Clouds in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will learn to create the clouds in photoshop. This is very easy task and nothing more complicated just inbuilt tools and some creativity and you are done with it. Let's start it then:

Step 1: Requirements:

1. Adobe photoshop
2. Your focus

Step 2: Getting started

Create new photoshop workspace and fill it with light colors I have done it with creamy color with light orange color:

Step 3: Effects

Now just apply some effects on the workspace i.e Layer1 as follows:

Step 4: Add a new layer and create a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool. Make it slightly smaller than the background, so it will have some borders. After that apply a Gradient Overlay via Layer Styles. 

 Step 5:
For the Clouds I created a brush. It's really easy and I learned that from another tutorial I found online, But I decided to show you the screenshots too, because it's easier to follow. Basically create a brush and use this settings:

• Brush Tip Shape: Round shape, 500px Diameter, 0% Hardness, 25% Spacing.
  
• Shape Dynamics: 100% Size Jitter, 20% Minimum Diameter, Angle Jitter 20%, Roundness Jitter 0%.
  
• Scattering: Scatter Both Axes and 120%, Count 5, Count Jitter 100%.
  
• Texture: Select Clouds for the Pattern, 400% for the Scale (but you can make it bigger if you want the couds softer and you will have to reduce the size if you want a smaller brush). Mode Color Burn

Go to- Window>Brushes

Remember: you need to choose any of the Brush tool first before applying brushing effects from toolbox.

Step 6:

Now add a new layer and select white for the color. Choose the Cloud brush and start painting the cloud. The secret here is painting it very slowly, click by click until you get the shape you want.

 Step 7:

The previous step we created the first part of the cloud, but to make it look more realistic you will have to create some dark areas. Add another layer on top of the white cloud and go to Layer>Create Clipping Mask. Select black for the color and change the Brush Opacity to 50% . Then start painting the dark areas. If you look at some real clouds you will notice that these dark areas are always at the bottom of the clouds, so do the same.

You can add some effects as I have done:

 Step 8:

Create another cloud and place it on the other side. And place left or right and done. Just play sometime with it and you will hit it somewhere. Now Add a Circle filled with white into same workspace and this seems to be as below:

 Step 9:

Now in the next stage you just need to do some effects as follows if you want:

Step 10:
 Finally if you want you can add some thoughts of yours into it as I have done:

Here is my jpeg format image:

Happy designing.

 

Resolution independent GUI- Java Tutorial

Hello everyone, I am back with more exciting design tutorials that will really help you to develop a desktop application. In the previous tutorial I have provided java code for developing a simple login page GUI. In this tutorial I am going to explain that how we can achieve the resolution independency using Dimension class in java which is a prebuild library.  The reason of this tutorial is to make our application resolution independent i.e. we will execute our application on low resolution systems even if it is developed on high resolution systems  It will  So let's start.

Step 1: As usual you need the design ready with you using Adobe photoshop. This time you need not to define any specific size of size because we will make it resolution independent. I have used this picture as background, you can choose or create your own as you will be known to the software very much, I Hope SO.

Step 2: Next step is to start creating Jframe with some components as shown below:

1. JLabel
2. ImageIcon
3. Image

An additional class this time is the Dimension class which I have initialized in class as well:

"Dimension d=Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();"

This is the class that will make a difference in our previous codes where could not accessed resolution of our screen but here we will retrieve the resolution of the screen from the object we have created i.e. d. We can make it as follows:

Frame.setBounds(0,0,d.width,d.height);

Look's easy right!

Step 3:

Once we have got the components and resolution of the screen we can start our remaining short code by filling the Jlabel with the image with the help oh ImageIcon object. But it is not a scalable icon. If you directly use image as icon to Jlabel then you will get the background but not the independency on other computers. For that purpose we have used Image class as follows for grabbing the image:

backI = ImageIO.read(new File("F:/Pics/SUCCESS.jpg"));        

This line belongs to image acquisition form disk and below is the code snippet to scale the image to adjust the reolution mapping to image. This is an automatic scaling.

backI = backI.getScaledInstance(back.getWidth(), back.getHeight(),Image.SCALE_REPLICATE);

That's the code explanation that how we will make a resolution independent GUI in java. With the help of these you can develop any type of application for any resolution system. Here is the complete code:

import java.awt.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.*;


public class Resolution_independent {
   
    //declaration of components and frame
    public static JFrame frame;
    public static Container container;
    public static JLabel back;
    public static Image backI;
    public static ImageIcon backi;
    public static Dimension d=Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize(); //for resolution independency

   
    public Resolution_independent() throws Exception{
        frame=new JFrame();
        container=frame.getContentPane();
        container.setLayout(null);
        back=new JLabel();
        //Set bounds of all controls
        frame.setBounds(0, 0, d.width, d.height);
        back.setBounds(0,0,frame.getWidth(),frame.getHeight());
       
        //background image
        backI = ImageIO.read(new File("F:/Pics/SUCCESS.jpg"));   
        backI = backI.getScaledInstance(back.getWidth(), back.getHeight(),Image.SCALE_REPLICATE);
        backi = new ImageIcon(backI);
        back.setIcon(backi);//set icon as image
       
       
        //adding Jlabel to container
        container.add(back);
       
        frame.setUndecorated(true);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
       
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Resolution_independent re=new Resolution_independent();

    }

}

And here is the image I have used:

Happy Designing!

Designing the Animations- Java 7(Part 2)

Welcome back guys, I will now make you entered into the coding now. We will move the ball now on the Frame.

So, first of all open the eclipse Luna and create new project in it with any name you prefer to give.
I will assuming that you know all these basic stuff of opening and creating project in Eclipse and creating a new class. I will now directly skipping to code:

Step 1.
The stuffs you will need in the code::
    public static JFrame fr;
    public static JLabel ball1;
    public static Timer balltimer;
    public static Container c;
    public static ImageIcon i;

Frame is necessary to residing or a base for your ball and container will contains all your components, in our case it will contain our ball. Timer is used for continuously moving ball, our actual code logic resides here.

So let's start the further initialization.

Step 3.
public Animate_Ball() {
       
        fr=new JFrame();
        ball1=new JLabel();
        c=fr.getContentPane();
        i=new ImageIcon("ball.png");
        .
        .
 This is the constructor in which we will initialize all stuffs. Frame is initialized and ball object is initialized here and note that I have used Label for that purpose. Container is initialized with the Frame's contents. Now the primary thing is the ImageIcon which includes path of your image file or you can put it in your eclipse project files where your code resides or outside src folder.

Image stored here

This is the way you can create a simple animation through small code. Now next is the main code:

Step 3.
        c.setLayout(null);
        fr.setBounds(0, 0, 800, 500);
        ball1.setBounds(0, 9, 179, 168);
        ball1.setIcon(i);
        c.setBackground(Color.black);
        c.add(ball1);
        fr.setVisible(true);

I have just set layout as null because I want to move my label freely anywhere on the frame. Then set bounds according to the image size, my image size is 179*168. Then set the icon to the label that you have initialized earlier in Step 2. Then I want my background black hence I have changed the background of container but not the frame because frame contains the container and container contains components.
Lastly add the components to container and set visible the frame.

Step 4.
balltimer=new Timer(6, new ActionListener() {            //ball animator
           
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {
       
                if(ball1.getX()<fr.getWidth()){
                    ball1.setLocation(ball1.getX()+5,ball1.getY());
                }
                else{
                    ball1.setLocation(0,9);
                }
                   
            }
        });

Now you have to give your logic here that will execute continuously after the 6 sec interval as I mentioned, you can add more time. Initialize the timer as shown above and make use of CTRL+ SPACEBAR while typing to ease your typing. Then you need to call your timer by using balltimer.start();. Either call it from the constructor but below the initialization of the timer otherwise you will get exceptions or you can call it from main().

If you understood the concept then just create complete code from it then and only then you will get it clearly. Otherwise I will upload the code anyway in next tutorial.

Happy Designing with Java.

Designing the Animations- Java 7(Part 1)

I am back again with the thing that will make you feel joyful and exciting. I was already gave you a basic knowledge about the designing in Photoshop. Today I will demonstrate you all about the animation in java with the help of obviously Adobe Photoshop.

Here are the things you will need while going through out the tutorial:

1. Adobe Photoshop

2. Java 7

3. Eclipse Luna

Step 1.

First thing you need to do is that just create a ball in Adobe Photoshop. Don't worry,  I will help you out with this as usual.

Just select the shape tool but it doesn't appear as you move your mouse upon it. It's depends upon your previous selection in project. It may be named Line tool, Polygon tool, etc. You need to select Ellipse tool.  I already explained about Toolbox tools and selection. 

 

Initial Stage

Now draw it on the workspace like I have done. Get a reference of the image given above.

You will have a kind of scenario as shown above. It may differ as you are doing it in your own way. I am assuming that you have done with it and colored your ball. But still there's something you that don't make you feel it as a ball so here is the trick for giving it an illusion of 3d ball.

Step 2.

Remember guys everything you see in the real life is completely a part of illusion but that doesn't mean that everything you see in real world is falsified. It's just contains some illusions. So here is our illusion in virtual world, first of all make sure you have colored ball with something dark as I have done. 

Create ball

As I have selected blue color because it seems really shining color. Now the next thing you need to do is that select brush tool. But it will not allow you to color it directly so first Rasterize by right clicking on the Layer(Shape 1 if you didn't named it) and select Rasterize option. Now you have the rights to color it through any color.

Step 3.

Just now select Brush tool to make the ball shine. Change the foreground color to white and just click once on the area where you want the shine on ball like I have done. Note: Select entire ball by CTRL+ Left Click on the Shape 1 layer on layer Bar, it will select entire ball at once and then put the brush tool containing white and size may vary based on your scenario.

Final touch on ball

 Here is the sample ball I have created in png format:

In the Next tutorial I will describe the further steps.

Happy Designing.

Programming the Designs(GUI) Part-1

First of all, Thank You to read my blog regularly, I don't expect anything from you but just want to help you so that you can have your skills to be used for better purpose that leads to your bright future.

So, without being taking more time I will start with the main concern. In this new segment you will have Java programming, Python Programming with some design tools. I will mainly focus on Java GUI designing using Swing.

Let's start with it-
I have divided whole things into part so that I can add some more things if required further.

What is GUI programming?
This is not the actual word that you will find on the Google and may differ some meaning elsewhere. GUI programming is the term used for designing Graphical User Interface through programming and here I will suggest Java programming.

The reason for choosing Java is that it is a Platform Independent Language, that means it can be port to any machine and code will run in same manner as it was run previous machine/platform.

How to implement?
In Java GUI programming, we require some tools that you should download immediately to start with my tutorials. You will need:
1. jdk1.7 and above
2. Eclipse Indigo or Eclipse Luna(For ease of coding)
3. Adobe Photoshop(For designing images)  
4. If Possible Install Google's Picasa picture manager tool
 These are the basic requirements that will be important for all tutorials, extra things needed will be mentioned specially in the each tutorials.

If you already have some idea about Java Swing then its well and good otherwise just follow the instructions in the tutorials thoroughly. 

What is use of it?
You are definitely thinking of its usage. This will help you to develop your own hyper Interactive application GUI with your own created components.

You can also able to develop the Games with the help of further tutorials because I have created some games too and I will definitely help on that if you have something about in your mind.

So, I will end this Part-1 here and starting with the Implementations from the next tutorials.

Happy Designing!  

Remove Background from a picture

Hello Designers, I am posting after a very long break but it is a necessity to take a break to design and increase scope of designing for a designer. So, today I bring you a basic method of removing the background from a picture which is very complicated work actually but after a long time work you will get definitely what you want.

1. First decide picture(Normally with single color background for start up):

Here is the picture of Vivekananda I have taken for this purpose:

note: You can use this image for reference.

2. Now start work on Photoshop 7.0 or above:

 Next, you need to create new workspace by pressing CTRL+N or by using Menu bar>File>New.

Make sure you will have blank workspace, then copy and paste your picture above or go to Menu Bar>File>Open>Browse your picture

It will appear like this::

3. Select Lasso tool:

Need to right click on the tool menu to select Lasso tool if it is not already selected tool. Now next step will be selecting the area of interest only that means Vivekananda's picture only same like as I have done:

3. Copy the selected item on other workspace

Here you will require another blank workspace, just add it and paste this on that workspace just like I have done::

Here you can also just drag and drop on the other workspace like me.

next go to the tool menu and select Magic Wand Tool:

4. Now erase extra matter on picture:

Here, it is somehow haptic task to eliminate those extra matter, but don't worry you can do it anyhow with me.

Now delete this area using delete button on your keyboard and similarly select others with the help of magic wand tool but there may be some instance where you need to manually erase things by using Eraser Tool as shown below:

In such scenario you need to use eraser tool, and use this tool with caution because it may erase your crucial part of picture but thank Photoshop that we have ctrl+z facility. So try it because you may not succeed in the first time.

Note: reduce the size of eraser from the properties menu above the Tool Box. Your picture will look like as below picture:

In order to hide some cutting edges you can use blending options that I have applied to it.

Now you are ready with your image and just add a background to it that you have previously created by using my previous tutorials Design Background

5. Finalize:

Now this is the final step of this tutorial, you need to use now the blank workspace with size 1366*800 approximately and drag and drop the pic to the blank workspace. I have added a simple background with some quotes

You need to select the background layer then

If you want to enhance more then you can use Brush tool on the border of Vivekananda's picture. It will definitely enhance the quality.

Here, I leave my tutorial with you to place another tutorial to show you more but this time I will use a programming language.

Happy Designing.

Some background examples- Designed by me

You can use my backgrounds for free and start your foreground designing. I love to be some part of your unique designing.

 Here are my some of designs:

DREAM

Diagonals

Blueno

Greeno

Diagoline

Matrixo

Gray-tempt

Black-tempt

Note:  Please do not just right click and save image, you need to click on the image and it will show you the full image and then save it.

Conclusion:

So, here I just given you a template so that you can start your innovative designing. You can use these designs for free as these are my own created designs but you cannot use these for the commercial use. In the next tutorials I will now proceed with the complexity of 3D and 2D designs concepts and myths and then actual designing.

Starting with the basic- Design a Background(Part 2)

Previously we have seen the various parts of Adobe Photoshop and their usages with diagrams. We have already seen how we can open a window in Photoshop and select what we want from the options. Now I will tell you actual background designing, you do not worry about it just some try and you have done it.

So, here is the window you will get after clicking OK button on that sub-window you have seen after selecting New from Menu Bar provided with the setting you see in that image I uploaded in previous blog.

New window appears

Then select Magic Wand tool for selecting the whole area on window and your cursor will change to that tool, now click on the window which is shown :

Select Magic Wand Tool

Now the whole area is highlighted with the dotted lines on the border that means it got selected. After that you need to choose tool that can fill that with something. And for that we will use Brush Tool:

Select Brush Tool

Now its time to look into our design window, just select a particular color. For my background I have chosen three colors i.e first ORANGE then White and then Green. You can choose yours, I have chosen these because I am designing Indian Flag as background. 

Color Picker

Now just ensure that you have selected the Brush Tool and in the Option Pane choose the stroke style, now just make a stroke on the design window as I have done below:

Strokes

 Finally you will get the image as above, now you can save it as any extension you want. I used to save it as either PNG or JPEG extensions, after clicking OK you need to select quality of image.

Save File as JPEG

JPEG Options

Here you just select the quality as I used in the image or choose any of your choice. I saved file as jpeg and it will appears amazingly as background is converted to white but if you save it in png format you will see that its background will be empty. Just try to save it. You can use your creativity and thinking to design fabulous backgrounds.

Here is the final jpeg image I have created.

flag.jpeg

Conclusion

So I have just demonstrated very basic designing in Photoshop using strokes to design your own background pic. There are too many tools yet, just try to use it otherwise I am always there to share my experience with all the stuff in my next blogs. In next tutorial I will demonstrate to enhance this image more precisely by using software other than Photoshop.

---Good Luck---

Starting with the basic- Design a Background(Part 1)

I will start with the basic of designing the background images for any foreground. I started with the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 at early stages of my designing. You should start with this version of Adobe Photoshop in order to learn the core parts even further versions are also requiring these basics as they are developed based on this.

Installation Steps:

1. Download the Adobe Photoshop 7.0(recommended) or cs6 either from this link:

http://gulam-mujadad.blogspot.com/2013/07/adobe-photoshop-70-free-download-100.html

      OR 

http://adobe.com/downloads

2. Install the software and enter the key you got. Open the Photoshop

3. Just click OK when a dialog appears in front of you after reading everything. Now you are ready to do the magic stuff.

So after this small introduction I just starting the tutorial which can be detailed below:

Know the Parts:

First you should have knowledge of what you are using and here is the snapshot of the window you will get after installing and opened in windows:

Parts of Adobe Photoshop

Here is a small introduction to the parts of the window you see:

1. Toolbox: This contains many tools that can help you to design and enhance your image.

Tool Box

2. Navigation Bar: This the navigation window of your creations you are working in the same session.

3. Color manager: This window helps you to apply and experiment various color combinations you want to add, as this is an alternative way of applying colors.
4. History pallet: This provides the way of undoing the changes we have made in our image window. All the actions and events we have made on image stored here.
5. Layer manager: This window helps to mange our layers that we have created in our image.

We can copy or duplicate any layer anytime and also remove it by just right clicking on it.

Open New Window:

To start any design you should create an empty window by clicking on Menu Bar: File>>New

A sub-window appears like below (You can instantly press ctrl+n):

Open New Window

Please select pixels from the width and height, by default its inches.

Conclusion:

It is the first part which contains introduction to the Photoshop and tried to make you feel comfortable with the parts of Photoshop. Don't miss the next blog in which I will actually starting the designing Background.

---Good Luck---