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30+ Useful Photoshop Custom Shapes Set

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:09:00 +0000

I found a very Intresting this in the internet thats Photoshop Custom Shapes This post is a showcase of 30+ Useful Custom Photoshop Shape Set. These custom shapes are free to use. Watch the site I have done useing these Photoshop Custom Shapes www.suspendedland.com that really I like.

Cum Shape Mix

Custom Shape Pack

Vector Shape Mix

Useful Shape

30 Shapes Collection

People Silhouettes

Free 45 Custom Shapes

Shapeset 05 Miscellanious

Sea Creatures

iLoveWeapons

Photoshop Custom Shapes Bugs

Live Trees

Custom Shapes Pack v. 1.1

Photoshop Paisley Custom Shape

Urban Designs Custom Shapes

Photoshop Shapes: World Map

Photoshop Shapes – Hot babes

Assorted Logos

Code Geass Symbol Set

Surfing Themed Shapes

Kiddy Stuffs

Backflip540 sunburst shapes

Shapeset 07

Photoshop Custom Shapes No-1

50s Custom Shapes Pack

Splat Shapes

Free 45 Custom Shapes

PS-CSH Stars V2.0

Business Girls

Splats N Drips_Custom Shapes

Horse Photoshop Shapes

Watercolor Effect

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:09:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

Step 1

Open an image, I will use this image because it suit to my tricks.

Step 2

CTRL + J, duplicate the image. Now you will have a layer which labeled as â€œlayer 1â€�. SHIFT + CTRL + U, desaturate the image and you will get something like this:

Step 3

CTRL + J again to duplicate layer 1 and you will get a new layer which labeled as â€œlayer 1 copyâ€�. CTRL + I to invert the layer and set the layer blend mode to Color Dodge. Go to filter > other > minimum > 1. Double click on layer 1 copy to bring out the blending option. ALT + left click on the triangle and set the underlying layer as below:

Step 4

CTRL + E to merge up both layers. CTRL + J, duplicate layer 1. Select layer 1 copy and go to filter > blur > Gaussian Blur > radius 6. Set the layer blend mode to linear burn. CTRL + J on layer background and put the layer background copy at the top of all layer and set the layer blend mode to color.

Step 5

Hope you are still with me. Select layer background copy and add a layer mask, fill it with black color.

Step 6

Still with the layer background copy, go to image > adjustment > curve and set as below.

Step 7

Create a new layer and put it top of all layer. Fill it with #ffecd1. Set layer blend option to linear burn.

Step 8

We are nearly there, now select layer 1 and set the opacity to 60% or whatever you think suitable. Select the background copy layerâ€™s mask, with a 45px soft brush, opacity 65%, brush the face area. Here is it!

The difference:

Examples:

Hope you guys enjoy this! Thanks!

Fantasy Art Photopshop Tutorial – Plasma in the Lake

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:07:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

The requests for Fantasy Art tutorials are enormous, I still get emails and Pms from people asking to do more Fantasy Art tuts, so here is one more, called “Plasma” (Star, not the TV!) which I hope you’d enjoy.

1. Make a new canvas, we used 600*480 px here, but the size is of course optional.

2. Select the Gradient Tool, using two shades of blue (see below), fill your canvas, so that the darker colour will be on top.

3. Take a photo of a girl. Traditionally I am using Becca’s photo from her Deviant Art account, but you can replace her with any semi-sitting figure of your choice. Crop the figure and paste her unto your canvas. In needed, resize her so that she will fit in.

4. To get rid of the visible crappy cropping, and to give the girl more emphasis, add blueish glow to her by going to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow and applying the following settings:

This is what you would get:

5. Make a new Layer. Make sure your primarily and secondary colours are black and white. Go to Filter >> Render >> Clouds

And, if needed apply the clouds effect a several times to achieve the desired randomly “clouded” effect.

6. Reduce the opacity of the layer to semi-visible.

7. Press Ctrl+T for free transform, and then right mouse click and “Scew”. Drag the left corner of the clouds layer, as shown on the illustration below:

Press “Enter” when you are done, then Ctrl + D to deselect the layer.

8. Duplicate the clouds layer. Select the upper layer and go to Edit >> Transform >> Flip Horizontal.

9. Select the girl’s layer from layers panel and drag it to the top, so that it would be your utmost upper layer.

Remember to remove the parts where layers turn to be on top of one another.

10. Take a photo of a lake with water circles. We used this one from Digital Free Photo, but again – this is optional.

Paste the layer unto your composition, so that the circles in the water will be “around” the girls or your main figure.

11. Using the Eraser Tool, remove the lower part of the girl’s layer, so create the illusion as if she is really sitting inside the water and the water circles are “from” her.

12. Set lake’s layer blending options to Luminosity.

13. Drag the Layers of the clouds on top of the water later and using eraser tool with soft edge (100px) remove the sharp parts, so that only the “steaming” clouds will remain, no edges.

14. Now to the hard bit – creating the plasma cycles.
Make a new layer (this is important) and place it on top of all the others.

15 Using the Elliptical Marquee tool, draw and ellipse. While the ellipse on the new layer is selected, Right-mouse-click and choose “stroke”. Apply the settlings below for the stroke effect:

16. Press Ctrl + T to free transform, and then right-mouse-click >> Prospective. Try to distort the round layer you have to it would look like the line is surrounding or flowing around the girl.

17. Using the Eraser tool with big soft edge, remove the “farther” part of the round, behind her head, like this:

18. While this layer is selected, go to Layer >> Layer styles >> Outter glow and apply the following glow settlings:

19. Duplicate the layer a several times and each time transform the round using the prospective settlings, so that the circles chaotically surround the main figure’s body.

20. Remember to leave the “front” part of the circle visible and erase the “back” part of it. This is more or less what you should have by now:

21. Flatten the Layer.
22. Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels and apply the following settlings to give the image an overall bluish hue:

23. Duplicate the layer.
24. While the upper layer is selected (and your background colour in the palette is set to white), go to Filter >> Distort >> Diffuse Glow and apply these glow settings.

25. Reduce the opacity of the “glowing layer” to 20% (or less, depends on your image).
26. Flatten the layer again to merge both layers into one.

27. Using some star brushes (download free on deviant Art resources page), apply the stars chaotically around and allover the glowing cycles.

28. Select the background layer (the artwork, not the stars) and to to Renters >> Lightening effect, apply the following spot light effect twice.

29. Get back to Stars layer, and go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow, and add the following glow using white #ffffff colour.

30. Duplicate the stars layer.
31. Go to Filter >> Blur >> Radial Blur and apply these settings.

You may choose to reduce the opacity of this layer if you feel the rounded blurred effect is too strong. That’s it, your artwork is ready:

Add Dynamic Lighting to a Flat Photograph

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:04:00 +0000

Author: Giackop

In this tutorial, he will show you how to spice up a fairly dull and flat photograph. It's very easy and fast! Go from flat photo to a uniquely lit style.

Source Photos

For this tutorial, we'll need two photos that I took. You can download them to follow along. These are my photos: castle photo and clouds photo.

What We're Making

Here's the composite we're making. Click to see a larger version:

Step 1

First of all, my apologies for this step. I waited for a good 20 minutes but that car didn't move, so I had to take the photo with it!

Anyway, just use the Patch Tool (J) to remove the car and the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to recreate the pattern of the bricks where it used to be.

If you've never used the Patch Tool, there are a couple of ways to use it. First, make a selection as you would if you were using the Lasso Tool, then click inside the area and drag with your mouse. Depending on whether you are using Source or Destination as your checked option you will either move the image inside the selection, or move the whole selection around. The Patch Tool will blend-in the area you've chosen when you let go. You can also use patterns and transparency. All in all, it's a great tool.

Step 2

Once the van has been removed, apply Filter > Render > Lighting Effects to make the light come from the top right.

Step 3

With the tool that you prefer, create a selection of the part that you want to hide. For example, I used the Pen Tool (P) to select the sky and the buildings around the castle. With the selection active, add a Layer Mask.

Step 4

Duplicate the background layer, desaturate it with Ctrl+Shift+U, apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 4-pixel Radius, and set the Blending Mode for the layer to Overlay.

Step 5

Now we need a photo with clouds and the rays of the sun coming from the right. I used this photo of mine that was perfect for this situation.

Send it to the back of the other layers.

Then duplicate it and set the copy layer Blending Mode to Lighter Color.

Step 6

Duplicate again the original background photo (Layer 1) and put the this new layer below the Layer 1 copy.

Set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

Step 7

Now turn off the visibility of the two castle layers, go to the Layer 1 copy, and merge the visible layers into a new layer with Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E.

Then desaturate it with Ctrl+Shift+U, set the Blending Mode to Overlay, and the Opacity to 50%.

Step 8

Make a new layer on the top of the other.

With a large, white, soft brush that matches the size of the light of the sun, just make a round spot.

Then apply the Luce filter that you can download free or use the previous tutorial about Lighting Through Clouds here on PSDTUTS, to make this light coming through the clouds. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay.

This is an example with black background to demonstrate the effect.

Step 9

Just Burn the dark side of the castle and Dodge the light part of it with a large, soft brush. By doing this, we make it seem as if the light is coming from the clouds and hitting the right side of the castle, leaving the other side in darkness.

At this point we're almost done, but the image is overall quite dark and our blur earlier has left it slightly too blurry, so we'll fix that next.

Step 10

To finish the image, create a new layer above the rest and go to Image > Apply Image, use the settings "Merged", "RGB" and "Normal" for blending. This will create a new layer above the rest holding a copy of the image. Set this layer to Screen and about 70% Opacity. Then go through each layer and apply Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and use the settings Amount: 250% and Radius .2px (Use a larger radius for larger images). This should sharpen the image back up to give us a good final result.

Click on the image below to see a larger version:

Making Your Own Watermark with Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:37:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

Step 1:

Open a 300x300 transparent layer in Photoshop.

Step 2:

Type/insert your text, nick or logo to use as your watermark.
The font I have used is Scriptin.

Step 3:

Go to File > define pattern. Save your pattern as any name you wish.

Your custom watermark is already made! The Upcoming steps are just about how to use it with your projects.

Step 4:

Open a random file, or you can use the file I have used .
The file is copyright protected, so no using it elsewhere =).

After choosing our file, we will insert our pattern which we just made.
Illustration is shown below.

Step 5:

Click on 'Pattern' and apply your pattern . You will have to choose your pattern from the different patterns there. The one you have created will probably be the last one listed.

Step 6:

Reduce the opacity to make it look milder/smoother. It's up to you as to how much you would like to reduce the opacity as it depends on your personal taste. I have reduced it to 22%.

The finished file:

Thanks for viewing this tutorial .
Stay tuned for more innovative tutorials in the future =) .
Cheers!

Creating Energy Spheres in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:35:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

For this tutorial you’ll want to find a photo of someone doing something that looks a bit larger than life. I used this photo that I found at the stock photo website Stock Exchange. For this tutorial you’ll need a photo that you want to manipulate and some special brush sets which I downloaded from here.

This will be the final result.

1. Download the brush set and install it.
2. Now I’ll show how to take a child with a big imagination and turn him into the powerful being he imagine himself to be.
3. We’ll start by creating a new layer on top of our original and filling it with black. Next we want to select Filter >> Render >> Lighting Effects >> Lens Flare
4. Use the 105mm Prime with the Brightness setting of your choice.

5. This will create a bright flash. Move it to the point where you want the ‘energy ball’ to appear.
6. You may notice that when you move it, you can see the edges of the layer. To rectify this, select the layer and add a ‘Layer Mask’.
7. Select default colors (white and black). With the layer mask selected, use the Gradient Tool >> Radial Gradient >> Reverse and drag from the center outwards. This will mask everything in a sphere around the center.
8. Set both of these layers to the ‘Hard Light’ setting.
9. I like to use the Image >> Adjustments >> Photo Filter to make the colors “pop”. I also used this setting to make the lens flare a bluish color. There are other ways to do this so experiment with your options.
10. Using the Brush set we installed earlier we want to apply them to the energy balls. I used the color black, with the layer’s Blend Options set to ‘Overlay’.
11. With this layer selected, set the Layer Style settings like so:
12. Using the same technique that we used in Step 7, we want to mask the edges of our brush layers.
13. To create the ‘arc of light’ we’ll use paths. Select the ‘Ellipse Tool’ and change it from ‘Shape layers’ to ‘Paths’. Now, draw a large circle or ellipse that includes both energy flares.
14. Once the arc is drawn we want to stroke it (no jokes please). Select a brush that’s very small, maybe about a brush with a 5px diameter and use the color white. Go to ‘Paths’ right click on the selected path, and select ‘Stroke Path’. Check the ’simulate pressure’ option, this will give the ring a bit of perspective with a heavier stroke on one side and a lighter stroke on the opposite side.

15. Repeat this step twice. Each time use a different brush setting that is bigger than the one before it. I started with the 5px brush, then I used a 45px brush followed by a 100px brush. Each time use a different color. The topmost (bigger) arc should be set to ‘Linear Dodge (Add)’ with an opacity of 35%. The middle layer should be set to ‘Overlay’ and the original (the white one) should be set to ‘Linear Dodge (Add)’.
16. I grouped these together then, using the technique from Step 7 again, I use layer masking to block one half of the sphere I created.
17. To create the energy ‘tendrils’ that are leaping from the arc. Duplicate the grouped folder from Step 16. Then merge the group or folder into one layer. Select Filter >> Liquify and distort the arc to look like it should for your image. Secondly, we’ll select Filter >> Distort >> Ripple and tweak it to look a bit more like electricity.
18. Now we’re done. Outside of some techniques that I used to make the image more polished, this completes the tutorial.

Crack and Peel

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:31:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

Create a Cool Halftone Effect

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:27:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

In this tutorial, we're going to go a bit retro. You'll learn how to create halftone patterns and creatively cut up an image of a model holding a boombox. You'll then use those cut elements to make your design. We use some layer styles to get everything to come together cohesively. The effects are fun, and you can apply these methods to other designs as well.

Step 1

Start out by downloading/purchasing our image from iStockPhoto: Boombox Image. Alternatively, you could apply these techniques to an image of your choosing and still follow along (or as in the download PSD you could just use the 'comp' that iStock lets you download).

I downloaded the largest image available for this photo. There is some reason behind this madness: we'll be using cut images from the large photo to place into our design. Using the large image will allow us to have larger speaker elements.

Make a copy of this large photo. Open up the copy and resize it to 500px wide and make sure Constrain Proportions is checked so the height changes proportionally. Save this file as .psd and name it boombox_final. This will be our canvas for this tutorial. Also, open up our original large image we downloaded as we will be cutting some images from it starting in Step 3.

Step 2

Let's prepare our boombox_final.psd document. First cut out the boombox image. Also cut out the top half of our model. Below is an image of the top half of the model cut out. You can see the boombox cutout in the preview of the layers palette as well as the layer order. We need to cut out these pieces so that we can place elements behind them as we build our design.

Step 3

Let's jump over to our large image. Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Draw a selection that covers the right speaker. Then Command/Ctrl-Click and select Refine Edge. Use the settings in the image below.

Step 4

Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the settings below.

Step 5

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Copy this selection.

Step 6

Now paste this cut out image of the speaker into the boombox_final design. And move it to the bottom left corner.

Step 7

Now we are going to follow the same steps to place some texture over the speaker. First make a small selection in our large stock photo. Then type Cmd/Ctrl-Click and select Refine Edge. The only difference in this setting is that we set our Feather to 15px. The rest is the same. Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the same settings as we did before only this time change the Max Radius to 10 Pixels. Then go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Copy the selection, then paste it into our design and move it to the bottom left corner over the speaker.

Step 8

We're going to jump over to our large stock image again. Grab the Brush Tool. Give it a Master Diameter of 900px and a Hardness of 0 percent. Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Click in the center of the image. Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the settings in the image below.

Step 9

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). It should look like the selection below. Invert the selection by going to Select > Inverse. Copy this selection.

Step 10

Paste the selection into our boombox_final document. Give it a layer style of Lighten. You can see the white dots emerge in the bottom of our document. Place it so that it matches the image below. Then copy the speaker we placed before and move it behind our model, but in front of the large dots.

Step 11

Create a new layer in our boombox_final.psd design document. Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Grab the Brush Tool. Make sure it's set to Master Diameter of 300px with a Hardness of 0 percent. Draw across the bottom of the image. Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the settings below.

Step 12

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Create a pink gradient and draw it from the left and angle down to the right to get a result similar to the image below. Reposition this layer in the Layers Palette just above the speaker behind the boom box. Set the layer style to Screen.

Step 13

Copy the gradient. Use the Free Transform Tool to reduce the size and reposition in the bottom right-hand corner over the larger pink gradient. Keep the setting to Screen. Then make another copy of this and free transform it by reducing and rotating it to fit in the top left hand corner. Do that one more time for the top right-hand corner.

Step 14

Let's copy some elements. I copied the texture in the bottom left corner and placed it behind the bottom right of the boombox. I also placed a copy in the top right. I made multiple copies of the speakers. Then I used the Free Transform tool to scale them. The image below shows where these copies were placed.

Step 15

Create a new layer. Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Grab the Brush Tool. Make sure it's set to Master Diameter of 50px with a Hardness of 0 percent. We make our line follow the edges of some of the elements in our design. Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the settings in the image below.

Step 16

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Then fill our selection with a pink gradient.

Step 17

Set this layer to Vivid Light to achieve the effect below.

Step 18

Next we are going to make our text. Grab the Text Tool and write the word boombox in all lowercase. I used a font called Silom with -70 character tracking and 120pt type. I'll show the Layer Styles used to create the font effect in the screenshots following the image of the text effect below.

Step 19

Now we're just going to have some fun and copy some elements around the design until it looks cool. I copied the x and played with its Gradient Overlay colors. I placed a handful of them by the boombox and also up top. The gradients have different variations from pink to purple. I also used Free Transform to change the size and rotate the letters. I added a couple more speakers at the top left behind the large x. Then I copied the brush tool pattern we made a couple times and placed that over some elements top right and then top left. The final image is below.

Conclusion

Halftone patterns are a lot of fun, and like anything in Photoshop, they can be combined with layer styles to create some cool effects. Finding interesting areas of an image to copy and overlay your design. In this case we used a speaker. Try cutting out other parts of your next design to mix and match with various effects. Thanks.

Create a Cool Halftone Effect

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:27:00 +0000

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Turn on Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q). Then go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. Use the settings below.

Step 5

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Copy this selection.

Step 6

Now paste this cut out image of the speaker into the boombox_final design. And move it to the bottom left corner.

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). It should look like the selection below. Invert the selection by going to Select > Inverse. Copy this selection.

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

Let's go back to Edit in Standard Mode (Q). Then fill our selection with a pink gradient.

Step 17

Set this layer to Vivid Light to achieve the effect below.

Step 18

Step 19

Conclusion

Age Progression

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:23:00 +0000

Age Progression - Photoshop Tutorials

Disclaimer:

None of the given Photoshop Tutorials are written by me. They are all taken from various sources on the Internet and I compiled some of them for you. Hope you understand. More are in the line.

Here’s a little tutorial showing you how I basically go about aging a woman’s face in Photoshop.

Preface

I've been asked several times by different members to post a tutorial on how I age-progress a person. So, here it is!

Men and women age a little bit differently but since I've only aged female celebrities thus far, I'll just focus on women for this tutorial. I’ll be using the image of Katie Holmes that I did for a past W1K contest, as an example.

Step 1: Choosing an Appropriate Photo

When deciding to age-progress a celebrity’s face, I try to select a picture that is touched-up as little as possible.

I find that candid shots, or any shots that have not been taken in a studio, work best because the resulting harsh lighting reveals more of the skin’s details i.e. slight bags under the eyes and faint wrinkles. The appearance of such details makes it all that much easier to visualize how your subject will age. Visualizing what the end result will look like brings you one step closer to aging her face realistically.

In Katie’s case, we can see very faint horizontal lines on her forehead, fairly obvious lines under her eyes and lines bracketing her mouth.

Step 2: Collecting Reference Material

Reference material is key in my method of aging. Keeping Katie’s face in mind, I scoured the Web, looking for faces of old women who either resemble Katie and/or share the same facial expression. Here, Katie is smiling with her face positioned at a 3/4 angle so I tried to gather as many pictures of old women who are smiling in the same manner or close to that. I then opened up the picture of Katie in Photoshop and pasted the found images around her face on a separate layer, spread out to provide easy visual access.

Another kind of reference I like to use but is usually hard to find, is pictures of the subject’s parents. I managed to find a couple of reference pictures of Katie’s mother online and they really helped me to decide whether or not to give Katie a double chin. Since her mom has quite a bit of mass under her chin, I decided I would apply that to Katie too.

Step 3: Thinning Brows

Now the fun begins! The first thing I like to do is to thin out the subject’s eyebrows and eyelashes. The older people get, the thinner their hair gets - either because hair falls out and/or because it dries out as it greys.

So to achieve this, I like to use the Clone Stamp tool at 100% with a relatively small brush size depending on the size and resolution of the image. I sampled the surrounding skin to thin and reduce the number of hairs.

Step 4: Mold the Face

Next, I like to add the basic sags to the skin. I do this in the Liquify mode. I tried to create sagging effects to the cheeks, jowls and the cliff just above the eyes by using the Push tool. For the eyes, I tried to be subtle; otherwise she may end up looking somewhat ghoulish.

From what I’ve learned about the aging process, I know that while bones cease to grow, and in fact shrink, cartilage does continue to grow. As a result, the end of a nose may appear larger as a person grows older. So while I was still in the Liquify mode, I used the Push tool to extend the length of the nose slightly. Then I used the Bloat tool to also enlarge it slightly, being careful not lose the essential quality or character of the nose. Go too far and it may not look like Katie anymore.

Step 5: The Aforementioned Double Chin

Based on her mother’s pictures, I then added a fairly massive double chin. I initially used the Airbrush tool with some fairly broad strokes, sampling the colors that were already in the area of her neck. I then worked in the details with a finer brush size. Also, keep in mind that I was also using the other reference photos of older women to guide me.

Step 6: Wrinkle Up the Eyes

For me, the most important parts to get right are the eyes. They can make or break the project. Done wrong and the picture may no longer be identifiable as one of Katie Holmes anymore. I sought out the fine lines around the eyes and I tried to imagine how they would progress into wrinkles. I then extended them in length and width accordingly. Referencing the pictures of old women helped a lot with this step.

I used a combination of the Stamp tool and Brush tool. I wish I could explain my technique at this point in a more clinical manner but mostly I relied on my artistic instincts. I emphasized the wrinkles around the eyes by widening and deepening the lines slightly and increasing the contrast by darkening the recesses and lightening the edges. Also, I extended wrinkles to the cheekbone areas. I then applied the same technique to the wrinkles around the mouth and to the forehead.

Step 6: Reducing the Lips

In this step, I work on the lips. As people grow older, the outline of the lips tends to recede. Using the Stamp tool, I sampled the skin surrounding the lips and thinned them out.

While I was at it, I also added a few vertical wrinkles above the lips to give her a bit of a "prune" effect. We just want a hint of that, so don’t carve out deep lines; deep lines would only be necessary if she was puckering her lips.

Step 7: Planning Out More Wrinkles

Here, on a separate layer, I faintly outlined or sketched, with a relatively thin brush size, areas that I may or may not add more lines and wrinkles to. It’s easy to get carried away with the addition of wrinkles. So, I stopped, took a step back and assessed where to take to image. For me, it's essential and a great test to see what best works.

Step 8: Touching Up the Wrinkles

Based on the previous step, I added wrinkles where I thought they were needed most.

Overall, I found that the wrinkles and lines seemed a little flat in comparison to the rest of Katie’s features. They needed more definition so that they could pop out more. So, I highlighted the raised edges of the individual lines with the Brush tool and with a lighter skin tone.

Step 9: Hairy Lips

Facial hair becomes an issue with most women as they age. For some strange reason they lose it in the brow area and grow it back around the mouth area. I didn’t want Katie to be the exception so with a very fine brush size and the Brush tool, I added hairs to her upper lip.

I tried to make it as subtle as possible. Hairs too thick or dark would draw the viewer’s attention straight to her mustache and I didn’t want that. I also added more wrinkles to the area below the corners of her mouth.

Step 10: Refining the Neck

I decided that the neck was too smooth for a woman of 75 years of age. So I added finer wrinkles to that area. Also, I added more mass and weight to her jowls with the airbrush by increasing the value of the tones in those areas thus creating more contrast between surface planes.

Step 11: Adding Age Spots

A key component to effective aging of a face is the addition of age spots.

So at this point, I sampled one of the darker skin tones on her face, and on a separate layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity, I brushed them in and tried to create irregular shapes (there IS no perfect age spot). You can add as many as you like; the amount varies from person to person. I decided to be conservative with Katie.

Step 12: More Refinements

I took a little break from it and came back to it later to possibly get a better perspective on it. When I looked at it, at this point, I decided that certain areas needed refining and added detail. This is the beauty of working with a high-resolution file; I can zoom in real close and deal with a wrinkle up-close and personal.

Unless their teeth were subjected to regular whitening, most people’s teeth yellow with age. Gums also recede, showing less gum and more bone. And so with that in mind, I sampled a yellowish-brown color and on a new layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity and painted that color to the teeth with the Brush tool. Her gums didn’t show to begin with, so receding the gums here wasn’t necessary.

Step 13: Preparing the Hair

The finishing touch here is greying the hair. I began by creating a mask defining the area of the hair. I used the brush for this and tried my best to define as many loose strands of hair that I could.

With this mask as a selection, I then created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduced the saturation to –63.

I then created a new adjustment layer based on the same mask and adjusted the Brightness/Contrast to brightness +9 and contrast –36. As a result, I found that the darker areas were too pale and caused a loss of depth and so to adjust that, I then selected the mask and scratched out the darker areas with a 5px brush size at 50% opacity so that they could show through from the original image.

Step 14: Hair Raising

The next step was to raise the hairline and thin out the hair. Hair loss is common with both sexes.

I sampled the area at the top of the forehead and extended the skin area above the original hairline.

Step 15: Greying the Hair

A lot of details of the hair were lost in the previous step so with a thin brush size at 80 percent opacity I drew in fine grey hairs, sparsely laid out.

Patiently, slowly, stroke by stroke I added more and more hairs until I was happy with the amount of grey I had added.

Step 16: Finishing Touches

Finally, I took a step back, refined a few wrinkles here and there ET VOILA!

I hope this tutorial was insightful. It may not be the most technically detailed tutorial but it gives you a good idea of the process I go through to get the job done. Hopefully, it will help you create your own trophy-winning images for future Fountain of Age contests!

Suspenledland.com

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:32:00 +0000

www.Suspenledland.com a sister concern of www.redchilliworx.com is a freelance web and graphic designer with good experience providing high quality service, and web & graphic design for all types of businesses. Suspenledland.com is an innovative Web development and graphic design company located in India and serving clients worldwide. Suspenledland.com Web & Graphic Design provides a exclusive blend of creative vision and technical expertise. Our experts are fluent in the following software programs: ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, PHOTOSHOP, PAGEMAKER, DIRECTOR MX 2004, AUTHORWARE, DREAMWEAVER, HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT,FLASH, 3DS MAX , and the latest Technology Silverlight / Flex.

Tips For Designers For Translating Your Comps Into XAML

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:31:00 +0000

Pre-Tip: Work in Blend
All of these tips are assuming that designers are building comps with another design tool like Illustrator or Photoshop and then moving the comps into Blend. If you’re not using Blend, you should be. I am not suggesting that you change your design tools or that you design differently. These are just tips for the translation process.

Tip 1: Two layers of semi-transparent gradients is fine. Twelve layers of semi-transparent gradients is not
Whenever you add a transparency layer, you add another run of rendering to all the pixels in that layer. Doing that once or twice is fine… most machines can handle that. But when you have a bunch of them, you’re begging to bring the machine to a crawl. Look at the two gradients below…

The one on the right is a solid background with two transparent gradients (a light one at the top and a dark one on the bottom). The one on the left is a single gradient. The one on the right required three passes to render. The one on the left requires one.

This does not mean that you can never have transparency in your application. But if you can figure out an economy of layers when using transparency, you’ll save yourself from from developers who are willing to make the design trade off to speed up the application.

Tip 2: The Grid layout is your new best friend. Understand it. Use it. Love it.
I once worked with a designer who used Blend and made the most beautiful screens in Blend. But when it came to implement his designs, the developers ended up ditching most of his work because every element was inside a layout inside a layout inside a layout… etc. This ends up being a huge performance killer because every layout means another set of layout calculations for the layout manager.

Instead, make creative use of the Grid layout. Within the Grid layout, you can create columns and rows with the following options:

Auto (with Min/Max options) - This column will ask the items inside it how much room they need and will expand or contract to give them exactly the room they need and no more (within the min/max limits).
Fixed Width/Height (”80″) - A fixed height or width will take exactly that many pixels of space. Easy enough.
Star (”*”) (with Min/Max options ) - this can be used as a decimal or a percentage… “.8*” or “80*”. It asks the container holding it how much room it has. After the Auto and Fixed columns or rows allocate their needed space, the “*” ones take up all the remaining available space unless hindered by the min/max limits.
A single grid can use any number of rows and columns using any combination of Auto, Fixed and Star. You would be shocked at how flexible this is. (Click here to see that flexibility in action.) You can build whole screens using a single grid. I don’t recommend that, but keep the idea of fewer layouts in mind when you are translating designs. Not every element in the project needs to be inside its own layout.

Tip 3: Use Borders, not Rectangles
Borders play nice with pretty much anything you want to do with the added benefit of being able to put stuff in it. Additionally, they are really simple layouts, so they don’t use much overhead. Take a border and put a Grid into it and you have a visually compelling and flexible combination.

Tip 4: Draw simple vector art inside Blend.
Mike Swanson has a fantastic Adobe Illustrator-to-XAML plug-in. I’ve heard that some people can use Expression Design quite well. But unless your project is extremely visual in an artsy kind of way, you should just draw simple vector art inside Blend. Not only will you save yourself the exporting-importing trouble, your XAML will look nicer and be easier to change later on.

I usually draw with the pen tool inside a Grid layout and then use the direct selection tool to make the tweaks I need.

Tip 5: (Silverlight Only) Plan on using only a few fonts
Most of my experience with fonts in Silverlight have been somewhat painful. Hopefully we’ll see that change in Silverlight 3, but in the meantime it is something that I’ve seen even experienced developers fight with. Watch this video by Tim Heuer… it will help. () And put this blog on your RSS feed… I’m working on a step-by-step tutorial for this geared at non-developers.

Tip 6: Work in “Split” mode in Blend and goof around with the XAML every now and again
Blend as a drag-and-drop design tool is absurdly powerful. Using Blend, you could build an interactive wireframe prototype in 15 minutes and never touch a line of code.

But as awesome as it is, it will be necessary from time to time to go into the XAML and tweak this or that or comment something out or copy-paste something else. Simply put, understanding XAML will make transitioning your designs a breeze and having Blend in “Split” mode will let you know just what your work in the design space is doing to the XAML. It’s a pretty painless way to start the XAML learning process.

If you’re interested in getting into the XAML a little more, I would recommend using Visual Studio 2008 in tandem with Blend. It offers intellisense (auto-complete for code) and integrates extremely well with Blend.

Hope that helps… If anyone has any questions, feel free to post them here.

Media types In CSS

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:43:00 +0000

Defining the Media Type

First let us have a quick think about what possibilities this opportunity to restyle your page for a different output medium gives us all as designers. You’ve probably witnessed what a mess some pages can look once they’ve been transferred onto paper — useless navigation areas and ads take up space, paper and ink. The page can often look cluttered and can become illegible given the more restricted dimensions of the page.
Over the last few years it has become customary for large sites to offer links to ‘printer-friendly’ pages — separate pages that were stripped of this unnecessary content. These pages were time-consuming to generate and costly to maintain, and so disparities between the content on the two versions of the same page often crept in. With the simple CSS methods in this tutorial, nothing more than a second stylesheet would be necessary for all of these pages to print perfectly.
There are even more browser types to consider, such as aural browsers, which read webpages aloud to their users; or Braille displays, which can create interfaces from a webpage readable to their blind users. The software that drives these applications will often include a default stylesheet which will apply stylings relevant to the medium, but now you can get in there and add your own styles to these outputs.

Media Options
There are ten different media types defined in the » CSS-2 specifications. They are:

all (default if no other is specified)
aural
braille
embossed
handheld
print
projection
screen
tty
tv

Making the Association
A linked stylesheet can be associated with a media type by simply adding the media attribute to the link tag:

If the stylesheet above was linked to your document, the style rules it contained would only be applied when the page was printed out — they won’t show up when you view the page on a monitor.
Imported stylesheets are classed similarly. You can apply a stylesheet to multiple mediums by adding a comma-separated list.

Finally, inline style rules can be associated with a medium by wrapping them in an @media block:

Putting them to Work
Now it’s time for some practical tips on actually writing your new stylesheets. Restyling for print will probably be of interest to the majority of you, so here are my suggestions.
Using the CSS display property you can take redundant elements out of the visual display. I apply this to all of the navigational areas of my page like this:
td#navigation, table#footer, div.banner {display: none; }
The above method should also be used to pluck advertisements from the printout. If a user can’t click on an ad, it’s not going to be of much use to them.
We then set all of our content areas to take up the full width of the page. As you would expect, leaving widths defined in pixels gives unpredictable results when translated to paper. To save on ink and increase legibility, text and background colours are set to black on white in as many cases as possible.
table#main {width: 100%; background: white; text: black; }
You may also choose to change the font of your text to something more suitable for print. This step isn’t necessary to produce a good printable page, and it’s up to you whether you incorporate it. Usually, serif fonts look better in print than on screen, whereas it is the opposite for sans-serif fonts. Georgia and Times New Roman are both good fonts for offline reading. Print is also the medium where defining your text size in points is most appropriate.
Print out a page from HTMLSource to see the changes I’ve made to the layout. You can also see our print stylesheet itself.

Retouching skin

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:19:00 +0000

There's a facinating discussion about the right and wrong way to retouch skin going on over on the Tutorial Blog. If you've ever grappled with this in Photoshop you might pick up a tip or two from reading the tutorial and the comments.As ever, it enforces the fact that there are several ways to approach almost every photo restoration and retouching task in Photoshop. It's no wonder confusion develops!
"The broader questions are: when retouching skin, should you eliminate blemishes with the clone stamp tool, and should you blur out all detail in the pores. The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT on both counts. It’s bad advice; following it will limit your Photoshop proficiency rather than developing it.For skin and many other surfaces, the clone stamp tool has been almost completely superseded by the Patch tool and the Healing Brush tool. These tools are easier to use, faster, and give better results. Yes, you can simulate their effects with careful, laborious use fo the clone stamp, but you are better off just using the right tool.As others have noted, skin has pores. You can’t just turn them into mush and expect to get a believable image back. The target appearance is not a featureless, blurry surface but the appearance of fine, shallow, barely-noticeable pores. "

Is Photoshop PS3 worth the upgrade for photo restoration?

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:41:00 +0000

Photoshop CS3 is here at last and has some exciting new features, but is there enough to upgrade for if you use Photoshop for photo restoration?The workflow features have been improved through the streamlining of palettes and self-sdjusting docks, but the workflow and interface in CS2 wasn't exactly clunky or intrusive to begin with.Adobe Bridge has been improved too ... big deal. Most people I know don't use it anyway. I find it useful, but not essential. Adobe say it is now faster, and yeah, it was kind of sluggish, but the improvements don't sound exactly mind blowing!One new feature that is really worth a closer look, and should have made it into Photoshop a long time ago in my opinion, is non-destructive smart filters. Up until now you could only apply image adjustments (eg. levels, brightness/contrast, invert, etc.) non-destructively. With CS3 you can now apply filters, say a gaussian blur, to an image or a layer with the option of coming back later and adjusting the blur settings or removing it completely. Whether this feature will be limited to certain colour modes or a limited number of the available filters remains to be seem.I am delighted to see a feature I have desired for ages, and that is rotated/scaled cloning. I've lost track of the number of times I've cursed it's absence. Wait and see, give it a year and you won't be able to live without it!The Healing Brush tools have been improved too, which is more good news for photo restorers. Changes to the Channel Mixer and extended options for creating black & white images from colour will have obvious uses too.I reserve judgement on whether it's worth the upgrade.

CSS Media Types Create Print-Friendly Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:40:00 +0000

Don't Create Multiple Pages or Fiddle with Scripts
You've decided to make your site "printer-friendly". You read the article on what it means to be printer friendly, but now you have to decide how you want to do it. There are several options:

1.Make a copy of every page or article - and manually remove all the non-printer-friendly stuff.
2.Use a (CGI, PHP, JavaScript, other) script to remove the non-printer friendly stuff on the fly.
3.Write a style sheet for print.

The drawback to option one should be fairly obvious to most people. It is very labor intensive and requires that for every page on your site, you create a second, duplicate page.
Option two is the most common choice right now, because it mitigates the problems of option one, and with a small change in how you write your Web pages, you can set it up for every page on your site. But if you don't have access to CGI or you just don't feel comfortable with programming, this method can be challenging, if not impossible.
Cascading Style Sheets to the Rescue
Luckily, CSS was not written with just Web pages in mind, and with just a few extra codes you can create a printer style sheet that removes all the non-friendly options on your page and even takes into account issues such as typography and readability. And you don't have to write two different copies of your page or do any programming to build it.
Defining a Style Sheet for Print
As with screen style sheets, you use the element to define the print style sheet your Web page should use:
The only difference between this link element and the link to your screen style sheet is the attribute:media="print"Most style sheets are written for the screen, so the media can be left off, or written as:media="screen"
Building the Style Sheet
Change colors to black on white.
Change the font to serif.
Watch the font size.
Underline all links.
Remove non-essential images.
Remove navigation.
Remove some or most of the advertising.
Remove all JavaScript, Flash, and animated images.
Change these rules into CSS

: Black on white with 12-point, serif fonts:
body { color : #000000; background : #ffffff;
font-family : "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size : 12pt; }

Underline links:a { text-decoration : underline; color : #0000ff; }
I also like to make the links blue, to stand out on color printers.
Remove Non-Essential Images, Ads, Navigation, and ScriptingThe best way to do this is to put

elements around each section of your page. For example, you might have the following sections:
top, bottom, left, and right navigation
.┼internal advertising
.┼content
.┼other elements
.┼Define each of them with a element:

Then, in your style sheet, get rid of the ads, navigation, and other information:
#navigation, #advertising, #other { display : none; }
The print.css Style Sheet
The print.css style sheet would look like this:
body { color : #000000; background : #ffffff; font-family : "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size : 12pt; }
a { text-decoration : underline; color : #0000ff; } #navigation, #advertising,
#other { display : none; }
Save print.css in the same directory as the file, include the in the head of your document,
and your page will print perfectly while displaying however you would like.

Conflicting Absolute Positions

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:17:00 +0000

On two separate occasions this month, I’ve been required to produce a layout in which a fixed-width scrolling side “pane” and flexible scrolling main “pane” must resize to fill all available space in a browser window.
As a CSS purist, I’ve always tried to avoid such dynamic layouts, but sometimes they’re required. When they are, I like to have a good old grumble about the fact that I’ve resorted to using JavaScript for my layouts.
The most advanced way of achieving such a layout is to use a JavaScript toolkit such as DOJO—but for what I was trying to achieve, even DOJO felt too bloated and seemed liable to create further complications.
We can, of course, achieve these layout goals by using JavaScript to resize the divs every time the page is loaded or resized. Unfortunately—among other headaches—that’s made more complicated by the choices between window.innerHeight and document.documentElement.clientHeight and document.body.clientHeight, and the need for cross-browser event listeners.
It seems that using JavaScript is an attainable but inelegant solution for this layout. What I really want is a lightweight, easy-to-understand, pure CSS template…
The problem with percentages
We often use elements that have dynamic widths and heights by defining those attributes as percentages. But there’s a problem with percentages: they don’t play well with others. Despite everyone’s best attempts, you just can’t mix up pixels and percentages (although I’ve read rumors that it’s in the cards).
While we can create relatively effective layouts using just percentages, we can’t then have a fixed-width side panel or a fixed-height header. So percentages just aren’t going to do the job in our layout.
The nature of divs
Adopting a tried and tested philosophical technique, I went back to the basic assumptions to try and find something else I’d missed. I realized that I thought the following statements about divs were all true:
In all browsers
A div is rectangular.
Only one corner of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page.
The location of the diagonally opposing corner must be determined by the width and height of the div.
If the width and height are dynamic, they must be determined using JavaScript.
It struck me that assumption no. 2—that only one corner of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page—should be very easy to either confirm or deny. What happens if we absolutely position a div by defining its top, left, bottom, and right properties, all at the same time? After all, although I think of it as being a “conflict,” it’s actually perfectly valid CSS.
Assigning “conflicting” absolute positions
I had assumed that if you assigned top, left, bottom, and right properties that most browsers would simply ignore two of those properties.
It seemed like a fair assumption at the time. I expected some variation between the browsers, but I also expected all of them to ignore two of the four positions.
I was utterly wrong about that. What actually happens is something rather magical. In every browser I tested, with the exception of IE5 and IE6, all four rules are obeyed. The result is that the div is effectively “stretched” to fill the viewport.

fig. 1, DIV size is computed in most browsers when absolute positioning is specified.
A bit of research revealed that I’m certainly not the first person to discover this.
“In browsers that support CSS you can specify all four edges and let the browser compute the width and the height. Unfortunately this doesn’t work in Internet Explorer…”—Autistic Cuckoo
“Technically you can use both a right and a left property and leave the width as auto. But unfortunately IE does not support this…”—css-discuss
In general, this little bit of CSS trickery seems to have been discarded due to its incompatibility with IE5 and IE6, and as a result has remained largely unnoticed, although it’s nice to see that IE7 now supports these “conflicting” absolute positions.
Incompatibility doesn’t make the discovery useless. Our original statements may still apply to IE5 and IE6, but we now have a different set of statements for all other browsers.
In all browsers except for IE5 and IE6
A div is rectangular.
All four corners of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page.
If the location of diagonally opposing corners has been determined the width and height is implied.
An alternative solution for IE
What does this mean? It means our assumption that only one corner of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page creates a problem specifically for IE5 and IE6. As it turns out Internet Explorer actually offers us its own alternative. Earlier on, I said that you can’t mix pixels and percentages, but that wasn’t strictly true: you can in Internet Explorer.
Using the power of dynamic properties, it is now possible to declare property values not only as constants, but also as formulas.
Dynamic properties are undeniably powerful, but as they’re only supported in IE, they tend to be of little real use.
But, once again, incompatibility isn’t a reason for discarding this little trick. Being able to determine the width and height of our divs as a formula means we can specify “the width of the page minus 40px.” As long as we can do that in IE5 and IE6, we can modify our original assumption #4 just a little bit and settle on our final set of statements.
In IE5 and IE6
A div is rectangular.
Only one corner of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page.
The location of the diagonally opposing corner must be determined by the width and height of the div.
The width and height can be determined using dynamic properties.
In all other browsers:
A div is rectangular.
All four corners of a div can be absolutely positioned on a page.
If the location of diagonally opposing corners has been determined, the width and height is implied.
Ah! Now that’s much more like it. As long as all of the above statements are true, we really should be able to put our entire template together using (almost) pure CSS.

In modern browsers
Our CSS for all modern browsers is now strikingly simple.
We specify the width and height of the body as 100%. (This is actually only needed for our Internet Explorer solution, but there’s absolutely no harm in including it in our main CSS.)
We hide the overflow in the body and html because we never want to see those scroll bars again.
We set the overflow to “auto” for the left and right panels, and hide it in the header.
The header has a width of 100% and a constant height of 80px.
For the side panel we specify the top (header height + padding), left (padding), and bottom (padding) positions. Then we give it a constant width of 200px.
For the right panel we specify the top (header height + padding), left (padding + side panel width padding), right (padding) and bottom (padding) positions.
All of that is very easily translated into the following CSS:
Creating the exception for IE5 and IE6
In IE5 and IE6 the bottom and right attributes of the main and left panels are just ignored.
This means that the top left corner is still pinned in place for each of our divs, and we just need to define our widths and heights.
We want the height of both the main panel and the side panel to be 100% of the height of the page minus the header height and the top and bottom padding (100%-80px-20px-20px).
We want the width of the main panel to be 100% of the width of the page minus the width of the side panel, the left padding, the right padding, and the gutter padding (100%-200px-20px-20px-20px). The width of the side panel is a constant, and has already been defined, so nothing needs adding here.
By using a conditional comment we can include these expressions for IE5 and IE6. (Line wraps marked » —Ed.)
Don’t forget: we specifically had to set the height and width of the body to 100% for this to work, but we didn’t need to hide that from other browsers, so it’s included in the main style sheet.
Beautiful
And there we have the finished layout.
Okay, those dynamic expressions aren’t valid, but they are at least hidden from the browsers that don’t need them. Although they’re presented as CSS those dynamic expressions are in truth JavaScript, and as such they won’t work in IE5 and IE6 if JavaScript is turned off.
But then, none of the alternative solutions would work in that situation either.
{Although this technique was developed independently, an article that suggested many of the same methods was published in 2004 by Alex Robinson. —Ed.}
Known issues
There’s a small and annoying bug in Opera 8. Although the side div resizes correctly when the page first loads, it doesn’t dynamically resize when the window size is changed.
This seems to be because we’ve given it a constant width, and I have, so far, been unable to find a way around this issue. Happily, it’s fixed in Opera 9, and it isn’t a particularly critical bug to begin with.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:11:00 +0000

Progress always comes at a cost. In the case of web browsers, users bear the cost when developers take the rendering of certain authoring tools and browsers (especially Internet Explorer) as gospel. When a new version of that browser comes along and fixes bugs or misinterpretations of the spec (or introduces new ones) or in any way changes behavior, sites break and our clients, bosses, and users get very unhappy.
We could spend hours explaining why our sites broke, but wouldn’t it be better if they didn’t break in the first place?
A little background
Building on the momentum created by the release of Internet Explorer 7, which included major advances in CSS support, the IE team began work on a completely new rendering engine for IE8—one that followed the CSS 2.1 spec as closely as possible. The culmination of their efforts is a browser capable of rendering the Acid2 test accurately. For those of you keeping track, this means that IE will soon support generated content and data URLs, and, it has been confirmed, will banish hasLayout forever. This will put its rendering on par with other browsers that have passed Acid2, including Safari, iCab, Konqueror, and Opera. (Firefox 3, which passes Acid2, had not been released as of this writing.)
Throughout the development of the new engine, the IE team has been mindful of the backlash they received upon the release of IE7. Some standards zealots and even a few Microsoft fans felt that they didn’t go far enough in IE7 with bug fixes and improvements to CSS support. But a far greater number of developers gasped in utter disbelief as their websites, which looked great in IE6, broke in IE7. On his blog, standards advocate Roger Johanssen offered three reasons for the breakage, and in their drive to improve standards support, the IE team discovered a fourth: the DOCTYPE switch, a core technique enabling modern CSS layouts, is fatally flawed as a way to protect compatibility.
The DOCTYPE switch is broken
Back in 1998, Todd Fahrner came up with a toggle that would allow a browser to offer two rendering modes: one for developers wishing to follow standards, and another for everyone else. The concept was brilliantly simple. When the user agent encountered a document with a well-formed DOCTYPE declaration of a current HTML standard (i.e. HTML 2.0 wouldn’t cut it), it would assume that the author knew what she was doing and render the page in “standards” mode (laying out elements using the W3C’s box model). But when no DOCTYPE or a malformed DOCTYPE was encountered, the document would be rendered in “quirks” mode, i.e., laying out elements using the non-standard box model of IE5.x/Windows.
This concept was first implemented in IE5/Mac two years later, and was quickly adopted by the other browser makers. Standards-aware developers were already including a DOCTYPE declaration in their documents for validation purposes, so it required no extra effort on their parts to get browsers to render documents according to the spec. Developers who weren’t standards-minded were blissfully unaware that their documents were being given special treatment because neither they nor the tools they were using inserted well-formed DOCTYPEs.
Unfortunately, two key factors, working in concert, have made the DOCTYPE unsustainable as a switch for standards mode:
egged on by A List Apart and The Web Standards Project, well-intentioned developers of authoring tools began inserting valid, complete DOCTYPEs into the markup their tools generated; and
IE6’s rendering behavior was not updated for five years, leading many developers to assume its rendering was both accurate and unlikely to change.
Together, these two circumstances have undermined the DOCTYPE switch because it had one fatal flaw: it assumed that the use of a valid DOCTYPE meant that you knew what you were doing when it came to web standards, and that you wanted the most accurate rendering possible. How do we know that it failed? When IE 7 hit the streets, sites broke.
Sure, as Roger pointed out, some of those sites were using IE-6-specific CSS hacks (often begrudgingly, and with no choice). But most suffered because their developers only checked their pages in IE6 —or only needed to concern themselves with how the site looked in IE6, because they were deploying sites within a homogeneous browserscape (e.g. a company intranet). Now sure, you could just shrug it off and say that since IE6’s inaccuracies were well-documented, these developers should have known better, but you would be ignoring the fact that many developers never explicitly opted into “standards mode,” or even knew that such a mode existed.
Chris Wilson, Platform Architect for Internet Explorer, has often said that one of the core tenets of development on IE is that any choices the IE team makes must not “break the web”. Sadly, IE7 did just that for quite a number of people. Unwilling to make the same mistake twice, Microsoft reached out to The Web Standards Project (of which I am a member) and to several other standards-aware developers, and asked for our help in coming up with a better method of allowing developers to “opt in” to proper standards support. The goal was to find a method that was more explicit than the DOCTYPE switch, and could be implemented in any browser, not just IE.
Future perfect
At last year’s SXSW, I had the good fortune to watch a fantastic panel led by New York Public Library’s Carrie Bickner (who also happens to be the wife of ALA’s publisher, Jeffrey Zeldman). The panel, “Preserving our Digital Legacy and the Individual Collector,” amounted to a discussion of the problems libraries and individuals run into when trying to maintain digital archives. Most of these problems stem from advances in file formats and applications: Microsoft Office 2007, for example, cannot reliably render a Word 1.0 document as it was originally intended to be rendered. The panel got me thinking about how the web has changed since its creation and how it will continue to change as web standards evolve.
As a proponent of web standards, I want to see browsers continually improve their implementations of standards while adding support for new ones, but I also see it’s important to preserve the web we’ve worked so hard to build—table-based layouts and all. Sure, most trips through the “Wayback Machine” don’t suffer in modern browsers because the DOCTYPE switch still serves them well, but what about a site built to IE6’s implementation of “standards” mode? We already know that, in many cases, IE7 won’t render it properly. Does that mean that we need to keep a copy of IE6 on hand in order to view the page as the author intended? That’s exactly what many libraries have done in order to be able to view elderly files. With IE8 on the horizon, we have the same potential problem with documents created using IE7’s rendering engine. What’s the solution?
Targeting a browser version
In an ideal world, of course, all specifications would be perfect from the get-go, and their implementation in user agents would be immediate and flawless. In a slightly more down-to-earth version of an ideal world, browser vendors would immediately integrate regularly updated standards into new user agents—and users would have instant access to the latest version of those browsers without having to lift a finger. Were that the case, we developers would be able to build sites and applications that take advantage of the latest and greatest web technologies without worrying about backward compatibility. But as we all know, the world is nowhere near even that level of perfect.
Standards are developed and advanced in fits and starts, sometimes taking several years to find their way to “recommendation” status. Browser release cycles are driven by product management and marketing concerns—security, features, speed—and rarely coincide with the finalization of standards specifications, even when the browser makers themselves have been intimately involved with the development of those very standards. And users, especially within an organizational context, are often slow to upgrade their browsers.
All of these factors leave us, the website developers, in a bit of a pickle when it comes to making websites. How do we ensure that browsers continue to render what we want them to?
We could specify the version of the languages we use, such as CSS 2.1 or JavaScript 1.5. Unfortunately, browser vendors often implement only part of a spec and the interpretation of a specification often differs from browser to browser, so any two contemporary browsers may offer completely different renderings of the same CSS or may trigger completely different events from the same form control.
With this spanner in the works, we’re really only left with one option for guaranteeing a site we build today will look as good and work as well in five years as it does today: define a list of browser versions that the site was built and tested on, and then require that browser makers implement a way to use legacy rendering and scripting engines to display the site as it was intended—well into the future.
This is exactly what our group decided to recommend for IE8, and we hope to see it implemented in other browsers as well.
Keeping the syntax simple
One key to ensuring that this browser “version targeting” was easy for developers to adopt was to make it easy to implement by hand or in an authoring tool. We considered many syntax options, including a conditional comment-like syntax, processing instructions a la the XML prolog, and even HTML profiles such as those adopted by the Microformats community, but few seemed to fit the job as well as the meta element.
Using a simple meta declaration, we can specify the rendering engine we would like IE8 to use. For example, inserting this: {meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8"}
into the head of a document would make IE8 render the page using the new standards mode. This syntax could be easily expanded to incorporate other browsers as well:
In the interest of speeding up the processing of the lock instruction, it is important to prioritize the version targeting meta element in much the same way as we prioritize the character encoding information. In order to work, the meta element will need to be placed in the head of your document, as close to the top as possible. It can be preceded by other meta elements and the title element, but will need to be placed above any other elements—and you can’t add it into the DOM via JavaScript.
As those of you with keen eyes probably noticed, the meta element we are using here is of the HTTP-equivalent variety, which means we can set the following header on the server to get the same effect:X-UA-Compatible: IE=8;FF=3;OtherUA=4
We can also use both methods in concert. For example, it is possible to set a baseline lock on a whole site using the header method and then override that header on individual pages, as needed, using the meta element.
Whither progressive enhancement?
Having the ability to lock your site to a particular browser version is fantastic for ensuring that your site will be usable well into the future, but does it undermine the concept of progressive enhancement? Will we have to alter the way we build sites? Can we still take advantage of new CSS properties automatically, as they become available? These were some of the many questions I had when we began discussing a possible “version targeting.”
For instance, let’s say IE8 wasn’t going to support generated content—if the Acid2 announcement is any indication, it should, but just bear with my use of it as an example—and we used generated content on a website that “targeted” IE8. Every other modern browser with the exception of IE would render that generated content, but even if IE9 included support for generated content, someone using that browser would not see the generated content because the site was locked to IE8. The site’s lock would need to be updated to IE9 for the generated content to appear, which goes against the core concept of progressive enhancement.
As much as it pains me to lose this particular aspect of progressive enhancement, this behavior is honestly the best thing that could happen, especially when the site concerned is public-facing. After all, we shouldn’t make assumptions about how browsers will behave in the future. If a change in IE9 would break the layout of our site or the functionality of one of our scripts, that could be disastrous for our users, sending our team into a mad scramble to “fix” the website that was working fine before the new browser launched (which is pretty much the boat we’re in now). Version targeting gives our team the ability to decide when to offer support for a new browser and, more importantly, gives us the much-needed time to make any adjustments necessary to introduce support for that new browser version.
So does version targeting spell the end of progressive enhancement? At this point, no. First of all, we will be dealing with legacy/pre-lock browsers for years to come, and progressive enhancement is a proven way to manage the differing levels of CSS and JavaScript support among them. Furthermore, there will still be a place for conditional comments to deliver style and scripting patches to IE browsers though we hope there will be a diminishing need for them over time. Finally, writing JavaScript using progressive enhancement techniques will still greatly cut down on the re-factoring time needed when preparing to launch support for a new browser.
Extra credit: living on the “edge”
For those willing to throw caution to the wind, let the chips fall where they may, or any other manner of colloquialism for coding with reckless abandon, IE will support a keyword value of “edge:”
This option, though strongly discouraged, will cause a site to target the latest IE browser versions as they release. It is a far cleaner alternative than the inevitable hack of setting an arbitrarily high value—IE=1000, anyone? But with all of the benefits of version targeting, the “edge” value is probably not practical for anything but experimental websites. That’s because even Eric Meyer can’t predict layout or scripting bugs that may be accidentally introduced by a new browser version.
Hope for the future
For many years, we designers and developers have been yearning for a way to reliably deploy our websites. In addition to the headaches of writing cross-platform styles and scripts, we’ve had to deal with the fallout from new browser releases that inevitably broke something we couldn’t possibly have anticipated. It’s never fun explaining the cause of an unexpected break to our clients, bosses, and users. But with IE8’s introduction of version targeting, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I, for one, hope other browser vendors join Microsoft in implementing this functionality.
Illustration by Kevin Cornell in a list apart article.

Thank you Kevin

Regards Ritesh Niranjan

Web Designing for Context with CSS

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:31:00 +0000

Web standards promised us improved multimedia delivery: the ability to optimize content for computer screens, handhelds, printers, projection devices, and other media.
The CSS required to accomplish this is simple. All you have to do is import a separate style sheet for each media type to override the style selectors for the primary medium. Check out Eric A. Meyer’s fantastic and influential article “Going to Print” for an in-depth example of how to do this. (Warning: some media aren’t fully supported.)
Most of the discussion thus far in the design community has focused on styling content for varying media. Specifically, designers have tried to improve the accessibility of content, stripping away heavy graphics for handhelds or switching to more legible fonts for print.
We don’t have to stop there. Instead of using CSS to style the same content for different media, why not use it to display content especially suited for the situation?
Imagine that a designer reads an article in his favorite web magazine and then prints it out. The designer staples the pages together, grabs a highlighter, and reads the article, marking the most important points and jotting down notes in the margins. Over time, he refers back to the hardcopy.
What can we say about this situation? Is there anything unique about it? What makes it worth noting?
Different media offer different opportunities
First of all, the designer in the above example viewed the article in a different medium than it was originally designed for, and used the article in ways that it couldn’t be used online (i.e. highlighting selected passages). Secondly, we know the designer cared about the article so much that he wanted a physical copy of it. That makes him fairly special compared to the folks who “only” read the web version.
Designing for context
Say you want to use context-aware content to speak to potential visitors to your site. What happens when someone who hasn’t visited your site reads a printout of one of your articles? What message can you give that person when they print the article that you wouldn’t give to someone who reads it online? If your goal is to increase readership, you might say something like:
You are viewing a printed version of an article that came from a fantastic website (http://www.xyz.com) where you can find many more relevant, insightful articles. We think that you’ll be interested in this other article (http://xyz.com/article02.html) because it deals with the same subject as the one you are now reading.”
If your goal is to increase account sign-ups, you might say something like:
If a friend or colleague gave you this printout, you might be eligible for a special, one-time offer. Sign up for an account and we’ll give you 10% off your first purchase.”
If your goal is to get people inquiring about your services, you might say something like:
You are reading an article written by J.D. of XYZ Company. J.D. lives this stuff. If you have any questions about the services mentioned in the article simply give J.D. a call at her personal number (321-867-5309 ext 123) and she’ll be able to talk with you in-depth about what XYZ can do for you”.
(The third example might not be particularly suited to print, but might work well for readers who view your content on a handheld phone. You know it’s not hard for them to call you.)
But don’t just put these messages on the website for everyone to see. You don’t want to deliver them out of context; you want to create the special situation that exists when you talk to people in their context and they realize it.
A dash of CSS will do
The CSS used to accomplish this is very easy. Create a div with the content that is specifically suited for the medium you’re designing for — for this example, let’s say print:

Highly persuasive text of offer.

Use the display: none; property applied to the div for your screen style sheet so that the div does not display on the web (screen). In your style sheet for screen, use:
div#offer4print { display: none; }
Then style the declaration in your print (or whatever media you’re designing for) however you’d like in your style sheet for print:
div#offer4print { //insert styling for print here }
Other ideas for printing:
If you know a reader’s name (because, for instance, they’re logged in), insert their name on the printed version. Now it’s a print piece designed especially for them: ex libris Joshua Porter.
Give them special offers. Remember, these people are different from casual readers; treat them accordingly and design for their context.
Ideas for handhelds:
Phone numbers (obviously). Offer direct access to information related to the article they printed. They will appreciate it.
Provide them with a simple way to email themselves an easy-to-read (and easy to print) PDF version of the document.
Start doing stuff like this, and people will talk about you. They’ll show their friends and coworkers. They might say, “Hey look at this. This only showed up after I printed it. That’s different. Show this to the website VP. I’m going to see if any of the other pages on the site do this.”
Exploring these methods, you can come up with unique innovations that work particularly well for your users. Of course, you don’t need CSS to do this. You can use any technology with the ability to distinguish between media. The easiest way, however, takes a little context and just a dash of CSS.

RedChilliWorX Top NEWS

noreply@blogger.com (RedChilliWorx) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:41:00 +0000

07.Apr.2008
RedChilliWorx is one of the silverlight starter, Microsoft added the Redchilliworx.com for using and implementing his new technology Silverlight on their site and rated as 4.5 out of 5. India's Top Web Designer and professional person is engaged into Creating Silverlight Websites and Applications. >> View more
18.Jan.2008
OasisGraphic.com is owned by redchilliworx.com Microsoft added the Oasisgraphic.com for using and implementing Silverlight on their site and rated as 4.5 out of 5. >> View more

Thanks for such a good effort guys.
Regard's
Ritesh Niranjan

Silverlight 1.0 Animation: Checkerboard, blinds, and comb

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

This post describes how to create a Silverlight 1.0 based checkerboard, blinds, and comb animation. The effect is added to my animation library so you can reuse the effect using a single line of code. You can download the complete source from here.
To create your own checkerboard animation using my animation library download the source code and include Animator.jas and XamlObjectFactory.js in your project and reference them in your Silverlight host page. To create an across checkerboard effect, use the following line:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.checkerAcross('CheckerAcross', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 10, 10);
The first parameter is a unique ID for the animation storyboard. The ID is required because storyboards added to a UIElment resources must be named. The second parameter is the animation target. The target can be any UIElement. The third parameter is the animation duration in seconds. The third parameter is the number of horizontal checkers, and the fourth parameter is the number of vertical checkers.
To create a top down checkerboard animation use the following line of code:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.checkerDown('CheckerDown', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 10, 10);
To create a vertical blinds animation use the following line of code:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.blindsV('BlindsV', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 10);
To create a horizontal blinds animation use the following line of code:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.blindsH('BlindsH', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 10);
To create a vertical comb animation use the following line of code:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.combV('CombV', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 20);
To create a horizontal comb animation use the following line of code:
SilverlightRecipes.Animator.combH('CombH', sender.findName('ToAnimate'), '1', 20);
The idea behind these animations is to use multiple wipe animations with different clippings, start times, and durations to generate the desired effect. For example the clipping for 2*2 checkerboard is a PathGeometry with four PathFigure instances to represent each rectangle of the checkerboard:

(pathgeometry)
(pathgeometry.figures)
(pathfigure isclosed="True" startpoint="0,0")
(pathfigure.segments)
(linesegment point="0,0")
(linesegment point="0,135")
(linesegment point="0,135")
(/PathFigure.Segments)
(/pathfigure)
(pathfigure isclosed="True" startpoint="0,135")
(pathfigure.segments)
(linesegment point="0,135")
(linesegment point="0,270")
(linesegment point="0,270")
(/PathFigure.Segments)
(/pathfigure)
(pathfigure isclosed="True" startpoint="200,0")
(pathfigure.segments)
(linesegment point="200,0")
(linesegment point="200,135")
(linesegment point="200,135")
(/PathFigure.Segments)
(/pathfigure)
(pathfigure isclosed="True" startpoint="200,135")
(pathfigure.segments)
(linesegment point="200,135")
(linesegment point="200,270")
(linesegment point="200,270")
(/PathFigure.Segments)
(/pathfigure)
(/PathGeometry.Figures)
(/pathgeometry)

And the animation is done by a single storyboard with three PointAnimation instances to generate the wipe effect. The following is an example for a 2*2 checkerboard animation:

(storyboard duration="00:00:01" name="CheckerAcross")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[0].(PathFigure.Segments)[0].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,0")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[0].(PathFigure.Segments)[1].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[0].(PathFigure.Segments)[2].(LineSegment.Point)" to="0,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[1].(PathFigure.Segments)[0].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[1].(PathFigure.Segments)[1].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,270")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[1].(PathFigure.Segments)[2].(LineSegment.Point)" to="0,270")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[2].(PathFigure.Segments)[0].(LineSegment.Point)" to="400,0")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[2].(PathFigure.Segments)[1].(LineSegment.Point)" to="400,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:00" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[2].(PathFigure.Segments)[2].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[3].(PathFigure.Segments)[0].(LineSegment.Point)" to="400,135")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[3].(PathFigure.Segments)[1].(LineSegment.Point)" to="400,270")
(pointanimation duration="00:00:0.5" begintime="00:00:0.5" targetname="ToAnimate" targetproperty="(UIElement.Clip).(PathGeometry.Figures)[3].(PathFigure.Segments)[2].(LineSegment.Point)" to="200,270")
(/storyboard)

Illustrated By Ritesh Niranjan

Silverlight 2.0 Deep Zoom using MultiScaleImage Control

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:53:00 +0000

MultiScaleImage Control
This is my first Silverlight 2.0 tutorial. I have seen MIX keynote yesterday and was really impressed with Hard Rock's Memorabilia sample http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/. I tried to reproduce the sample but could not find any documentation about Deep Zoom. After some search, I found a tool released by Microsoft called "Deep Zoom Composer". You can download the tool from here . And you can get the user's guide from here. The composer is very simple, you will import your images, arrange your photos, then export. These steps went smoothly, but I didn't know what I am supposed to do with the exported output, but after some hacking I could display the image, zoom in and out, and move the canvas. So I decided to share how I accomplished these tasks.Displaying Deep Zoom ContentThis is the simplest task, all you need to do is inserting a MultiScaleImage control and set its Source property. But there are a couple of tricks here, first you need to copy the folder that "Deep Zoom Composer" generated to your clientbin folder. The second is that the Source property should refer to your items.bin file if you exported your content with "Create Collection" option selected, or info.bin file otherwise.ZoomingYou can zoom either by using ViewPortWidth property, or better using ZoomAboutLogicalPoint method, the method takes zooming factor, and logical x, y co-ordinates to zoom around. The following code sample shows how to use this method
if (!isCtrlDown) this.DeepZoom.ZoomAboutLogicalPoint(1.5, this.DeepZoom.ElementToLogicalPoint(e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom)).X, this.DeepZoom.ElementToLogicalPoint(e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom)).Y); else this.DeepZoom.ZoomAboutLogicalPoint(0.75, this.DeepZoom.ElementToLogicalPoint(e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom)).X, this.DeepZoom.ElementToLogicalPoint(e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom)).Y);The isCtrlDown field is set in the KeyDown, KeyUp events of the root canvas. I have tried setting the events on the MultiScaleImage control, but it did not fire, not sure why, here is the code private void DeepZoom_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e) { if (e.Key == Key.Ctrl) isCtrlDown = true; } private void DeepZoom_KeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e) { if (e.Key == Key.Ctrl) isCtrlDown = false; }
Moving ContentThis is the most tricky part because of the logic needed to handle dragging. But when it comes to the MuliScaleImage control, it is relatively easy and require only one line of code to modify the ViewportOrigin property, here is some sample code if (isDragging) { Point newOrigin = new Point(); newOrigin.X = this.DeepZoom.ViewportOrigin.X - ((e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom).X - lastMousePosition.X)/this.DeepZoom.ActualWidth); newOrigin.Y = this.DeepZoom.ViewportOrigin.Y - ((e.GetPosition(this.DeepZoom).Y - lastMousePosition.Y) / this.DeepZoom.ActualHeight); this.DeepZoom.ViewportOrigin = newOrigin; }You can download the complete sample project with source code from here

Quick CSS Mockups with Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:26:00 +0000

You need to make a set of web design mockups for your client. You’d like to find an easy way to show these mockups in clean XHTML and CSS code, because plain JPGs don’t convey the full sense of the design, and sliced tables are evil. In fact, let’s forget table slices ever existed.
Caveat: This article is for people who need to produce valid, standards-compliant mockups quickly, with the graphics tools they already use. This is not a production technique for people who want to get the most benefit out of (X)HTML by creating structural, semantic markup. Creating structural, semantic markup, as A List Apart and most standardistas recommend, still takes time, thought, and hand-coding.
WYSIWYG graphics editors such as Fireworks, GoLive, and ImageReady allow you to generate HTML code, but the exported code tends to use tables or absolute positioning. That’s so 1999. So what, then, can these programs do in terms of producing valid and useful code? More than you think. I’ll show you an easy way to produce mockups with Photoshop, prepare them for the web with ImageReady, and clean up the code afterward.

Background

I must admit, Fireworks was a major part of my design arsenal until I started taking accessibility and standards compliance seriously, and I don’t think I’m alone here. The problem I ran into was that I could only export HTML code using tables, when what I really wanted was relatively positioned div elements. Only with ridiculous hours of coding and copious quantities of caffeine could you convert such a table to relative divs, and this just steals more time from when you could have been designing more mockups or sleeping. So why start off with a sliced table at all? What I needed was a way to generate clean relatively positioned divs—or, barring that, code that was close enough that it wouldn’t take aeons to make it play nice with W3C standards. These days, this is surprisingly straightforward with ImageReady.

Make ImageReady CSS-ready

Adobe Photoshop CS ships with a web-focused sidekick: ImageReady CS. Adobe Fireworks is great for vector applications, but less so for raster work. Conversely, ImageReady is perfectly suited for raster work, but less so for vector work (although that’s changing). Using ImageReady, you can export slices as absolutely positioned divs, which can be easily transformed into relatively positioned divs.
This means you can start off in Photoshop to do all your complex masking, fades, Illustrator vector art, filters, etc., and then switch to ImageReady to slice up your layout. You’ll want to be sure that your layout is aligned to the top left; don’t try to center it just yet—that’s a job for CSS later on. Using ImageReady, you can style your navigation menu items (unless you’re doing that with pure text / CSS) and set rollover states. (For a production layout, you would probably shy away from Adobe rollovers and actions in favor of your own JavaScript or CSS rollovers, but for mockup use, these rollover states should suffice.)

Slice it up

Use the Slice tool to create your slices. Once you’re finished use the Slice Select tool to select and rename each section. For example, you may have a header that will become a div tag later on. ImageReady would really like to call this “Yourfile_1_01,” but you’ll save yourself some work by giving it a logical name from the start, like “header”. You will use this later on when editing your CSS. The same goes for the content area, any side columns, the footer, and other areas you may want to define.
Jump back and forth between designing in Photoshop and ImageReady until you’re ready to test out your design in a browser. Then, in ImageReady, go to File › Preview In › (insert favorite browser here). See whether your slices look and behave as intended, and modify your optimization settings accordingly. Exported slices will result in JPG or GIF images inserted into div tags with img tags; later, you may want to insert some of the images as background images for the individual divs instead.

Exporting HTML & CSS

Set your output settings: select File › Output Settings › HTML and change the settings to your liking. Note that you can opt to generate XHTML code. Select “Next” and check the settings in Saving HTML Files.
Select “Next” again; this brings you to Slices. Here you can choose to “Generate CSS.” Next to Referenced, you’ll see a dropdown menu that allows you to choose By ID, Inline, or By Class. Select By ID. You can also get detailed with slice naming conventions if you’re so inclined.
Export your mockup to (X)HTML/CSS using File › Save Optimized As, and choose a location that makes sense to you. Note that ImageReady will create an /images subdirectory in the same location where you save the HTML file. (Line wraps marked » —Ed.)

Toast, anyone?We now have slices consisting of absolutely positioned divs, with the CSS contained directly in the HTML file’s head. Maybe absolutely positioned divs are just what you need—if so, grab a cup of coffee and relax. Otherwise, let’s take things a step further by converting these divs to relative positioning.
First, make a copy of the ImageReady-generated HTML file and open it in your code editor (e.g. Dreamweaver, BBEdit, or another favorite editor). You’ll probably want to wrap all your divs inside an outside container div to control your mockup layout more precisely. ImageReady exports the CSS slices as divs and wraps them in a container div called “Table_01.” Rename the “Table_01” div (to “container”, for example) and style it with CSS as you see fit. If you don’t need a container div, just delete the “Table_01” div and its CSS counterpart.
Next, switch all your other divs to relative positioning by removing the absolute positioning declarations and letting them inherit relative positioning. Pay special attention to your floats and clears. You could try to switch all your divs at once, but a more precise and predictable way to go about it is to change one div at a time and check each div individually.
For divs that contain images, decide which should be turned into CSS background images and which really deserve an image tag. Some slices (a content area, for example) may be of a single color and thus should be set using a CSS style without any images. Set the overall page background separately using your stylesheet. If this were a production layout, you’d probably move your CSS to an external stylesheet, but that may be overkill for single-page mockups. Validate your code and you’re good to go.
You’ll need to add appropriate height and width declarations back in if the image in this element becomes a background image in a later revision.

CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Ritesh Niranjan) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:03:00 +0000

Look Ma, No Tables.
If you are looking for help making the transition to CSS layout (that's Cascading Style Sheets), you've come to the right place. I am cataloging here as many useful cross-browser CSS layout techniques as I can find, and some that I made up when I was bored last Thursday. All the examples on this site have been reduced to only their essential code, and you will find the source displayed on each page to hopefully make it quick and easy to understand the inner workings of the CSS. Feel free to steal all the code you find on this site, and consider linking back here on your site or in your source comments.
You will also find below links to various online CSS resources and tutorials, appropriate for both the novice and the seasoned CSS veteran.
I started this collection because of the dearth of resources I found out there when I went looking for information on how to translate typical table based layouts to CSS layouts. I know it is not nearly exhaustive, so if you see that there is something missing, whether it is a particularly good tutorial, or a site that is using a complex CSS layout, please let me know about it. I will pay you $3750 for each link you submit that I use.
If you don't have any idea why anyone cares about this topic, because like tables can do all that stuff and more, please read this: To Hell with Bad Browsers. And then read this follow up interview with Zeldman. And then read about the Web Standards Project's Browser Upgrade campaign. The future is bright, kids!

CSS Techniques
CSS layout techniques and the sites that use them.
3 Columns, The Holy Grail of page layouts — The most elegant technique and perhaps the most sought after layout: a 3 column page with a fluid center column. Easy to understand, easy to implement. I first saw this layout at dynamic ribbon device and have since learned that the sweet CSS came from Rob Chandanais of BlueRobot. Owen also made a very nice tutorial using this layout technique.
2 Columns, ALA Style — Famously chronicled by Jeffrey Zeldman in his ALA article A Web Designer's Journey, this is an extremely easy layout to implement requiring only a simple float:left declaration.
4 Columns, All Fluid — This technique can actually be used to provide as many columns on a page as you like. Drawback #1) it gets difficult quickly if you want to make any of the columns a fixed width. Drawback #2) it relies heavily on percentages, which the various browsers all calculate differently, so you can't place your columns very precisely. Still, a very useful technique, especially if you don't want borders and different background colors for your columns.
3 Columns, All Fluid — A much simpler and potentially more useful technique that then 4 column technique above. It uses float:left, suffers from needing percentage widths for each column, and from potential column wrapping when the browser window is narrowed.
Static Width and Centered — 3 columns all with static widths, and contained in a parent DIV which remains centered in the window. One rather serious limitation of this particular technique is that if any of the three content DIVs contains an image or a really long word that is longer than the width of the DIV, it totally breaks the layout. Each browser breaks it differently.
Nested Float — A very simple layout that features a nested, floated menu in the upper right. Easily reversed. A variation of this technique is in use on this very page.Dealing with the CSS box Model — IE5 Mac, NS6, Opera 5; they all handle borders and padding correctly, adding them to the width of the box. But IE5 PC gets it all wrong, placing them within the width of the box. IE5 PC's implementation is arguably easier to work with (scratch that, it is easier to work with), but that is beside the point. How do you deal with this discrepancy between the browsers? There are ways, my friends, there are ways.-->
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CSS Resources
Specs, primers, validators, stuff like that
The CSShark Answers FAQs — Martina Kosloff has compiled a pretty good FAQ on CSS. Worth your time.
css/edge — From the mind of Eric Meyer comes this great little site pushing CSS to the edge. It is, in his words: "intended, first and foremost, to be as relentlessly creative with CSS as we have been practical all these years. It does not exist to present or explain safe cross-browser techniques; in fact, almost the opposite. The goal here is to find ways to make CSS live up to its fullest potential, with only minimal regard to browser limitations."
websitetips.com CSS section — Literally a ton of links to CSS resources from all over. A better set of links than this one by far.
Guide to Cascading Style Sheets from the Web Design Group. — An excellent primer if you need to start from scratch. It features a tutorial, a reference section, a syntax validator, and more CSS links. A little dated, but still an excellent place to start.