Mindtracks

Just a quick link as Stephanie Shimerdla of Obsidian Dawn has published an excellent tutorial on using paths in Photoshop.

Is there a formula to writing popular online articles? Khalid on Invesp blog has focused on the top 100 articles submitted to digg and analysed them. Khalid looked at titles and title length, category, style of content, average number of words in the article, average number of words in the description on digg, and the average number of comments received.

It is an interesting break down to read over a cuppa and for me it confirmed what I had long suspected that technology and business related articles do better on digg than other subject matter.

Lorelle of Lorelle on WordPress has written a good piece on the slippery slope of  bloggers depression as part of her Blog Struggles series. If you keep a blog the whole series is worth reading in fact just read the whole blog. I am always pointing to stuff she has written as not a week goes by that she does not produce something worth taking time out to read.

Over on the Blog Herald Jonathan Bailey has written a good article on 5 Content Theft Myths and Why they are False. Bailey’s 5 myths are:

• There’s Nothing I Can Do About It
• It Takes Too Long to Handle
• I need a Lawyer To Do Anything
• I Can’t Do Anything If The Plagiarist Is In Another Country
• At Least They Linked To Me

These five can all be countered and should be. Check out the article to be better informed on this subject.

Related to this topic is a new worry that Lorelle of Lorelle on WordPress has pointed to in her article on Spammers stealing blog content  It is well worth reading too!

The Global Talent Database is an artist directory site that you can join and create a free professional portfolio to promote your work.

Members can network by joining groups which increases your exposure and of course you can link to your other websites and blogs. The site also houses news and trends section and you can sell your work. It costs nothing to list and you crate your own professional identity. Sections or ‘channels’ include Art , Craft, Design, Computer arts, and Photography

Thanks for the link goes to ArtMixer

The annual 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards are open for submissions. The awards are open to graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from higher education institutions. The categories included browser based and non browser based design, media designed for mobile devices, animation, motion graphics, and non Browser based design, such as illustration, packaging, photography and print communication.

To enter you must be 18 years old and a full-time student at an accredited institution of higher education and an student ID is required. The rules are on the site. Students can submit entries via the Adobe Design Achievement Awards website. Submissions will be accepted online until May 2, 2008. Information is available on the Adobe Design Achievement Awards site. The winning entries from 2007 are also housed on the site

Patrick McNeil regularly reviews well designed websites on Design Meltdown. In his Designer Portfolios part 6 he reviews 10 portfolio sites that keep it simple and to the point.

It seems the days of wrapping your beautiful work in a pain in the neck flash wrapper are over. Now, I am sure these still exist, and I would even say that the flash style portfolio still has it’s place. It is really refreshing to see so many wonderful portfolios that make it easy to look at the artists work. After all, why make things more difficult then necessary when users already have such short attention spans! You don’t want your users saying “you lost me at pre loader”

I just really love being able to skim through these artist works, the simplicity here is so refreshing.

There is a new Social Media site, The Social Times which has been launched Nick O’Neill.

“We are spending an increasing about of time communicating via the web and I want to document the shift. The Social Times is more than just a blog. Our events, mixers and conferences take place all around the country, with an online presence linking all physical events back to the website. We update our site daily with breaking news and videos, and serve as a hub linking our users to all types of media pertaining to the social web.”

Jonathan Bailey writes Plagiarism Today, is a blog which podcasts information about plagiarism, content theft and copyright issues on the Web. Great to listen to while working in the studio

Stephanie on Obsidian Dawn has released another set of brushes for Photoshop. This time it is Snow flake brushes

I also found fractal brushes on psbrushes.net

There is also a selection of free Photoshop brushes at Photoshopbrushes.com

Over on Brusheezy there is free Vector Grunge brushes

This week on Bittbox another free set of vectors this time in the shape of stars

An incredibly useful feature in Photoshop, is the Image Processor as this feature allows you to automatically output multiple copies of an image in different formats. Ben Long has written Get Better Output With Photoshop’s Automate And Scripts Menus, which walks you through automating Photoshop.

This tutorial shows you how to make a simple rollover button in Photoshop.

Tommy Maloney in Top 7 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts for Productivity highlights his most used Photoshop keyboard shortcuts. This is ideal beginners tutorial.