Graphics - Tech-Recipes

Graphics tutorials

Photoshop: Add Rain Effect to Photographs

contributed by Sangram Wairkar on January 3, 2012 under Graphics

Adding the appearance of rain to a photograph can really change the artistic feeling of the image. This tutorial demonstrates the steps required in Photoshop to create a rain effect.

Photoshop CS4 and CS5: Batch Resizing

contributed by Sangram Wairkar on December 22, 2011 under Graphics

You have just come from a long vacation from a beautiful tropical island. You had your digital camera with you and took some excellent photographs of landscapes. You are eager to upload them to your Facebook profile to share it with friends. However, your internet connection is awful and chokes on these huge images. How can you compress or resize all of these pictures in bulk? If you have photoshop, you are in luck.

Cinema 4D: Create Easy 3D Text in R12

contributed by Chris Luongo on September 3, 2011 under Graphics

Creating text in Cinema 4D previously was a slow process. Now with Release 12, the Mo text feature makes the text creation process incredibly simple. Here is how to use it.

Photoshop: Change Default Unit from Inches to Pixels

contributed by David Kirk on July 14, 2011 under Graphics

Like most people, I love photoshop. Pondering that fact, I now realize that it is probably the only adobe product that I can tolerate. Since I mostly work on web graphics, the first thing I do with every new installation is to change the default unit from inches to pixels.

Photoshop: Image Resize vs. Canvas Resize

contributed by Chris Luongo on July 13, 2011 under Graphics

An area of major confusion affecting Photoshop beginners is knowing the difference between resizing the canvas and resizing an image. This tech-recipe compares the two and describes how to perform each function.

What is Anti-Alias? What Settings Should I Use when Gaming?

contributed by David Kirk on April 7, 2011 under Graphics

Most modern games have the ability to change the anti-alias settings. However, lots of us have no idea what the anti-alias settings actually do. What is FSAA? Do you need 2x, 4x, 8x, or more? Learn why you may be able to safely lower this setting an increase your frame rate. End your world of aliasing artifact jagged confusion.

Photoshop: Cut Out Text to Expose Background

contributed by Aaron St. Clair on March 12, 2011 under Graphics

Text can be a valuable modifier in graphic design. Grunge text, retro text, professional fonts–you name it, there’s a text for it. Cut through your foreground layer with a text shape to reveal what’s hiding underneath on your background layer. It’s a very simple technique, yet there are endless possibilities of implementation.

Using QuickTime to Crop Letterbox or Pillarbox from Video Clips

contributed by David Kirk on April 24, 2008 under Graphics

Removing letterboxing or pillarboxing from video clips typically requires expensive video editing equipment. This tutorial (and screencast) describes how to do this with the inexpensive and ubiquitous quicktime.