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.

Phineas and Ferb is an animated television comedy series. They are also known as “Disney’s Phineas and Ferb“. This tutorial is about only Ferb where we will guide you how to draw Ferb step by step in Illustrator. It’s a very basic tutorial where beginners can also practice this easily. You can also download the source file of Ferb at the end of this tutorial. So  let’s start …

Step 1: Set Up

Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new print document in landscape mode. Mine is 500 by 800 pixels.

Step 2: Head Shape

Rename “Layer 1” to “Head” and press “M” to select the Rectangle Tool. Draw a rectangle 70 by 220 px.

Set # FCDABB as fill color, this is also the skin color of this character and # C98526 as stroke color (stroke width 2pt).

Press “A” to select the Direct Selection Tool, click on the bottom left anchor point to select it, hold down the Shift key and press the Right Arrow key on your keyboard to move it 10px to right.

Move now the bottom right anchor point about 20px to the left.

Step 3: Eyes

We have finally achieved the needed head shape. Now, let’s draw the eyes. We’ll start from the left eye. Using the Ellipse Tool (L) draw a 50 by 68 pixels ellipse. Give it a white fill and a 2pt black stroke.

To create the pupil of the eye, select “none” for the stroke and black as fill color and with you Ellipse Tool still selected draw a small ellipse inside the eye. Then change the fill color to white again and draw an even smaller ellipse for the highlight.

Make a copy of the whole eye and move it to the right. Make the right eye smaller, not as tall as the left one.

Rotate the pupils of both of the eyes clockwise just a bit.

Step 4: Nose

Press “P” to select the Pen Tool and try to draw a simple nose path as you see in the image.

Go to Effect > Stylize > Round Corners and enter 15 px value.

Hit ok, and the press “Ctrl + [” three time to send this path under the right eye paths.

Step 5: Ear and Mouth

Grab your Pen Tool once again and try to draw a small ear path on Ferb’s head. Apply the same fill/stroke colors as for the rest of the skin.

Draw one additional decorative path inside this one.

With Pen Tool still selected draw that simple mouth shape.

Step 6: Hair

Create a new layer above the “Head” and name it “Hair“. Select the Pen Tool, set #1BAD5A as fill color and #0D8744 as stroke color and draw the hair path as you see in the image. This requires some basic pen tool drawing skills.

Now draw two more open paths to add more detail to the hair.

Step 7: Shirt

For the shirt, start from an unfinished square path, and then (using Pen Tool) continue to the right sleeve.

You shouldn’t worry about that little gap, we’ll cover it later. Fill this path with #FDF5AD.

Continue and draw the right sleeve.

Use the Ellipse Tool to draw a button on the shirt, give it a white fill and a 20% gray, 2pt stroke.

The collar can be created by uniting two triangles using Pathfinder’s Unite command or using Pen Tool, which I found easier and faster to do.

Step 8: Pants

Create a new layer above the rest and name it “Pants“. Set #55348E as fill color and black as stroke color, grab your Rounded Rectangle Tool and draw a rectangle.

Use the Eraser Tool (Shift + E) to delete the top part of the rectangle. Try to keep two additional anchor points as you see in the image.

Select those anchor points and move them up and to the sides.

Select the Pen Tool again and draw a short curved leg with the same fill/stroke colors.

Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool draw a rectangle at the end of the leg.

Step 9: Legs and Shoes

Use Pen Tool to draw the visible part of the leg, apply the same settings for fill and stroke colors as the rest of the skin.

For the sole of the shoes, draw a ellipse filled with white and with a 2pt black stroke, rotate it clockwise just a little.

Make a copy of this path, make it smaller and fill with black.

Using Pen Tool with default fill, colors settings (press “D” to reset to defaults) and a 2pt stroke decorate the shoe and draw the sock.

Select the whole leg with the shoe, make a copy of it, reflect it and place it on the right side of the body.

Step 10: Hands

The fastest way to draw the hands is using the Pen Tool, this requires some skills, so give it a couple of tries. Start by drawing the outer edge of the right hand and Little finger on the “Shirt” layer.

Then, continue with the rest of the fingers and the inner part of the hand.

Just like we did with legs, make a copy of it, reflect and paste it under the left sleeve.

And the last detail, choose #7480BD as fill color, press “M” to select the Rectangle Tool and draw 4 rectangles of different width to illustrate the belt.

Final Result

Download Source File

• How To Draw Ferb (Zip, 182 KB)

Photoshop is an excellent tool for creating attractive and professional website designs. In this collection, you’ll find 60 Very Detailed Tutorials on Creating High Quality Web Layouts Using Photoshop. These website design tutorials would help you to improve your photoshop skills and techniques.

Create A Professional Web 2.0 Layout

In this Photoshop tutorial you’re going to learn how to create a web 2.0 layout, As you go through the tutorial you’ll deal with so many Photoshop techniques

Create A Kids Oriented Web Layout Using Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will be creating a simple, easy to use and colorful web design layout in Photoshop that is primarily aimed at children. The simple navigation, bright colors and limited content is something that would really appeal to the youngsters.

Design A Clean Web Layout With The 960 Grid

In this tutorial, you’ll be designing a clean website layout using the 960 Grid System. You’ll see how working with this system can streamline web development workflow, and how to work with a grid system.

How To Design A Blue Marketing Company Layout In Photoshop

Today you’ll be going through the process of designing a website for a fictitious marketing company, step-by-step.

1st Photoshop Web Design Professional Layout Tutorial

Photoshop tutorial that will show you how to create professional web layout.

Make A Dark Blog Web Design Layout With Photoshop

This tutorial will be showing you a quick and easy way to develop a simple dark-themed blog layout with the use of Photoshop.

How To Create A Clean Blue Web Layout Using Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how create a clean blue web layout in Photoshop.

How To Create A Rockin’ Website Layout In Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial you’re going to create a chocolate-looking website layout.

Create A Grungy, Translucent Web Portfolio Design

Not only have watercolor brush strokes become a popular trend in modern web design, but so have advanced layers of transparency (or what I call, translucence). The new Envato design has received a lot of kudos for using this effect, and this tutorial will show you how to create a similar effect, while combining it with other popular web trends.

Create A Wooden Grunge Portfolio Web Layout In Photoshop

In this beginner-level web design tutorial, you will learn how to construct a portfolio web layout that has a fixed wooden background with Photoshop. you’ll be also using some brushes to accent the design.

Design Grunge WordPress Theme

In this tutorial you’ll be learning how to make a nice, clean, eye catching web layout that anyone could make. Really, it’s quite easy, and I hope you learn new things from it.

How To Design A Portfolio Site In Photoshop, Plus Free WordPress Theme

This post will take you step-by-step through the process of designing the front page of Modest Folio WordPress portfolio theme in Photoshop in case you would like to see how it was done.

Web Design Layout #14

You’ll be learning how to create a sleek web design company style web template.

Create A Bright And Sleek Web Design In Photoshop

In this web design tutorial you will create a clean, professional, and modern web layout in Photoshop using the 960 Grid System as your layout guide.

Design A Dark Business Layout

In this tutorial you will use only a few colors to create a dark business layout.With small modifications this layout can be used also as a wordpress blog.

Design A Bold And Vibrant Portfolio

Learn how to design a bold and vibrant portfolio website, using a combination of lighting techniques and blending options.

How To Make A Highly-Textured Site Layout In Photoshop

In this tutorial, you’ll create a textured site layout by layering multiple images. Creating highly-textured web design layouts is easier than you may think. You can learn to build image intensive designs rapidly.

Create A Clean And Professional Web Design In Photoshop

In this Photoshop web design tutorial you are going to design a smashing, clean, and professional website layout in Photoshop. The layout you are doing in this tutorial can be used as personal or corporate website design.

Graphic Design Studio Web Layout

Learn how to create an effective and contemporary web layout for your design studio.

Design An Ecommerce Website In Photoshop

You are going to design the homepage layout for an ecommerce site in this Photoshop tutorial.

Create A Webdesign Company Layout In Photoshop

How to create a modern looking Photoshop design for your web design company.

Create A Clean And Classy Web Design In Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you will learn how to create an elegant and professional web layout that can be used as a web portfolio site.

How To Create A Web Hosting Layout

How to create another eye catching hosting layout. In this tutorial you will use only 2-3 colors, with small variations, and you can use this layout for any internet business you have.

Design A Sleek Bokeh Styled Portfolio

Learn how to create and integrate the popular bokeh effect into a sleek, professional website design.

Create A Watercolor-Themed Website Design With Photoshop

You will learn how to use the Art History Brush and combine it with watercolor custom brushes to create a nice background header image and more.

Create A Slick And Minimalist Web Layout In Photoshop

In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’re going to learn how to create a slick and minimal-looking website layout. You will use the 960 Grid System as a template to make it easy to align the design elements on the layout.

Modern And Colorful Web Layout

This tutorial will show you how to create a trendy portfolio layout.

Design An Attractive One-Page Portfolio Using Photoshop

You will be designing a one-page portfolio in Photoshop. You’ll go through the process step-by-step and you can download the PSD file from Folio Focus if you would like to use it.

How To Make A Vibrant Portfolio Web Design In Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you will create a beautiful and colorful portfolio layout using Photoshop.

Create A Business Web Template

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a nice looking layout for a business.

Design A Sleek Textured Blue Portfolio

Learn how to design a sleek and textured portfolio web design from scratch, including guide techniques, sketching/drawing tips and content placement.

How To Make A Creative Blog Layout

In this tutorial, you’ll make a creative blog layout using mostly simple shapes, a few brush techniques, some images, and a dose of Photoshop ingenuity.

Create A Winter Theme Web Design In Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you will learn how to create a winter blog layout in Photoshop. You will use a photo of a forest for the background and then blur areas of that photo to create other elements like the logo and the navigation bar.

Design An Online Template Shop Layout Using Photoshop

You will be designing a homepage layout for a premium template or theme seller. The design uses a dark color scheme and some textures.

Learn How To Create A Clean Layout In Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial you’ll learn how to create a clean looking website layout, you’ll also be using 960s grid system to keep everything aligned.

Design A Clean Business Layout

This tutorial will teach you how to create a clean portfolio layout, or business layout.

Create A Gnarly Snowboarding Themed Web Design

Get your Photoshop shred on and follow this step by step overview of building a snowboarding themed website layout. The design you’ll be creating takes inspiration from the typical style of the snowboarding culture, with grungy textures and distressed brush marks adding detail to the design.

How To Create A Unique Colorful Site Layout

This tutorial will guide you through the process of designing a professional website with a funky colorful flair. The tutorial features some great colors, effects and layer styles in which you can use over and over for future projects.

How To Design A Band Website Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you’ll learn step-by-step how to design an awesome band website that any rock and roller would be proud to call their own.

How To Create A Software Web Layout

You will create a new dark website layout, where you can sell your software.

Portfolio Layout Created With Jeans Texture

If you want to create an eye catching portfolio , then you need to use a different style. If your portfolio will be unique, then you might be hired more than other designers. In this tutorial you will learn how to create a portfolio layout based on a jeans seamless texture.

Create A Magic Night Themed Web Design From Scratch In Photoshop

How to design an artistic web design depicting a “Magic Night” concept using Photoshop.

Design A Minimal And Modern Portfolio Layout With Photoshop

In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’re going to create a mock-up of a clean and modern-looking website.

Create A Hosting Layout In Adobe Photoshop

This layout can be used for any internet business you have: an ISP provider, a domain registrar, or even a intranet website. You will learn how to design a layout for a hosting company.

Create A Simple Yet Attractive Web Layout

You will learn how easy is to create a dark layout for your business in just a few steps.

Create A Clean Business Web Template Design In Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you’ll see a method for creating a professional web design mockup that’s perfect for a modern business or e-commerce website.

Design An Elegant Rustic Layout For Hotels Or Restaurants

How to create a layout for a hotel. This layout will work also if you have site related to the hotel industry: bed and breakfast, motels, and it will work very good for restaurants, cafes, pizzerias , bars, wineries layouts, etc.

Create A Simple Layout For Architecture Or Real Estate

How to create a simple layout for architecture business.

Create A Very Simple Portfolio Web Layout With Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you will be creating a minimalist, dark-themed web layout that’s perfect for a portfolio site.

How To Make An Impressive Blog Layout In Photoshop

In this easy to follow web design tutorial, you will learn how to construct a beautiful, sleek, and professional-level weblog design using Adobe Photoshop that you can later use for your very own blog theme.

Design A Light WordPress Theme In Photoshop

How to create a new wordpress theme with a web 2.0 look.

How To Make A Light And Sleek Web Layout in Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you’ll create a light and sleek layout in Photoshop. You will use the 960 Grid System, and if you haven’t used it before, no problem, this tutorial will show you how it works and how it can help you design better layouts.

Create A Clean Elegant WordPress Theme

In this tutorial you will learn a very simple way to create great looking layouts. Even if you use simple techniques you can create a wonderful wordpress themes.

Create A Web Layout With 3D Elements Using Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you will discover a way to create a sleek and professional web page layout that incorporates the 3D Ribbon design trend, as well as some other captivating 3D elements, using Photoshop.

Create A Dark Portfolio Layout Or A CSS Design Showcase Layout

This tutorial will show you how to create a dark portfolio layout.

How To Create A Clean Blog Design With Photoshop

In this step-by-step web design layout tutorial, you will discover a method for designing a clean blog design with stunning gradient and lighting effects using Adobe Photoshop. This tutorial is geared for beginner to intermediate Photoshop users.

Mobile App Layout

Learn how to create a dark theme mobile app web layout.

Create A Theme Store Website Layout In Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple and beautiful theme store layout in Photoshop.

Software Layout #6

In this tutorial you’ll be reading how to create a simplistic product layout with a green theme.

Design A Modern Portfolio Web Layout In Photoshop

You’ll be walking through the creation of a contemporary web page layout that’s perfect for a personal or agency portfolio site.

The Pareto Principle has been applied to so many areas and industries with a big success. I would like to show you how you can apply this rule into your design work.

We can apply the Pareto Principle in design the following way. 80% of all design work can be produced with only 20% of the Photoshops functionality. I will show you on a real example as to how you can produce professional, realistically looking icons using only a few of the Photoshop effects.

If you are just starting to learn Photoshop and you feel overwhelmed with all the functionality, relax; there is no need to learn it all at once.

The final product will be an Apple mouse.

During the whole process of creating this icon I have used the following tools.

• Pen tool to create the basic shapes
• Layer styles such as – drop shadow, inner shadow, outer glow, inner glow, color overlay, gradient overlay, and stroke
• Smart Objects – to be able to apply Gaussian Blur filter
• Opacity – applying opacity to layers for smooth transactions

Step 1

Create a basic shape which represents the basic shape of an old Apple mouse using the pen tool.

Apply layer styles.

This is the most important screen in Photoshop for any web designer. You learn how all this layer styles work and you will be able to produce most of the effects you need. I have applied a white/gray gradient and a 1 pixel stroke to the basic shape.

Step 2

In the next step I have created another shape which sits on top of the first layer. The purpose of this is to create the illusion that the mouse consists of two pieces which are connected at the bottom. I have applied a glow, bevel, gradient and stroke. You will need to find the right balance between the effects to achieve the desired effect. The best way to do this is by looking at a real object or a photograph of it.

Step 3

Second image in Step 1 is showing the shape which represents the light. It has a white color applied to it. In order to apply a gaussian blur you will need to convert this shape into a smart object. You can achieve this by right clicking on the layer and selecting “convert to smart object“. Once the shape is converted to a smart object you can apply filters to it. The advantage of smart objects is that you can always change the original shape and the filters will stay applied.

The filter we need to apply is a gaussian blur which will blur the in the edges of the shape so the light effect feels more natural and realistic.

Step 4

In this step we need to create the drop-shadow which will create the 3D feel on the side of the mouse. I have used the same smart object I used for the lighting effects but I have rotated it 180 degrees and applied a dark colour to it. And lastly I have applied a 26% opacity so it blends nicely into the mouse object.

Step 5

Create a shape which represents the mouse side button. Apply layer styles. Reduce the opacity. Here I have used a gradient, glow and stroke to create the side button.

Step 6

Create a shape which represents the mouse wheel. Apply a simple gradient creates a 3D wheel effect, reduce the opacity so the button sits better on top of the mouse.

Step 7

Image in Step 4 illustrates a simple shape which will be used as a drop shadow below the mouse, there is black colour applied to it. First image in Step 5 shows again that the shape has been converted to a smart object so the gaussian blur could be applied and the opacity has been dropped so the drop shadow blends with the background nicely.

Thats all which has to be done to create a realistic mouse icon. You could use these few layer style techniques to create visually appealing icons and/or artwork for your sites.

Redesigning a website can be very satisfying and very stimulating for a web designer. A redesign consists of objectively improving the aesthetics or the structure of a website and, with the use of new elements or content, giving a new form or a new identity to the site.

Getting our hands on an out-of-date and roughly-done website, with the complete freedom to modify, add to, subtract from, and overhaul what we please, is extremely exciting. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm can often result in an incorrect work process, with a negative impact on the end result and on the eventual success of the redesign.

Before we open Photoshop and start racking our brains for the new connotations our website should have, let’s clear up some key points.

Redesigner Or Realigner?

It would be impossible not to cite Cameron Moll’s article “Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign” for A List Apart, from the distant past of 2005 (yet the article content remains quite pertinent): Cameron brilliantly divided webdesigners into “redesigners” and “realigners”.

Redesigners work on the aesthetics of redesign and justify its necessity with phrases like “the website’s old, it’s been online for two years”. This approach is obviously quite superficial, since, as we’ll later examine in detail, it’s always recommended to look at the over-all functionality of a website, without limiting oneself to design or aesthetic efficiency.

Realigners, on the other hand, strategically plan the goals to be reached, the target audience, the client’s desires and many other factors to be considered before touching the actual website.

In synthesis: the redesigner focuses on the site’s aesthetic, while the realigner focuses on its purpose.

Now that we’ve looked at the difference between the two, let’s get into the details.

How To Plan And Design A Good Website Redesign?

The first questions to ask are: what changes need to be made to the website in consideration? What improvements does the client expect from me? What short and long-term goals do I need to consider?

Content Structure

Too much information and poorly arranged. Filling a website’s pages with content, placing text elements, images and links everywhere with no logical sense, assures one result: the redundancy of data eliminates any useful information present and disorients the user, who will prefer looking elsewhere rather than trying to figure out if what he needs is hidden somewhere on the page.

Tip: Let’s start by thinning out the content. A website’s information must be immediately available, clear, and as simple as possible. The user isn’t flipping through an encyclopedia, but rather is looking for a quick solution to his problem. Long text passages aren’t enticing, especially if they’re not visually “lightened-up” with graphic elements. Write a summary of the inserted text, then when you’ve finished, write a summary of the summary. Make sure that the resulting text is neither verbose nor exhausting for the reader, and that it communicates the essential.

It’s important to plan the website’s structure in detail:

• How many pages does it contain?
• What are the main pages and what are the internal pages?
• How to link the pages together to facilitate site navigation? (anchors, action buttons, banners, etc…)

The content redesign must also include good copy-writing and, from an aesthetic point of view, a good eye for the typeset. It’s useless to improve the graphics if the text is poorly spaced and illegible due to a miniscule font size. This article isn’t about typeset, so I’ll limit myself to suggesting this exceptional article by Robert Bowen of PelFusion, if you’d like to read more on the subject.

Element Organization

I’ve noticed that many websites have a serious defect: a lack of communicative coherence. Irrelevant images, elements that appear placed by chance or that change from page to page and disorient the user.

A small example? I gave up on navigating a blog I was interested in because I couldn’t locate the search field. It was only on my second visit to the blog (I’m a bit stubborn) that I discovered how to search the blog: I had to go to the bottom of the page and in the footer click on a microscopically small lens icon, which opened a panel with a search form.

Unfortunately (for the blog’s author) users are accustomed to finding the search field at the top of the page, and if possible on the right side. The author’s subversive choice will definitely cause them to loose potential readers. These kinds of errors even happen with elements vital to a website’s success, like the navigation bar or the contact form.

Tip: once the website’s structure has been determined (how many pages and which ones to include, etc.), it’s time to decide where to position the various graphic elements. A vertical or a horizontal navigation bar? The logo on the right or left side? Is it better to put the contact form on the home page or is the classic “contact” page sufficient? These choices aren’t just the client’s or designer’s aesthetic preferences, but rather are based on the need to provide usability and structural efficacy of the website.

Design And Aesthetic

The most exciting part of a redesign (in my opinion, as it’s the graphic part) is creating the new design of the layout. Choosing the style, the colors, the images, the graphic embellishments (paintbrushes, textures, patterns, etc.) and giving a dated and – let’s just say it – ugly website a new look, a new life, is of great satisfaction to every designer. Even in this case, before we jump head over heels into Photoshop, it’s necessary to analyze a few details.

• Colors: Should the colors used on the old website be considered “institutional colors” and therefore should they be kept in the new design?
• Style: We all know that the style to adopt depends on the target audience, the client’s desires and the type of business. Nonetheless, even if the business were flexible enough to handle a drastic switch from a minimalist style to an all-black grunge layout, such a radical change of the client’s web-based appearance could turn out the be a double-edged sword.

Tip: Whether we’re dealing with the design of a new website or the redesign of an existing one, it’s necessary to create a good brief before designing the layout in Photoshop.

In synthesis: what kind of users will navigate the website and, therefore, what could be the most effective style for this target? What is the image that the client wants to project, and consequently what are the most appropriate colors and images to use? Conceptual images? Photos of the company and their products? In this phase it’s important to not work “blind”, at the mercy of creativity and imagination, without guidelines to follow. The risk is to create a product that not only doesn’t effectively represent your client, but can actually damage their established image.

What Should Be Left As-Is And Why?

There are some elements, not necessarily present in all websites, which during the redesign phase should be considered “untouchable”.

• The logo: even if it’s a real eyesore and looks terrible in the new layout, modifying this distinctive element is recommended only after having completed a careful analysis and having taken all necessary steps. In the event of modifications to the company’s branding – especially if they’re extremely evident changes – the end client could have difficulty associating the product they already know with the new brand.
  Before suggesting a logo restyling based simply on our aesthetic desires (but it’s so ugly! it ruins the new design!), think of all the work behind it and of the probable consequences that will result from such a radical change. And, as long as this is neither your job nor your task, my sincere suggestion is: leave it alone.
• Institutional colors: if they’re part of the company’s identity, before changing them it’s necessary to evaluate the risk of confusing users that are accustomed to associating the company with the color blue (for example) and, seeing a green layout instead, end up disoriented.
• Useful and functional elements: The search field (as mentioned in the example above), the contact form, the navigation bar…sometimes it’s better to not completely overhaul the layout by avoiding position changes of the most frequently used elements. This is the main reason for which, even after numerous redesigns and various updates, most websites of large companies (for example, banks) always maintain a minimum of continuity and, especially on the home page, leave the main sections intact and visible. The user should notice the aesthetic improvements yet still feel “at home”.

Practical Examples: Let’s Redesign

After numerous theoretical concepts, now it’s time for a practical example. We’ll use this entertaining (and terrifying) collection from Noupe to help us with our project.  We’ll randomly choose a government website:  India, a country that has always fascinated me.

It’s clear that the website of the Indian government needs a good redesign: the graphics are practically in-existent and, most importantly, the information is presented in a chaotic and confused manner. The resulting website is difficult to use and, aesthetically speaking, definitely has room for improvement.

The challenge consists in creating a new layout that’s aesthetically pleasing, with a clearer and more consistent content structure, without completely redoing the current design.

To understand how the present content is subdivided and visualized, let’s start by creating a sort of “mental map” of the original website. In this manner we can discover how best to re-elaborate the content.

The top portion of the layout has red shading and the logo is on the left side, next to the phrase “the National portal of India”.

In our redesign, the header color remains reddish-orange. The logo remains unmodified and present on the left side, next to the same phrase used on the current on-line website. The new typeface is already more interesting and catches the user’s attention.

In the actual website, the search field and the LOGIN are on the right side. To avoid disorienting users, we’ll leave these two sections at the top right in the new layout as well.

In the actual site, the login and search field aren’t very noticeable and can easily pass unnoticed. In the new design, we’ve highlighted these two sections with color. The “contact us” link has also been made more visible.

The main content of the actual home page is subdivided in three sections.

We’ll recall this division by creating graphic containers that will enhance the aesthetic of the page and, at the same time, will give a clear and organized sense to the content. We’ll use the grid to help organize the spaces evenly and harmoniously:

Even though this redesign is created without a brief, and the end result could be more or less appreciated (I’m not here to dictate rules, and tastes are personal) the content is much more legible. The three sections are intuitive; the text is simpler to understand and is better organized. Sometimes providing too much information contemporarily can be a poor choice and can confuse the user.

Other elements of the page, like the (graphically terrible) links inserted in the menu at the bottom right and the banners that link to other content, don’t attract the user’s attention

In the redesign, the links have been inserted at the top, together with the other elements of the navigation bar (it’s useless to scatter links around the entire homepage: navigating a website shouldn’t turn into a treasure hunt!) and the banners have been redesigned as call-to-action buttons with colors, shapes, and typeface more appropriate to the layout.

Now that the content has been reworked in a more organized manner, there’s a bit more space to insert a link to a possible photo gallery “visit India”. This new graphic element adds vitality to the design and is a way to attract the user’s attention toward tourism in India. I’ll bet there would be a drastic increase in the number of visits to the “visit India” page.

Ok, after this long-winded article you must be tired, so let’s take a final look at our completed layout:

Now the site, in addition to its simplified content exposition, has a better design and a few key modifications have greatly improved its visibility and usability. All of this has been made possible by a specific redesign, not only by its new aesthetic (which still serves to give an identity to the site), but above all else by the strategic restructuring of its content.

Cops or Police Officers, their mission is to keep the peace and order around us. No one can escape from their batons. In this tutorial I will show you how to draw a funny cop illustration from a sketch. This tutorial requires intermediate knowledge of Adobe Illustrator and advanced pen drawing skills.

Final Result

Step 1

Open Illustrator; create a new document (800×600 pixels) download and import the provided sketch.

Rename “Layer 1” layer to “Sketch” and lock it. Create a new layer.

Step 2

Make sure that you have “Layer 2” selected. Select the Pen Tool (P), select the magenta as stroke color, set the stroke to 1pt and no fill. Zoom on the cop’s head and start tracing the head paths.

Continue tracing the mustache and then the nose.

Try to keep and order with creating paths so we have less stuff to take care of later.

Mention that I’ve traced the mustache first and then the nose because the mustache sub layer should be located under the nose. Trace out the eyes.

Draw two open paths for the eyebrow, we will fill them with a color later.

Create the hair and then the ear paths.

Add some detail to the ear by drawing two additional lines inside it.

Step 3

Since we’ve finished with the head we are moving forward to the hat. It is much simpler to keep the correct order here. Just start from the lowest path and continue by going up.

Last thing, draw the cop badge of the hat.

Step 4

It’s time to draw the whistle. First of all draw the main path and then the side.

Your accuracy shouldn’t be perfect because the whistle will be partially hidden under the mustache. Draw two lines from the whistle for the rope.

Step 5

Rename the “Layer 2” layer to “head“, create a new layer and name it “Body Top“. With your Pen Tool still selected start drawing the main body path.

Trace those two lines on the cop’s shirt.

Don’t worry about buttons; we’ll draw them later while working with colors. Draw the shape for the right pocket on the shirt that intersects the main body path.

Select the main body path, press Ctrl + C and Ctrl + F to make a copy of this path and paste it on the top of the original. You won’t see any changes but there are now two body paths. Select the newly created copy and the pocket path and press the Intersect button on the Pathfinder Palette.

The resulting path perfectly fits in the body path. If the head paths bother you, make the “Head” layer invisible. Now draw the collar path, but adjust its position.

Just draw the outline of the badge, we’ll add details later.

Step 6

Draw the baton path.

First draw the outline and then add small lines to delimitate fingers.

Trace out the sleeve and then the cuff paths.

The same way draw the second hand and fist.

Select the right hand sleeve sub layer and press “Shift + Ctrl + [“ to send it back.

Step 7

Create a new layer and name it “Body Bottom“, drag it under the “Body Top” layer and draw the bottom part of the cop’s body.

Draw a belt path, the same way we’ve drawn the pocket on the shirt .

Now add the details.

Trace the shoe on the left leg and then the trouser-leg.

Draw that decorative line.

Repeat this process and keep this order to draw the second leg.

Select all right leg paths and press “Shift + Ctrl +[” to send them back.

Step 8

We’ve made it to the most interesting part of the tutorial – adding color. Make all layers except “Sketch” visible.

Press Ctrl + A to select everything and set black as the stroke color.

I’ve chosen #FBCECF as skin color. Fill the head, ear, nose, fists paths with it.

Fill all face hair paths with 10% gray.

Use #27AAE1 to fill the shirt, the pants and top hat paths.

Fill the collar, the pocket and the cuffs with #56C7EF.

Fill the shoes, the baton, the belt and the lowest hat paths with 90% gray.

Fill the middle path of the hat, the metallic part of the belt and the badges with #F4CE36.

Fill the side of the whistle with 90% gray and the main path with 30% gray.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw a small circle filled with white and 1pt black stroke. That will be our button on the officer’s shirt.

Make another four copies of it and place them on the shirt.

Select the badge from the shirt, go to Object > Path > Offset Path and enter -4px as Offset value.

Make the same thing to the badge from the hat but use -2px as Offset value this time.

Step 9

Give your illustration a background by drawing a rectangle with the same dimensions as your art board and filling it with #F3787A.

Add some details and a shadow filled with #BF585E and here our Funny Cop Illustration is ready.

What Next?

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Subscribe to our RSS Feed to get updated about our next tutorial

2009 was a great year and we hope every body have enjoyed this year. Different topics were discussed in this year but Design Inspiration and Tutorials were the two hot topics around different websites in 2009. Throughout year there were great articles posted related to design inspiration and tutorials. We learned a lot of new stuff from these resources and expecting much more amazing stuff in 2010.


Below we have compiled a list of “Design Inspiration, Tutorials and Resources” for our readers. We have tried to bring Best of the Best from the year 2009 in this list. We must have missed a lot of resources and expect from our readers to mention it in the comments. We will try to keep this list updated if the link is worth of putting in the list.

Thank you for all your support in 2009 and we wish you all 2010 a very successful year.

Design Inspiration

55 Excellent WordPress Site Design for Design Inspiration

50 Stylish Navigation Menus for Design Inspiration

100 Websites With Outstanding Artistic Design

16 Popular Website Redesigns Of 2009

65 Creative And Stylish Footer Designs of 2009

60 Humorous Print Advertisements to Tickle Your Bones

45+ Creative and Refreshing WordPress Designs

45+ Inspiring Examples of Vintage in Web Design

34 Places to Get Design Inspiration – Online and Off

Resources

Smashing Highlights 2009

The Most Popular Posts of 2009

The Best Photoshop Resources of 2009

50 Best Web Design Blog Posts In 2009

The 15 Best Articles for Designers in 2009

69 Coolest Web Apps of 2009

The Best Free Texture Packs of 2009

Designs of the Year: 2009

Best of 2009 in the Blogging Industry

Best WordPress Themes Websites Every Blogger Should Bookmark

Mastering Your WordPress Theme Hacks and Techniques

Best Logo Design Resources

Top 50 Best CSS Articles and Resources

Tutorials

49 Most Creative Photoshop Tutorials of 2009

The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials 2009

The 50 Best Adobe Illustrator Tutorials from 2009

The 30 Best Photoshop Tutorials of 2009

The Best Vector Tutorials of 2009

Best WordPress Tutorials of 2009

Best Collection of CSS Rounded Corners Tutorials

Best Photoshop Website Layout Tutorials of 2009

13 Tutorials to Help You Grow Your Blog Readership Next Year

WordPress Website Design Process for IT-IS Ltd

A Collection of HTML5 Resources and Tutorials

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

Creating CSS Rounded Corners for the HTML or markup is a big challenge for most designers. Many end up with a design where they don’t use Rounded Corners to have an ease in creating markup or HTML and CSS pages. Rounded Corners have always been an issue in HTML/ CSS for the web designers. It’s not like there is no solution for this but which to pick has always been a question mark.

There are thousands of tutorials for “Rounded Corners” and hundreds of different ways (with CSS and images, using JavaScript etc.) to create Rounded Corners and this has been always very difficult to find the best and effective way to create a box with rounded corners.

Below we included CSS3 examples as well and it is very easy to add radius in CSS3. It’s just like (border-radius: 10px) and there are browser specific options to add this radius. Firefox uses the -moz-border-radius property to control the corner radius of a page’s border. Safari can accomplish the same result with the -webkit-border-radius or -khtml-border-radius properties. (Note: These CSS3 properties are not supported in IE and we have to use alternate ways to get rounded corners work in IE.)

In this post I have tried to create a best collection from those entire tutorials (including video tutorial). Still am sure there are many other Rounded Corners Tutorial left back which are not covered in this post and I expect from our readers to share them, if they find any, in the comments below.

Don’t forget to be the first to know the latest happenings here on Smashing Share. Subscribe now for free smashing web resources.

NetTuts | How To Make Rounded Corners With CSS And JavaScript

Woork | CSS3 Rounded Corners For Everyone

The simple and quick solution to draw rounded corners in every browser is to use a mix of CSS3 and JavaScript.

CSS3 Rounded Corners for Everyone

Build Internet | Rounded Corners With CSS3

A few years back, rounded corners became one of the signature design elements of the Web 2.0 trend. Even though they started as a fad, rounded corners are more than simple eye candy.

Rounded Corners with CSS3

24 Ways | Rounded Corner Boxes The CSS3 Way

If you’ve been doing CSS for a while you’ll know that there are approximately 3,762 ways to create a rounded corner box. The goal of CSS is to separate structure from presentation, yet here we are adding superfluous mark-up to our code in order to create a visual effect. The reason we are doing this is simple. CSS2.1 only allows a single background image per element. With CSS3 you’ll be able to add not one, not four, but eight background images to a single element

Rounded Corner Boxes the CSS3 Way

NetTuts | CSS3 Rounded Corners

Rounded corners provide a developer with so many options. In CSS3 you can create a rounded corner button in seconds. You can simulate rounded corners by using four extra divs or by using JavaScript.

CSS3 Rounded Corners

David Walsh | Rounded Corners In Internet Explorer

As you probably already know, IE doesn’t allow you to create rounded corners without using images or endless hacking. Enter the CurvyCorners javascript project. CurvyCorners allows you to quickly create rounded corners within Internet Explorer.

Rounded Corners in Internet Explorer

CSS3 | Border-Radius: Create Rounded Corners With CSS!

W3C has offered some new options for borders in CSS3, of which one is border-radius. Both Mozila/Firefox and Safari 3 have implemented this function, which allows you to create round corners on box-items.

Create Rounded Corners with CSS

CSS Globe | CSS Sprites + Rounded Corners

This rounded corner version consists in making a containing div with four absolute-positioned divs inside, where the corner images are formed using a unique CSS Sprite.

CSS Sprites + Rounded Corners

Woork | Liquid Expandable Section With Rounded Corners Using CSS

A simple tutorial to apply sliding doors technique to expandable HTML sections with rounded corners. This tutorial explains how to design a nice liquid expandable section with rounded corners (top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right) using some lines of CSS, HTML and JavaScript code.

Liquid Expandable Section with Rounded Corners using CSS

CSS Tricks | 5 Different Ways To Create Rounded Corners

There are always different ways to do things with CSS and rounded corners is a great example of that. Each of these five techniques has advantages and disadvantages.

5 Different Ways to Create Rounded Corners

A List Apart | Creating Custom Corners And Borders

Customized borders and rounded corners can be applied to fully fluid and flexible layouts with dynamic content, using sound and semantically logical markup.

Creating Custom Corners and Borders

jQuery | Rounded Corners

With jQuery plugin, you can create beautiful rounded corners. No images or obtrusive markup are necessary. Support for padding ensures your layout degrades gracefully for users who have disabled javascript.

jQuery Rounded Corners

Phatfusion | Rounded Corners

Rounded Corners

Other Informative Resources For Rounded Corners

• Why Do We Love Rounded Corners?
• The Function of Rounded Corners
• Table of CSS3 border-radius Compliance
• CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders

Tools to Create Rounded Corners

• Spiffy Corners
• Spiffy Box
• Curvy Corners
• Rounded Cornr
• Spanky Corners
• Corner Shop