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Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 11:59 AM

If you’ve downloaded my iPhone and iPod Touch icon Photoshop template in the past, you may want to re-download it, as a larger version has been added. It now comes with the standard 57×57 iPhone springboard template as well as a 512×512 version for producing iTunes-ready artwork.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 11:59 am and is filed under Photoshop, iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 1:55 PM

If you’re an avid fmTuner user, or just have a need to make some flat music album covers pop off the page, check out Rogie King’s in-depth tutorial on how to make gorgeous web-ready image overlays. Complete with a free set of covers you can use anywhere and the necessary CSS (even IE6 fixes), Rogie’s tutorial will have your displayed albums looking shiny and spectacular in no time!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Photoshop, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 5:09 PM

While working on some iPhone and iPod Touch apps, I found that the iPhone OS automatically masks and overlays your application icon for quick and easy development. You supply a square 57×57 pixel image, and it rounds off the corners and overlays the Mac-like gloss to create a consistent look.

When developing an icon for a Touch-based application, it’s handy to be able to see what your rendered creation will look like without going through the hassle of exporting your icon, compiling your code, and running your software every time a change is made. To that end, I present a small Photoshop file which very closely mimics the iPhone-applied mask and gloss, which you can place over top of your in progress icon layers to approximate the final result. Also, if you dislike the gloss, or have something special in mind, you can set a certain flag in the application’s Info.plist to disable the gloss… I hope my Photoshop file will help others create great looking Touch app icons!

April 4, 2009 Update
By request, I’ve added a 512×512 version of the template as well, so you can get a good feel for what your icon will look like when displayed in iTunes. Both files are now combined in a zip archive, downloadable below.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Apps, Photoshop, iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 PM

When you use Adobe Photoshop day in and day out, certain things about its interface and workflow start to grate on you, like the inability to zoom while in the middle of a transform or applying Layer Effects. Much to my delight, Photoshop is also jam packed with hidden commands and modifier keys, which turned up a discovery today, shown here:

If you’re in the middle of a Transform or Layer Effects change and need to get your changes just right, you can adjust your view simply by holding the correct keys and using your mouse. On the Mac, hold Space and drag to pan around the background window. Command-Space-click on the document to zoom in, and Command-Option-Space-click to zoom out. Note that some of these key combos collide with the system-wide Spotlight commands, so you may consider remapping them in System Preferences, depending on your usage of each. Personally, I’ve moved Spotlight to Control-Space just to use these great hidden features of Photoshop.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Photoshop, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 5:28 PM

For the graphic designers and Photoshop enthusiasts, here are a few resources for identifying fonts:

WhatTheFont
WhatTheFont is far and away my favorite tool in the bunch primarilty because it’s automated, fast, and shockingly accurate. Just upload an image (the more contrast, the better) or provide a URL and their software will match characters and, more often than not, the correct font name.

WhatTheFont Forum
If fully automated solutions are of no help, you can always call upon others in the industry who deal with typefaces every day. Someone out there knows about your font, and the WhatTheFont Forum is one of the best places to get a good response.

Identifont
Identifont helps you find fonts by asking multiple questions about the font you’re looking for. It’s a unique approach that, in my usage, works about 30 to 40 percent of the time. As a last resort, it may very well come through, despite it’s apparently limited font selected.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Misc, Photoshop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.