Photoshop super awesome facts #1: open file from the web

Hi there, fellow runner with wacom tablet ) I mean, hi there, fellow designer! Could you ever imagine, that photoshop could do that? You just copy file's url in your browser, then in your photoshop press CTRL+O (open file dialog) and paste url there, then, when you click open or hit enter, magic works and photoshop opens file you never even saved )

super awesome photoshop super power here: open url from open file dialog

It's super awesome photoshop fact #1.

Alarm-clock icon and poster tutorial

Lets create face of our alarm clock, it all can be created with photoshop's vector primitives. Add your creative touch and lay elements out in another way.

Skin our clock's face panel this step is our backup if we are going to create an iphone application icon, few steps and it is created

let's now cteate template for our alarm-clock icon top panel. it might be skinned it same material as front panel, but can be not, choose your way.

add perspective and try to combine panels. also add a window for loudspeaker

Add loudspeaker in alarm-clock case

add some background and enhance our alarm clock icon by adding a trigger to the device -- it should be there to make an alarm clock out of just another clock

Add some test and fun stuff to create a poster

Icon tutorial: cute dslr camera icon and fake camera poster

Lets get some google research and find camera we like to be our source

Then we will create basic shapes and place them all over the scene around our source

Let's start composing our super new icon and place more details on the base shape

Let's add more details and start working with volume and colors

So now we can start placing more elements on our basic shape to look at contrast and materials

add more details now

And finally delete the reference image and start working with your own imagination

Add custom logo and think on various color schemes

align color variations on working scene for our new fake poster

add test note and company's identity

And here you go with final great product poster

Running shoe icon tutorial

Hi there! For today we have some sort of icon tutorial. We'll create running shoe icon and teaser image for it. And animated teaser image too! Fun stuff goes below!

At first you'll need to get general image and composition of the final product, look through tons of pics on google and find good one to be our prototype.

Let's find cool picture of running shoe in the internet

Then let's create new photoshop document to place our copy of the good pic from google

Then you should place vector objects on raster crap from google, I use contrast colors to mace picture stand out from background

Add more details, not too much, while remembering that this is an icon at last.. Feel free to shift pattern, material and color -- it's your own shoe, not new balance any more.

You may then finish all the shapes forming the shoe and delete the background level

Create pattern for the air flow perforation on the sides and top of our running shoe

Add more details and apply textures and basic shadows, think on color theme

Make sure you've added all details you wanted and convert all your layers to a smart object for a backup, duplicate them then

Try different color scheme -- if you please, add final details, if needed and look at it on background. So here you can save png files with or without background and on various backgrounds, but most of us prefer transparent background, I assume. The icon is finished, let's create teaser image, to draw user-s attention to our product.

Add some lighting and speed emotions to scene.

Now you can put some text to the final teaser image and make scene a bit lighter, more real life dirt might be added to the icon too

And finally you might want to add some animation to draw more attention.

Feel free to create your own icon now, i dont think that you need psd or png files, though if I'm wrong leave me a note in comments.