Photoshop Tutorials: August 2009

Best Sites to Download Free Patterns

Sometimes, a white paint isn't gonna work for your wall decoration, you might opt for a nice wallpaper instead. Similar to design, there's time when that plain color isn't enough to give your work that fantastic look you're aiming for..and it's time like this you need to search for some textures or patterns. You can use patterns for any purpose you like, as background and foreground for images, wallpapers, web layouts or any other purpose you can think of. Virtually, there are no limitations...And the collection of sites below will help you get the right patterns for your design. Also..check out this tutorial: How to Save and Use Pattern in Photoshop

COLOURlovers
A very cool website for you to find out a good color palette for your design, get inspired or be the inspiration to others, submit your own pattern or download some for yourselves.

everyday icons
Inspired by those cute and colorful Japanese pattern, this website has a collection of fun, retro patterns suitable for your bright and flashy, eye-catching design.

ava7 patterns
A pretty cool site to search for patterns by color or shape. More than a thousand collection of patterns, you're bound to find something useful here.

TheDesignInspiration
The Design Inspiration is created by a group of designers who are seeking various design inspiration every day. This site features the best logos, illustrations, websites, photos and more importantly, patterns from the most talented designers from all around the world.

DinPattern.com
This site is an excellent online pattern design resource for designers, artists, web developers and social network users. Patterns can be used for twitter backgrounds, artwork, web designs and anywhere else desired.

Kaliber10000
This site is a good resource for deliciously pixellated patterns. How delicious it can be? You just have to check it out to know for sure. You can also submit your own pattern here.

Pattern8
According to the site creator, this site was created to make it easier to find high quality free seamless patterns. It allows you to search patterns by color. You should check it out...nice selection of patterns here.

SquidFingers
This is a simple, easy to navigate pattern resource site. If you'd like a simple pattern design for your site background, try browsing this site. Who knows, you might find something you like here.

PatternCooler
You can add your own colors to contemporary and retro pattern designs, or browse from thousands of pre-colored patterns in the seamless pattern background library. If you're looking for some unique patterns, this is a site to go.

Patterrific.com
You got passion for patterns? Then, this is a terrific site for you. This site offers free seamless repeat patterns and textures in vector and pixel format. It also looks for pattern design resources in both print and digital form and collects them on this website.

PixelDecor
All patterns come in multitudes of colors, most in two sizes. Search from retro classic patterns to modern geometric patterns, all available in this site.

Shizoo Frozen Media
Simple textures and patterns worth checking out.

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Old Vintage Photo Effect Action

I found this action while browsing the internet for something cool and fabulous. And now, I'm addicted to this action. What this action does essentially is give your photo that old vintage look with an interesting coloring and lomo effect. And what I'm doing now is sharing with you my addiction. This old vintage action works well with any photo, even those you took with your digital camera.

You can download the old vintage action HERE.
You can learn how to use action file in general HERE.
You can turn back time and make everything alright..Mmm, sorry I don't have a link for that, you just gonna have to deal with it.

Before..

After..

And read more for some teasers I made to tease you into this addiction =)
All photos below were cross-processed using the Old Vintage Action.

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Colorful Glowing Swirling Light Effects

No new tutorials from me this week, but don't worry, you still gonna learn something today. There was a time when I really wanted to figure out how to do the swirling light effect in Photoshop. You have a subject singing dancing or jumping and then you got a glowing strand of light circling it just to emphasize the magical moment. So, I figured out how to do it and now it's time to share it with our readers here. You may need some basic knowledge on using Pen Tool for this effect. It's a little complicated at first but with enough courage, you'll be just fine. Check out these super fantastic glowing light tutorials and start learning.

Some of you may have seen this swirling light effect several times and wonder to yourself, 'Damn! it's super cool, how can I do that in Photoshop?' Well, stop wondering and start doing it.
Read the tutorial HERE

Again, we have that glowing electric swirl around the body with shimmering light spectrum behind the focus object. Pretty miraculous effect and yet we don't need a miracle to achieve it.
Just read the tutorial HERE

The lighting effect above looks amazing..and the good news is..it doesn't take a lot of hard work to achieve that effect. Two things in Photoshop..color brush and blending modes will make above effect possible.
Read the tutorial HERE

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Frame Border Brushes Collection

What's a picture without a good frame..that's right, it's just a picture. And if you have Photoshop, using the picture frame brushes, you can decorate your photo or design..making it more interesting and unique compared to your other regular pictures. Following this geeky introduction are some of the best frame border brushes you could ever found on the web. Download links will take you to the artist page...credit to these talented people among us =)