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Taking a picture of a pretty girl and giving it the wow factor with some clever details is one of the most popular uses for Photoshop. Rob Shields shows how to execute the style with real flair, applying digital painting techniques, compositing and layer masks to stunning effect.
On the surface, they’re the ultimate in cheese. But for designers, creating a realistic, peeling sticker effect should be stock in trade.
Learn the hidden secrets of the gradient tool within Adobe Illustrator; particularly how to use it to create effective and complimentary colour schemes.
Discover how the artistic handling of light and texture when combined with layers in Photoshop can bring art to life.
Give your footage a fresh perspective with mini-planet techniques
Nik Ainley talks you through some of the secrets of Photoshop CS5’s incredible new extrusion tool
It’s easy to associate vectors with flat shapes – but creating Illustrator images with real depth needn’t be a headache. In this tutorial, Thomas Burden shows how you can create striking, vibrant work in Illustrator using a simple colour palette and basic blur effects – particularly Illustrator’s built-in Gaussian Blur effects.
Put your masking and colouring talents to the test creating this sumptuous image with Radim Malinic
French illustrator Olivier Blanc takes a bitmap scanned sketch to a vector artwork in Illustrator.
In this tutorial, Imakethings (known to his mum as Andrew Groves) shows you how to make a repeat pattern based on map-like imagery. He uses simple shapes and icons to illustrate geographical features from a bird’s-eye point of view similar to those used in OS maps.
Tim Burton’s retelling of Alice in Wonderland is full of dreamlike, grotesquely distorted characters. In this tutorial, Fabio Sasso shows you how to hone your use of the Liquify filter to make an image inspired by the film’s sinister Cheshire Cat.
Professional digital matte painter Sarel Theron shows you how to create an epic, Hollywood-style scene.
After Effects ships with a couple of basic audio effects that create motion graphics based on the audio levels of an imported file. These work fairly well for the standard application of hi-fi levels, but don’t offer much in the way of customisable options, beyond the range of frequencies and colours displayed within the effect.
Fabio Sasso uses custom brushes and layers to create an explosive scene in Photoshop.
In this tutorial, character art guru Paul Shih shows how to create a detailed black-and-white artwork – using Flash. Shih says: “I personally find Flash’s drawing system work best for the style we are making. It’s fun and easy.”
Pomme Chan shows how to take your first steps in letter-based illustration using Photoshop and Illustrator.
Artist Scott Rhodes reckons that it is layers – not filters – that can create a perfect mix between illustration and digital collage.
Illustrator's Gradient Mesh is a grid-based painting technique that enables advanced colouring of vector objects with smooth and malleable colour transitions.
Neil Duerden shows how to jazz up straightforward model shots with help from stock photography, Photoshop and Illustrator.
Cut-&-paste creativity has always had a bad press – but digital artist Mike Harrison shows that it can be used to generate inspirational surreal images.
