Colorburned » Screencasts

Working With the Path Palette in Adobe Fireworks CS4

Grant Friedman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:00:43 +0000

When most people think of working with paths, it’s likely that they are thinking about Adobe Illustrator. What a lot of people don’t realize however is that Adobe Fireworks CS4 comes with some really nice tools to help you manipulate paths and points. In this brief video tutorial I will demonstrate the capabilities of Adobe Fireworks CS4’s Path Palette.

Video Tutorial

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Export Layers to Files in Photoshop Automatically

Grant Friedman — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:45:52 +0000

If you have a blog, like I do, and frequently need to export several thumbnails of identical size for posts and articles, you have probably thought about how you could automate the creation of thumbnails for your posts. If you just have a few thumbnails that you need to create, you could probably do that manually but if you have a bunch, then automation becomes very important. In today’s tutorial I will show you how to export layers to JPG files in Photoshop to help you produce blog posts or anything else quickly and without a lot of grief.

Video Tutorial

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Improve Your Workflow Using Symbols and Adobe Fireworks CS4’s Multi-Page Functionality

Grant Friedman — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:00:02 +0000

You may remember a while back when I demonstrated how to design a fashion website using Adobe Fireworks CS4. Today, I will build upon that tutorial and show how to create a secondary page using Fireworks’ multi-page functionality. I will then demonstrate how to improve your workflow by demonstrating how to use symbols to make global changes to this document.

Video Tutorial

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Credits

Models: Amanda Nørgaard and Natalia Vodianova.
Photographers: Jens Langkjaer and Hedi Slimane.

Quick Tip: Working With Pattern Swatches in Illustrator (Video)

Grant Friedman — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:00:31 +0000

A while back I published a short tutorial demonstrating how to work with pattern swatches in Illustrator. At the time, I really wanted to record a screencast demonstrating the process but I didn’t have the capability. Today, I decided to record a short screencast demonstrating how to work with pattern swatches in Illustrator in a bit more detail.

Video Tutorial

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Create a Fashion Website With Adobe Fireworks CS4

Grant Friedman — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:00:37 +0000

Recently, I have taken quite an interest in graphic design for the fashion industry. I think I am drawn to this particular industry because I feel like they put a great deal of thought into their image and branding. One of my favorite characteristics of graphic design for the fashion industry is their emphasis on photography while keeping the design of their websites as minimalistic as possible. In today’s tutorial I will demonstrate how to create a minimalist fashion website using Adobe Fireworks CS4.

Video Tutorial

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Credits

Model: Amanda Nørgaard
Photographer Jens Langkjaer

Use Photoshop CS5’s New Content Aware Fill Feature to Create a Panoramic Photo

Grant Friedman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:01:08 +0000

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to test out Photoshop CS5 while it was in Beta. I really enjoyed seeing some of its new features; some of which were more impressive than others. One of my favorite features was Photoshop CS5’s new Content Aware Fill feature. This was by far one of the most talked about features in CS5 and was the first feature that I wanted to test out. Today, I am going to demonstrate how to use Photoshop CS5’s new Content Aware Fill feature to create a panoramic photo from a standard photograph. For a more detailed review of Photoshop CS5’s new features check out the full review that I wrote for Brusheezy.

6 Easy Ways to Evenly Distribute Space Between Objects in Illustrator

Grant Friedman — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:45:53 +0000

Trying to evenly distribute the space between objects is a task that most designers have to perform every day. While this task is quite easy in Illustrator, you may find that some techniques work better than others in different situations. In this tutorial, I will demonstrate 6 easy ways to evenly distribute space between objects in Illustrator that include using the align palette, the blend tool, brushes, transformation effects, and more.

Video Tutorial

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How to Customize Your Keyboard Shortcuts in Illustrator

Grant Friedman — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:00:54 +0000

Keyboard shortcuts are an essential time-saving tool for any graphic designer but often times the default settings can be inefficient and it is necessary to edit them in order to make the job much easier. In this brief video tutorial I will demonstrate how to edit your default Illustrator keyboard shortcuts so that you can select them much more efficiently.

Video Tutorial

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Quick Tip: Use Keyboard Acrobatics to Transform an Object’s Perspective in Illustrator

Grant Friedman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:00:52 +0000

Those of you who are familiar with Photoshop know that transforming an object’s perspective in Photoshop is quite easy; just go to edit > Transform > Perspective and then you can change the perspective of just about any type of object. Doing this in Illustrator however is not quite as easy; or at least straight forward. In this quick tutorial, I will show you how to use the free transform tool in Illustrator in tandem with a few simultaneous keyboard shortcuts to adjust an objects perspective.

Video Tutorial

Create a Call to Action Button With Adobe Fireworks CS4

Grant Friedman — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:30:45 +0000

Call to Action is a web design term used to describe any type of element that solicits a response from a user. In this 11 minute video tutorial I demonstrate how to create a call to action button using Adobe Fireworks CS4. In this tutorial I demonstrate several features of Fireworks CS4 including how to use gradients, add shadowing, create shapes, and add filters and effects.

Video Tutorial

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Below is an example of the finished Call to Action Button.