John Nack on Adobe » Brushes

More rockin’ Photoshop brushes

John Nack — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:28:06 +0000

Calling itself "The largest Photoshop brush resource on the Internet," PSBrushes.net just might have what you’re looking for. [Via]
After a little hiatus while switching to the new (ex-Macromedia) infrastructure, the Photoshop area on the Adobe Exchange is back to posting new brushes, actions, styles, and more.
If you’re looking to add some kaPOW to an image, peep this small collection of burst brushes.
For more on brushing, see PhotoshopSupport.com’s comprehensive list of resources, including GetBrushes.com.

And speaking of brushes…

John Nack — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 15:47:59 +0000

GetBrushes.com is a fresh new repository of Photoshop brushes, featuring a user forum & RSS feeds of the latest content. PhotoshopSupport.com has a brief interview with site creator Ivan Dilber.

Veerle Pieters offers a short but sweet tutorial on creating grunge brushes. It gives a great start, though I’d suggest going a degree further by playing with the scatter, spacing, and other options in Photoshop’s Brushes palette.

The Adobe Web team has now re-launched the Adobe Exchange, combining the content of the former Adobe & Macromedia exchanges. The Photoshop section now contains brushes, shapes, actions, and more.

Groovy Photoshop brushes & rendering techniques

John Nack — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:55:22 +0000

Designer Jason Gaylor has created a handy, stylish set of Fresh Foliage Brushes (Vol. II) for Photoshop. If those are up your alley, see also Vol. I of the same set, as well as Jason’s graffiti brushes and worn brushes (Volumes I, II, and III). [Via] (For more on worn brushes & distressing images, see previous entry.)

Putting brushes into action, automotive designer Jonathan Tatum shares some of his moves. Seeing details pop into existence from step to step suggests a big equation with “And then a miracle occurs” hidden among the steps. (For more on automobile rendering, see also Kevin Hulsey’s techniques.)

The Joy of Text

John Nack — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:36:48 +0000

Being kind of textually fixated these days, I thought I’d share some good type-related resources I’ve encountered lately:

Russell Brown has created a video that demonstrates the 12 Photoshop text tips I posted earlier (plus four more).
Veerle shows off how to create some handsome lettering effects using Illustrator art brushes & the dark, mysterious Appearance palette.
The Playground showcases various artists creating complete, downloadable letter sets using everything from banana peels to world leaders to… well, you’ll see. [Via]
Erik Spiekermann, author (among many other things) of the classic handbook Stop Stealing Sheep, gives PingMag an interesting interview, covering everything from the creation of corporate typefaces to the development of a new screen font for Nokia. Erik has also started his own blog.
Design Melt Down surveys cool typography on the Web, while IHT charts the creation and rise of Georgia.
CreativePro.com offers for a variety of tips for finding & previewing fonts online, converting fonts to OpenType, previewing Web fonts, and more.
Emigre’s Typetease lets you set whatever characters you’d like using their online catalog–everything from the chunky O Brother, Where Art Thou face to the piratical Sabbath Black.
Chank Diesel makes all kinds of good fonts, including numerous cool free ones. (Dig Newcastle!)
DAIRY is a font of sorts–just one that spells out your text using milk crates.
Is there really a Cyrillic “Ж” in the Declaration of Independence? Apparently so. (Why doesn’t English a character half so badass?)
In For All Seasons, Andreas Müller sets type in beautiful motion. (Don’t let the need to download the file put you off; the full-screen effect works nicely.)
House Industries makes a font comprised of trendy silhouettes. (See also silhouettes from Tech Vector.)
[Updates: Colin Smith demonstrates how to make Superman-ly text in Photoshop, and Todd Dominey points out the very cool Cargo stencil font.]

Legos + Jackson Pollock

John Nack — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 16:37:26 +0000

Having logged an insane number of hours playing with Legos as a kid, I loved seeing this tutorial on how to create Lego Photoshop brushes. You can check out the tips on using the Photoshop brush engine, or you can jump directly to downloading the brushes. [Via]
JacksonPollock.org ^* offers a fun little drawing tool, good for biting the master’s style. [Via] This kind of simple, playful tool makes me want to combine the innovation happening online with desktop creative tools. How can we make extending Photoshop as simple as creating a SWF? Hmm… (For other Flash drawing tools, see TYPEDRAWiNG and Click Three Points.)

^* There’s some controversy here, as these guys, ah, colorfully assert that the Pollock site rips off their work. (Heads-up via Jon Williams.)

Hipsters, robots, lightning, & more

John Nack — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:42:58 +0000

[Never mind that beeping sound; the blog is backing up to unload some good bits that've been buffering.]

Weekly Shot describes itself as “new kind of group photoblog and photo challenge,” encouraging regular sharing & peer review. Yes, it’s likely to be infested with damn, dirty hipsters, but it looks like fun. [Via]

Making out with the Terminator is par for the course in Worth1000′s latest Photoshop contest: inserting robots into fine art [Via]. [Slightly related: Drawn.ca links to a whole mess of robot sculptures.]

Cabinet Magazine interviews photographer John Cliett on his work to document the Lightning Field, a large piece of land art in New Mexico. The article talks about the challenge of not owning one’s images (and would-be most famous work), interpreting another’s art, and more. [Via]

The excellent Online Photographer blog shares some recent finds: the Klemantaski Collection offers a great set of vintage motorsports images, and Carl de Keyzer tackles Siberian prison camps and much more (click the Books section).

If you thought that touch screen prototype was slick, check this out: UnitedVisualArtists has created what looks to be a wicked synthesis of LEDs, 3D cameras, and motion tracking. [Via]

Continuing the wicked worn theme, Photoshop brush makers have been busy creating Botched Ornaments [Via] and Handwritten Letters [Via].

If you want to keep up with (or stay away from) what the cool kids are doing, see Step Inside Design’s take on Design Trends of 2006. [Via ] [Also for reference: Current style in Web design.]

The Best Distress in the West

John Nack — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:51:52 +0000

If the shiny, happy, fresh-scrubbed “Web 2.0 look” is starting to look a little clichéd to you, check out The Academics of Worn from Airbag Industries’ Greg Storey. Greg talks about ways to leverage the shapes, typefaces, and colors of the past, and he links to Cameron Moll’s popular series of tutorials, That Wicked Worn Look. Besides sharing tips & PSD source files, Cameron also links to additional discussions and a a wealth of examples.
For more, see also these:

Keith Bowman offers a great set of distressing Photoshop brushes & retro color palettes. I used the brushes quite a bit in redesigning this blog.
The Mr. Retro series of filters makes it easy to weather your images.
FontShop features a tutorial on giving your type the beaten-up stamp look. (Going the other direction, they also feature info on those bloopy Web 2.0 fonts.)
[Update: CreativePro.com has added a nice, fast tutorial on aging an image, courtesy of Layers Magazine.

PS–Hey, no matter what, design these days looks better than ye olde Web 1.0 logos, right?