Creating custom brushes in Photoshop is a great way to add texture, or repeating images to work. There are lots of online resources for custom photoshop brushes, such as on Deviant Art, some are available under a creative commons license. The easiest way to get what you want done, is to do it yourself!

Creating custom brushes is pretty simple, and most of the time are just made of simple shapes or textures that in combination with brush options are used to create creative/interesting results.

Creating the Basic Shape

I created a half-moon shape using the pen tool, and then flattened it. Right-clicking on the layer selects the object.

Once the object outline is selected (or the area around it, if preferred) Go to EDIT => DEFINE BRUSH PRESET.

Continuing the story of ditching TextMate, after switching over to Vim, I was still using textmate's search project function, which I found helpful searching through hundreds of module folders and theme folders for larger projects. But, heh, besides the fact that my trial was expired, it is silly to be running another program just for a basic search. Especially when terminal does the same thing.

You can use grep to search for words in files and have them spit out a line number too :) As well as a bunch of other options:

grep --h

Will give you a list of options, but I'll list what I use:

grep -r -i -n "text" /folder/*

This searches "text" in the specified folder (Folder) and all recursive folders (-r). The results aren't case sensitive (-i) and spits out the line number of the file it finds it in (-n).

Whenever working on a project where I am implementing another designers designs, I will bitch and complain when text is meant to be an image, either because of the position of the text isn't horizontal, or it's a ridiculous decorative font that can't be recreated in a system default one.

It always sucks when a client wants what a I call print for the web. This is a condition where by fault of either the client or the designer, there is a failure to recognize that designing for web is not like designing for a newspaper. Browsers do not view things the same, and trying to do this with the exception of using something like flash will cause you a great headache and eventual heartbreak when your designs will never be realized in anything but Safari.

This condition is much akin to Designing for Macs. Webdesigners need to be flexible, aware of new technology, new software, hardware, user settings, defaults and above all else, they need patience, understanding and to let their creations meld and mold with the web. This means letting forms be forms, and understanding user expectations.

By divider I mean the '|' that I currently have on my site's titlebar. Now, this is all fine, to have $site_name and $title appear with a | separator, but It kind of looks weird on the front page when there is no page title.

It's pretty easy to just have it called differently when you are using page-front.tpl.php, but my site doesn't use a separate template file for the front page, so why should I have to make one for just this?

I've been using an if else statement to check $if_front and then display the separator, title and site name or else to show just the site name. Alternatively you could just check if there is a title and do it that way.

<title>
<?php 
if ($is_front) {
	print $site_name; 
} else {
	print $title . t(' | ') . $site_name; 
}
?>
</title>

This seems to work well for me, thoughts?

Tabled Layouts.. what are those? Oh Right! That ancient practice that is now shunned. But, I mean tables have their purpose to display data, so we all are still styling them right?

After recently being thrown into the old, unsophisticated world of HTML Emails for my work, I've learned a thing or two, and had to remember how in the world I used to do the things I did with tables to create layouts. *sigh* HTML Emails are very picky, complex css confuses email programs, and linked css is sketchy. Why, hello html style tags and inline css, where have you been all these years? Oh yes, those skills that you perfected years and years ago and then discarded carelessly into a closet when something newer and shinier came out still has a use!

As I have said, tables still have their purpose outside of layouts, but I've found I've done very little designing with tables, other than making sure they look pretty if used somewhere on a page. I haven't hand coded a table other than for basic info in a while.

If you're like me, and need a refresher in tables, here we go...

There are a few different ways to create masks in photoshop, layer masks, vector masks and clipping masks. We're going to look at how to create a layer mask to create a reflection on text.

Create a new layer

I Created a new layer with a gradual radial gradient that took up the whole background, this can be achieved by either using the gradient tool (which can be found by holding down the paintcan and selecting the Gradient Tool) by pressing Shift-G to toggle between the two or alternatively editing the layer blending options on an already filled layer (Just not the background layer as it is locked!)

Add Text

Now Add a text layer (T) or the text tool, I placed that layer below the background layer once it was positioned correctly.

Selecting an area to create the mask...

Now select the text layer by cmd-clicking the layer, the text should now be selected. Now I decided to deselect half the text to leave only the top bit of the text is selected. You can deselect part of your selection by holding down the option key and dragging your mouse while a Marquee tool is selected (M).

Lets get to the masks already!

Image: 

If you use photoshop to create any designs for interfaces, web or print you probably are either using groups to separate pages or separate photoshop documents, or possible Smart Layers. Using groups or smart layers that are intelligently named is a very good way to separate out different instances or pages within a single design without having multiple files. Taking this a step further, as of the Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop has introduced Layer Comps.

Haven't heard of it?

-- Not surprised, it's sort of hidden and took me a while of digging through this program and upgrading to CS3 before I really started using this feature.

Using Layer Comps

Layer comps 'remembers' the location of your hidden/visible layers, as well as position and layer style if required. In the layer comps panel (Window -> Layer Comps) you can create a new layer comp, or switch through comps similar to how you hide/view layers in the layers panel.

Keeping Layer Comps Updated

I've been complaining about using transparent PNGs over the use of transparent GIFs for a while now... and this argument really comes down to those who care about IE6 and those who don't.

And while there are fixes to support transparent PNGs as images, those fixes don't work when the images are CSS backgrounds. Using <img> as backgrounds is kind of messy with z-indexing but can be done, I just wouldn't want to try to run any sort of flash or forms on the same page otherwise you might run into some horrible bugs between browsers.

So, finally, finally, FINALLY, the new Xalking theme is up :P AHA.AHA.

I realize designing for yourself is hard, but this was insane. The theme is mostly finished, I have a bunch of ideas for future features, including some icons and tagged sections for better navigation of my work and art and all that, but for now it's running along pretty well.

Thanks Steven for your feedback so far! (Anyone else who sees some bugs or has comments feel free to contact me!- Thanks )

Updates

Some may have noticed I have finally added an RSS link. heh. About time?
There's also separate sections for design and art work, maybe this well even be split off into a third section for themes, but for now that's fine.

The Same..?

I've been using slimtimer.com for time tracking for a past few months since I started back up doing contract work (and may I suggest if you have /haven't/ checked it out, you really should!)

Anyway, they use a service called UserVoice for user feedback and suggestions, basic concept you create ideas and then vote and comment, and in theory the developers would then add those features to their service that were most voted on. It has a pretty interface and is nice to use- and before creating an account I had this unobtrusive message staring at me on the header telling me be to register. It wasn't in the way of the content, I didn't feel like I was being pressured into doing anything, and I didn't even feel like it was something I had to necessarily read, but I could if I wanted to.

This got me thinking to drupal messages, usually they are sitting right above the page content, below the header/ page title and tabs. I've never really had a problem with this method of displaying messages, but it does intrude in the body content a bit, and screams: HEY! LOOK AT ME! I AM IN YOUR FACE!