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!

How to get started with the web designing

Hello everyone, today I got up with some facts and reality about the web designing basics. This is the first time I am providing you something about web designing first time since it is the most demanding technology if you want to work as a UI designer. Web designing is not more different than the other technology in the perspective of designing. The difference occurs in the usage and the scope. I will demonstrate the basic things here with some examples.

 

1. What is web designing?

According to my experience and usage, I will describe it in my words. Web consists of many things that may help to reach more people at a particular instance. In order to attract more people, User Interface of the web page is very critical task and no wonders they will get more stipend then a basic desktop designers. Web pages are just the pages or sub-pages that will help to describe your website. I have designed many of the sites using HTML and JSP, PHP, CSS but it were worked well because I have designed it very well and spend more time on designing only. So, if you are a designer than you are very crucial part of the web designing.

 

2. How to start designing it?

As I have told you about the web designing, now I will just suggest you some sites for get hands on it very well as I have also learnt from it. I will advice you to directly start with the website(any website I have e-shopping) rather just practicing each and every module of that technology. The reason behind it is that if you spend your precious time on the learning and practicing those modules you will realize somewhere that there is no end to it, so just start thinking of a website and start designing. I will here providing you with the designing aspects and you just refer those suggested websites and you are done.

 

Following are the websites that will help you to learn at least basics of web development: 

• For HTML

• For CSS

• For Java Script

• For JSP/Servlets

• You can also refer this website

  There are many website which provide you web development part but I prefer above website. Also there are more technologies like php but the above given three are mostly preferred to develop a web page but still if you want to learn php and more, you can refer above site itself.

  If you have any issue regarding this please contact me directly through mail or comment on the blog. I am finishing now here this blog post by hoping that in the next post you will be well prepared with the basics of the web page development.

  Happy Designing