Welcome to the December 2006 Newsletter. In this issue we have some free brushes, new free tutorials, the latest Photoshop news, and exclusive software discounts. Happy Holidays!

Christmas & Holiday Photoshop Brush Set From Janita

The IceFlowers brush set is a collection of very delicate and beautiful hand-drawn brushes that will add a nice impact to any holiday design project.

The snow flakes and ice crystals were done up in the shape of flowers and will give a subtle, uplifting decorative touch to a letter or greeting card. Perfect for the winter season. And they come from our very own brush angel, Janita, who's many free brushes you can find on our brushes page.

Download the Christmas & Holiday IceFlowers Photoshop brush set (ZIP - 80 KB).

'Vintage Christmas' Photoshop Brush Set From Kirsty

Kirsty sends this in: "Hey everyone, it's a little early (even for me!), but I figured an early start to Christmas cards and graphics couldn't hurt.

"So here you have it, a Vintage Christmas themed brush set! This is also the last in the Vintage Holidays brushset series :) Hope you enjoy it! The brush set can be found at the usual address 500ml Brushes."

The Vintage Christmas Photoshop brush set contains 11 Christmas themed brushes. You'll find more of Kirsty's super beautiful brushes on our Photoshop brushes page.



Free Holiday Cards And Greeting Card Tutorials

There's a nice collection of dozens of free greeting cards available from Canon's site. Have a look through and see which ones work for you.

Canon has also included a series of cards for other holidays, including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Day, Kwanzaa, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Halloween.

There's another way to build a holiday greeting card that has no greetings attached. Look through the collection they offer that feature simply illustrations, or photos.

You can also find some tutorials on how to get the cards printed, in a special section called How to make a card, envelope and stationary.

For a nice tutorial that will show you how to make your own personal holiday cards in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, read Sue Chastain's "Greeting Card Template and Instructions for Adobe Photoshop" — a 7-part guide which is super detailed and will give you great results.

The San Francisco Chronicle has kindly provided a page that offers a selection of free holiday cards that you can download and print. How easy is that! All of the cards were created by the artists, designers and illustrators who work at The Chronicle, and the cards are blank on the inside, ready for you to write your own personal greetings. This is the easiest way to get your personal Holiday cards out in a hurry, as well as having them look very professional.

Before & After magazine has a free "Design Your Own Christmas Cards" PDF guide which walks you through the creation of your very own holiday cards. Each page offers smart advice and tips on how to make your cards look super professional and attractive.

As a bonus they've also included a special card and envelope specs sheet. This is a great read full of valuable design lessons that will guide you through the creation of gorgeous holiday cards. Download it now before it disappears.

You can also use Photoshop brushes to create nice things. The IceFlowers brush set is a collection of very delicate and beautiful hand-drawn brushes that will add a nice impact to any holiday design project.

The snow flakes and ice crystals were done up in the shape of flowers and will give a subtle, uplifting decorative touch to a letter or greeting card. Perfect for the winter season. And they come from our very own brush angel, Janita, who's many free brushes you can find on our brushes page. Download the Christmas & Holiday IceFlowers Photoshop brush set (ZIP - 80 KB)

You might also consider using a single flake or ice crystal from our free Snow Brush Set, created especially for us by the amazingly talented Kirsty - our very own brush diva. At a large setting, one giant beautiful snowflake can sometimes be all that is needed. Download our free Snow Brush Set.

Now here's another effective way to create a beautiful holiday card — simply browse through all the amazing photography at Flickr and look for photos that are offered for non-commercial use.

One of my favorite photographers there is Peter Bowers, and he has a great collection of snow and ice photos. Once you've decided which photo works for you, click through where it says "all sizes" - it's a link just above the photo itself - and then download the big version.

I fell in love with his snow and trees shot and have it made up as a card. I find that it doesn't even need any words. It's just so simple and elegant all on its own. That's a sample of it on the right.

If you'd like to add words to your cards and are searching for a festive font, try The Font Diner. They have a great collection of happy fonts there. Click on Free Silverware on the bottom menu, and you'll be pleasantly rewarded with some really fine retro fonts to brighten up your cards. I still get a kick out of using Sparkly on my cards.

Well, that's it, you've got your hands full now!



Advanced Photoshop Sharpening Techniques Tutorial

Our friend Mark Galer has sent us a free sample chapter on techniques to sharpen images in Photoshop from his book Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills. Here's some of the intro:

Most if not all digital images require sharpening, even if shot on a state of the art digital megaresolution SLR with pin-sharp focusing. Most cameras or scanners can sharpen as the image is captured but the highest quality sharpening is to be found in the image editing software.

Sharpening in Adobe Photoshop CS2 will allow you to select the precise amount of sharpening and the areas of the image that require sharpening most. If sharpening for screen it is very much a case of “what you see is what you get.” For images destined for print however, the monitor preview is just that - a preview. The actual amount of sharpening required for optimum image quality is usually a little more than looks comfortable on screen—especially when using a TFT monitor (flat panel).



The basic concept of sharpening is to send the Unsharp Mask filter or Smart Sharpen filter on a “seek and manipulate” mission. These filters are programmed to make the pixels on the lighter side of any edge it finds lighter still, and the pixels on the darker side of the edge darker. Think of it as a localized contrast control. Too much and people in your images start to look radioactive (they glow), not enough and the viewers of your images start reaching for the reading glasses they don't own.

The best sharpening techniques are those that prioritize the important areas for sharpening and leave the smoother areas of the image well alone, e.g. sharpening the eyes of a portrait but avoiding the skin texture. These advanced techniques are essential when sharpening images that have been scanned from film or have excessive noise, neither of which needs accentuating by the Unsharp Mask. So let the project begin...

Read the free sample chapter How To Sharpen An Image In Photoshop tutorial.

Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews

An inspirational and user-friendly guide to creative image editing, Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills provides direction for photographers and designers alike who have ventured into the realm of the 'digital darkroom.' The book offers a progressive curriculum to guide you through Photoshop with a series of clear, step-by-step projects designed to place knowledge into a practical context.

Whether you simply want to retouch an image, create a glamour makeover or create a highly sophisticated montage - this book will give you the essential skills to complete the work to a professional standard.

The accompanying CD-ROM and website, www.photoshopessentialskills.com, offer additional teaching and learning materials which form a library of indispensable supporting resources including:
• All of the images used in the text
• Over four hours of QuickTime movie tutorials to support the practical projects
• A range of presets (including layer styles, curves, shapes and gradients)
• Camera RAW files
• Free extra chapters in e-book form.

Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills (Amazon.com - save 34%)

Apple releases Aperture 1.5.1 - Featuring 100 Improvements - Plus Free Demo

Apple has released Aperture 1.5.1, an update to its post production photography tool designed for industry professionals. Aperture 1.5.1 improves overall reliability and performance in many areas of the application, including keywords, the Loupe, cropping, previews, metadata presets, file renaming, iPhoto library import, and watermarks.

Aperture 1.5.1 is available at a discount price of 269.99 at Amazon.com. Aperture requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. Apple has also released a fully functional free trial of the software.

For more on Aperture, see our Aperture Resource Center.

New Aperture Site - Inside Aperture

Scott Bourne alerted us that a new site focused exclusively on Apple's Aperture photo application has launched, and will carry a lot of Scott's excellent resources. The site is called Inside Aperture and is operated by computer book publishing giant O'Reilly and is sponsored by Apple.

Here's a little bit more from the site: "O'Reilly Media's Inside Aperture site draws upon community expertise to provide you with tips and real-life experiences from professional shooters who use Apple's premier photo management application to organize, edit, and output their images. This site features weblogs, articles, podcasts, and tutorials — all focused to help you improve your digital photography workflow."

Check Inside Aperture.

For more on Aperture, see our Aperture Resource Center.

Free Photoshop Lightroom Training Videos

If you're looking for some instructional videos to help you navigate through Photoshop Lightroom, we've discovered a very nice collection for you at the RawWorkflow.com site. Photo expert Michael Tapes has put together a little series of Lightroom tutorial videos.

These videos scattered all over the web are really starting to add up to a substantial body of free training — now it's just the time to view them that's hard to find. Here's the current breakdown for the Lightroom videos:

01 - Introduction and Greetings - 1:30
02 - User Interface - Overview - 18:34
03 - Importing Files (Quick Tour) - 5:27
04 - Develop Magic: Quick Tour - 3:50
05 - Develop Module: Basic & Tone Curve Panels - 12:31
06 - Develop Module: Copy/Paste and (the Kitchen) Sync - 5:40
07 - Develop Module: A Bunch of Crop - 7:08

View the Free Photoshop Lightroom Training Videos

Nikon's New D40 Digital SLR Camera Is The Smallest And Easiest-To-Use Nikon D-SLR Ever

[press release] Nikon has introduced the new D40 digital SLR camera that's designed to offer consumers the ability to get higher quality, impressive looking pictures with the press of a button.

While digital SLR cameras are extremely popular among professional photographers, some consumers have shied away from them because they are larger than compact digital cameras and some models can be complicated to the uninitiated user. Nikon addressed these concerns and more by designing the D40 as an ultra- compact, lightweight, 6.1-effective megapixel digital SLR camera with simplified new features, exceptional handling speed, and a redesigned, visually-intuitive menu system that brings digital SLR cameras to a whole new level of simplicity.

The Nikon D40 camera is ready to shoot virtually the instant it is turned on and has the ability to shoot 2.5 pictures per second, non- stop for up to 100 shots. The camera reacts instantly when the shutter button is pressed. The images are immediately processed and rapidly recorded to the camera's SD memory card.

Read the full press release.
Buy the Nikon D40 digital SLR camera at Amazon.com.

Total Training Releases CS 2.3 Premium & Acrobat 8 Pro HD DVD Training Packages

Total Training has announced two new products following the newest software releases from Adobe. Total Training for Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium includes helpful tips and tricks from industry professionals, and features indexed lessons on DVDs that cover important topics in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, and a workflow series.

This updated training series also adds tutorials for Acrobat 8 Professional software, a new component of Creative Suite 2.3, as well as lessons for Dreamweaver 8, which is now bundled with the Suite.

Total Training for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is a 12-hour video series in HD presented by Tim Plumer, Jr., an Acrobat Evangelist. Plumer shows viewers how to unlock the full power of Acrobat 8 Professional. Users will learn how to collect different file types into a single, unified PDF package and then leverage Acrobat 8 Professional to drive a collaborative, shared review process involving multiple participants.

"Total Training continues to offer dynamic, valuable content to professionals with the new training series on Acrobat 8 and Creative Suite 2.3," said Ricky Liversidge, a director of product marketing at Adobe. "The company's video-based training enables our customers to set their own pace and work along with projects that enable them to take more complete advantage of the softwares' comprehensive capabilities."

Pricing and Availability
Total Training for Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium Bundle is priced at $499.99 USD, and Total Training for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is priced at $129.99 USD.

Exclusive 20% Discount
To redeem our exclusive discount coupon, use promotion code save20pss in your shopping cart. You could save hundreds of dollars. Use this special link to see the full offer.

Camera Raw 3.6 Adds Raw Support For 13 More Cameras

Adobe has released the final, shipping version of Camera Raw 3.6 (previously available in beta form) along with DNG Converter 3.6. You can grab it for Mac (the converter is Universal) or Windows. This release adds support for the following cameras: