What the Houston Graphics blog is all about.Design discussion, philosophy, and tips.Tutorials related to Photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Fireworks, Flash, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.Promoting special events in the Houston area.Promoting special events in the Houston area.

Some Links

March 28, 2008, 05:13pm No comments

Design Meltdown
Look at Web site designs, categorized by style.

Tunes
Not the name of the site, but a neat place to find Rapidshare links for music.

Family Guy online
Catch up on all your Family Guy episodes. Watch them streaming, online.

I Hate IE6 and Word Press!

January 20, 2008, 02:43pm No comments

I use Firefox religiously now, and nothing else, but everytime I’m done designing my Web pages and test it in IE6, of course it is messed up! It is always messed up! I always have to implement hacks or work arounds to make it display properly. I just finished writing my Complex Masks in Photoshop CS3 Tutorial, and sure enough, the side menu is at the bottom and spacing is screwed up!

And now I’m starting to hate Word Press … the very blog software this blog is using! I disabled the WYSIWYG editor to use the HTML editor by default, but guess what? You do not get full HTML control! It just makes you think you’re in control. I’m trying to fix the spacing errors for IE6 by adding some extra page break tags, but it only recognizes the enter key as a page break. I’m not that stupid Word Press!

Complex Masks In Photoshop CS3

January 16, 2008, 09:18pm 4 comments

Skill Level: Expert
Summary: How to create a complex mask using the Pen Tool, Brush Tool, Lasso Tool, Refine Edge, and Gaussian Blur.

Download Project Files (10.9 MB ZIP)

I’m going to show you how to cut out this dog and place him on a green background (or any background of your choice). Looks ridiculous doesn’t it? Why in the world would anybody even ask you to do this? If they do, tell them they need to get a picture of the dog on a white background! Okay, only in a perfect world do we get such luxuries. So lets say you have to cut out this cute dog and put him on a greeting card or whatever, and this is what your boss gives you, or what the client is demanding to be used. The first thing you realize is you won’t be using the Magic Wand. You might try using the Extract Command (under Filter), but I personally don’t get any good results.

houston-graphics-tutorial-complex-masks-in-photoshop-cs3-intro-dogs.jpg

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Writers Strike

January 14, 2008, 12:59am No comments

I didn’t realize how big of a deal this writer’s strike was. I’ve been waiting to see a new episode of The Office for months and I’m getting The Office withdrawls! On a side note, The Golden Globe awards show was canceled.

Photoshop CS3 Tutorials