Remove background from an image – Photoshop Techniques

There are times when as designers we need to quickly churn out few designs and we keep looking for the right images.

Frantically searching multiple photo-stock sites in different tabs and the ticking minutes just add to the aggravation. Still we are just not able to get the right shot with the right background. Looking at the heavily designed backgrounds in an image with the thought of extracting an object from it gives goose pimples to some of the designers.

I found a very helpful tutorial which provides different techniques for

iPad Shelf Wallpaper contest won

I’m happy to share that I have won the contest for iPad Shelf Wallpaper on http://www.appsafari.com – the entry is posted on http://www.appsafari.com/ipad-shelf-wallpaper-template-and-contest/

You can also download iPad wallpapers from below links:

Freedom Unleashed Wallpaper – Landscape (1024×768)

Freedom Unleashed Wallpaper – Portrait (768×1024)

Game of 3Ps: Points to Pixels OR Pixels to Points in Photoshop

At times I see designers struggling on “how to do” though they know “what to do”. Being a designer myself this minute of struggle not only sucks but leads into ineffective designing. My whole creativity goes for toss since I’m busy searching for the right tool with the ticking time lines.

I am sure there are many among us who are absolutely creative, and are full of ideas. However, the creativity falls short if it is not expressed the way its envisioned. And here’s where the tools that we use and our knowledge about them holds prime importance. It’s the tools that help bring our creativity to life. This very thought gave me a new direction to add in my blog – Quick Tips Category

Following is a quick tip of using the tools more efficiently.
Changing fonts/measurements from points to pixels (or) reverse in Photoshop

There are 2 ways of changing the Units:

The World of Mascots, Revisited (Part II)

The Website Mascots (Part I)

There was a time when almost every household product globally was associated with a mascot but over the years either some of the brands have dropped their mascots or rarely use them as a part of marketing documents (Note: only marketing documents, not products)

Since childhood I have been seeing them around and thought people could easily relate to the word mascot (the face that speaks a thousand words). But my earlier blog was an eye opener where I realized very few people today understand or relate to mascots. Maybe the difference is in observation a person builds since childhood.

Over the years, I saw the mascots fading and then came the trend when everyone starting creating a mascot for their brand. Immediately looking at them, it just clicked to me how mascots have moved to web in this web2.0 era. My earlier post was targeted at Website Mascots, so here’s the flashback of some mascots which existed during our growing years. Going back to the memory lane might be interesting for some of us, and make us more observant in today’s life.

Telecom Brand Mascot which was allowed to be a part of lifestyle products. Till now Mascots have been strongly visible on merchandising items only. Vodafone is the only brand which allowed its mascot ‘ZooZoo’ on products to a lifestyle brand.

The Website Mascots (Part I)

See also – The World of Mascots, Revisited (Part II)

Nowadays we see a lot of sites using mascot for their companies. I like it! It’s a nice way to represent the image of the brand and just by looking at the mascot, instantly a relation is built between the user and the brand.

Some mascots are integrated with the logo while for some sites mascot plays the role of a guiding character:

For a brand name like twitter, the birdie mascot is a representation of the concept – the birdie tweets around the web space.

Silverback usability testing application has a Guerrilla mascot on the very homepage to welcome the visitors

Google buzz logo – Uncanny similarity with MSN logo

Google recently launched its much awaited networking app – Google buzz. One can share status, have conversations, tag the buzz with location, share photos, is integrated with Gmail inbox, import data from twitter, so much to do . Google has also rolled out a version of buzz for Android and Apple iPhone.

With every new launch of Google product I wait to see Google product demo videos – Not that the products are complicated but I have always loved to watch them. Hats off to the creative team who continuously strive for more and still not make the storyboard complex. A treat for the designer’s senses Google Buzz Demo

Conceptually I love everything about Google videos but somewhere in my mind while watching the demo of Google buzz  – the butterfly concept in the video reminded me of MSN logo (maybe due to my association with msn client few years back)

There is a striking similarity between the Google buzz logo and

Match the colors of Mac Photoshop with Windows

In most of the design communities that I subscribe to, I find designers facing difficulty related to colors displayed on a Windows machine for the creatives designed on a MacBook. Though the software used to access the design is same (Adobe Photoshop) but the moment file is accessed on Windows Photoshop, the result is devastating. Colors look washed out and whole creativity seems dead.

We all know that Mac OSX have an excellent reproduction of colors and high quality display. Henceforth we might not be able to meet the colors display 100% but at least 85% can be captured in Windows Photoshop

This was a problem I had also faced and below is what I found as a resolution:-)