appearing to be authentic with familiar graphics and logos... but wait! Something's wrong with this email... something's seriously wrong! Rusbiz.com's Nowshade Kabir demystifies the emerging crime wave of Phishing for Your Identity.
Current Web Site Critique Briefs
This month readers look at Painting by Anne Stahl; the James Anderson Unofficial Site; Georgetown University, the Black Hills Pow Wow Association and one the reviewer says "sucks" the Internet personals/dating site. See these Critique Briefs sent in by readers
&ELSE News & Views
See this month's newsletter including: Fantastic Folds; Adobe Photoshop CS For Photographers; Inspiration; Graphics Master; Postcards; Color Photos Converted; SpamCop Full Circle; New Kenn Munk Font: 'Psychophante'; Babel Color; Current Web Site Critique Briefs; 3D "Covers" Generator; Red Eye Pilot for Mac; Cfont Pro: Windows Font Management; Fun Site of the Month; MailBag (3); Design Associations; Mac virus?; iPod Photo; Shareware and many more...: November news, resources shareware and contacts
New Photoshop Tutorials
Fake Circular Text for PS 6/7 * Save for Web * Image Viewing & Navigating * Painting Basics * Choosing Color * Using Texturizer Filter * Using Sharpen and Gaussian Blur Filters * Using History palette in Photoshop * How to minimize overexposed areas from electronic flash too close to subject * Weighted Optimization * Save As in Actions * Optimizing Image in ImageReady * Equalizing Tone * Unsharp Mask * Replace Color * Color Corrections with Hue/Saturation by Andrei Doubrovski and others... all in the Photoshop 911 Resource Department
Got Photoshop Questions? Who do you call?
Last month we opened the doors of Photoshop 911's new blog. Now you can comment on posts, and even lend a helping hand where needed... who do you call? Photoshop 911
Recent Photoshop FAQs
- Fading Photos - Use Feathering or Layer Masks
- Grid Patterns over Photos - Multi colored, grid over art - painstaking process
- Pen Tool in Photoshop CS - Why can't you draw an "Open" path
- Photoshop and Error 39 - NOT Photoshop!/li>
- Automating the Healing Brush - lots and lots of dust spots
- Burned Holes in Photoshop
- Help recall Filter Settings... Reapplying filter effects
- PS Bevels by hand
- PS helps Faded Photo two scans?
- Making round corner rectangles in Photoshop
- Hot spots in photo (Flash Burn)
- Adding Fill Flash in Photoshop
- Removing Date Stamps from Photos
- Mismatched resolution causes problems
- Making round corner rectangles in Photoshop
- Get Rid of White Backgrounds? Classic question!
- Aging Photos: What would they look like today?
- Custom Gradients? break out of the defaults
- Annoying Gray Boxes? Careful what you click
- Selecting Wrong Colors? Eyedropper Spread Trick
&Else News & Reviews
... including: watch for the newsletter next week, along with all the news and happenings in the wonderful world of graphic design, typography and graphics.
Previously:
- Type & Fonts: P22 & TypeCo
- Type & Fonts: Letterheads
- Type & Fonts: Charter Type
- Type & Fonts: Matthew Carter
- Type & Fonts: Urban Type
- Type & Fonts: Autumn Type
- Type & Fonts: October Fonts
- Design: Design from the Edge
- Photoshop: For Right Brainers
- Photoshop: Rusty Type
- LA Art Scene: Snap To Grid
- Feature: Patriotic Art & Design Survey
- Design: Airman Magazine Patriotic Design
- Editor's Choice: Deke McClelland One on One
- Photoshop Tutorial: Displacement Maps
- Designing Women: Designing Words
- Glitter Guru Suzette Troche on Beauty Retouching
- Editor's Choice: The Logo, Font & Lettering Bible
- 60-Seconds: #168 Ethics in Digital Photography
- & Photographic: Digital Photo Tips
- Freeware: Digital photo management program
- Commentary: Get A Design Buddy!
- Tutorial: Photoshop or Elements Feathering
- Designing Women: Carey Jones Balance of Design!
- Critique: Tomato Cages.com
- Digital Photography: living photography
- Community: Designers talk about "Getting Creative Ideas"
- Interview: Master Illustrator: Jon C. Lund
- 60 Second Window #167: Creative Juices
- Web Critique: An American Idol Web Site Gone Bad?
- Web Design: The Delicate Art of Web Design Critique
- Photography: A glass of water to quench your thirst...
- Software Review: The Proposal Kit
- Software Review: Wildform FX Pro
- Photoshop Tutorial: Quick, Easy Photo Montage
- Photoshop Tutorial: Photoshop Pixels to Pencil Drawings
- Shoot-out: Photoshop or Elements? Which is best?
- Web Design: Seven Steps to Return On Design
- Web Critique: Joyce Evans Sweetens Sweet Deco
- Web Critique: 9th Street Rag
- Web Critique: Doctors' Support Net
- Web Critique: Rolling Meadow Kennels & Canine Training
- Community: Designers talk about Color
- Photography: Bruce Duncan asks Why Black & White?
- Interview: Cynthia Baron, designing a digital portfolio
- Interview: Melissa Mason is Designless in Seattle
- Designing Women: Catherine Morley's Katz Design Group
- Designing Women: Sandy Wright, Lyric Marketing & Design
- Designing Women: Gina Geick, GAWD Productions
- Field Trip: Creative Latitude
- History Lesson: The Famous Names in Typography
- 60-Seconds: Avoiding New Spam Traps
- Bookshelf: Design: Best "Beginner" Design Books
- Cary Lu talks about Computing's Holy Wars
- James Redelfs: Personal Computer Software and Ethics
Photoshop 911 Call Reports
Here comes this month's batch of reports from the Photoshop 911 call line. The most interesting is how one user solves the problem of removing the background from multiple shots of a rotating product for a 3D video... there are seven others, and you'll want to read them all:In the Photoshop 911 FAQ department
Participate in your Design Center
Lots of fun and information for all... don't forget, any community is only as good as the participation of its members. We invite your tips, tricks, comments, suggestions and camaraderie.- Ask for the DT&G Monthly: to receive news about DT& headlines, happenings in the Design Center and regular columns like the "Mail Bag" and "Cool Sites"
- SUBSCRIBE : to the Designers' CAFE email list
- Link to this site, and then show us the link. We'll send you any of our current door prizes, just for your trouble.
- Help Support The Design Center: with your donation, we say thank you with free books, listings, and even links on the front page!
- Does your Web Site Suck?: Let the WDR Design Team give you a critique of your web site and get helpful advice on how to make it the best it can be!
Advertise your products or services among these pages! Call: 540-433-8402 for details.



