Quadra Design Blog - Web Design & Graphic Design Tips & News

Featured Artist: Bram Vanhaeren

publisher — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:56:20 +0000

Featured Artist: Bram Vanhaeren Bram Vanhaeren is an awesome digital artist from Belgium. His work centers mainly around photo manipulations, wallpaper designs and typography. He has a very unique mixed media approach, often bringing in elements of drawing and illustration into his digital designs. This results in a rich array of designs and styles, and a diversity that hints beyond his 20 years. Bram’s work is often sleek and glossy, whilst combining hand-drawn elements. His compositions scream life and energy, often featuring twisting dancers, party girls and sports figures. Bram often transforms the ordinary into the abstract, adding hundreds of creative details, light effects and other visual abstraction to everyday figures/models. I recommend that you go and check out Bram’s full portfolio as he has plenty more great work to offer

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Featured Artist: Bram Vanhaeren

Applying Photoshop Adjustment Layers to Multiple and Specific Layers

publisher — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:39:42 +0000

Applying Photoshop Adjustment Layers to Multiple and Specific Layers Today I have a quick video tip for you. Have you ever struggled when working with adjustment layers, and needed to make one set of adjustments effect a range of multiple layers (but not your entire canvas)? This is an issue that used to really frustrate me, and I know some of you still struggle with this same problem. Check out the short video below and I’ll walk you through how to apply a single adjustment layer to multiple layers (but not your entire document).

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Applying Photoshop Adjustment Layers to Multiple and Specific Layers

Win a Copy of Filter Forge 3.0 ($149 Value)

publisher — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:20:42 +0000

Win a Copy of Filter Forge 3.0 ($149 Value) Filter Forge is a leading Photoshop plugin that lets you create stunning, professional grade effects with ease. Today we’re lucky enough to be giving away a copy of Filter Forge 3.0 . Before we get to the juicy details of how to win, I want to share some details of this awesome plugin with you. At PSD.FanExtra we only want to give away the most awesome resources and products to you through our contests. That’s why I’m so excited to be offering this copy of Filter Forge 3.0. Filter Forge is one of the leading Photoshop plugins, containing a vast pack of filters that generate textures, visual effects, photo enhancements and more! It’s become the plugin of choice for thousands of leading designers, facilitating a much faster, more convenient workflow, and allowing the creation of professional grade, quality effects. However, as awesome as these features make Filter Forge, there are three really unique features that take it beyond other plugins: 1.

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Win a Copy of Filter Forge 3.0 ($149 Value)

Artist Breakdown #1. Alexis Marcou: Bad Panda (Source File Available)

creative — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:56:30 +0000

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Work Processes of World Renowned Artists At PSD.FanExtra we believe that the best way to learn is from experts in your field. That’s why we employ some of the best tutorial writers and bring you regular quality content. Tutorials are great, but I often find myself looking at work from some of the world’s top digital artists and wondering about the thought processes, techniques and workflows used to create such incredible art. I always think ‘if I only I could get my hands on their original Photoshop files I’d be able to break down exactly what makes their work so awesome!’ . Well that’s exactly what we aim to offer you guys, as part of our new series ‘Artist Breakdown’. We’re going to be talking to some of the world’s most respected digital artist’s and offering an insight into how they’ve created some of their most popular works. We’ll also provide a full .psd source file for our FanExtra members to explore. This will allow you to look through every layer, object, blending option and technique used. It’s a true behind the scenes look into some world-class work, and we hope you enjoy it! Artist Breakdown #1.

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Artist Breakdown #1. Alexis Marcou: Bad Panda (Source File Available)

Texture Thursday: Orange

publisher — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:03:43 +0000

Orange Textures You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page. Download This Texture Pack Join our newsletter for access to all texture thursday high-res downloads Receive links to all texture thursday packs via email, as well as a FREE premium icon pack for joining our newsletter (Please use a genuine email address, otherwise you won’t receive your textures)

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Texture Thursday: Orange

Members Area Tutorial: Photo Manipulate a Complex Surrogate Scene

creative — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:18:56 +0000

Members Area Tutorial: Photo Manipulate a Complex Surrogate Scene In this tutorial we are going to create a futuristic operation theater where surrogates are repaired. In this scene a surrogate is hung by few high power cords attached to it’s body and a doctor is seen close to the scene noting down some observations standing near the surgical tools and lab apparatus. A futuristic transparent monitor located by some distance from the scene displays some tech. signs. With this tutorial we are going to cover the topics like Creating Realistic Glass using Blending Options, Creating Patterns using texture images, Texturing, Digital Painting and many more interesting techniques. Final Image As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating: Resources Used In This Tutorial Women – faestock X-Ray View Box – sxc.hu OT Lights – sxc.hu Surgical Tools – sxc.hu Doctor – sxc.hu Bearings – sxc.hu Glass Tubes – sxc.hu Flasks – sxc.hu Building 1 – sxc.hu Building 2 – sxc.hu Building 3 – sxc.hu Mechanical Arm – sxc.hu Robot Arm – sxc.hu Syringe – sxc.hu Magnifier – sxc.hu Metal Grid Texture – sxc.hu Hexagonal Panels – textureimages.net Lens Flares – psdbox.com Tech Brush 1 – brusheezy.com Tech Brush 2 – brusheezy.com Tech Brushe 3 – brusheezy.com Tech Brushe 4 – brusheezy.com Step 1 In this step we are going to cut the image of the women for our scene without losing any details. 1) Import the image of the women into Photoshop and rotate it in the below shown fashion. 2) Now create a mask around the women using the Pen Tool (P)

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Members Area Tutorial: Photo Manipulate a Complex Surrogate Scene

Featured Artist: Mathieu Schatzler

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:36:26 +0000

Featured Artist: Mathieu Schatzler Mathieu Schatzler is a wonderful digital artist from France. His impressive portfolio features a wide range of work, from photo manipulations, to album cover art, magazine covers and promotional materials. It’s great to see such a variety of commercial and personal work, as you can see how Mathieu not only embraces his love of the art-form, but delivers quality business results. What I love most about Mathieu’s work is how clean and polished it is. He often creates elaborate photo manipulations but they are never overdone, remaining very natural looking, with great lighting and a precise attention to detail. Quite often he will place products or subjects amongst a detailed, rich natural environment. Rather than his subject standing alone it becomes part of a realistic fantasy world. I recommend that you go and check out Mathieu’s full portfolio as he has plenty more great work to offer. Maintain Your Mac Hong Kong is Going to America Domptez de Lion Web Design Magazine Cover I Live Magazine Cover The Shiloh Album Cover Art CITC EuraRFID Dark Dog Dyssidence Wokine – New Era 2/4 Borderline Lillelanuit.com – Fête de la musique 07 Lillelanuit.com 2006 – 4/5 Lillelanuit.com 2006 – 4/5 Lillelanuit.com 2006 – 5/5 Where to Find Mathieu Schatzler on the Web: If you’d like to explore more of Mathieu Schatzler’s work then you can check out his various online hangouts: Behance Page Mathieu Schatzler’s portfolio

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Featured Artist: Mathieu Schatzler

Photo Manipulate an Eye Catching Poster Design for Earth Hour

publisher — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:21:13 +0000

Photo Manipulate an Eye Catching Poster Design for Earth Hour In this tutorial, we will learn how to create an conceptual earth hour photo-manipulation. We are going to learn the process of creating depth of field using a few advanced tools. We are going to learn how to blend images so seamlessly that it would look like a single image using the Brush tool, masking tools and several adjustment layers. We will learn how to create light and darkness to make the background look seamless. We are going to learn how to use textures and give life to our image, and we are going to learn how to create a moody, dreamy tone using a few adjustment layers and lighting effects. Final Image Resources Used In This Tutorial Bulb – SuperStar-Stock Nebula Effects Fractal Stock – ineedfire smoke – davethelurker Planets Stock Pack – kuschelirmel-stock black Edition – sxc.hu Electronics image – sxc.hu Bird Brushes -qbrushes.net Moss on concrete – sxc.hu Dark -angeltouch1 bike -angeltouch1 wires -angeltouch1 Butterfly -angeltouch1 Brush Set – Clouds v1 -Ryoku15 rocket – angeltouch1 Step 1 Create a new file with a width of 650 px and a height of 950 px at 300 dpi (Dots per Inch). Background Contents should be White. Step 2 First off, create a new layer and name it “background”. Fill it with black color

DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Kit Winners

publisher — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:14:09 +0000

DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Kit Winners We recently hosted a DesignModo Impressionist UI Giveaway . After receiving lots of wonderful comments it’s time to reveal the winners! The Winners The 3 winners of the Impressionist UI Kit are: Septian Paul Sherwin Ang Roberto Alanis Congratulations to the winners! You will be receiving an email with details of how to obtain your UI kits soon! Thanks go to DesignModo for such a fantastic giveway!

30 Minute Redesign #91: Harrison Amy

publisher — Sun, 06 May 2012 17:47:14 +0000

30 Minute Redesign #91: Harrison Amy Today I’m going to be redesigning Harrison Amy, a blog teaching professional copyrighting skills. Amy’s a bit of a blogging buddy of mine, so it’s great to get this chance to work with her design. The Original Design: You can see the original site design below: You can check out the original website here. First Impressions: Strengths Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these: Great Header, Great Brand Whilst there are some issues with Amy’s site header (which I’ll get to later) it’s generally a real feature point for her blog. The use of her mascot is an image that has become synonymous with her online brand helps her set her apart from many competing blogs in her niche. Similarly as her name has become more well known within her niche, using it in bold letters in the header as part of her logo area works really well for establishing her personal brand. The band of bold red for the header background is eye catching and immediately grabs our attention. Overall a very solid header design.

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30 Minute Redesign #91: Harrison Amy