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Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Save For Web’s Mysterious White Border

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

White Border

Photoshop has a handy feature that allows you to save images for web use. It allows you to save images as JPGs, GIFs, and PNGs. It also allows you to resize your image before saving it. Some time ago I noticed that some of my images had a thin white border around them. I believe this to be a result of image resizing. After some trial and error, I found a couple of ways to fix this problem.

Before you “Save For Web”

1. Try to resize your image first: Image -> Image Size…

2. Try to “Flatten” your layers first: Layer -> Flatten Image

If all else fails open your file, after you’ve Saved For Web, and paint around the edges with the same color as your background. Once you’re done painting just: File -> Save

No Border

Tags: Design, photoshop
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Smooth Fonts in Photoshop

Monday, December 10th, 2007

When working with text in Photoshop, I’ve come across situations where my text/fonts turn out to be rough or jagged.

Rough Font

I’ve seen websites where designers have used images like the one above and may not have known that there is a very simple fix: When the “Type Tool (T)” is selected there is an anti-aliasing drop-down menu in the toolbar at the top of the screen. The selected option, to produce the text above, was “None“. This is the default anti-aliasing method.

Font Setting

If you change this to “Smooth” or possibly any of the other options, you will get a much smoother font.

Smooth Selection

. . . and here’s the final result

Smooth Font

I’ve tried to search for this solution before and didn’t have much luck. That’s why I’m sharing this with everyone!

Tags: fonts, photoshop
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Transparent Favicons Made Easy

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

I’ve had bad luck in the past with mediocre online favicon generators. They did a horrible job of resizing my file. I know that 16px by 16px doesn’t give you much to work with. The worst feature, or lack of, was proper transparency.

Recently I came across a favicon generator that, I thought, performed very well. You can give it a try for yourself at: http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ I made several example favicons from PNG files. You can see each of them below.
In Photoshop I created a new file (File -> New | 160 x 160 | Background: Transparent). Starting with an image at this size makes it a lot easier to work with your new icon. Once you’re finished with your design, save your image “for web” (File -> Save For Web). After you select this option, you’ll want to change the “Preset” value to “PNG-24″ before saving. Saving it as a PNG file will allow for transparency in your design (JPEG files do not support transparency).

Here are my (FREE) samples.
Please feel free to use these for whatever you’d like!