Photoshop Killer Keystroke Commands

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:54 am

In this article I will teach you about the importance of keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop. There are only a few keyboard shortcuts that you need to diligently memorize but this effort will pay off huge dividends in streamlining your workflow and enhancing the sheer enjoyment of working with Photoshop!

One question that I hear repeated over and over is why is there not a multiple undo option for Photoshop like other standard computer programs. Well, there is such a feature in Photoshop. It’s just that Photoshop’s intellectual model is based upon the history palette. In most software programs, you can continuously press Ctrl-Z (Command-Z for Macintosh users) to undo the offending error. Sometimes you’re left in the lurch because you can’t undo the undo! With Photoshop, this command is called “step backward” on the edit menu. The keystroke command is Alt-Ctrl-Z. If you feel that you’ve gone too far you can “step forward” which is Shift-Crtl-Z. This is the same principle as the History Palette but it’s great to know that when you’re immersed in your project and you don’t necessarily want to fumble through your menus or palettes to take immediate action!

Here are a few other standard menu shortcuts, which are common to a lot of applications but ones you really should know:

Ctl-N = New file Ctl-O = Open file Ctl-S = Save file Ctl-C, X, V = Copy, Cut, Paste

Here is another killer shortcut, when you are working with the brush tool, how do you usually increase your brush size? Do you usually go up to the brush menu bar and scrub the slider left and right? This step always annoyed me because it completely breaks my concentration not to mention my creativity. Next time you have to use the brush tool, experiment with the [ key (that's the left bracket next to the P key) to decrease the brush tool and the ] key (the right bracket next to the [ key). You can even adjust the softness or hardness of the brush this way. To increase the softness, it's Shift-Ctrl-[. To increase the hardness, it's Shift-Ctrl-].

Here are some other shortcuts that will rocket propel your workflow:

Ctl-Space = Zoom in Ctl-Alt-Space = Zoom out v = move tool t = Text tool

I hope this tutorial has been helpful. Please drop me an email, if you have question or comments.

Web Design for Search Engine Optimisation.

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:30 am

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of managing your web site and it’s resources in order for it to rank as high as possible with the search engines. The tools and techniques are sought after and much is said and written about what works best and what is , very often, total rubbish. No matter what is said, the web design, the way the web pages are put together certainly affects the SEO process. Unfortunately, one can go too far with ones SEO fanaticism and forget the core of why a web site is being put together, the objectives of the product. Good web design is the best attempt at balancing the benefits of SEO and the fundamental objectives of the web site. If it is a sales tool, the web site needs to sell products or services. If it is an information web site, the web design needs to meet this objective. It makes sense to consider the web design carefully. After all, what good is it to rank on top of the search engine, get a lot of traffic and fail to impress your web site visitor?

What then shall we say? If web design more important than SEO, or is it the reverse? One thing is for sure, do not forgo the fundamental principles of good web design. Search engine friendly web design is not just about getting excellent ranking on search engines. Remember that the latter do not read and use your web design content, your audience and clients do. So the search behaviour of your target audience is important for your web design. Remember the five principles of good web design: pages should be easy to read, easy and consistent navigation to take your audience smoothly through your web site, use good web design features and images and be easy to download.

It is possible to achieve all five web design principles and still produce a search engine friendly web site which works for your audience and attracts leads and which is ranked well on the search engines. While the whole search engine friendly web design process sounds tedious, you do get used to it and with time it becomes almost second nature. After working through more than 200 designs we think it is best to consider both aspects while planning your web design. As flash and images are invisible to search engines, consider having the right balance of text, including your tags, and images, flash elements from the outset.

Clearly the principles of web design with the target audience in mind should not be overlooked while building SEO techniques and technology into a web site. Always keep your goals in mind and remember that getting to the top without a clear selling plan does not pay.

Unique Web Development to Reach Global Audience: Choose the Right Web Design Company

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:27 am

If you want to stand out and excel in your business, you must have a website that becomes your mirror to the online world. A website can present you and your business worldwide to millions of people who otherwise are out of your reach. People are more interested in utilizing today’s technology to save time as well money. Ecommerce is one of the outcomes of technology that has changed people’s life. Upon that, internet marketing has augmented the need of a sound web presence to let people know about you and generate more business. All in all, in order to avail the plus of this ongoing trend, every company should have a powerful, attractive and search engine friendly website.

Web site design and development is an art that needs lots of sophistication and creativity. You need to be very careful while designing layouts. With a great color sense, perfect visualization power and sound knowledge of designing can give rise to a winning website. You will get number of visitors if your website is attractive. But it’s more important for a website to be search engine friendly. Only then it would appear in top ten search engine results and attract more visitors.

To be search engine friendly, the website content of your site should be keyword rich. Search engine follows the visitors’ choice and give results what they look for. So, it becomes important for you to mind both search engines’ as well as visitors’ preference. This way, you will not only receive more traffic but generate more sales.

Today, there are many web design companies that are specialized in  Many of them now possess  offering a wide range of web design solutions and ecommerce enabled website development. Today’s competitive market has raised many companies that strive to provide superior quality and cost-effective solutions along with long term maintenance. With an expert team of professional web designers, business analysts and SEO analysts, web design companies create a search engine friendly website with an attractive look and feel, high functionality and navigational framework.

Every company is unique in its strategy leading to creation of websites that reflect incorporation of their own creative ideas meeting customers’ business demands. Current market demands the exploration of entire world not just an area. So, every dedicated today is offering elegant, creative and SEO optimized website representing company’s unique vision, clients’ needs, products and services to not only reach its targeted audience but also leave a strong impact on untargeted client.

Tips for Creating Effective Headers and Product Covers

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:46 am

Headers and product covers play a crucial role in your sales success. Effective, high-quality images inspire trust, while something that looks thrown together has the opposite affect. Your headers and product cover images must look professional and use the right colors and images. Graphics, colors and text affect the quality of your images.

The following tips will help you design effective headers and product covers:

Images

- Keep it simple. Simplicity is the key to powerful design. - Convey your web site’s topic at a glance. Carefully select your images to best represent your topic and support your sales message. - Be original; stand out from your competition. Be inspired, but certainly don’t copy someone else’s design. - Don’t use too many graphics. Use clipart sparingly. Don’t clutter your web site with graphics that have nothing to do with the content. - Photographs often work well for headers and ebook covers, but be sure to choose photos that accurately depict what your web site is about.

Colors

- Select colors that work with your web site colors. I recommend designing the web images first, then use a color theme for the web site that works with the images. - Make sure that the colors you use for your headers and product covers are appropriate for your topic. - Use text colors that contrast, but do not clash with your background to make your title and benefits stand out.

Text/Fonts

- Use benefits in your header and cover images and focus on your target audience. - Use readable fonts. Arial black, Helvetica black, and Impact are just some examples of popular fonts that are used to create titles and headlines. Arial, Impact, and Futura are great fonts for your ebook cover. - Limit the amount of text to what’s important. For a header, use a headline and subheadline and perhaps your url. The less text you use, the larger and more readable your text will be. - Use fonts that are appropriate for your subject matter and your audience.

A high-quality header and product cover (3D ebook cover or product box) will inspire confidence and your prospects will feel more comfortable buying from you. There is little doubt that quality, targeted images can increase your sales.

Combining layout, graphics, text and colors into a unique design requires some thought. Mediocre design falls short of building the kind of confidence that increases sales. In fact, poorly designed graphics can have negative results.

Why You Need Good Writers for Your Web Design Goals

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:23 am

When you’re interested in successful , you need to understand what your customers want and what search engines are looking for - everyone realizes this. But when it comes to the details of just how to appease your customer, you’re going to find many more questions with each answer you encounter. There is one piece of advice that can help you with your web design, no matter what kind of business you run - find good writers. And here’s why.

If you’re trying to optimize your web site (and who isn’t?), you need to think about hiring proficient writers for your Denver By giving them a list of the keywords that you want included on each page, they will craft an article or other content that includes that keyword at your desired density levels. Instead of having to do this work yourself, you can allow the professionals to do it.Many online writers are used to providing clients with specific keyword density needs, and can also advise you as to keyword densities that have worked in the past for them.

Since many of these writers are already familiar with the idea of a keyword, they are better able to create relevant content for your web site.And in this is imperative. While you might hire a new writer to create a keyword article, they might think that they can write the same article over and over, but just use different words to do so. This isn’t relevant content that will entice a customer to visit your site. But experienced writers understand that each article needs to present new and compelling information to their readers in order to increase the SEO.

By hiring a team of writers to handle your Denver web design, you can also have continuous web site updates that are favored by search engines. It can help to hire a few different writers for your website to keep the tone from becoming too monotonous.But when you find a writer whose style you like, you may as well hire them on to do repeated sets of content. Many other web sites like to update weekly, if not daily. The only stipulation is that the content needs to be interesting in order to pull customers in time and time again.

Finding good writers for your Denver web design is much easier than you think. You can either look for online freelance writing boards - Elance, Guru, etc.Or you may want to post your needs on classified ad web sites and your local paper advertisements. To choose the right writer, be sure that you are looking for experience, knowledge, and flexibility. You need someone that will be able to handle your needs, but also be ready to complete any revisions that you feel are necessary. Writing is a collaborative process that you will both need to participate in. But with a seasoned internet writer, they already understand this need for cooperation.

The Importance Of Good Web Design

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:44 am

Have you ever at some point thought about designing your own web site?

If so, what do you think is the most important apsect of this popular task?

Is it the way your pages look? Well to some degree it is, but it’s more to do with the navigation of your links and how your website flows and presents itself to your viewers as a whole.

When potential visitors see your site you want them to find the relevant information quicker than they would researching it themselves, so that hopefully they will come back to your site either by bookmarking it or taking note of the URL(web address) for later use, and so that they don’t just go elsewhere on the net, because once they are gone you’ll more than likely never see them again! (fact!).

So you want to make your site easily accessible and all the information that the visitor wants is clearly marked with links that draw them in.

Of course you are not in full control of peoples minds to make them stay, but remember by making your site interactive and with something for the viewer to do you may gain an advantage over other sites that don’t offer this.

Images and banners should be used sparingly and only to compliment your targeted content, 70% writing(content) 30% pictures(Images) is a good rule to follow, ideally either your home page or your index page should have your main content and the point of your website should be realised here, maybe you are promoting a service or product, make it known.

Your site overall, needs to be attractive to the eyes and not that much of a distraction that puts your readers off, clear, readable and easily viewable articles and valued content are what should be presented here, there is no point in mis-matched colour fonts or a mix of small, medium and large sized fonts scattered throughout (this appears quite childish), you need to think beyond the fact that that particular design may look good to you, but may be off putting to others, try to think about your subscribers or future ones as these are the people who will spread your reputation so make a good professional first impression.

It’s also a good idea to get a basic understanding of HTML, which is the code that all websites are partly made up of and designed by, all tables and colours are formatted using HTML and then split up by other coding language such as Javascript which creates the interactivity into a web page, you do not have to be a complete know it all in HTML but it is helpful to know the basics such as creating hyperlinks and links to images etc.

Lastly of all remember there is information all over the internet(that is what the web is about!!) when you need it, you just have to do a search to find the info you need, but of course if you cannot be bothered there is always the added bonus of finding a cheap ebook that someone has gone to the trouble of compiling themselves through extensive research that they have done, so you just have to buy it and it is downloaded instantly.

Ten Crucial principles in web site Designing

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:19 am

Designing a website is not as easy as most people think it is , Major Concept among the people is that web site designing is relatively easy and you can do any thing with front page and dream weaver and they forget to follow important basic steps.

Designing a website is a lot more than just knowing hypertext markup language or Ms Front Page. When it comes to your website, additional care and attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are ten crucial guidelines to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1 - Good Design or website theme/ template Your website is the hub of your internet business enterprise; it is the virtual representation of your company whether your company exists physically or not. When you are doing business online, people cannot see you physically like how they could if they were dealing with an offline company.

Hence, people do judge you by your covers. This is where a good design comes in. If your site is designed shabbily and looks like a five minute “quick fix”, you are literally shouting to your visitors that you are not professional person and you do not care for quality.

2 - Avoid Broken Links If your website is full of broken links, it damages your web site credibility. broken links annoy visitors and look very unprofessional. But broken links to your site (called back links) can hurt you too. The time you spend building up “link popularity” is wasted.

3 - Avoid Irrelevant Contents The content of your web site should be according to its purposes. Although the World Wide Web has a lot of important non-textual more graphical uses, *smile* but most people who use it spend an overwhelming amount of their online time reading words on a pages. So well written, well edited quality contents are all important for the success of any website.

4 - Don’t use Animated or still splash pages Splash pages are the 1st pages you see when you reach a website’s home page. They commonly have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”.

As a matter of fact, they’re simply that — pretty vases with no real function. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

5 - Always make simple / uncomplicated and clean website navigation When you are designing a web page always keep in mind to offer a simple / uncomplicated and very straight forward website navigation menu so that even a newbie or a young child will know how to navigate to your website.

Never use complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors do not know how to navigate, they’ll leave your website, Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”! And always make a site map for the website.

6 - Avoid Page Counters. Of course you must be concern about traffic of your Web site. But Page especially offsite counters does not tell you anything useful. Page counter is of no use to the reader and you can get this information from website stats option in your hosting control panel.

7 - Don’t use unreasonable banner and text links for affiliates Never make your web site a link farm specially the home page, one or in some cases two banner ads are more than enough for the home page. So Instead of putting dozens of banners and text links on a single page, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

8 - Avoid Excessive Javascript and pop up ads on your site Roll over or other javascripts is your choice and your taste, I do not believe they do much for the user experience. And Excessive javascript - google spider always find it difficult to crawl the pages with excessive java scripts. And about pop ups i will only say it’s the most annoying invention since blink tag.

9 - Avoid using music / audio and Flash on your site If everybody is using T1 Line or at least one mbps data transfer then feel free to make a flash sites it will not scare your visitors away but for 56 kbps try to avoid flash pages.

About Music - If your visitors are going to stay a long time at your website, reading your content, you’ll need to make sure they are not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your web site. Unless your site itself is music related, do not make the user jumping for the volume controls. They might be at home with someone asleep in the room. Or worse, at work.

If you live and die for music, let the default be without music and let the user choose to activate the music / audio.

10 - Few small things to consider before publishing the web page.

a - A web page must loads in min 10 sec or max 20 sec for 56 kbps

b - A web page has no more than 30 kb in text and 30 kb in graphics.

c - HEAD, TITLE and META exists and must be filled out properly.

d - And at the end I must say keep your pets away from your website. Picture of your Dalmatian will look good on your 360, my space or any other blogs but it will not look good on your business website.

Four Common Mistakes Made Using Web Templates (revised)

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:52 am

There are templates available for web sites, web page headers and banners, navigation buttons, order buttons, and more.

Templates save time and money, and they can greatly improve the look of a web site. However, the improper use of templates can have the opposite affect. The following are the four most common mistakes people make when using pre-made web templates.

1. It is not uncommon for a particular template to become very popular. If you use an overused template or image, it will diminish its impact, and your site will lose its uniqueness that sets it apart from your competitors.

2. If you purchased professionally made, quality header templates, all you’ll need to do is add your own text, and maybe your own graphic. A common mistake some template users make is to alter the template so much that it no longer resembles the way it first appeared. What was once a professionally created image (which is why you chose it in the first place), is now a less than quality graphic. What is the point of using a template if you completely change it?

3. The flip side of this is also a mistake some people make. While many good header templates need little else than your own text, some may require a little more customization to be appropriate for your situation. Some templates, for instance, come with generic text that should be replaced with your own. If you do not change this text, it may look out of place on your site. You may also send the wrong message to your visitors if you don’t change an image in a header template. For example, if your audience is work-at-home moms and the template has a picture of a businessman, it would be confusing as to who you were targeting on your site.

4. The fourth most common mistake is simply making the wrong choice of a template to begin with. Some templates won’t be appropriate for your web site. The overall design may be out of place. For example, the theme of your web page is American Southwest, while the template’s theme is Gothic. The colors may conflict with your site’s colors. The image(s) may not relate to the subject of your site or your target audience. No matter how good the web template may look, if it doesn’t fit with your web site then it will do nothing to improve the look of your site.

The proper use of templates is a balance of choosing an appropriate design for your needs, coupled with the right amount of customization of the template. When used correctly, templates will definitely improve the quality of your web site.

Outsource web design India

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:31 am

Web Design and logo design is the most important aspect of a company website. A visually appealing website is more likely to attract attention of a casual visitor than a poorly designed one. A good design may not always be heavy on graphics. It is more to do with the layout and using the right color combinations. In fact, the colors should be as per the theme of the website.

Web design involves basic understanding of the theme and purpose of the website. Accordingly, the designer has to chose the color scheme, the layout and the images to be put on the website.

requires a lot of innovativeness and an artistic bent of mind. Sometime one can achieve much more by intelligently using certain effects like image rollover, image swapping, frames etc. A number of tools are now available to the designers and the list is ever increasing. There are specialized tools for creating various types of special effects.

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular tool which is being used by website designers. The layout is first prepared and then it is sliced and HTML pages are created. For making animations, flash is the most popular software. Concepts like CSS are used so that the website retains the same look and feel throughout the pages of the website.

Website designing has now become an independent industry in India. There are a number of organizations who just do website designs and prepare templates. Anyone can chose these templates and then get their own website designed as per that design. This saves a lot of time as well as effort. The templates are available based on the graphics content, purpose of the sites, animation etc.

Company provides all Ecommerce solution such as  web template, cheap logo design and SEO services in India. Website designing is a job, which can be easily outsourced, as the skills required are graphics related rather than programming related. It is also easy to judge the quality of work as it can be checked visually and in a very short time. Apart from the website design a lot of work related to logo design and banner design is also being outsourced.

Graphics designing is a more general term which includes not only website design but also ad design, brochure design etc. Then there are 2d, 3d animations, film and cartoon related graphics work such as 3d gaming, high end morphing and transformations.

India has emerged as a major destination for all work in the area of graphics and website designing. There a lot of companies in cities like New Delhi and Chennai who are engaged in this type of work. The work being done is of really high standard and at a fraction of the price.

Designing your Web Site

Posted by rimel - 30/06/07 at 08:06:52 am

A Web site is a collection of Web pages that are linked with each other to form one single body of information. A Web site can offer information about the object that it aims to describe using text, graphics, and audio or maybe in some cases video.

Web sites vary from personal/hobby pages to online shopping Web sites, which include Auto Retail Web Design Real Estate Web Site Design, Medical Web Site Design, Presentation Site Web Design, Travel Web Design. There are also online education, information and publication Web sites. Basically web site content can be almost anything. It all depends on the developer’s creativity and design. It may be possible that at the onset you may not be sure as to what you want to publish in your Web site.

Objective Of The Web Site

Web sites are designed keeping in mind a particular set of audience or clients. But with the incredible reach of this medium it has become necessary to keep in mind the global audience. The chance of a web site being visited by not just its target audience is increasing by the day. A very common design technique is to design the Web site in such a manner that it reflects the image of the person, the company or the product.

Basically you have to decide on your primary Web audience and then depending on that create your website. If you just want to put your personal information or hobby page on the Web, then you can develop a web site that shows just that a personal information page containing your hobbies, your pictures and every-thing else that you would like others to know about you.

If you are making a Web page for a company then, you will be primarily addressing the market audience. In such a case your Web site will be containing company profile, job openings, product information and other such features. Another similar example is the online shopping stores on the Web. If you intend creating an online store for selling books then the book reader becomes you main audience.

Whether your target audience is a student, a teacher, an artist or a businessman, your website is still open to the world at large. At no point of time is it restricted to any one type of audience. Once your Web site is on the Internet it can be viewed by anyone in the world. Keeping this in mind you have to develop and design your 

Navigation And Links Within The Website

It is always helpful if you divide your web site into sections and then list down the broad goals for each section.

Once you have made the broad categories you need to work towards website navigation and organization. As you know that most of the user interaction with Web pages on a site is done using navigating hypertext links. The most common interface problem arises when the user gets lost in the site. This problem can be solved if proper and clear graphics. Icons or text based navigation help is included in the Web page.

Using these navigation bars you help the user in understanding your Web site layout. If these navigation bars are not included in the design then the user is totally dependent on the Web browser buttons of ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ which have the possibility of taking him out of your web site.