This is a simple step by step setup guide for the Vanilla forum script. Yes, it is not that popular but it is sure getting there. This script has tons of very unique and visitor friendly features which no other forum scripts can provide. It is lightweight (always a plus point in my book) and can easily integrate into any existing website. The platform it is based upon is the Lussumo Framework. This framework allows developers to easily code and add new features to the forum. Not surprisingly, it is very easy to setup as well., All you need is some experience it web hosting, the basic knowledge of FTP and some windows commands and function. That’s all you need to setup Vanilla. Of course, I will go step by step and provide screenshots for every important step and you will setup Vanilla is just a few minutes.
Here are some of the requirements:
- Basic FTP and webhost experience
- Basic windows command knowledge
- Webhost which supports PHP and MySQL.
I am pretty confident that most webhosts nowadays will be able to support what you need to setup the Vanilla forum script without any problems. When in doubt, just contact your webhost and check with them whether they do. You will also need the FTP password and account name to upload your files. Furthermore, you will need to setup a MySQL database to work with Vanilla. For this, you will also need your webhost control panel password and username. Yes, all of these information can be obtained from your webhosting company.
Now, we begin:
You have to download the software from Vanilla’s website.Their URL is http://getvanilla.com/. Click on Download Vanilla and save the file some place on your computer where you can remember. The file is zipped and you will need to extract the files out before you can use.
I am using IZArc to extract the zipped files. You can use any achieving software to do it. It should be around the same steps. However, I would recommend IZArc because it works very well for me. Plus, it is free.What you need to do is to open the zip file using your achieving software and extract it out.
It is important to note the location where the files will be extracted to. You will need to upload those files to your webserver.
For most webhost, you will be given an FTP user account for you to transfer files to and fro the webserver. Some webhost use a web-based uploading system, so it is better to check with your webhosting company for more information on how to do it. I am using Filezilla to upload the files through FTP. They are other FTP Clients out there. The reason why I choose Filezilla is because it is free and most importantly, it is stable. Futhermore, it is very easy to use. So, what you need to do is to upload all the previously extracted files (you do remember the location right?) to your server. Please upload ALL the files. If you are uploading to a subdirectory, you will need to navigate to the correct directory in your FTP Client.
Remember, you should upload the files and folders and not the Vanilla folder to your webhost. If you upload the Vanilla folder, then you are actually creating a subdirectory and your URL will change. Of course, if that is your intention, then by all means, do it.
There all the files have been uploaded! Yes, it will take some time for the all files to get uploaded to your server.
The next step is to use your browser and browse to the URL you have setup your forum to be. For example, if your domain name is “google.com” then you will need to brose to “google.com”. If you have set it up on a subdirectory, let’s say “forums/vanilla”, then you will need to browse to “google.com/forums/vanilla”. You will be greeted with a screen just like above telling you that your Vanilla configuration is not yet setup. Click on “Click here to install a completely brand new version of Vanilla”.
This tutorial will not cover upgrading of the Vanilla script.
You will be again greeted by yet another page and it will provide you with the information as above. Note that they are asking you to chmod 777 for the conf folder and chmod 755 for the extensions, languages, setup and themes folder. But let’s not worry about that and click on “Click here to check your premissions and proceed to the next step”.
Yes, there is an error. You will have to chmod 777 on the “conf” folder. Well, what does that mean? Simple, you will need to provide some permissions so that the Vanilla forum script can do some changes. “777″merely means giving full access to Vanilla on the “conf” folder. Still don’t understand? Again, no worries, just follow the next few steps.
Go back to your FTP Client. If you are using Filezilla, just right click on the conf folder (of the remote site eg your website) and choose File attributes to set permissions.
Then key in “777″ on the numeric value. If your FTP client is not Filezilla, you will be need to allow ALL permissions to the folder, so choose Read, Write and execute on all permissions. Most UNIX or Linux servers allow chmod functions. Although there are quite a number of Windows servers out there, however most webhosts will be using Linux. In the case of Windows server, under security, choose your server’s username and allow all.
You will need to chmod 755 for the extensions folder. It should be “755″ by default.
The same for the languages folder. Chmod 755.
The same for the setup folder. Chmod 755.
And the same for the themes folder. Chmod 755.
Now, go back to your browser and click on “Click here to check your permissions and proceed to the next Step”. If everything is okay, the install script will then continue, if not, it will return to the same page andyou will need to do all the corrections to the permissions first before it can proceed.
Now, it’s time to configure your script to access your database. You will need your webhost’s contorl panel password and username to create a MySQL database. If you are using Cpanel as your webhost control panel, please read the tutorial for setting up MySQL database on Cpanel. If you are using DirectAdmin, then take a look at my tutorial on setting up MySQL database for DirectAdmin. For other control panels, please refer to your webhost for help.
You will need to key in the MySQL server (which is usually localhost), the MySQL Database Name, the MySQL user and the password. You do not need to change the prefix. However, if you want to, there is no harm unless you already using that same database with the same prefix. After you have keyed in all the necessary information, click on “Click here to create Vanilla’s database and proceed to the next step”.
There, you are almost done! Key in the Support Contact Name, Support Email Address and the name of your forum. The cookie domain and the cookie path should be done for you and you do not need to make any changes unless absolutely necessary. Once you have keyed in the information, your next step is to click on “Click here to complete the setup process”.
Wooohooo! You are done! Happy days! You have complete the setup for your first Vanilla based forum. However, you are not done yet.You will need to delete of a folder in your webserver for security reasons. We don’t want anyone to reconfigure your Vanilla forum again now, do we? It’s not good. 
So go back to your FTP Client and delete off the setup folder from your webserver (remote site). Right click on the folder (if you are using Filezilla) and choose delete.If you are using another FTP Client, there should be a way to delete off a folder easily. Refer to your FTP Client documentation for more information. This is actually a very important step.
I am pretty sure that you had thought that installing the Vanilla Forum script is very difficult. But it is not. In fact, nowadays most of the scripts can be easily setup in less than 15 minutes or so. And once you have done it, you will find it a breeze. So now, you should go and configure your new Vanilla based forum.
Tutorial sponsored by Singapore Small Business Directory.
There is a very interesting option for users of MySQL databases in the latest version of Cpanel (v11). They have created a little wizard for you to setup your MySQL Database. Well, I am thinking that that could mean that the “normal mode” of database creation in Cpanel is a little too tough for users, thus a wizard is needed. Hmm….anyway if you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can try my the other step by step tutorial on creating MySQL databases in Cpanel. Err…I don’t think it is that difficult for anyone to have to use a wizard. I always said that Cpanel is extremely easy to use. Do note that if your webhostis using a older version of Cpanel, then there will not be any wizard to help you along.
But no worries, if you find creating MySQL databases too tough or technical, I have created a little tutorial on using Cpanel’s MySQL Database Wizard. I am sure that even a 5 year old kid can do this without any problems. Just follow whatever instructions is on the screen and you should be alright.
So, go ahead and choose the MySQL Database Wizard under the Databases submenu.
Key in the name of your new database (in this example, it is “new”) and then click on Next Step.
There, the database is created. Note the name has changed. Usually, it will be prefixed with your domain name or a shortform of your domain name. Do remember the full name of your new database as you will need to fill in the entire name for your configurations. You will then be prompted to key in a username and passwords for your new database user. Do it and then click on Next Step. I would highly recommend you to create a complex password to prevent hackers from accessing or damaging your database.
As you can see from the above example, I have created a new user named “sgsmallb_newer” and the password for that user is cmv221d. You will need to remember the username and password. Note that like the database name, the username is prefixed as well. Keep them in a safe place for future reference. Furthermore, I have added the newly created user to the database as well. The next thing you need to do is to assign privileges to the user when accessing the database. No worries, for most cases, you will give them full access, so tick ALL PRIVILEGES. After that, click on Next Step to continue.
There, you are all done. Not so difficult right? Click on Return to Home. As you can see from the above photo, if you so desire, you can add another database (which starts the wizard again) or you can add another user to the database. However, this simple tutorial will not cover them.
Ha, just when you thought that I had enough of writing tutorials and guides, I decided to write yet another one. This time it is how to setup MySQL databases using DirectAdmin. Although DirectAdmin is not as popular as Cpanel, it is nevertheless a very good alternative control panel for web hosts. Sure, it has less features than Cpanel, but it is still a very user-friendly control panel and if you like basic and easy, you got it in DirectAdmin. When the latest version, DirectAdmin has really bumped up the competition which was previously completely owned by Cpanel. I must say good job there, Mr DirectAdmin.
The step by step tutorial is for the beginner and it will teach you how to setup MySQL database in just a few simple steps. In fact, it is much easier and less complicated than Cpanel. If you think the Cpanel tutorial is easy, you will be even more suprised to see how you can setup my MySQL databases with DirectAdmin. So without futherado, we begin the tutorial (or some people call this pictorial). You will need your userid and your password to access your DirectAdmin console in order for you to follow the tutorial. If you don’t have the information, you will need to get it from your webhost. Your webhost will also provide the URL which you can access DirectAdmin
At your home page of your DirectAdmin account, under Your Account, you will see MySQL Management. This is where you access the page to configure and setup your database. So your first step is to click on MySQL Management.
If you have existing databases, you can see them being displayed here. What you need to do is to click on Create new Database to create a new database.
The next step is to key in the necessary information. You will need the database Name, a username (or you can use an existing user) and the password (twice). Do note that both the database name and the username has a prefix in front. You will need the full database name and username when you configure your scripts or software to access the database. Of course, you should also remember the password.
After you have finished keying all the necessary information, click on Create. Remember, your database is usually exposed to the Internet, so you should have a very complex password to protect all your hard work. Clicking on random will generate a random password for you.
There, your database and user has been created. We are so happy for you. Take note of the hostname of your MySQL server as well.
You can see your new database on the MySQL managament page. Please note that by default the user privileges is set to Full access to the database. If you need to do some changes or the modify the privileges, you can always do your changes later by clicking on the database. However, this is for the slightly more advanced user. The defaults should work fine for most web applications. I would recommend you not to do any changes to the default privileges unless your application really requires it.
With that, I hope that you guys will enjoy the rest of the week. Remember to relax, have a beer and dont forget to live your life to the fullest.
This is a simple tutorial for Cpanel users to setup MySQL databases on their server. It is extremely easy to setup a MySQL database using Cpanel and as I will show you in the guide, it will take about 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t worry, it is very easy to do. If I can do it, so can you. All you need is your password and username to access your Cpanel account in your server. If you don’t have these information, get it from your webhost. You will need to enter to Cpanel’s console to add MySQL databases. The reason why I choose Cpanel is because it is one of the most popular web hosting control panel out there. In fact, most of the web host I have tried before used Cpanel exclusively, which is not too surprisingly considering that it is a very user-friendly control panel.
Anyway, let’s begin. In this tutorial, we will be using Cpanel v11. If you are using an older version, it should be around the same steps but the GUI will be slightly different. Again, don’t worry, it’s very very easy.
Okay, here we are at the main page of the Cpanel console after you have logged in. On the left (if you have the default theme), you will see your server specifications and stats. On your right, you will see the settings. Scroll down till you see Databases. Click on MySQL Databases.
At the top, you will see “Create New Database”. You will need to key in a new database name and then click on Create Database. In the tutorial, I have choosen the database name “new”.
There you go, a new database created. That was easy right? Click on Go Back to return to the MySQL main page.
Your new database name will usually be prefixed with your domain name as you can see from the above photo of the current databases. It has the prefix “sgsmallb” in front. However, your prefix will defintiely be different from what I have. So remember to take note of the full name of your database. For mine, the database name is now “sgsmallb_new”.
It is useless to create a database without a user connected to it. It’s like having a cake and nobody’s eating it. So what you need to do next is to create a new user for your database. You can of course make use of a prevous user and connect that user to your new database. Anyway, in this tutorial, we will be adding a new user. Key in the desired Username and password (twice) and then click on Create User (this is under MySQL Users).In the example, I have created a user with the username “me” and a password “cmv221d” (as you can see below).
There, all done! You have created a new user. Note that the username will usually be prefixed as well, just like the database name. Remember to take note of the full name and remember the password. Now click on Go Back.
Now, we are going to add a user to the database. You can see that in the above picture, there username has been added a prefix. In this example, the user “sgsmallb_me” will be added to the database “sgsmallb_new”. Click on Add after you are done.Note that you can add more users to a database in the future.
Next you will be presented with a option to provide certain privileges. For most cases, you will need to add “All Privileges” to your user’s rights. So tick on “All Privileges” and then click on “Make Changes”. If you need different privilges (rare), then by all means do the necessary changes.
Good. Your next move is to click on Go Back.
Now, under Current Databases, you can see the new database and the user connected to it. So, you are all done. You have just created an MySQL Database and added a user to it. And it took you like 5 minutes? Not difficult right? Don’t you just love good old Cpanel? Now go and enjoy your new database.
PhpBB is a free open source forum script and has tons of features to make it one of the most complete open source forum script out there. And best of all, it is pretty easy to setup. Anyway, nowadays a lot of such scripts are pretty easy to setup. You can get your forum up and running in under 20 minutes. If you don’t need the power and the flexibility of vBulletin, then PhpBB is your best choice (plus it is free). And with the launch of PhpBB3, the latest version offers web administrators and webmasters a whole lot of new options and features like new profile option, antispam technology, powerful PM options and many many more.For a more detailed feature comparison, please take a look at the PhpBB website.
This guide is meant for anyone who wants to setup PhpBB3 as their forum script. It is a very basic step by step guide on how to setup your forum script. It doesn’t include details on configuration of the script. Below are the requirements:
- Basic knowledge of FTP, MySQL setup and general web server configurations
- Web host or a web server (Standard PHP Support)
- Understand basic Windows commands
First of all, you have to download the PhpBB3 from PhpBB website. You can do it here. After you have downloaded the file, you will need to extract it as it is zipped.
I am using IZArc to unzip the files. You can use any other software to unzip your files like WinZip or UltimateZip. All of them work fine and the steps to unzip the files should be pretty straightforward. You should extract them to a place where you can remember.
As you can see above, I have extract the files to my desktop so that I can easily access them when I need. You will need to upload these files (the unzipped files) to your webserver using a FTP sofware. Some webhost have their own uploading script which requires you to login to their website and then upload the files from there. Please do the necessary changes needed. However, most webhost supports FTP access to their server so you should be use FTP as it is more stable and gives you more options.
As you can see, I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client (software). This is a very stable and good performing FTP Client and I would highly recommend it to you. However, if you are using other software to upload the files, please do the necessary changes. Other FTP Clients include CuteFTP, SmartFTP and CoreFTP. Their functionality and features are basically the same.
The next step is to upload the files which you have previously extracted to your webserver/account. So after you have connected to your webserver using your FTP Client, upload the files to your server. Ensure that all the files are uploaded. Do note that you should upload the files inside the PhpBB3 folder and not the phpBB3 folder itself, unless you are looking to set it up in a subdirectory named phpBB3.
There you have it, all uploaded.
The next step would be web based so you need a browser for it to work. Internet Explorer is fine. Mozilla Firefox works too. What you need to do is to browse to the website you have just uploaded the files to. So for example, your website address is “http://www.somewebsite.com”, you will key that into your address bar. However, if your files are located in a subdirectory, let’s say in the phpBB3 subdirectory, you will need to type “http://www.somewebsite.com/phpBB3/” in your address bar instead.
PhpBB script will detect that the configuration of your forum has not been done and you will be directed to this page instead. Here you can follow the step by step wizard to setup your very first PhpBB based web forum! Your next step will be to click on the Install tab located at the top left of the webpage.
Before you proceed, you will have to setup your database. This would normally require you to login to your webhost’s control panel and setup the MySQL database. You will be given a database name, database user and password. Please ask your web host for help if you don’t know how to do that. If you are using Cpanel, please refer to this site for a tutorial on how to setup a MySQL database. If you have already done that, well, the only thing you can do is to click on Proceed to next step at the bottom.
From this page, you will see that you are having some problems with the installation. Some files and directories are not writable and this will cause problems with your installation. You will need to remedy that. However, this would require you to use your FTP Client to give write access. The folders you need to change attributes are the cache folder, the files folder, the store folder and the image/avatars/upload folder. You will also need to give write access to the file config.php.
So, lets go back to the FTP Client and do the necessary changes. As from the picture above, you will need to right click on the folder you want to change the attribute and choose File attributes. Oh, you do the changes on the files which have already been uploaded to the server and NOT on the files located on your PC.
There, ensure that the Write permission is ticked. After you have done all the changes to all the folders and files mentioned above, you will return back to your browser and click on “Test Again” at the bottom of the webpage.
Hoorray, we have done it. Everything is now writable and you can “Start Install”! So, go ahead and start installing.
Now, it’s time to setup your database configuration. Key in the information as indicated. For the database server host, it should very likely be “localhost” as most webhost keeps their database server on the same machine. However, if you have problems accessing your database, please check with your webhost for the correct settings. For the database server port, you should leave it blank unless you are instructed by your webhost otherwise. For the prefix, you can change to whatever you want, but I would recommend you to left it as it is unless you have another table on the same database with the same prefix. After you have keyed in all the necessary information, click on Proceed to next step.
Done. Your database settings are all done. Click on Proceed to next step to setup your administrator configurations.
This step is simple, just key in the administrator (that means you!) username, password and contact email address. Please write down the username and password so that you won’t forget it. Would be a waste if you do as you will have to do it all over again. After you have keyed in all the information, click on Proceed to next step.
Woohooo! We are almost there. Your only option is to click on Proceed to next step.
Once everything is setup properly, you will be greeted by a page like this. This is where you configure your forum. There are tons of options for you to edit and change to your heart’s content. I will not cover them in this tutorial as the options are just mind boogling. And it would be more fun for you to test them out yourself. However, most of the options are pretty simple and you should not have any problem understanding what they mean.
Anyway, if you look carefully, there is a red coloured remark at the top of the page. It is telling you that the install folder is still on the webserver. You will need to delete it from the webserver for security reasons. So what you need is the FTP Client again.
You will need to delete off the install folder. So right click on the folder and choose delete. You can of course rename the folder or move it somewhere else. But why bother? You are not likely to use it again. And in the rare event that you need the install folder, you can always upload it to the server again. This is actually a very important step as hackers can make use of the files in the install folder to do nasty things to your site.
Anyway, there you have it. You have setup your very first PhpBB based web forum. Do not be afraid to experiment with the settings. And you will later need to change the forum to suit yourself, so you will have to change the themes or even create one yourself. I wish you the best of luck on your newly setup forum and will “many many” visitors frequent your forum. But don’t forget about me.
Okay guys, just a few days ago I was tasked by my boss to find a cheaper alternative to Adobe Acrobat. However, his main aim to just to convert all sorts of files to PDF, so I suggested to the brilliant businessman that you can get it for free if you just need to do conversion. His eyes suddenly brightens up when he heard the word “free” and he was hopping around mad like a bunny rabbit. And so I decided to go around the Internet and look for some great software to convert files to PDF. Some of which have quite a number of very useful features included as well. Don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars.
doPDF – I like lightweight software and this is certainly one. Fast and works without problems and doesn’t have any advertisements or adware in it. If you are just looking to convert your files to PDF and don’t need any additional features, this is it. Best it doesn’t require that huge download of a file called GhostScript. From it’s website, it says that it supports 64-bit Windows.
PrimoPDF – Feels a bit sluggish on my low end PC but it should be okay for others. This works very well and I have been using it for sometime now. The latest version supports merging of files so if you have several files with you would like to merge into one, this software does it. There is no advertisements or adware installed. However, Ghostscript is needed for operation.
pdf995 – A very long time friend of mine, this powerful software has tons of feaures which you can add-on through their other upgrades like PdfEdit995. However, the installer takes up a lot of space (for a converter) and it does use up quite an amount of resources. And those irritating advertisements and pop-ups really gets to you after a file, especially if you need to convert a lot of files. Go to their website to see the entire list of features supported by this powerful software.
CutePDF Writer – I don’t understand why everyone likes to call their software “cute”? I mean, I need a lean and mean program, not one that looks cute, unless you are a 10-year old litle girl. Then perhaps cute is important. Okay, now back to the software, this software does it work well but it is just a PDF converter without any other features. I would say both doPDF and CutePDF Writer are in the same league. Lightweight and lean. Cool. Only thing is that it still requires GhostScript, so I would recommend doPDF.
PDF Creator – Open source PDF converter. However, it doesn’t seem to get updated often, the latest version is more than a year old. Anyway, sadly it loads very slow on my system, a bit too slow for frequent use. But then it supports a number of useful features like files merge and encryption. There are no advertisements or adware installed with this software either. And Ghostscript is needed for it to work properly.
Hope this is useful to you. If you have anymore PDF converters that is not shown here, please let us know. Thank you.
I am sure that by now, you have seen what brushes in Photoshop can do for you. It is a pretty handy tool to create good looking backgrounds and wallpaper. But brushes are way more than just clicking here and there, there are a lot of options for brushes. You can scatter your images all over your canvas area or even make them change colour. Here is a slightly more advance brushes tutorial.
I will start by creating a simple leafy kind of background. This is what I have created.
1. Start Photoshop and create a new image. You should choose a area big enough to accomodate a certain number of elements, so choose something bigger in size like 640×480 or more. It will not look that good on a small picture. The things you should also consider is the background color, I have chosen white because it is the easiest to deal with. You can experiment with other colours later if you choose to.
2. Now let’s choose the Brushes option on your left-hand side tools palette. It looks like a small brush. I have shown it below.
It looks nearly the same as the pencil option, so becareful. Alternatively you can use the Shift-B key to toggle the Brushes or the Pencil controls. After you have done that, you will be able to see the Brushes Option Properties on the top or since it is dockable, you can have it anywhere. If you don’t see it, goto Window and tick Options to enable the Option properties.
This is the part we would like to take a closer look at. From here, click on the pull down option next to the Brush type. You can see they have the Master Diameter, Hardness and a little scrolly thing for you to choose the brush type. For this short tutorial, we will take a look at the Leaf brush only. So ahead and choose the Leaf brush type for your brush. Now you can play around with it. See how well it “scatters” and “tilts” when you click on the canvas? You can create a beautiful leafy background with it.
But in order to undestand the brush command, we need to go deeper into the brush option. So stop playing with the brush, we have things to learn. Yes, stop now.
3. We now go more into detail with the brush option. Click on the Brush tab (usually on the right top of your Brush option properties panel) and you will be shown a list of optons for you to choose.
Go ahead and untick all of them for this tutorial. We will go in step by step and see what each of these options do.
4. Now tick on Shape Dynamics and then click on it (the name)Â again. You will be presented with an array of options and drag/slider bars.
- Size Jitter is simple. It randomly changes the size of the brush image. So if you set a high value, the brush images will vary a lot in size. Try it by sliding the bar and then clicking on the canvas. You can choose to control how the size jitter will effect your images. Â
- Angle Jitter is exactly like Size Jitter, just that now it controls the angle of the image. It really looks cool if your images are all in random rather than looking like a neat stack of cards. But of course, it depends on what you are creating.
- Roundness Jitter is less obvious in our case. It is more to using normal dot(or round) brushes. What it does is control the roundness of your brush image. So if you set your roundness jitter to a high value, you will get more images which look flatten or squashed. It affects only the vertical height. The below image shows the difference, the top image doesn’t have any roundness jitter while the bottom image has.
5. The next one is Scattering. One of the coolest feature you can find in the Brushes option. It sort of creates a wide area of the image scatter according to your preference. I like it a lot. So tick the Scattering option and then click to go into it’s options. Again, we find options and slider/drag bars.
- Both Axes option. Well, to make it easy to understand, it scatters a bigger area in all directions if enabled. If not enabled, it only scatters in one direction. You would thought that it would create a wider area but instead it looks sort of clumped together if enabled because the scattering is in more directions. I was a bit confused initially but now I realize that it makes sense.
- Scatter. Simple, the more scatter you provide, the wider the area of scatter. Depending on your image size, you may need to control the area of scatter.
- Count. The amount of images. So if you set a high value here, you will see that there will be more images being “scattered” all over. For a dense area, I would usually choose a high count value and a low scatter value. You will then get more images scattered in a smaller area.
- Count Jitter. It controls the amount of images so that each instance will produce a more random number of images. If you set your Count Jitter value high, you will get a more random and varied look for your image. You should play around with all these values in the scatter option as they do a good job so that your images won’t look like a fixed pattern.
What I normally would do is to create a large image size, then set the brush scatter value, count value and count jitter value high to create a beautiful background easily without too much clicking. Sure you get less control, but the “randomness” of the image is good and you can always touch up afterwards. Of course, as I said before, this is dependent on what you are planning to create.
6. I will skip Texture and Dual Brush. This will be covered a later tutorial because doesn’t really affect much in our current tutroial. Now we go to the Colour Dynamics Option. So do the same thing, tick in and click on it to show the options. This option allows you to control the colour of the brush images (for both background and foreground).
You can adjust the slider according to what you need. The very interesting option is the purity option. It deals with the saturation actually, and if you are looking to create a different variety of”darkness” and “colours” for your brush images,then you should set it high. If you only want minimal changes of tone colour, then you should set it low. Oh, you should also increase the values of the Hue, Saturation and Brightness values too. If you set them too low, the purity slide is of not much use to you anyway.
And you should experiment with all the sliders and try to get a good mix of colours for your image.
7. Okay, now let’s go to the Other Dynamics Option. Tick it and click on the Other Dynamics name to show the options. What will be as usual several sliders and options for you to fiddle around with.
- Opacity Jitter. A very powerful tool to create more randomness for your image. It is to control how opacque your brush images will be. Sort of like whether an image is a “see-through” kind or not. So if you set the Opacity Jitter high, you will get a number of “translucent” images which actually looks quite good.
- Flow Jitter. This controls the flow rate of your movement or stroke. You know like when you brush a stroke, you will usually get a continuous stroke but sometimes you will have missing “areas” on that stroke. So if you set the flow jitter high, you will see gaps in that stroke.
You can view a example here: Simple Sites
Well, that’s end end of this tutorial. Hope you guys know a little more about Photoshop’s brushes. I think you will definitely enjoy toying around with this powerful tool. You can even create paintings from it. But this is best left to another time. Ciao for now!
The best way to improve on something is to practice. And so, in order to improve my photoshop skills, I have done a little poster called Animal Farm. It’s done on Photoshop CS and is mainly with brushes and some text. It’s nothing impressive but I think it highlights the usefulness of brushes in Photoshop to create good and very elegant looking backgrounds. It’s also very simple to do. I think this poster came out okay, considering that I am someone with pathetic skills in Photoshop.
If you would like a simple walkthough on creating this poster, please keep on reading. It involves just simple brushes.
1. Okay, Start your photoshop software and create a new image, I chose 640×480 size, color mode RGB Color and background White. Next I go Layer->New->Layer to create a new layer for my animal prints.
2. The next step is to use brushes to create the paw prints of the animal. I use just 4 “dots” per print. 3 small ones and 1 big one. So I start brushes by going to the Tools Palette and choosing the brush command. It is usually on your left. Or you can just use Shift-B (twice if needed) to toggle to the brush. Make sure you are at the brush command instead of the pencil command. At the brushes properties, you can choose the size of the brush. If you look carefully, you can see that the bottom paw prints are slightly faded than the ones on the top. You can use the Hardness option to change that. if you would like it to be blur, that reduce the Hardness value. You also need to change the color in the color palette (usually on your left as well).
3. So now, go ahead and start doing your 4 dots (3 small and 1 big) per paw print. If you need 5 paw prints, then you need 15 small dots and 4 bigger dots. Remember to choose the Hardness level as needed. I use it to make the appearance that the bottom paw prints are further away than the top paw prints.
4. Now, let’s create the text. You can see that once you choose the text option (that’s also on the left menu) or just Shift-T and click and draw onto the area you want to write the text, you will have created another layer as well. You can type whether you want on the text box. You can choose the options like size and font type from the text properties. The Color Palette (same as the above) is for you to choose the color of your fonts. If would like to add other text boxes, you can do it here as well.
5. Next let’s choose the rectangle marquee tool (or Shift-M) and drag an area covering about 20% of bottom from the left to the right of the entire drawing area. The choose the color from the Colors Palette and the click on Paint Bucket Tool (Shift-G) to fill that area with a certain color. And you are about done. The next few steps are just repeats of what I have done previously.
6. Blood Splatter Brushes. You can see from the finished poster that there are several blood splatter which looks pretty realistic. I use VexingArt’s Blood Splatter which works really well. All you need to do is to download the zip file, uncompress it with some unzipping software and than double click on the .abr file. Next you will have to copy the .abr file to the Photshop directory, the preset and brushes folder. The brushes will then be loaded with you restart Photoshop. Next, you need to goto the Brush tool, choose Brush preset picker, then goto options and choose the new brush. That’s it. And you are done and can start to play with blood splatter.
Hey, good luck and have fun. If you don’t enjoy playing around with Photoshop, you shouldn’t be doing graphic design. For this poster, I think what it needs is to change the colour of the blood to a more reddish (bloody) type. Perhaps add a hand at the bottom so that it looks like it has been ripped apart by some animal. Yes, I have a lot of ideas but no time and no skill.
If you are “brave” like me and would like to experiment with different colours for the web, one of the safest way to do is to use colours from flowers, fruits, plants or even the landscape. One of the things I discovered is that “natural” colours usually don’t clash and they complement each other very well. For example, if you take a flower (that is the entire plant which includes the flower) and create a theme, you will usually get a good mix. So, the next time you decide to design a website, you should go on the web and start downloading photos from nature like rivers, mountains, gardens, trees and even fruits.
You need just one little software called The Color Picker in order to figure out what colors the pictures or photos have. This software allows you to find out the RGB or the Hex value of the colour of anything on your screen. So all you need to do is to start the software and the move your mouse cursor to whichever you want to find and it will tell you the colour codes. And it’s free. I will do a little review on this software next time. It’s a great software.
Here are some samples (of flowers) colour themes which I have done:
#ECCAE1, #A04438, #C06DAC, #F5C629, #CA5AA2
#A5842D, #BD9674, #3A4F29, #E87B24, #DEB325
#F3EB3B, #0D1C15, #6BBB44, #E4DF4E, #DA59A1
Now let’s try others:
#C38D2B, #1E0A0C, #A44723, #425A28, #E88923
#E9D29D, #CD792C, #E49224, #D8B478, #F69246
#F3AC5A, #D7AF2E, #F9D290, #191512, #C23E26
#F69970, #456A80, #F5918C, #596A73, #B1A281
#EDA54B, #B05C7A, #FAEC9B, #E881AE, #6D6B7F
#F7E68B, #08182D, #E3E2E5, #667AA8, #B0BFCF
I am not a professional, but I hope that this little post will tell you how to easily choose your colours. Think nature. I think they are great for logos and graphics but you should use caution when you are using them for your webpages. This is because although the colours don’t clash, you need to figure out which colours will be for fonts, headers, background and so on. Using the wrong colours for your site will make your webpages look out of place. For me, I will usually go for light background with headers and footers a darker colour and their fonts something very light or even white. But of course, this is my opinion. And it would work well for beginners. Darker backgrounds should be meant for those more experienced with web design, since they do need more effort and care when choosing the colours.
What do you think of the colour blends I have made? Please, I would like to hear your comments.
This one was introduced to me by Scolls, it’s yet another tutorial for creating your very own Wordpress theme. You can find it here on Urban Giraffe. This tutorial is a little more detailed than the previous one I had read and it explains everything from location to style to functions. Everything. Which is of course very good, especially for beginners like me which can’t figure out one end from the other. There isn’t too much tech talk in the articles. And I can see that a lot of effort had been put in into creating this tutorial for us.
I think the main reason why I like this tutorial is that it explains clearly step by step the entire theme creation process. The authour doesn’t think that you know everything and he/she strives to give the reader details and explanations so that it gets less confusing as it goes on. Although I have a little understanding on this Wordpress theme creation, this tutorial does clear up some doubt I have with Wordpress. It even tells you how server-side PHP works! It comes in 4 parts and by the end of the fourth part, you should have nearly everything you need to create your very own theme for Wordpress. It starts with how the theme works, then followed by header and footer, next comes the sidebar and finally the content. This very smooth flow of the process makes understanding and working with Wordpress much easier.
Oh, the tutorial comes in the downloadable pdf format as well. But you need to pay for it. And you can even purchase a “professional” printed copy of the ebook.
And if you keep on browsing on this blog, you will find a lot of other information on Wordpress as well. They have several articles on how to make use of Wordpress like how to translate into other languages, how to separate comments and pings and so on. I think you will find it interesting to have a read. You can also download various Wordpress plugins from their site. Some of these plugins are pretty useful to have.
