Monthly Archive for August, 2009

15 Great Photoshop Photo Effects

Published
by
LimeExchange
on August 31, 2009
in Freelance and Knowledge Networking
. 2 Comments

There are many online tools available to edit, retouch and manipulate photos. But a nice effect on an image can make your web page look visually attractive and appealing. Photoshop provides a huge list of great photo effects to give a new look to every image you want to edit.

Here we are listing some great looking easy-to-use photo effects using which you can sharpen your photo editing skills and also make an impressive image out of any dull image.

Halftone Pattern Photo Border

This photo border effect can be easily made using a couple of Photoshop’s filters, a basic selection tool, a layer mask, and a layer blend mode.

The smart filters can be used in CS3 and CS4 to create a fully editable photo even when it is completed. This effect is compatible with any version of photoshop, including photoshop elements.

Smoke effect on grungy background

This photo effect looks great on rough backgrounds. This tutorial is written by a young Belgium designer, Arno Van Waeyenberg.

You need Smudge and Warp tools to create this smoky effect on a photo with grungy background.

Rainbow Light Painting Effect

This easy to create painting effect gives your photo a unique retro effect. This simple effect can be created with just one layer and three colors.

This effect gives best results if used on isolated objects or black backgrounds. You can put this effect by directly opening the image in Photoshop.

Vintage Clouds

If you have an image with ordinary blue skies and want to give it a dramatic cloudy feel then this is the right photo effect for you.

You can easily apply this effect with a simple color and contrast adjustment. You can use any selection tools such as the quick select tool or the magic wand tool.

Realistic View Stamp

This photo effect allows you to create your own realistic stamp, which you can use for personal or other design purposes.

You need to create a new document with the size of canvas 500×300 pixels, white background. Then find some texture for the paper by searching Google Images or my texture.

Fashion Advert

This photo effect can be used for promoting a product or designing a simple but stylish fashion-themed advert.

You can simply download/ use a relevant photo and apply this effect in photoshop. You can try a few different layer modes and shapes to see which one looks best on your photo.

Advanced Glow Effects

This effect helps in creating some really sharp-looking glow effects using a combination of layer styles, the pen tool and color blending.

The end effect gives a stunning look to your photo while attracting many eyes to your web page.

The Magic Night

This effect by Photoshop offers simple steps to create a beautiful and interesting collage.

You can apply this effect with little adjustments in reflection, layers, color balance and by using effective tools such as crop tool, burn tool and eraser tool.

Split toning effect

This is another unique photo effect to give dramatic look to your photo. This is an ideal alternative to black and white.

Split toning creates a multicolor toning effect where the shadows and highlights are of two different colors. This effect, is also knows as a popular film developing method, can now be done digitally in minutes.

Watercolor Painting Effect

This Adobe Photoshop effect is used to maintain colors and strong contrast in the image.

The process of applying this effect takes only a couple of minutes by duplicating some layers, applying a few filters, and using a few different layer blend modes. It is compatible with any recent version of Photoshop.

Golden Ribbon

You can use this photo effect for announcements, special offers, events etc. Using this multi purpose ribbon you can highlight important content on your web page.

You can create a golden ribbon by adjusting its shape, texture and give finishing touches such as drop shadow, gradient overlay etc.

Silhouettes and Gradients

Sometimes we need an outline-type silhouette instead of an actual photo for our online and print projects.

By using the threshold tool and the gradient tool, you can make a few unique effects to complement a print or an online design.

Two-Color Technicolor

This photo effect simulates the colors of two-color Technicolor film and applies color bleeding to photos.

It blends the two colors together to give a new and appealing look to your photo.

Natural Film Grain

This photo tool allows you to create natural film grain on digital photographs. This effect gives a natural looking noise using a non-destructive process.

Non-destructive process/editing means that all effects are on their own separate layers so that they can be edited or removed anytime without touching other layers. You can simply create this in Photoshop CS3 using Smart Filters.

White Noise

This Photoshop photo effect gives ghostly effect to your photo. You can use the grain and shear filter to create this ghostly effect.

Smart Filter feature from Photoshop CS3 can also be used and it can be done with older versions of Photoshop as well.

Now you can apply these effects to create an impressive photo for your design project. Please provide us your suggestions and feedback on the same.

New Affiliation Program – Enhance Your Earnings with Each Referral

Published
by
LimeExchange
on August 31, 2009
in Business and LimeExchange
. 1 Comment

We are extending additional income opportunities to all our users. Become an affiliate, refer your connections and get rewarded for each referral activity done on LimeExchange.

Our New Affiliation Program brings a lifetime opportunity for all of you to earn Dollar$ every month by referring your friends, colleagues, relatives and old business associates to LimeExchange. With each referral activity you will share the revenue with us.

Here are some activities your referral can perform to help you earn money on this platform:

• Earn 0.1 USD, if he registers on LimeExchange.

• Get 50% of LimeExchange’s fee on the successful execution of first project and 10% for each subsequent project

• If your referral posts a premium or LimeStand project, you will earn $5 for each posting.

•  On purchase of a membership or a top-up plan,  earn 50% of the purchase amount and 10% on every subsequent purchase.

•  If  referral takes an online skill test, you will get 25% of the fee for the first skill test; and 10% of the fee for any subsequent skill test.

•  Each Educational & credential verification performed by your referral, you will receive 10% of the fee.

You can easily keep a track of registrations achieved and subsequent earnings out of the activities performed by your referrals after joining LimeExchange by checking Acquisition Reports and Revenue Sharing Reports online.

Take a quick look on some other ways to increase your earnings via this platform:

1. Make profit from blog /website- Use the white space of your blog/website by placing Text Links, Banners, Anchor Links and Tickers to earn more. You can customize these widgets as per your blog or website’s theme.

2. Publish our Feeds – You can also increase your earnings by capitalizing the traffic of your website using ‘LimeExchange RSS affiliate URL’. When your visitors join LimeExchange via your feed’s link, you will get rewarded for that.  RSS affiliate URL is available to all LimeExchange members on ‘Affiliations –> Publish our Feeds’ page.

3. Social networking websites – Place LimeExchange Text Links, Banners, Anchor Links, Tickers on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut etc. and earn rewards.

Learn how to create text links, banners, anchor links and tickers to maximize your earnings.

Get started now!

10 Useful Firefox Extensions for Freelance Writers

Published
by
LimeExchange
on August 27, 2009
in Technology
. 1 Comment

In our series of blog posts on varied resources and applications for our community, we had written about Firefox plugins for designers. This time we are writing about a few useful Firefox extensions for writers.

We are listing here some useful Firefox extensions that feature dictionaries, search tools and general reference extensions that can save your time and keep you focused on your important assignments.

Split browser

This quick and easy -to- use extension opens multiple windows within each tab where each new window is like a mini browser, complete with its own address bar and navigation controls. It allows you to split the content area of your browser window into two, three or four panels, enabling you to instantly copy and pasting between pages. This helps in comparing multiple web pages, view calendar and other useful information.

Dictionary Tooltip

It is one of the essential Firefox extensions for all the writers. Dictionary Tooltip displays the definition of words in a small tooltip on the same page. It supports multiple dictionary websites along with translation websites like German to English, Japanese to English, Spanish to English etc. This also helps you in improving your vocabulary as it stores all the words you viewed locally for future reference.

Notify

Get notified whenever your favorite site make any changes. You can use this tool to be notified anytime the content on the selected site updated, which you visit frequently for information. You can open pages at a chosen time and it also display page’s last modified date in the status bar.

Image Toolbar

This Firefox extension for writers gives you a complete and instant access to photo editing options like saving and copying from a simple toolbar. This add-on allows you to manage pictures for your website, blog, news story etc. Whenever the mouse is hovered above an image you will see options like save, print, copy, info and folder.

Signature

This essential Firefox extension helps you insert a custom text into your posts and emails so that you can customize them even further.

ScrapBook

This Firefox extension enables you to save and manage web pages, snippets, websites etc. Its key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support. It allows you to edit the collected web pages and organize them just like bookmarks. You can also search the required pages within your collection.

OpenDownload

This helpful extension lets you automatically open any file you download with its default program. It saves time and money as you don’t need different programs to open downloaded files as it connects you to the open source program that will let you view it.

ReminderFox

This extension displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and to-do’s. You can remember important deadlines and to- do items with this extension. ReminderFox makes sure you remember all of your important dates via easy-to-use lists, alerts, and alarm notifications.

NowPublic

It is a useful extension for journalists and writers as it allows them to capture and highlight any interesting news on the web. With just one simple click you can connect with worldwide network of eyewitness reporters, add images from extensive archive of photos and check  video submitted by contributors from all over the world, and instantly have it published to your blogs.

Text Area Word Counter

This extension by Firefox lets you count total number of words and characters in a web page text area. It is a good add on for bloggers who want to word count their posts.

Hope these extensions will help you in enhancing your writing skills and productivity. We welcome you comments and suggestions on the same.

10 Useful Tools for Choosing the Right Color Palette

Published
by
LimeExchange
on August 25, 2009
in Technology
. 1 Comment

Colors communicate website themes, design and its main objective. Plus, they also have the ability to create a positive effect on the visitor and entice them to revisit the site. Psychologists have also discovered that over 60% of approval/rejection of a design/website is dependent on this fact as people are subconsciously inclined more towards color impressions. Hence, it is important to choose the right color palette when you are working on a web design project.

Here is a list of some useful color palette resources to generate color palettes, schemes and themes for your design work.

Colorlovers


There are currently 234,060 users  sharing 2,161,472 colors in 935,479 palettes to create their special design projects. It is a resource to choose a color for your ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification. It is a place to check out variety of colors, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews. You can build your network by participating in discussion forum.

ColoRotate

With this color palette tool, you can work with colors in 3D, you can quickly see the multidimensional nature of your colors. It enables you to change your color one at a time, blend two different colors together and also transform a complete palette of colors at the same time with contrast and color. You can use its quick drag-and-drop feature to adjust hue, brightness, and saturation. It also enables you to import and export several formats, load from an image, or preview colorblindness. You can post your palettes, and tag palettes to engage with the community, or discussions.

Kuler

This is a community driven web application by Adobe, which lets you browse through thousands of color themes created by the Kuler community. You can search by tag word, title, creator, or hex color. It allows you to create your own by using the color wheel, harmony rules, and color sliders. You can also share and comment on different palettes and receive feedback on your own creations. The tool offers great features, and you can even download its desktop version.

ColorExplorer

This is a powerful color picker tool that that will help you choose the colors of your website or design projects. It enables you to drop color;  adjust brightness; adjust RGB ; autotag; import image palette ; Websafe colors; colornames; import scales; randomize; stay-on-top mode, and more. It supports HTML, VB, Java, and many other formats. Its Websafe feature ensures that the colors you pick will be rendered properly in most of the browsers, though it does depend on the user having at least 256 colors available.

Colors Palette Generator


The Colors Palette Generator by CSSdrive is a useful tool to easily create a color palette from an image. You can get the images to create a color palette either from your own computer, or from any URL. You can easily upload an image to generate a color palette based on the image’s primary colors. You can upload a file up to 1 MB. It supports variety of image types such as .png, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg etc.

Toucan

This creativity tool allows you to choose up to 20 colors per palette using color association rules or an uploaded image. This tool can be used alone or in conjunction with other creation tools by aviary. It also provides you an opportunity to learn and share with the community; you can  learn new skills from the tutorials available.

Colorschemedesigner


This tool ensures accuracy with color space conversions, better preview, enhanced scheme creation system, unique scheme IDs and permanent URL of the scheme. It allows you to edit each color shade in the palette. It has also added Instant Designer Shop to get hi-quality professional logos, templates, designs and services for instant use.

Colorwizard


This application lets you match colors to create great looking designs. It allows you to submit your own base color, returns a set of hue, saturation and shade variations of your color. It also suggests color schemes based on complementary color, split complementary colors, analogous colors and other variations. It also has a randomize function that lets you generate unique color schemes for your project.

ColorHunter


This application allows you to explore and generate color palettes from images. You can search images used in the process of generating a color palette from Flickr using relevant search term. You can also upload photos and get a color palette based on the colors from your image.

Genopal


This color palette tool has two Free online tools to help you in generating color schemes, you can extract colors from an image, or you can also create your own color scheme. It lets you explore a much larger set of color possibilities and work seamlessly with other 2D/3D and Web Design programs.

Hope these tools will help you in selecting the right color palette for your design project. Please provide us with your valuable suggestions and feedback as always.