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In the design world, photo editing application is one of most important tools for graphic designer as well as web designer. As professional graphic designers, we almost cannot live without it. We all know that Adobe Photoshop is the best one, but it is not free, so just skip it. What we are talking here is about something FREE. After spending a full day on reviewing, I selected the top 5 free photo editing programs. And I want to share with you today. Yes, it is worth to have a look and try. Believe me or not, some of them provide rich features and essential tool sets for image editing, retouching, image composition and enhancement just similar to some professional packages. Let see it yourself and share your experience in comment section.

1- GIMP

GIMP is not only photo editing application, it is image manipulate software program. You can use software for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. If you ever had experienced or used Adobe Photoshop, you can see some similar features in GIMP.

2-Paint.NET

Paint.NET is one of the fastest image editor available for digital photo editing purpose. The software provides all essential tools for image editing as well as photo enhancement. The software has some similar features to very popular graphic design software Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. This program requires Microsoft .NET Framework.

3-Picasa

Picasa is very interactive photo viewing, organizing, editing and sharing. User can perform essential image editing tasks and organize the photos on your hard drive, sharing pictures online with Picasa Web Albums. Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great.

4-PhotoPlus Starter Edition

PhotoPlus Starter Edition is the free digital photo editing software from Serif. This version is 100% Free. User can start editing and enhancing your photos straight away.

5-Artweaver Free

Artweaver is available in two versions, the Artweaver Free for free and Artweaver Plus with costs. Artweaver allows you to paint creatively with the help of a huge range of painting tools. You can create sketches from photos or just experiment with colors.

When talking about inspiration, some people say they can get it everywhere, but some think find inspiration is not easy. What about you? Today 2011, I am going to share with you the top 11 popular places to find inspiration for website designing. Here they are:

1. BestWebGallery

Best Web Gallery is an inspirational gallery site where we collect a wide range of quality design websites (Flash & CSS).

2. Creattica

Creattica is a gallery of great design and inspirational imagery. Anyone can submit their work for consideration and voting on items is open to one and all. The best work is accepted and featured in the gallery which receives thousands of visitors every day.

3. Cssdrive

CSS Drive is a popular CSS gallery site attracting a diverse group of web designers and webmasters.

4. Designbombs

Design Bombs serves as an inspiration portal for all web designers/developers around the world. They aim to bring a fun and kick back attitude to the scene while heat seeking the hottest sites out there.

5. Designshack

Design Shack showcases inspiring web design, alongside resources and tutorials for you to succeed in the same way.

6. TheCSSawards

The gallery of the most prestigious websites in the world created with CSS. An international jury of the top designers, agencies, and bloggers will award prizes to the best CSS websites.

7. TheDesignInspiration

The Design Inspiration is created by a group of designers who are seeking various design inspiration every day. The purpose of the site is to make every designer’s life easier by featuring the best logos, illustrations, websites, photos and patterns from the most talented designers from all around the world.

8. TheBestDesigns

The Best Designs recognizes the best Flash and CSS web sites from around the world. Websites are categorized by CSS or Flash and also by elements of the design. TBD is usually updated every weekday, with the exception of holidays.

9. Cssbased

CSS Based is an online resource and inspiration guide for web agencies, designers and developers who take interest in websites that combine the powers of design, web standards and CSS.

10. CssLuxury

Css Luxury is a design inspiration gallery, created to rise the standards in web site design.  Designed with simplicity and functionality in mind.

11. Unmatchedstyle

Unmatched Style is not just another CSS design gallery. The developer wants to foster constructive design criticism as well as provide inspiration to the readers.

Today, I want to introduce you the amazing application for finding or creating color theme that every graphic designers should know. What make it cool and interesting? Adobe Kuler is FREE, you don’t have to spend a dime to use it. The program is available as both online and desktop application, you can download and install it into your computer or using it as web based application at kuler.adobe.com. More important thing, there are thousands of color theme that have been created and available for you to download and use.

How to Use It?

This application is designed to make it easy for you to use. There are both web based and desktop application.

Kuler as Web Based Application

1. Go to kuler.adobe.com

2. Then you can browse and create color themes.
Note: in order to save or download themes, you need to sign in with your Adobe ID. If you don’t have one, you can create an Adobe ID at it website.

Kuler as Desktop Application

1. Visit here to download Kuler

2. Then install in your computer.

Now you can browse, search, and save themes directly from your desktop with this Adobe AIR application. Drag individual themes to your desktop, where they can be scaled to any size (requires Adobe AIR).

Kuler save me a lot of time and effort in my designing works especially in website graphic design. I think it is fun and good to try this application. To find out the truth, let try it yourself. After experienced it, you are welcome to share your experience in the following section.

Illustrator provides powerful effect 3D effect which allow user to create 3D text as well as 3D object with less effort. In this tutorial I will show you on how to create realistic 3D text. After tutorial you may create 3D text in less than one minute. Ok, let get start:

Download Source File

1-Type the Text

First you need to type the text. It is just normal text. You may already know how to do it. If you do not know it yet, you can see the following:

1-Set Stroke Color to None and set Fill Color to what color you like (I prefer orange)

2-Use Type Tool to type a word 3D (You can use any font type, but in this tutorial I use Font Arial Black with Font Size 200pt)

2-Adding 3D Effect to the Text

In order to make text become 3D looking, we need to apply Extrude & Bevel effect. To do so:

1-Select the Text and go to Effect menu > 3D > Extrude& Bevel (Then 3D Extrude & Bevel Option window will load up)

2-Check on Preview (to see what happen when adjusting), then choose Classic from Bevel drop down box, Extrude Dept: 77 pt.

At this step the 3D text look not so realistic yet because only one default light is apply on the text. The 3D text will look like this.

So we need to add more light.

3-Click on More Option button to show more option

4-Click on New Light icon two times to add two more lights. Use mouse to drag each light into positions as you see in following image.

5-Then press Ok button

Now you get 3D text. I hope you enjoy this tutorial.