wwwebTutorials

CSS has always been a hell of a big deal to me (I guess every user’s) for it’s long-been-known cross browser incompatibility tendency. I can still remember how I have to be as patient as I could to keep up on the first few months of disalienating myself to it. Because of my need to design freely without compromising any of Firefox and IE (as these 2 browsers are the ones with a higher percentages of users), I always had to search the web for easiest (or at least one that wouldn’t take up too much time to do) ways on how to eradicate design flaws. I don’t really have that much problem with Firefox though–I guess it’s the most tolerant browser ever. Internet Explorer is quite a dud when it comes to CSS.

Part of what I learned was this simple CSS hack for IE (particularly IE6) which eliminates differences with Firefox. It’s the “* html” thing which really works so far fine for me. I use it in positioning div’s as sometimes what appears on Firefox doesn’t appear similar to IE.

For example, if you have this CSS code for a certain div,

#header{ width:739px;
height:220px;
position:relative;
top:5px;
margin:0 auto; }

the 5px top position may not be enough or too much on IE as to how it is on Firefox. So I always use similar to the following code to save my design,

* html #header
{ top:8px; }

I always knew this hack would sooner or later have changes and it turned out right when I started using IE7. I was back again on a great deal with IE’s CSS glitch in version 7. But fortunately didn’t took me too long to find the new hack. I found out it is now “* + html”. * + html #header{ top:8px; } That is the equivalent code for IE7 of the above code (which is for IE6). There are instances though to which this hack (or any CSS hack at all) is not that necessary like those designs that don’t need tight-knit positioning of elements. But for some instances, including having a knit-picky boss, I bet it is that much.;)

Source: Blogsome Blog

This tutorial will show you how to create cool backgrounds using custom shapes in Photoshop.

At the end of this tutorial you will be able to create backgrounds similar to these:

Let’s start.

First thing we’ll do is to create a Pattern. This is actually what makes these beautiful backgrounds.

1] Create a new document in 20x20px. Make the Background Contents Transparent. This document can be very tiny so you can zoom it in.

2] Create a new Layer then set the Foreground to white.

3] Click the Custom Shape Tool. Select a custom shape from the Custom Shape picker on the options bar. If you are unable to find the shape encircled below, click the small arrow on the right side and select All.

4] Draw the shape on your canvas.

Make sure to occupy the whole canvas with the shape when drawing. I used an arrow here for you to follow the direction in drawing. You can also create another layer before drawing the custom shape so you can clearly see it just like what I did in this tutorial.

There it is! We already have our shape which we will make as our Pattern.

5] Zoom out the document in just 100% of it and make the layer behind the shape invisible to make the background transparent again as what we intended it to be at the start of this tutorial.

6] Next, go to menu and select Edit > Define Pattern… Name the Pattern “My Pattern”.

We’re almost done! We already have defined our Pattern. It’s time to use it for our Background.

7] Create a new 120x120px document and fill it with any color you want as the color behind the Pattern. I used #724703. Then, create again a new layer and select it.

8] Go to Edit > Fill… Choose Pattern from the drop-down menu under Contents then select from the Custom Pattern.

We’ll select of course the pattern named “My Pattern” which is the one we created. Follow other settings shown below and click OK.

We’ll then have this output:

9] For the final step, select the layer where we have filled the pattern and set the Opacity to 8%.

And that’s the final result! You can try other custom shapes in Photoshop!

Learn how to create a “Post-it” from this tutorial in few simple and easy steps.

To start, create a new 200×200pixels document with white background.

1] Create a new layer on the Layers palette and you can name it as your “post-it” layer.

2] Set the Foreground color to #1b8797 and the Background color to #2aafc2.

3] Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, draw a square on your canvas and fill it with gradient using the Gradient Tool.

We already have a “post-it”. We’ll now create its shadow.

4] Press D to change the Foreground color to black. Using the Pen Tool, draw a shape for the shadow. Rasterize this shape in the Layers palette and name it “shadow”.

5] Still selecting the “shadow” layer, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 3.0 pixels. Also, set the layer’s Opacity to 70%.

6] Create a new layer. Using again the Rectangular Marquee Tool, draw a rectangle at the top of the post-it and fill it with gradient (Foreground to Transparent). Make sure the Foreground color is black. Disselect the layer and set the Opacity to about 2-4%.

You can actually stop here and just add your text to it to get the final result of your post it.

But to make it look more like a realistic post it, we’ll go on to our next and last step.

7] Click on the “post-it” layer then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Follow the settings below then click OK.

Now add text to your post-it and we’re done! The final result will be similar to this one:

This simple tutorial will show you how to create a Chalk Text Effect like this one:

1] Start by creating a new document in 500×85px.

2] Create a new layer and fill it with white.

3] Set the Foreground color to #44494d.

4] Using the Text Tool, type any text you like in your canvas (best to use a Round font).

Now, to give the text a chalk effect, we’ll simply give it the Inner Glow.

5] Double-click the text layer on the Layers palette to display the Layer Style window. Select Inner Glow and follow the settings shown below. Click OK.

To make the effect more realistic, the trick is to set the color of your Inner Glow to same color as the background. In this case, I’ve set the Inner Glow to white which is the color of the Background.

Our final result will be:

That’s it! You can use this text effect to create cool designs!