Articles from the Tutorials category.

We all know that Adobe software can be quite hard to learn and master. Adobe InDesign makes no exception.  Apex Web Media Comupter Training Software offers some great training CDs for InDesign CS3.

Adobe InDesign Tutorial Videos offers over 13.5 hours of quality training videos by accredited expert Brian White. The CD / DVD is organized in 23 chapters with 244 lessons with all the work files included in the package. The first 3 chapters with 19 lessons are free and can be viewed online here. All lessons come with subtitles which adds clarity and help with retention. It also benefits users who are hearing impaired.

The training videos are compatible with Vista, 98, 2000, NT, XP, Mac OS and OSX .

You will also get your own free certificate (which can be verified online) to prove your credentials.

In this tutorial, I will present how to make a new RSS feed in your site. I’ll explain the implementation issues, with different options (from easy or no coding t hard coding, etc) to perform the implementation. It is designed for ay people- non-programmers to programmers to design a RSS feed.

Ok, first I’ll present the big picture of the desired RSS feed.

A) Big Picture : First I’ll show what I want to make. The overall view is essential to present the RSS look-and-feel to your boss or administrator before doing any coding.

One ‘RSS’ button should make a link from one of your source page. Clicking on that button, the following page should appear.

Figure 1: Main view of the desired RSS feed

Now I will explain how to start coding. Before coding, two easy solutions are there that you can take into account. Start reading.

B) Easy solutions (mainly for non-programmers):

From the administrative point of view, you can do either of the following two things :

• Buy or ask for a RSS component to your web-design companies. Most web-design companies use CMS (content management systems) to make your site. And almost all CMS has plugins or extensions of RSS ready to be used in a site. It is just a matter of enabling the option into your site without almost any coding from your website designers. So don’t miss the chance asking them to enable that option!
• There are many free web-companies to prepare a RSS feed for your company. What you need to do is as follows: a) Make a XML RSS feed like Part C of this tutorial below, and b) link your prepared XML RSS feed from that web-company. Prior this operation you need to register. It is also simple, isn’t it?

However, if you want to program, keep on reading. I’ll touch every options to make your RSS workable and efficient.

C) Main RSS feed (The XML one!)

The left part of Figure 1 is actually the main RSS feed to be used in a website. It’s a XML file that Internet Explorer and many others can read and parse and present accordingly (with subscription link as well).

Tools like ‘Feed editor’ (need to be activated after a period), RSSEditor (free), etc can be used to make a RSS feed (xml file). You’ll put that xml file into your site and it works fine. However, you need to validate RSS feed using a plugin of those tools (if available) or different free validator around the web. You can get many such validators after doing a little searching in the web.

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Finding a decent Photoshop resources website is quite a difficult task considering the large number of “great Photoshop websites” flooding  the Internet now. PSD Top is one of the best websites dedicated to Photoshop you can find.

The website is structured in 3 main parts :

• the tutorials section
• the webtips section, including loads of freebies, brushes, textures, actions & more
• the PSD Top Blog which includes a comprehensive coverage of the art of graphic design, photo effects, drawing, animation, effects, web and interactive design.

The tutorials section is a collection of the best tutorials you can find on the web. It’s organized in 15 subcategories and it includes quite a few video tutorials. Each tutorial has both a small image and a large preview of the result of the tutorial. You can also rate, save and share each tutorial.

The webtips section includes a selection of quality textures, brushes, actions, fonts, freebies, inspiration, wallpapers and photography resources. Each resource has a large preview so you can see exactly what’s it about before downloading it. The updating process is quite amazing. Basically both sections (Tutorials and Webtips) are updated daily.

Another thing you notice about PSD Top is the dynamic search with search tips. The search is based on AJAX and it’s completely dynamic. When you start typing it will give you possible search queries based on the existing content of the website.

The blog section focuses on providing quality list articles and comprehensive Photoshop tutorials.

Overall PSD Top is  must in every Photoshop enthusiast’s bookmark list.

zaBox is a design related social bookmarking website, focused on offering its users design news, tutorials and resources in a spam-free environment.

zaBox is a great way to :

• DISCOVER the best articles in the design industry
• SHARE and find design resources
• LEARN new design skills by following the best tutorials
• PROMOTE your blog and / or design related articles

Using zaBox is really simple. All you need to do is register and start submitting content. You can also view and rate what other users have submitted, engage in discussions regarding the submitted content, make friends, get your favorite news (each category has its own RSS feed) directly to your RSS and much more. We’ll let you discover all the features for yourself.

Being a design social media website we think there are some really important aspects each website of this niche should have.

The drop-down menu is very comprehensive, organized in 5 main categories : Graphic Design, Web Design, Resources, General Design and Tutorials. Each category has its own subcategories (32 in total).

As a design related social media website each news must have its own preview image. For example for a tutorial its important to see exactly what the tutorial does before visiting the source website. Same thing goes for brush sets, icons, textures, themes etc.

AJAX is used on a large scale these days. That’s why we incorporated AJAX in zaBox’s Top 10 Published News. One news fades into the next and the whole paragraph is fully clickable. The Top 10 Published News Widget appears one very page of the website so it’s easily accessible.

Adding a direct story submission button to your website or blog is really easy. It’s a matter of copy and paste a HTML code. There are a lot of buttons for this in different sizes.

In this tutorial, Donnie shows the uses of Path tools and Layer Masks in selecting an object out of an image and inserting it into another image (basically the elegant way of changing and object’s background).

If you can’t see this video click here.