Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Business Card

I've really been into Photoshop and the other Adobe Creative Suite programs lately--been doing some work for the new company Dad's a part of. I thought that after my success at creating various business cards, it was about time I had one. Here's the result.

For all you Photoshop crazies (including myself) the leaf was super easy to create. You just have to create a path with the shape tool, and then load and apply whatever style you like (styles are on the far right in the color palette). I did a blue gel rollover with dropshadow, but there are all sorts of options. You will need to scale the style: open the Layers dropdown menu go down to Styles and at the bottom you'll find the Scale option. This allows you to adjust the overall settings of the style, ie. the extent of the bevel, highlights etc... Dad's printer is really nice, so I made a few hard copies as well.

Oh, and I finally figured out how to upload pics to my profile. It wasn't so much a matter of how to do it, but finding a suitable picture. So I decided to do a solo photo-shoot. I had to do it in the bathroom because I needed the mirror to see the camera's viewfinder (the thing was pointing right at me, so there was no way to see what it was seeing). Anyway, I got some good ones, and experimented with some different backgrounds in Photoshop. If you want to know more about selections look up the Quick Mask function. It essentially lets you 'paint' in your selection, allowing much more control than most of the other selection tools. I'd probably die without it.

Quote of the day:

"You can stockpile your socks easier than you can sockpile your stocks"--Who knows...:)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, cool, Benj! The leaf on your business card really looks like jell! :O Btw, thanks for explaining how to do it... I'm still not very good at using my PhotoShop program yet, but I'll have to see if I can try what you said. :)

Benjamin Berkompas said...

Thanks, but don't fall under the impression that I'm very versed in Photoshop just because I know some of the jargon. That program is super complicated--it supposedly takes a person about 5-7 years to master it. Isn't that encouraging...

Anonymous said...

Haha, I see! I know what you mean though, when my parents got the program for me I knew it was a great deal to amazing for me. :) So, I got an 8 hour tutorial for it that's helped me a lot.

Benjamin Berkompas said...

Dad told me that there's some Photoshop TV program with 15 shows available for download. That would be sooo cool--I find tutorials are often the most practical and educational way of learning. Did that tutorial come with the program? When Dad got Creative Suite, it came with a tutorial on CD--that guy had a cool office!

Anonymous said...

Nope, it didn't, my Dad ordered it for me because I barely knew what to make of PS CS2. ;) All the experience I'd ever had and been from using a program on our computer called "PhotoStudio 5" (ever heard of it?).

I can send you an email I got from a friend about that 8 hour tutorial I got. I don't have your email though, and since you probably don't want to publish it on the web, I can send it to Jonathan, if you want.

I did get the 1 hour tutorial with the guy and his cool office ;) with the program, so I think that probably comes with every one.

Anyway, I'll stop talking now... ;)

Benjamin Berkompas said...

Never heard of PhotoStudio 5 (what company makes it?). I don't remember, but I think my email address is in my profile--btw I'll be switching to g-mail soon. Ever heard of Photoshop TV? It's a podcast (available for free download from Apples website--you have to have iTunes to run it, but that's free too). The 3 hosts are real Photoshop geeks. They have tutorials, tips, trivia, and contests (for prizes like an iPod nano, $800 printer...etc.). Pretty fun show--their site is --> photoshoptv.com.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure, actually. I just found it on our computer and started playing around with it. That's when it all started... ;)

Actually, you're email isn't in your profile. But that's probably because you clicked "don't make public" next to the box you type your email in or something. Anyway, I can just send it to your gmail whenever you get that, if you want.

Hm, nope, never heard of Photoshop TV. Sounds really cool though!! Ignorant question of the day: what is podcasting anyway? I've heard about it and am now dying to know. :) Thanks for the PS TV website!

Benjamin Berkompas said...

Uuuuuh, can't think of the best way to describe it. Podcasting is something where Apple records TV shows and makes them available on the internet for free--at least that's what I gather. Problem is, the videos are sized to fit the screen of an iPod and are pretty small. Quicktime is great for viewing since it allows you to enlarge the screen without losing tons of resolution. Anyway, there's my uneducated answer.:)

Anonymous said...

Ahhhhh, I see, that actually does make sense! =oD thanks!