Lauri Shillings » Photoshop

My Graphic Christmas List

lshillings — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:21:41 +0000

I’ve made my christmas shopping list easy this year. Lot’s of geeky goodness for one and all.

graphic christmas list

Merry Christmas!
1. House industries factory blocks. I’m gonna need more stuff for me new desk!

http://www.houseind.com/objects/blocks/alphabetfactoryblocks

2- 3. hot pad holders, I need ‘em! http://www.target.com/p/natural-home-hot-pad/-/A-13205583#prodSlot=dlp_medium_1_1&term=hot pad holders
4. Tiny fiberglass shovel to replace the broken one.
5. Wooden spoons
6. Nikkor Wide angle lens
7. Neutraface font family [again: yes, i’m a geek- it’s ok] http://www.houseind.com/fonts/neutraface
8. AeroPress coffee maker, single serve coffee right over the cup. How easy?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047BIWSK/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=aerinc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=B0047BIWSK

9. Oliver Honey wine camelot mead. If you can, make 5 gallons for me instead. LOL

http://www.grit.com/print-article.aspx?id=4294979896

A new digital desktop calendar for November 2012

lshillings — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:21:07 +0000

I’ve taken to creating my own digital desktop calendars for my laptop and I thought I would share with you!

Here’s November, and I plan on making one each month until I have a complete collection.

The path less traveled

Brand recognition

lshillings — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:35:19 +0000

I went to my son’s 5th grade class today and spoke about being a graphic designer. It was career week at his school. I spoke on how most computer related games and websites required a graphic designer’s skills. I Also talked to them about brand recognition, print, and typography. Amazing how well mass marketing can effect a child. They recognized 10 logos that were displayed as only a portion of it- such as the wal-mart asterisk, and Taco Bell’s “bell”. They had fun during this easy test. At least they didn’t fall asleep.
I created a website for the 5th grade class according to some of their preferences.
Fifth Grade Site

I made a flash site for them as well using the same basic layout and links.
Fifth Grade Flash Site

Adobe PhotoShop CS6 – sneak peak

lshillings — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:48:46 +0000

adobe labs screenshot

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/photoshopcs6/

Get the Beta version before you buy. Or just to geek out on the wonderfulness of Adobe.

Make your own chalkboard in photoshop

lshillings — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:50:12 +0000

How to make your own chalkboard in photoshop

(this post is being transitioned over from a previous blog- so you might have seen this before…)

I’ve been inspired to share with you the technique to make your own chalkboard.
Let me know if this helps you at all… and I’d love to see some of the results!Creating a realistic chalkboard in photoshop:
1. Create new document, 8.5×112. Create and Fill a new layer with a radial gradient. I used 2 green colors, with the lighter hue in the middle.
RGB value 8.56.40 (cmyk 87.49.79.61) light green
and 42.83.73 (cmyk 81.47.65.38) dark green
3. Now use filter: add noise: 1.6%, uniform distribution, monochromatic.

4. Create a new layer.
5. Using your favorite grungy watercolor brush, stipple on some lighter texture areas.

6. Create a new layer.
7. Using a different grungy watercolor brush, stipple on some darker texture. (Only the watercolor layer is shown)

This looks pretty good by itself, but at this point I’m going for some realism…

8. I found an image of really scratched up steel…

and put it in a new top layer at 14% opacity… then set the layer blending option to color dodge.

You could also use a large soft brush to mask out any parts of this layer that you don’t want to be very obvious, but the image I used turned out to be pretty good.

You can play with your settings to get the best possible image for you. Enjoy!