Joomla SEO Essentials

Bri-Idea - Long Island Web Design Goes over some fundamental Steps to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
www.bri-idea.com

Natural Disaster Photoshop Effects

I did not create a tutorial for this HOWEVER I will do so If I get enough requests, positive feedback or comments  

I wanted to see if I could create a cool natural disaster effect in photoshop using a street view of Manhattan.     I have seen a bunch of really cool variations of this subject and wanted to give it a shot.  Let me know what you think!  Here is the original Image I used :

And here is the result of our Natural Disaster!

Check out www.Bri-Idea.com for more articles and to view my portfolio!

How to Create an Angel in Photoshop Tutorial and Walkthrough

This is the final result of our Work :)

!KEEP ALL LAYERS SEPARATE AS EACH LAYER EFFECTS WILL VARY!
If you Enjoy this Tutorial Please leave a comment and share this with others!
Create an Angel in Photoshop Link 

Start Here

I used this image I found while browsing Google images for the keyword jump.  Click here for the Image

Open the image in Photoshop and keep the image size the same for now.  

Step 1. Begin using the Magnetic Lasso tool to outline the jumper.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but try not to chop off any limbs, fingers or toes!

Step 2. Once Selected Copy and Paste the Jumper in a new layer and try to clean up the edges to the best of your ability.

Step 3.  You will notice that it would take a lot of patience to remove all the blue from the hair and remaining areas around his body.  So we are going to go to the top menu to SELECT then COLOR RANGE.

Step 4.  Use the color picker to select the blue color range between the hair.  You will notice in the black color range box that there are little specks of white.  This white is the blue that you selected in the image.

Step 5. Once you Select OK you will notice that all the remaining blue is now selected.  Hit the Delete Key and Your image will appear clean and cut!

Step 6.  Increase the Canvas Size of the Image by 10 inches, this way the wings will not get cut off when we add them.

Step 7. Lets Refine the edge a bit using these settings found under SELECT and REFINE EDGE.  Feather 2px and shift edge +40% hit OK and then Press Delete.  Voila!

Wings!

OK so we have our diver jumper man all cut out and cleaned up, now comes the fun part!  Lets get the wings set up.  I got the wings from searching wing or wings in Google images. 

Step 1.  Use the Magic Selection tool to remove the white background.  Then copy the layer to your Jumper file.

Step 2.   Scale the wing to fit like the image above.  I also trimmed a bit of the wing with the eraser tool.  That is wing number 1.  Now we need to duplicate this layer to make the 2nd wing.

Step 3. So now that we have the second wing we need to give the wing the appearance of it coming at you.  So select Edit , Transform and Distort to play with the wings perspective.  

This is what the second Wing should look like after playing with Distort and Perspective Tools

Leather Skirt
So now we have a Pretty cool looking angel in a bathing suit...  Lets try and fix this and add something a bit more medieval? or Angel like rather than a wet bathing suit.  Here is a Link to a Leather Skirt I found online through Google images

Step 1. Do your best to Remove all of the background from the skirt.  Then move the layer into your Diver/Jumper file

Step 2. Scale the Skirt by lining up the waist area appropriately

Step 3. Play with the perspective and use the warp tool to wrap around the waist area of the figure.

You'll notice the bathing suit is still showing through the skirt so use the clone tool and eraser to extend the leg all the way up and use the burn tool to add shadow.

Worst Active Domain Names Ever...

Worst Active Domain Names Ever...

Please Forgive any inappropriate innuendo in some of these names.  If you are easily offended than please move on otherwise have a laugh!

budget.co.ck - Cook Islands - TLD is .ck and they use .co for commercial domains


webone.com - software development company


oddsextractor.com - software for bet fair


mammotherection.com - scaffolding erection company


penisland.net - pen manufacturer


speedofart.com - no idea, name is not half as bad as the website


hollandshitfestival.nl  - some dutch festival

therapistfinder.com - California counseling 

swissbit.ch  - Memory/Flash storage developer TLD is .ck for Switzerland
 
whorepresents.com -  Some sort of celebrity representation directory

rocketitsupport.com - IT support company

choosespain.com - Tourist site for Spain

dickslumber.com - It's not asleep, its lumber

childrenswear.co.uk  - Fancy children's clothing

lesbocages.com - horticulturist in France

actionpaintballsac.com  - Paintball Sacramento

nycanal.com  - NY Canal

effoff.com  - effective office env.

ilovebigals.com  - big als bowling

theoneillbuilding.com - a healthy building in NYC

I hope my website doesn't have any hidden words.  www.Bri-Idea.com

Keeping your Site Crisp and Clean

 This is a simple lesson for everyone who updates their own website or blog. 

I place before you two images.  One with good resolution and one with bad resolution.  

Notice the difference?  The Good image is a relatively medium resolution at around 500 pixels by 500 pixels.  The Bad image is a 100 pixel by 100 pixel images that was enlarged to 500 by 500 pixels.  

A pixel is a single point (square) in an image: See Below

So a photograph depending on the resolution can be made up of 100 x 100 pixels or 2000 x 2000 pixels and so on.

The lower the resolution (100x100) the more pixelated (or grainy) the image becomes.  The Higher the resolution ( 2000 x 2000) the sharper the image becomes.

It's More common than you think

Using low resolution images is a common mistake that a lot of people, even web developers make and is quite painful to see.  This is a huge turn off if I am visiting a website.  It implies that an amateur created or maintains the site and should not be taken seriously.  As silly as it sounds it makes a big difference to your visitors.  If you have a hard time finding an image go to a stock photography site and purchase a few high res images.  We now live in a HD (high definition) era and most people expect their internet browsing experience to look great on their 24 inch expensive monitor.  

Enhance the Image!!!

You ever watch CSI when they need to enhance the image to catch the bad guy?  Kind of like this

You cannot take a picture with your 2 mega pixel camera phone and expect to use it effectively on your website.  There is no such thing as enhance, enhance, enhance, enhance.  Taking the time to check image resolution or change image resolution is well worth it and could improve your sites overall bounce (leave the site) rate.  


Check out my Site www.Bri-Idea.com for news, design tips and more...

iOS app store down: workaround

iOS app store search function is currently down. Work around it by google searching the app you are looking for (ex. Twitter iTunes) . The URL will open up to the apps page where you will be able to download the app with no trouble at all!