There’s a new product on the market called the Programmable Sky Ceiling. It’s intended to “lift your spirits” and provide enjoyment in an otherwise humdrum environment.

But I wonder if you were the kind of person who said: “Hey, why does the ceiling have to be so damn uplifting?” Why not one which reminds me of my own mortality? Maybe I’m the kind of person who wants something like this:

A more and more users upgrade to browsers that support Alpha transparency, there are increased options for designers. A great way to get a visual effect on your images without manipulating the originals is through the use of overlays.

Say you have a picture of John Wayne:

Now this is great but you want it to look a bit older, weathered and aged. If you position an overlay on top of this image that contains some yellowness and some dust and scratches you can get that effect without changing the original.

Here’s the overlay:

What you need to do now is position the overlay over the top of the original picture of the Duke. It’s z-index needs to be higher and it’s position needs to be exactly over the top of the original. See example

Volia! that’s it. New style without changing the original.

I’ve finished a new Google desktop gadget. I used a sample gadget that came with the API download. A simple countdown to Christmas. It’s a little large but this time of year it’s okay to be a little over the top. The countdown JavaScript is Google’s but the images I created. Feel free to download a copy for yourself here. Of course you’ll need Google Desktop to run the gadget. Enjoy!

Below are the images for Round Four of the Crestock Photo contest.

I think this was the hardest round to be creative. The human forms they provided were both cropped oddly and the male form is more of a “concept” photo already. I chose to only use the tree and have some fun with photoshop brushes. I downloaded some star brushes, fairy brushes and some aurora brushes to create the effect. The moon is straight from the NASA public domain imagery.

Below is what I came up with…

If you would like to vote for my entry you can vote here.

Below are the images for Round Threeof the Crestock Photo contest.

Round three was more challenging. I’m guessing the photos will become more difficult to create concepts from as the rounds move on (or my creativity is just wanning). There are loads of great submissions for this round but my favorite is this one, just an exceptional job all around. What makes these more difficult to work with is their crops. The photos with the women have some similarities but since they are cropped at the head and feet either you re-create the missing parts in Photoshop or place them carefully on the canvas.

Below is what I came up with…

If you would like to vote for my entry you can vote here.

Below are the images for Round two of the Crestock Photo contest.

This round I decided to take a different approach. I thought it would be fun to show laps in time. I chose the city and the meadow since they were visually similar (landscapes).

Below is what I came up with…

If you would like to vote for my entry you can vote here.

Crestock.com is having a photo design contest. The rules are wide open:

For each round we will supply a set of source photos from our image library. Your entry must be based on one or several of these photos, but you are free to do with them whatever you like. You may also use other elements in your design, as long as one or more of the source images can be recognised as a central part of your design.

First round here are the images

Here is my entry. I call it “Happy Frog”.

If you’d like to vote for my entry you can do it here:

I’ll post the winner once it’s announced.

I’m always hunting for really good advanced Photoshop tutorials. Below are a few of the better ones I’ve found:

http://www.dennisplucinik.com

http://www.photoshopgurus.com

http://www.webdesign.org

Photoshop is my tool of choice for visual design. It’s incredibly powerful and has a ton of functionality to make your life easier. One of my favorite features is styles. Styles are a method for saving your layer styles for future use.

After a few tries you like the look of the last button…

In the layer style palette select New Style. You’ll be prompted for a name for your style.

And there you have it. You can recreate the style any time you want with the click of the mouse in the style palette.