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Photoshop`s best friends – for designers

1) Color Scheme Designer 3

When working with Photoshop one of the best helpers for me is the color scheme designer 3. I started to use it a lot more lately and I can actually see myself the improvements of the colors of my work. I wish I started using that ages ago.

Link: http://colorschemedesigner.com/

2) Graphic tablets

Graphics tablets can really help you achieve amazing digital art. What you can do with graphics tablet can`t be done with mouse or at least is going to be hard work to do. If you are a good artist and you want to progress further I would recommend the Wacom tablet family. You might not need it if you do just simple photography adjustments or simple website templates but if you want to become better then consider getting one.

About the graphics tablets and which one to choose?

All Wacom tablets are good and will do a good job if you want to learn and create some amazing digital art stuff. If you don`t have much money you can go for the Bamboo ones but that they are the cheapest ones doesn't mean that they are not good. The bamboo tablets are also touch.

If you are working on small screen like on laptop, get small tablet and if your working on bigger screen it will be better to get bigger tablet.

The Cintiq tablet has built in screen witch is amazing, but they are the most expensive ones and the only bad thing about them is that you hand gets in a way when you draw and you cant see the whole image like when you use normal graphics tablet.

Prices:

BAMBOO SPECIAL EDITION - € 119,90

INTUOS4 L - € 479,90

INTUOS4 M - € 369,90

CINTIQ 21UX - € 1.999,90

Link: http://eu.shop.wacom.eu/

3) Inspiration

To become a designer or a good designer you need to be inspired and have good ideas. Your ideas should be the ideas that makes people think that they had the same idea before you. I know its sounds crazy but if you design stuff how people would like to see them then your work should be perfect.

Inspiration can be found in everything. It sounds crazy but big inspiration can be given by relationship brake up or a new car design that you just saw on the street. The best way to get inspired for you next project is to start thinking creative, visit nice places and also research a lot online.

One of the best ways for designers to get inspired is by visiting websites for art:

1. http://www.deviantart.com/
2. http://www.flickr.com/
3. http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/conceptart/
4. http://abduzeedo.com/
5. http://pinterest.com/
6. http://www.designdiary.org/
7. http://www.logosauce.com/
8. http://www.cssmania.com/
9. http://www.startdrawing.org/

4) Bridge

It seems that Adobe Bridge is very used tool for designers. It gives you all sort of information about Images and also its very easy to compare 2 images. The only reason I use Adobe Bridge is because bridge shows preview of all Psd files.

Bridge allows me to filter images and find them easy and quick.

5) Shortcuts

Every designer should know at least few basic Photoshop shortcuts. Without them the work is going to be much slower and most likely annoying. For example why would you move the mouse to the right bottom corner every time when you need to create new layer when you can just press Control + J and its done.

There are some very useful shortcuts and to be honest I can`t even remember where to find the things in the Photoshop menu just because I don't really use it.

What I am trying to say here is that you should deferentially learn some Photoshop shortcuts to speed up your work and make it more enjoyable.

6) Dummy Text?

Depending what kind of design job your doing dummy text can be very very useful. When I design things such as games, web design, software interface, business cards and so on, I always use Lorem Ipsum - The dummy text generator. Lorem Ipsum helps you the designer to see and design how the application should look like at the end of the development and also fills big gaps

Here is an example of some dummy text

"Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum."

Looks awesome :P. Every time I start project usually i don`t get given any of the content so I just use the dummy text and this helps me a lot with the design work. I would say BIG Photoshop friend. ( Photoshop should embed one )

I will show you how to create few useful applications like the Lorem Ipsum one for Photoshop very soon.

Link: http://www.lipsum.com/

7) Energy Drinks

So you think this is it? You are good with the colors? You have good tablet? and your Inspired so much that you can make Elephant Fly? Wait a second and read this.

All designers seems to love their job and they spend a lot of time on the computer just like me 24/7 . Well design job especially when you get paid its not that easy so you should get some time for sport and sleep. There are few useful tips for designers but I am not going to explain them. Just try to do as much sport activities as you can and I wouldn`t sugest doing but drink some energy drinks like Relentless or coffee.

Conclusion

Answer the door before people knock.