Ultimate Photoshop Design Resources

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Diverse
• Date: Sep 15,2007

There’s no doubt that I like to design. Next to coding, I also love to edit photos, designing websites etc. My personal favorite tool to achieve this, has to be Adobe Photoshop. Next to a good tool, you’ll need some good resources.

Fonts, Plug-ins such as Brushes and Textures, Stock photos can help you tremendously when designing. Here’s a list of my personal favorite photoshop design resources.

Fonts, Stock Photos, Patterns, some Textures and Inspiring sites do not require Photoshop. Also, always check the compatibility of the plug-in with your software; Don’t download Photoshop CS3 brushes when you’re using Photoshop 7. The other way around (Photoshop 7 plug-in using in Photoshop CS3) can be possible.

If you think that there’s a top-source missing from the list, share it with us by posting them in the comments. The sites listed here offer their services for free and are placed in random order.

Fonts

The standard fonts on a PC are really boring and just created to read. You want fonts that just look nice on your artwork. Download fonts from the following sites to give your text a nice look.
To install, place the downloaded TTF-file (or other Font-file extensions) in the Fonts folder on your PC. This can be found in C:\WINDOWS\Fonts.

• Dafont Personal Favorite
  Great website, huge amount of fonts. Excellent details on each font. Ordering by name or category. Also check the top 100.
• Exljbris
  Free quality font foundry. Has only 7 fonts atm, but their beautiful.
• 1001 Free Fonts
  Name of the website is self-explaining. Ordering by name or category.
• Ace Free Fonts
  Huge collection of fonts. Ordering on name or category.
• Die Gestalten
  A couple of experimental display fonts.
• Fonts 500
  The web’s top 500 fonts.
• Urban Fonts Personal Favorite
  Great website, huge amount of fonts. Excellent details on each font. Ordering by name or category. Also check the top 100 and favorites.
• DDfont
  Listing fonts that have been collected from around the web.
• Font Freak
  Freeware, shareware and commercial font site.
• Fonts For Flash
  Website that has some freebies fonts. Created for Flash, but can be used in Photoshop.
• Simply The Best
  Nice website with huge amount of fonts. Ordering by name or category.
• Abstract Fonts Personal Favorite
  Great website, huge amount of fonts. Excellent details on each font. Ordering by name or category.
• Grunge Fonts
  This archive specializes in Grunge fonts. Website does contain a lot of advertations.
• 007 Fonts
  Hundreds of Freeware and Shareware fonts. Order alphabetical.
• Font Files
  Nice colletion of fonts. Order alphabetical.
• Font Garden
  Archive of fonts and dingbats. Especially look at the handwriting fonts. Order alphabetical.
• Font Village
  Nice collection of fonts. Website does contain a lot of advertations.
• Fontreactor
  Perfect site to download fonts. Nice preview font system. All fonts are sorted by alphabetical order and by themes.
• Fonts101
  Another website with a huge amount of fonts. Browse by category.
• Acid Fonts
  Good website with big collection of fonts. Browsing by name or category.
• All-free-fonts
  Small collection of fonts. Alphabetical ordering.
• Dingbat Depot
  Not an archive for fonts, but for dingbats. Ordering by name or category.
• Lotsa Fonts
  Nice amount of fonts. Website does contain a lot of advertations.
• Sharkshock
  Big collection of famous company fonts.
• FontFace
  FontFace is always adding fonts to this archive. Unlike many other sites, FontFace does not exist to be a massive archive of every font available.
• Fontasy
  German website with fonts. Order alphabetical at bottom of the page.
• TypeNow
  Big collection of famous fonts from bands, tv programs, games etc.
• PsyOps
  A couple of fonts
• ShowFont
  Big collection of fonts. Heavy pageload because of the thumbnails on the left.
• Fontz
  Nice website. Ordering by name or category.

Photoshop Brushes

One of my favorite tools in Photoshop has to be the brush tool. Download brushes from the following sites to make your artwork look better.
To install, place the downloaded ABR-file in the correct Presets folder of Photoshop. With default install-settings, this folder can be found in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop\Presets\Brushes.

• VBrush
  Old site with Photoshop 7 brushes. Still worth mentioning.
• Appendixsquared
  Website with a couple of brushes. Brushes will work on Photoshop CS2 or higher.
• Brusheezy Personal Favorite
  Great website with a huge amount of brushes. Easy browsing and nice previews.
• In Obscuro
  Another site with Photoshop 7 brushes. Still has some nice brushes in the collection.
• DaviantART Personal Favorite
  Great website with a huge amount of brushes, created and submitted by other designers. All kinds of styles.

Photoshop Textures

If you want a little bit more depth or relief in your images, than textures can help you out. Take note that Textures can also be images which you must add to your photoshop file, instead of it being a plug-in.

• TextureWarehouse
  Free, High Resolution Textures to Designers and 3D Artist. Textures are updated frequently.
• Amazing Textures
  Texture library, with hundreds of free textures to download, high-resolution textures, images, backgrounds, wallpapers and texture maps.
• TextureKing Personal Favorite
  Great website containing loads of high resolution textures. Browsing in categories.
• In Texture
  Here you will find a free texture to suit every need, with a wide range of surface, mapping, bump mapping and skinning illustrations to name but a few.
• Mayang
  Texture library has over 3400 free to download, free to use, high-resolution textures.
• Texture Archive
  Nice website with good patterns. Nice previews available.
• Image*After
  Next to a great stock-photo archive, this website also has a nice amount of texture images.
• AppendixSquared
  Small website where you can download a couple of texture packs.
• Grunge Textures
  Growing collection of quality images ready for you to download. All of our images are high resolution JPG’s.
• DaviantART
  Great website with a huge amount of textures, created and submitted by other designers. All kinds of styles.

Patterns

Patterns can be used to give a nice pattern on an image. Make sure you use them wisely; They can make your artwork beautiful.

• Brusheezy
  Next to their archive of brushes, this website also lists nice patterns.
• DaviantART
  Great website with a huge amount of patterns, created and submitted by other designers. All kinds of styles.

Not much more over here since I don’t use patterns much, but you can create patterns yourself.

Photoshop Plug-ins

Plug-ins can change the way that Photoshop works for you. Filters, automated actions etc. can make life a little bit easier. Make sure you install the plug-in in the right directory.

• About Personal Favorite
  This website contains a lot of plug-ins. You just have to check it out youselve.
• Free Photoshop
  Pretty old website (2003), listing plug-ins for Photoshop.
• Adobe Photoshop Exchange Personal Favorite
  Official exchange website from Adobe for Photoshop. Registration required.
• Angelfire Filterz
  Another old website containing a couple of Photoshop filters. No previews.
• Photo-plugins
  Nice website listing many photoshop plugins. Previews available.
• RedField Plugins
  This site contains a couple of plugins. Some are really nice to use. Previews available.
• The Plugin Site
  Small collection of very effective plugins can be found here.
• Telegraphics
  Another small collection of plugins. Type of plugin can be different.

Free Stock Photos

Stock Photo sites contain a lot of high resolution pictures by people around the world. You can use them in your artwork, but some pictures are copyrighted or CC‘d.

• MorgueFile
  A place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.
• Image*After
  Image*After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.
• Stock.xchng Personal Favorite
  Whether you just want to browse our huge image gallery or want to share your personal photos with others, this is the site for you. Registration needed.
• PhotoGen
  The Photogen free stock photo gallery is constantly being updated with new photos and images.
• Flickr Creative Commons Personal Favorite
  One of the great Web 2.0 website with a huge amount of high resolution photos taken by users all over the globe.
• Stockvault
  Nice looking website containing lots of stock photos. Browsing by category, newest and popular.
• FreePhotosBank
  Medium size website with a couple of very nice stock photos.
• DesignPacks
  Small website where you can download category type photos in one archive.
• Free Pixels
  Another nice website with stock photos. Browsing like forum-style category types.
• Every Stock Photo
  Website collecting all kinds of stock photos around the net.

There are a lot of stock-photo websites out there, but I found these worth mentioning.

Photoshop Tutorial sites

The best way to learn Photoshop is following tutorials to learn from others. Improve your skills by doing new tutorials each time.

• PSLover
  Big archive containing listing many tutorials from other websites.
• Good-Tutorials Personal Favorite
  Great website containing many links to photoshop tutorials.
• Tutorial Outpost
  Another big archive listing many photoshop tutorials.
• Photoshop 101
  Small website with links to photoshop tutorials. Updated weekly.
• Lombergar Personal Favorite
  This site has a couple of self-made video tutorials for Photoshop. Watch and learn.
• Effectica
  Nice forum with a good photoshop tutorial community.
• Photoshop Lab
  Website with good Photoshop tutorials. Has great explanations.
• Photoshop Cafe
  Small website with tutorials. Categories: FX, Text, Photo, Texture, Web and Misc.
• Marcofolio Personal Favorite
  Also on this site are a couple of nice tutorials listed.
• Team Photoshop
  Nice teamwebsite with a couple of Photoshop tutorials.
• Total Tutorials
  Huge website collecting all different kinds of tutorials on the web.
• Fresh Tutorials
  Another website containing lists of tutorials submitted by other websites.
• EZPhotoshop
  Great website with new tutorials, so keep a close watch on this one. Pretty darn slow website though.

Inspiring sites

To get a little design-spark, let yourself be inspired by the following sites.

• Smashing Magazine
  Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information for web-designers and web-developers. Especially take a look at this post.
• Worth1000
  Don’t let the design of the website fool you. It has photoshop contests with real nice entries.
• Web Designer Wall Personal Favorite
  Web Designer Wall is created by the same person who made N.Design Studio. This site serves as a public blog where design ideas are posted, tutorials, and talk about modern web design trends. Also take your time to read Photoshop Secret Shortcuts.
• Go Media Personal Favorite
  Absolute must see website. Don’t forget to check out the Go Mediazine, the blog from Go Media.
• deviantART
  The largest art community of the world. Get inspired by looking at what other people made. Huge collection and different kinds of art.
• Deziner Folio
  Great blog about all kinds of designing stuff.
• The Best Designs
  The Best Designs recognizes the best Flash and CSS web sites from around the world.
• Tutorial Blog
  Another blog containing design articles from around the world.
• Brand Nu
  Take a quick look at the work of artist Radim Malinic to get some nice new ideas.
• Veerle’s Blog
  Great blog with nice articles about design from a co-designer living in Belgium. Absolute worth looking.
• CGTalk
  Forum with different kinds of artists, both 2d and 3d. Some of those artists are real professionals.
• Marcofolio Personal Favorite
  Yes, this site can give you some creativity sparks too. With posts like this I’m sure you’ll get a whole lot of nice new ideas on what to design.

Do you know the meaning of HTML?

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Fun
• Date: Sep 13,2007

AdSense Referrals

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Adsense, Diverse, Personal
• Date: Sep 13,2007

Am tot primit de la prieteni întrebări de genul “Care-i treaba cu AdSense Referrals ?”.

Răspunsul este acesta:

Atunci când un editor care s-a înscris pentru Google AdSense prin trimiterea dvs. câştigă $ 5,00 în primele 180 de zile de la înscriere, veţi fi creditat(ă) cu $ 5,00.

Când acelaşi editor câştigă $ 100,00 în primele 180 de zile de la înscriere şi este eligibil(ă) pentru plată, veţi fi creditat(ă) cu încă $ 250,00.

Dacă, oricând în această perioadă de 180 de zile, trimiteţi 25 de editori care câştigă fiecare mai mult de $ 100,00 şi sunt toţi eligibili pentru plată, veţi fi recompensat(ă) cu un bonus de $ 2.000,00.

Sună bine nu ? :)

Păcat că nu e chiar aşa de frumos pe cum sună … Spun asta pentru că eu de exemplu am 73 de referali din care doar 12 au ajuns la suma de 5 dolari …

De ce ? Pentru ca referalii mei se pare că sunt cam puturoşi …

Ori se aşteptau să se îmbogăţească peste noapte din Google AdSense, ori au văzut că câştiguriile sunt cam mici la început şi s-au lăsat de treabă, ori nu ştiu şi nu vor nici să înveţe cum şi cu ce se mănâncă monetizarea blogurilor sau a siturilor …

Poze SIAB 2007, fetele de la SIAB 2007

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Auto-moto
• Date: Sep 12,2007

Daca nu ati fost inca la SIAB 2007, iata cateva poze cu (foto)modelele de la cel mai mare targ de masini din Romania.

Puteti vedea numeroase fotografii cu fetele de la SIAB in aceste linkuri:

• Poze fete SIAB 2007

• Fete SIAB 2007

• Poze SIAB.

Top 10 Banned Books In America

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Diverse
• Date: Sep 10,2007

It seems the religious right are still stamping their feet, But this time they aren’t telling us what we can do or say, They are telling us what we can read.

Here is a list of the ten most banned books in America (By most banned we mean banned in most states). Thanks to the American Library Association who compile this list for giving us an insight in to what really pisses the religious off.

“And Tango Makes Three” – for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group;

“Gossip Girls” – for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;

“Alice” – for sexual content and offensive language;

“The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things” – for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

“The Bluest Eye” – for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

“Scary Stories” – for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;

“Athletic Shorts” – for homosexuality and offensive language;

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” – for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

“Beloved” – for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group;

“The Chocolate War” – for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.

They sure don’t like homosexuality those Christians. Makes one wonder why their god would have created them in the first place.

If i had my way the christian bible would be on this list for genocide, infanticide, murder, incest, Telling people to “rip open pregnant women” and various other horrific acts.

If you can get your hands on any of these book do society a favour. Buy a few copies and leave them in place of the bible in various Churches.

Quotes about Software Bugs

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Diverse
• Date: Sep 10,2007

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones. (“Dr Who”)

One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching. (Steve Jobs)

The service life of a cobbled up fix is inversely proportional to the time required to slap it together. (Nick Lappos)

A crash is when your competitor’s program dies. When your program dies, it is an idiosyncrasy. Frequently, crashes are followed with a message like ID 02. ID is an abbreviation for idiosyncrasy and the number that follows indicates how many more months of testing the product should have had. (Guy Kawasaki)

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you’re as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it? (Brian Kernighan)

When you say: “I wrote a program that crashed Windows”, people just stare at you blankly and say: “Hey, I got those with the system — for free.” (Linus Torvalds)

In some cases, all it requires is that you rationally point out that there is a problem. In others, all you can do is turn the other cheek. At the far end of the spectrum are those for whom the only appropriate response is to carve out their still-beating heart and force them to eat it. (Marc Carlson)

The wages of sin is debugging. (Ron Jeffries)

Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn’t work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything. (Karl Lehenbauer)

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You’d be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men. (Isaac Asimov)

Every program starts off with bugs. Many programs end up with bugs as well. There are two corollaries to this: first, you must test all your programs straight away. And second, there’s no point in losing your temper every time they don’t work. (Z80 Users Manual)

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. (Samuel Beckett)

There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed. (Bill Gates)

The honest truth is that having a lot of people staring at the code does not find the really nasty bugs. The really nasty bugs are found by a couple of really smart people who just kill themselves. (Bill Joy)

We didn’t have to replicate the problem. We understood it. (Linus Torvalds)

It’s harder than you might think to squander millions of dollars, but a flawed software development process is a tool well suited to the job. (Alan Cooper)

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. (Donald Knuth)

It has been discovered that C++ provides a remarkable facility for concealing the trival details of a program — such as where its bugs are. (David Keppel)

There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers. (Steven Levy)

Act in haste and repent at leisure: Code too soon and debug forever. (Raymond Kennington)

Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you’ll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. (Benedikt Heinen)

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything. (Theodore Roosevelt)

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. (Henry Ford)

In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man. (Kong Fu Zi aka Confucius)

The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning. (Stephen Jay Gould)

People get annoyed when you try to debug them. (Larry Wall )

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong. (Richard Feynman)

The sum of the bugginess in a system can be far greater than the bugs in the individual products that comprise it, and often exponentially. (Chad Dickerson)

The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bästards. (Alexander Jablokov)

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley. (Robbie Burns)

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. (Thomas Edison)

About 90 percent of the downtime comes from, at most, 10 percent of the defects. (Barry Boehm)

Of all my programming bugs, 80% are syntax errors. Of the remaining 20%, 80% are trivial logical errors. Of the remaining 4%, 80% are pointer errors. And the remaining 0.8% are hard. (Marc Donner)

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair. (Douglas Adams)

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out. (Samuel T Coleridge)

If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

I am one of the culprits who created the problem. I used to write those programs back in the ’60s and ’70s, and was so proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space by not having to put ’19′ before the year. (Alan Greenspan)

Every big computing disaster has come from taking too many ideas and putting them in one place. (Gordon Bell)

Product quality has almost nothing to do with defects or their lack. (Tom DeMarco)

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. (Leo Tolstoy)

One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected. (Norman Augustine)

When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code. (Richard Pattis)

It’s not the prevention of bugs but the recovery — the ability to gracefully exterminate them — that counts. (Victoria Livschitz)

In a software project team of 10, there are probably 3 people who produce enough defects to make them net negative producers. (Gordon Schulmeyer)

When trouble is solved before it forms, who calls that clever? (Sun Tzu)

I never guess. It is a shocking habit — destructive to the logical faculty. (“Sherlock Holmes”)

Sometimes it pays to stay in bed in Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday’s code. (Dan Salomon)

The gods too are fond of a joke. (Aristotle)

The 10 Freakiest Animals on the Planet [PICS]

• Author: mafi^hotz
• Filed under: Diverse
• Date: Sep 9,2007

Here are ten real animals we hope you never have to encounter in person:

the aye-aye

the blobfish

the yeti crab

the star-nosedmole

the axolotl

the pygmymarmoset

the tarsier

the saki monkey

the hagfish

thesucker-footed bat