Many people can use Photoshop, but only a select few can call themselves gurus. Learn all the methods in the 20 tutorials below and you’ll be well on your way to joining this elite. Rather than focus on tuts for beginners, intermediates or advanced users, we’ve simply chosen ones which produce jaw-dropping effects. All of them are easy to follow, although most do require at least some prior knowledge and experience. From 3D pixel stretching to vintage colorizing, photo manipulation, age progression and portraiture, we’ve covered all the bases- so get educated and greatly improve your skills!

1. Colorful Plexi Text Effect

Follow this tutorial to create dazzling, multi-layered, semi-transparent lettering, with a Perspex-like quality. No files are needed- simply follow the instructions.

2. 3D Pixel Stretch Effect

File this tutorial under “simple but effective”. Stretching a line of pixels produces a tried-and-tested impressive visual effect, but this tutorial takes things one step further, introducing an exciting 3D element.

3. Photo Manipulation of a Flooded City Scene

Turn a simple cityscape into a torrentially flooded wasteland. The 15 steps are very well explained and the end product is nothing short of spectacular.

4. Light and Glow Effect

Become the master of light and glow on Photoshop with this brief, easy-to-follow guide. There are several different effects to learn, each one more rewarding than the last.

5. Master 3D Type Effects

Use masking tools, layers, gradients and lines to turn your favorite piece of 3D text into something more colorful and commercial.

6. Powerful Mental Wave Explosion

Mental waves do not exist, but if they did they’d look rather like this. Use filters and images to create an image fit for an X-Men movie.

7. Realistic Water Reflection

This tutorial is so versatile. Once you’ve mastered the methods it teaches you’ll be able to employ them in any number of different projects. A filter and displacement map is used to create the ripples.

8. Age Progression

Turning a young person old is one of the most fun things you can do with Photoshop, but more often than not you’ll simply end up with a saggier version of the original image. Follow the 16 steps in this tutorial for thoroughly professional results.

9. Watercolor Effect Menu

This is mainly one for the web designers, but the watercolor-like techniques can be used for various purposes. The end product is attractive, cool and in demand right now.

10. High Impact Gig Poster

Chances are if you’re a young graphic designer, friends will constantly bug you to do work for them. Designing a gig poster (or flyer) is often high on their list of demands, so you might as well know how to do it properly!

11. Draw a Portrait

Portraits occupy the more advanced end of the Photoshop learning spectrum. Creating a bad one is pretty easy, but producing a good one is rather trickier. This tutorial guides you through the basic process. There are valuable lessons to be learnt.

12. Graffiti

Spraying graffiti on walls is illegal, but not if you do it on Photoshop. With so many tutorials showing you how to produce the “whackest” graffiti effects possible, it’s refreshing to find one which produces authentic results.

13. A Slow Motion Bullet Effect

With 47 steps, this isn’t the easiest tutorial to master, but it’s certainly one of the best. So long as you know how to select an area with the pen tool and you’ve used the liquefier a couple of times, you shouldn’t have any problems.

14. Abstract Watercolor

Layer masking is the best way to get a watercolor effect in Photoshop. You’ll learn the technique properly in this excellent tut, transforming a photograph into an abstract watercolor.

15. Glass Ball

Creating a glass ball in Photoshop is a great way to impress. It looks as though it would be really hard, but in fact it’s relatively straightforward for intermediate and advances users.

16. Vintage Photograph

This tutorial was written a long time ago, but it’s as useful today as it was 7 years ago. Colorizing is a very time-consuming process, but the results can be stunning, provided your source image is up to scratch.

17. Star and Meteor Impact

Intermediate Photoshop users should find making this intergalactic explosion lots of fun. The “soil texture” is used for a realistic, extraterrestrial planetary ground surface.

18. Mold Paint Splatter to a Face

Splatting paint onto somebody’s face is very satisfying, but you’re more than likely to get a punch from the splat recipient unless you do it on Photoshop! You’ll find this paint splatter effect popping up in all kinds of ads.

19. Watercolor Effect

You’ll be amazed by what you can achieve in just 10 simple steps. Use masks and watercolor brushes to produce a thoroughly eye-catching image.

20. 3D Text Photo Manipulation

Follow this tutorial to learn how to superimpose a 3D object of any kind into natural surroundings. You don’t have to use 3D text, but it looks brilliant if you do.

Digital illustration has been one of the most rapidly evolving art forms of recent years, as technology and software improves, and as artists push boundaries and realise the capabilities of computer-based image creation. This post presents a showcase of 20 beautiful examples of digital illustration from around the world to amaze and inspire.

1. Residential (Park) [Thomas E. Pringle]

There’s a touch of Gothic menace in the work of Danish artist Thomas E. Pringle. His material features dimly lit urban architecture, towering fortresses and decaying harbours, with rare glimpses of human habitation. This image shows a park area from Pringle’s Dark Sector concept series.

2. Less Trees Near Water [David Hockney]

David Hockney is one of Britain’s most important contemporary artists, and has always embraced new technology in addition to traditional mark-making techniques. Now in his seventies, he continues to be a pioneer, creating spectacular digital paintings and drawings, including many made using iPhone apps.

3. Untitled [Steve McGhee]

Ontario artist Steve McGhee creates epic illustrations of catastrophic man-made and natural disasters and their aftermath, such as this piece showing tourists visiting the remains of the Statue of Liberty.

4. Warning! Giant Quail of Death [Jake Souva]

This charming illustration is the work of Jake Souva, an artist who’s material lies somewhere between the fantastic and the absurd. Souva spends a long time hand sketching his designs and then digitally shaping and texturing the image in Photoshop, with beautiful results.

5. Yamantaka [Chris Parks]

Chris Parks works under the name of Pale Horse, creating richly coloured graphics, often representing ancient gods and monsters in a cool contemporary style. This image shows Yamantaka, a wrathful deity from the Buddhist tradition whose name translates as ‘the terminator of death‘.

6. Frozen Throne [Jeff Huang]

New York-based artist Jeff Huang specialises in digital illustration and three-dimensional modelling along with animation and time-based media. His work is futuristic and often verges into near-abstraction.

7. Gas Mask [Meats Meier]

Meats Meier is an award-winning digital artist and animator famed for his images of robots and future technologies. He has helped develop digital illustration as an art form and his work on films includes Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Hellboy.

8. J3Concepts [Jared Nickerson]

Jared Nickerson is a Vancouver-based artist with a bulging portfolio of brilliant digital illustration, including many commercial commissions and impressive personal explorations.

9. Dichotomy [David Waters]

David Water’s digital output spans a range of styles, adapting to client briefs and experimenting with different visual techniques.

10. Waterfall Castle [Frederic St-Arnaud]

Frederic St-Arnaud’s beautifully rendered architecture and landscape concept illustration is principally inspired [Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.]

11. Portrait of Nathalie [Erik Jonsson]

Digital illustration needn’t look overtly digital and often works best when involving elements of traditional drawing and painting techniques. Erik Jonsson employs brush strokes and splashes of colour to construct this great piece of portraiture.

12. The Mad Doctor [Mathieu Beaulieu]

Artist Mathieu Beaulieu made this image of a mad doctor in his secret laboratory using Flash and Photoshop.

13. La Rochelle [Radojavor]

This astonishing piece of digital art was created with European maritime oil paintings of the 18th Century in mind, and also aimed for historical accuracy. It’s an early morning in the year 1715, and the mighty ship Le Louis Quinze is seen in the French harbour La Rochelle, a remarkably atmospheric image.

14. Osvaldo Gonzalez

Osvaldo Gonzalez is a self-taught digital artist from Argentina who creates melancholy, dream-like illustrations, reminiscent of painting [the surrealists Salvador Dali and Odilon Redon.]

15. Shaddock Poster [123Klan]

123Klan is a French graffiti crew based in Montréal, Canada, who have created graphic and apparel designs for clients including Nike, Adidas, Lamborghini, Coca Cola, Stussy and Sony.

16. Tank Theory [Joshua M. Smith]

Joshua M. Smith works in Orlando under the name of Hydro74, producing masses of graphics, apparel design, fonts and sublime digital illustration.

17. Vue sur la Ville [Mark Verhaagen]

Dutch digital illustrator Mark Verhaagen produces sublime pictures of treehouses, flowers, spaceships and fantasy landscapes full of nostalgic childhood imagery and cute characters.

18. Dead End [Sebastien Feraut]

Sebastien Feraut, aka Niark1, creates eye-popping psychedelic illustrations populated with crazy robots, hybrid creatures and toy-town transport.

19. Project Barbra [George Patsouras]

Artist George Patsouras specialises in portraiture, ranging from celebrity caricatures to delicately rendered faces such as this image, Project Barbra.

20. RX [Katie Owens]

Katie Owens used a combination of hand drawing, scanning and digital work on this vibrant composition, making the most of traditional illustrative methods and computer-based image making.

Tumblr is increasingly growing in popularity, and as it does so too does the number of designers creating and sharing cool new tumblr themes. This post brings together 20 examples of the best themes available, perfect examples of the class and style that can be brought to a Tumblr account. Many of the themes below come ready-made to be both visually beautiful and totally functional, but can also be customised to meet users’ requirements and taste.

1. Nigredo

Nigredo is a simply stylish theme designed by Redfield. White text on a black background with a left-aligned sidebar offers an elegant blogging platform. The theme is customisable, with the option of switching to black text on a white ground.

2. Fluid

Fluid is currently one of the most popular Tumblr themes around. It’s easy to see why it has so much appeal, with the sparkling soft focus light touches, nice coloration and great use of transparency achieving just the right contrast between text and background.

3. Mac Envy

Mac Envy takes its design inspiration straight from the iPhone interface, a perfect Tumblr theme for Mac fanatics.

4. Vertigo

Saul Bass was one of the most important American graphic designers of the 20th Century, famed for his work on film titles and movie posters. This theme is based around the stunning title sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with typography and graphical touches inspired by Bass’s iconic animation work.

5. Terminal Flashback

This theme employs the cool retro chic of late 1980s and early 1990s computer terminal interfaces, with single-column acid green text on a black background.

6. Futura

This theme focuses on Paul Renner’s Futura typeface; the crisp design has a modern, airy aesthetic.

7. Munich

The Munich theme is reminiscent of the German Modernist design of the early 20th Century, with attractively balanced typography, composition, and colour scheme against a dark page.

8. Penguin Classics Recycled

In 1935, publisher Allen Lane was at Exeter railway station with nothing to read during his journey to London. The collection of paperbacks the station shop had on offer proved such a severe disappointment that Lane resolved to start his own series of quality titles with distinctive covers, and Penguin Books was born. This theme is styled on the classic paperback books, adhering to Lanes mantra that ‘good design is no more expensive than bad‘.

9. Strict

Strict is a light minimalist theme with clean typographical design.

10. Paper Walls

This theme has a refined vintage feel with subtly striped background, torn paper page layout and ink drawing detailing creating an old-fashioned intimacy.

11. Dark Lights

This is a dark theme with great use of light grey text on a muted background, the typography offering a cool contemporary aesthetic.

12. Transparent Theme

A sense of depth, blurred dark colours and measured use of transparency make this a particularly good-looking theme.

13. I Am Sofa King

I Am Sofa King has very strongly designed layout with content laid out in a single column. The default setting is simple but effective with white text, black boxes and white background, but the colours are customisable, as is the coding.

14. Ultralite

Sharp minimalist typographical design makes Ultralite a perfect theme for personal text and photo blogs.

15. Esquire Theme

This theme is styled around the design and art direction of the US edition of Esquire magazine.

16. iBlack

iBlack is a sleek theme taking its inspiration directly from Apple’s characteristic branding and applications.

17. Cheerful Girl!!

Cheerful Girl!! Is a crisp theme with a refreshingly juicy pink and white colour scheme.

18. PhotoBoard

PhotoBoard is a theme that offers a beautiful way of presenting photographs. The images can be arranged with two or four per row, and the design creates the effect of pictures attached to a cork pin board. The images’ information is revealed with mouse rollovers.

19. Helvetica

This is another theme designed around a classic font, in this case Helvetica, the beautiful typeface created by Swiss designer Max Miedinger in 1957. It’s a nice and bright design with the focus on readability and accessibility.

20. Adaptation

This theme has a strikingly bold design with great text layout in black and white, against a truly eye-catching deep red background. Adaptation is a great choice for users who want a bright, modernist blogging platform that oozes confidence and style.

Making the decision to leave the office and work from home is a lifestyle choice more and more people are making today. No matter what line of work you are in, it’s essential that you arrange your working environment to maximize motivation and productivity. Whatever your budget or space restrictions, there are many simple and effective methods for establishing a stimulating and rewarding workspace.

1. Separate Work and Domestic Life

Image Source: Yasuhiko Ito

When working at home its important to separate your domestic life from your work, by creating both mental and physical boundaries. Working on a laptop sat at the kitchen table or even in bed may seem like attractive scenarios, but the best way to create a motivating and productive environment is to have a dedicated workspace. Ideally this will be a separate room in the home converted into a study or studio. In houses with less space, set aside an area of another room, the sitting room for instance, and create a space assigned specifically for work.

2. Ergonomically Arrange Your Workspace

Image Source: jnyemb

It’s the place where you’re going to spend a considerable amount of time, so it’s essential that your desk and chair are comfortable and ergonomic. Make sure your monitor, keyboard, mouse or laptop are positioned at the right height and angle so that you aren’t hunched awkwardly. Give yourself ample legroom and take regular breaks to stretch your legs. An ergonomically designed office chair is a great investment, ensuring that you can concentrate on your work and avoid future back problems.

3. De-Clutter Your Workspace

Image Source: Yasuhiko Ito

A clutter-free workspace helps a clutter-free mind. Take a minimalist approach to your desk by removing unnecessary jumble and trinkets, piles of books, letters, and unwashed mugs. Untangle wires and cables and hide them away as far as possible. Keeping your space clean and tidy can promote an efficient approach to your daily work.

4. Use a Second Monitor

Image Source: thenazg

A second monitor can improve a workspace’s organization. When working on a project you sometimes find yourself with many windows open and at times it becomes confusing; it’s useful to have an extra monitor to keep related documents and websites open while your ‘main’ monitor is dedicated to real-time work.

5. Add Some Visual Stimulation

Image Source: pizzodisevo

Visual stimulation such as posters and paintings can help inspire and motivate. If possible position your desk near a window so when the eyes tire of the computer screen you can gaze at the sky and regain your thoughts.

6. Carefully Light and Colour Your Workspace

Image Source: library mistress

It is proven that the colours can greatly influence mood, so carefully create a colour scheme in your workspace to enhance productivity. The quality of light also directly modifies your mindset, so make maximum use of natural light and choose soft, warm coloured light bulbs for a pleasant ambience.

7. Use a Whiteboard and Calendar

Image Source: jasja dekker

A whiteboard, or even a good old-fashioned blackboard, is great way to jot down ideas when brainstorming, work out plans and make notes for future reference. While it’s likely you will make use of digital calendars and personal organizers, a paper calendar on the wall helps with mapping a work schedule and keeping track of deadlines.

8. Get Some Plants

Image Source: kendrak

The addition of some plants can notably improve your working environment. A little greenery is aesthetically pleasing, freshens the air, and the occasional watering and pruning proves a welcome distraction from the pressures of work.

9. Listen to Music

Image Source: jazmanaut

Background music can influence your mood so attach some speakers to your computer or install a sound system in your workspace. Choose music or radio to suit the project you are working on and heighten your creativity.

10. Add a Couch or Relaxation Space

Image Source: slworking2

It’s important to take breaks during the working day, so set up a relaxation area or couch away from the desk where you can unwind and take your mind off work for some time. Even better, get out of the house and take a walk, when you return you are sure to appreciate the inspiring and productive working environment that you have created within your home.

With more and more businesses needing an online presence, it’s no surprise to see there’s a lot of photoshop tutorials out there about creating a professional business website design layout. We have collected some of the very best 30+ professional website design tutorials mostly done in photoshop. These website design tutorials would help to improve your photoshop skills.


I hope you enjoy this post and make sure you leave a comment at the end of the post and let us know what you think. If you would like to be the first to know whats happening at Smashing Share blog, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or Email.

Create A Clean And Effective Product Layout

Design A Clean And Colorful Portfolio In Photoshop

Design A Blue Corporate Website In Photoshop

Design A Green Corporate Layout In Photoshop

Corporate Business Layout Tutorial

Create A Professional Dark Web Hosting Layout

Corporate WordPress Style Layout Tutorial

Photoshop Tutorial To Design A Clean Business Layout

Create A Business PSD Layout In Less Than 10 Minutes

Computer Store Web Layout Tutorial

Sleek And Modern Portfolio Layout Tutorial

The Art Institute Photoshop Template Tutorial

Create A Clean Business Web Template Design In Photoshop

Clean Business Layout Tutorial

Modern Web 2.0 Web Layout

Business Layout – 2

Business Layout – 3

Business Layout – 4

Web Design Layout – 9

Business Layout – 5

Design a Clean Business Layout

Professional Web Layout for Business Solutions

Create a Professional Portfolio Design in 17 Easy Steps

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

Create a Clean Modern Website Design in Photoshop

Design a Clean Corporate Website With Illustrator

How To Make A Green & Sleek Web Layout In Photoshop

Create A Clean And Colorful Web Layout In Photoshop

Make A Nice Corporate Website For A Product

Design A Premium Theme Marketplace Layout Using Photoshop

Softblue Template Tutorial

Create A Communication Layout In Photoshop

Product Sales Page Tutorial