Choosing Lower Back Tattoo Designs
Graphic Design
16th Nov 2009
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â€Tramp stamps†is a negative phrase used recently to describe lower back tattoos. With the increasing number of people who now have them, it seems clear that there are going to be some good choices and some bad choices. If you want one, go for it, but spend a bit of time researching to ensure yours is a good decision.
For lots of people, a lower back tattoo is a positive decision because it allows you to amend your style of clothing to suit whether you want the tattoo to be on view. This is great if you happen to work in a corporate environment. Understandably, the amount of light you give your ink will depend on the warmth of your country.
Girls are drawn to this location because the lower back is purportedly the core of female creativity. To emphasise this part of your body is to draw attention to this creative force and illustrate your independence from other people. Physically, a lower back tattoo will highlight your feminine curves by focussing the eyes and compliementing your shape. An additional positive feature of this location is that it is quite wide and yet can be hidden, so it allows more creativity to be included in the sorts of lower back tattoo designs which may be chosen.
When deciding which of the many lower back tattoo designs to have tattooed onto your skin, you should remember that the tattoo must be for you – you have to want to be inked for yourself and not for anyone else. Locate and energise yourself for yourself! Once you are happy this is so, there are a few decisions you need to make.
Firstly: the design. Visit any tattoo parlor and you’ll see many, many potential images; it can be overwhelming. By having several ideas before you make this visit will save you time and focus your initial ideas on what you want without distractions. Do you want something connected to space (stars, moons, planets, star signs)? How about something more ancestral (stunning markings, maybe linked to your family or your country’s forefathers)? How about symbols (crosses, gorgeous celtic symbols, languages from different times)? Are you drawn to animals (the pride of lions, eagles’ strength, deers’ grace)? Do you love plants (a lotus’ life span, the elegance of a rose, the fragrance of your preferred stem)? With the increasing figures of relationship breakdowns, it’s probably a better idea to not be tattoed with your partner’s name. However, there’s nothing stopping you from including their name if that’s what you really want or the name of your children/ or parents.
Second of all, mirror images. The lower back is an ideal place for a mirror image design; your hips are symmetrical and a design which tracks this symmetry will draw attention to your femininity and praise your curvyness. However, if you prefer a tattoo which is not symmetrical, then go for it! Some sweet miniature stars or even a reptile would be awesome. Just remember: it is your tattoo, so make it right for you!
Finally, color. Do you desire a black and white tattoo (eternal, graceful, delicate) or a colourful tattoo which certainly empowers your ink and perfects the image you want? For many, the decision of whether to have color depends on the design, but take some time to note down what you find appealing in the tattoos of others.
A tattoo on the lower part of your back can be a special way of enhancing your femininity and demonstrating your imagination. Try and be as individual as possible and adapt any of the abundant lower back tattoo designs you locate to complement you completely. You will have it for a very long time, so choose wisely and make the tattoo works for you!
Top 10 Super Photoshop Tips and Tricks
Graphic Design
14th Nov 2009
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Adobe continually improves, upgrades and changes Photoshop and I’m no guru but I’m able to do a fair amount with Photoshop myself. My wife is what I would term a Photoshop guru or expert and the things she can get Photoshop to do continues to blow me away. My wife uses the newest version of Photoshop at her job as a Digital Designer, but I’m still on Photoshop 7, so please bare with me if my tips are old or outdated.
I have tried here to compile 10 tips that will help you use Photoshop in ways you never thought of before or maybe just to use it more quickly to do the things you do now.
1- Edge Burn-in Technique
Try using the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and select the area slightly smaller than the outer edge of the image (50-100 pixels, your preference). Now invert the selection (Select-Inverse) and make a Curves adjustment later to darken the edge and click OK. Then apply a heavy Gaussian Blur (Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur) to the layer mask with a Radius of around 100 pixels based on your preference. You can customize this by using the Brush tools or layer Opacity slider.
2- Make Image Midtones Pop
To avoid sharp shadows or highlights while bringing out the midtones try this technique. Make a duplicate of the Background layer and then choose Filter-Sharpen-Unsharp Mask, and then set the Amount, Radius and Threshold to 50/20/20 respectively. Now from the Layers palette menu select Blending Options and in the This Layer section move the Shadow slider to 70 and Highlight to 185. Now press Alt (Option) and separate the triangular sliders to drag the shadow point to 0 and the highlight to 255 and click OK.
3- Make Fancy Edges for Images With Filters
Open a copy of your image so you keep your original intact and double click on the Background layer in the Layers palette. Now click OK to make that layer a Layer 0, or normal layer. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and create a selection slightly smaller than the outer edge of the image same as in the edge burn-in technique above. Enter Quick Mask mode (Q) and click Filter-Filter Gallery and apply any filters you prefer and click OK. Exit Quick Mask mode (Q again) and then click the Add Layer Mask icon in the Layers palette to mask the image in the shape you created.
4- Quick Layer Tip
When you add a new layer it appears at the top of the Layers palette. To make your new layer below the active layer and not the background layer press Ctrl (Command) when you click the Create a New Layer icon!
5- Make Cropped Images Match
With both images already opened, start by clicking on the image that is the correct size. Now select the Crop tool (C) and click on the Front Image button in the Options bar and the Width, Height and Resolution properties in the Options Bar are filled in for the front image. Now drag out a crop boundary in the second image and press Enter (Return) and your second image is now the exact same size as the first.
6- Take Control of Sliders
When you move your cursor over a numeric option in most Option or dialog boxes a slider bar appears. If you want more control over the slider, pressing Alt (Option) and dragging the cursor makes the values move 10 times more slowly and holding the Shift key makes them move 10 times faster!
7- Is Your Histogram Accurate?
Be certain that your Histogram is not a cached version of your previous edits. If you see a small triangle on the Histogram click it and it will update to the current version.
8- Reapply the Last Filter
If you want to use the same filter again with the same settings hold down Alt (Option) as you select the filter and it will open with the last-used settings. You can also use the shortcut Shift-Alt-F (Shift-Option-F) to reapply the filter.
9- Easy Crop Tool
When Cropping (C) click and drag outside the bounding box and this will allow the crop box to rotate any way you like to change the angle of your image or get it nice and straight. Double click inside the box to crop.
10- Make Crisp-Edged Shapes
When using the rectangular Shape tool, click on the down arrow to the right of the shapes in the Options Bar and turn on Snap to Pixels checkbox!
I hope you are able to find one or two items that will help with your Photoshop use and I will have more tips soon!
Photoshop Clipping Path & Masking Techniques – Wonderful Technique to Knock Out Image Background
Graphic Design
14th Nov 2009
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Graphic design is being the promotional key in every spare of business and individual life. Business organizations seek graphic tools to have publicity by dint of bill board, catalogs, magazines, web pages, store directories, banners, flyers, posters, ads, galleries logo and a lot. Individuals hunt such service to meet different specious motive; for example one can easily get bulk photographs printed using graphic design using Photoshop in a very cost effective manner instead of going to a studio with negative film. Different plug-ins, filters, gradients and other options in graphic design makes any object alive and beautiful.
Clipping path, Color Mask/Multiple Clipping Path and masking are the most common and popular techniques used by the graphic professionals. Pen tool, Magic wand tool, Lasso tool re used initially to erase a part from the image background to compromise those tasks. Experts generally use the Pen tool to expertise themselves with more accuracy and credibility to the customers to place an image in a new background.
What is clipping path?
Simply clip means to cut off any particle from an item. Path cuts out an image. Clipping path simply means erasing selected outlined points from the background. As for example a tailor cuts- off outlined part of a cloth with a scissor. The object becomes moveable to any other inspired background while clipped.
Procedure:
After running adobe Photoshop, you will open an image from the File menu. Then you will click on the pen tool in the tool box and see the nib icon on the top toolbar below the menu. Than you will increase the zoom by pressing ctrl add +. Then it will be easy to clip. Pressing Alt you will break the curve in an image. After completion of the path you will make selection. Than copying the selected image you will paste it your inspired background.
Benefits of Pen tool in Clipping Path:
Pen tool will help to give a wonderful background in lieu of damaged, old and scratched one in an image to promote your further intentions. It will provide superior, perfect and alive image as well as quality service of yours. The manual pen tool will ensure the selection of the area without changing or modifying a single pixel in an image. After clipping path by it you will get a bitmap image within a vector path which will be saved as EPS format. EPS format is a file that contains both the vector and bitmap data in the same image. So, this image can be used not only in Photoshop directly but also in Quark Press, Adobe PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand and CorelDraw as a vector object for farther design. It is user friendly for the PDF also.
Image Masking:
Masking is created to make an adjustment and attachment of a new layer with the background layer to hide the unwanted pixel with the black and white color exhibition in it.
Procedure of masking in adobe Photoshop:
After copying a parted object from a picture by a lasso tool or pen tool you will paste it in the back ground layer in the Photoshop. Than selecting the image on the layer palate, you will click on the add layer mask in the layer palate. Than you will click on the gradient tool in the tool bar and constantly will see whether the gradient is black and white color in the option bar. If the gradient remains with multicolor on the option bar than, you will double click on the gradient with the mouse in the option bar and apply black and white color. You can also make it changing foreground and background color in the tool bar. Now clicking on gradient toolbar you will drag on the image from the right side. Thus masking will be effective. Color Mask/Multiple Clipping Path: Color Mask will Give your image a fresh new look by applying Photoshop path to multiple objects in a photograph. It will add color and texture to the same image to give totally different look.
For more information about image manipulation – http://www.photoshopclippingpath.us
How to Choose Software for Booklet Printing
Personal
12th Nov 2009
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If you want to print cheap booklets, you will probably need to do the layout on your own to avoid paying the expensive professional fees of a layout artist. To achieve this, you will need to choose the appropriate software for booklet printing that matches your skills. Do not worry, choosing the software is really easy to do. For your convenience, we have listed down below the most popular booklet printing applications that you can use. Just see what software matches your skill level.
For beginners: For beginners, it is always good to start out with something you are familiar with. In this regard, we recommend using common word processing software. Most word processing applications already have most of what you need in booklet printing. You can make chapters, tables of contents, add in page numbers and set appropriate booklet margins in word processing software. While actual customized layout and design elements can only be added to a limited degree, the functionality of these applications should be enough for you to create a decently composed booklet for printing.
Common word processing applications that you can use for booklet printing include:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Works
- Apple iWork
- OpenOffice.org Writer
- StarOffice Writer
For intermediates: For more intermediate users who already understand the basic concepts of layouts, you may want to try something more advanced than just simple word processors. While most of those word processors only have basic functionality, professional desktop publishing applications usually have specific features, commands and functionality that are catered especially for specific print mediums like booklets. This is perfect if you want a more professional look to your color booklets without needing to go in depth in learning the software.
Common examples of desktop publishing software like this include, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe PageMaker and advanced commands and features for OpenOffice.org Writer.
For professionals: Finally, if you feel that you are ready for the big leagues and want to fully control how your whole booklet is going to look like, you may want to use professional imaging and desktop publishing software. Most applications at this level give you a chance of full customization, from specifying typographical elements, adjusting image attachments, drawing graphics, color corrections and specifying settings for the actual digital values and file formats. All this and more can be done with professional desktop publishing applications.
Common examples of these professional level applications include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw and even a free software called GIMP. Each has its own limitations and advantages for booklet printing, but most let you customize every single aspect of your booklet design to the layout that you want.
Great! Hopefully that helps you out in picking the right software that you need. Just match your skills with the software and you should be alright. Good Luck!
For comments and inquiries about the article visit Booklet Printing and Cheap Booklets
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