I myself have been wanting to learn more Illustrator, and now I’m gonna

If you’re a beginner with Illustrator, this is where you start.

• 1 x one-year dA subscription: Stremel
• 1 x one-year dA subscription: Danilux
• 1 x three-month dA subscription: Octavian
• 1 x three-month dA subscription: Trocloc
• 1 x one-year subscription to GameWallpapers: Anthony Woods
• 1 x one-year subscription to CGWallpapers: David Leggett
• 3 months free with Host Gator (Hatchling): Sad Prince
• 1 x Killer Domains e-book: Domain Addict
• 1 x Killer Domains e-book: Michael Dunlop

Second set of winners:

• 1 x Blubs WordPress theme: That Should Work
• 1 x Blubs WordPress theme: Bits and Pixels
• 1 x one-page coding by PSD2HTML: Antilogic
• 3 months advertising on PhotoshopStar: Social Apple

Sorry to those that missed out, but thanks again everyone for contributing. I’ll be emailing the winners shortly, or just sending them their prize (dA users for example).

I also wanted to say I’ll try get some more tutorials up soon, and that I’ve also already redesigned the comments for the new theme, I realized that there really was no improvements on the previous comments layout.

So yeah, will try and get on these things soon.

What to do?

There are two sets of prizes (as you can see below), and all you have to do to get the chance to win one is leave a comment below. Alternatively (or as well as) you can link back to this post and the sponsors for the chance to win something from the other set of prizes.

Our goal is to garner 175 comments and 35 trackbacks then to draw the winners. This contest is a must-see for the web developers, not just the designers because we’ve got WordPress theme licenses and free coding on the table!

I’m almost certain that we’ll reach the goal, but in case we don’t, the draw will be made one week from now.

Prizes for leaving comments

Simply leave a comment below and get the chance to win one of the following:

• 2 x one-year deviantART subscriptions
• 2 x three-month deviantART subscriptions
• 1 x one-year subscription to GameWallpapers
• 1 x one-year subscription to CGWallpapers
• 3 month free hosting with Host Gator (Hatchling package)
• 2 x copies of Killer Domains e-book by Daily Blog Tips

Prizes for linking back

If you want the chance to win one of these prizes, then please link back to this post from your blog; all you have to do is link to this post and our sponsors.

• 1 x one-page coding job by PSD2HTML.com ($211 value!)
• 2 x Developer Licenses to Blubs WordPress theme ($198 value)
  
• 3 months advertising on PhotoshopStar ($150 value)

Sponsors

Many thanks to our sponsors who donated prizes:

• Blog Perfume and WebAppers (Blubs theme)
• PSD2HTML.com (free coding)
• The University Kid (one-year dA subscription)
• Daily Blog Tips (e-books)
• India Photoblog (GameWallpapers subscription)
• OIOpublisher (CGWallpapers subscription)
• Prizes that aren’t accounted for are donated by PhotoshopStar

Notes

Just so we’re clear, all you have to do is leave a comment below to be entered into the draw to win a prize, but if you want one of the bigger prizes, you’ll have to link back to this post and our sponsors!

Also note that the PSD2HTML prize will include one page coded using the Hi-End package, valued at $211! The winner of this prize would also be kindly requested to write a very short review of their service afterwards to be posted on PhotoshopStar.

$700+ value in total!

As you can see it’s very similar to the previous one, in fact it’s like a new layout based on the old design (style, etc). We’ve got a fair amount of new features in this design though, so here’s the short list I’ve compiled:

• Less Ads
  Yeah, that’s a feature! You should understand that I need to earn some money from the blog, considering how much time I spend on it, but I really do hate the look of these unprofessional-looking ads as much as anyone! For now I’ve removed the ads from the content, but later on I may need to add some unintrusive ads near the bottom of the content.
• Subscribe Box
  I think this is a very important improvement, particularly for those of you that don’t know what subscribing is all about. Please take a look at the subscribe box in the top right and learn about subscribing today.
• Promote/Bookmark Posts
  At the bottom of posts you’ll now see a promote(translated:bookmark) section. If you use one of the following social bookmarking services, please feel free to bookmark! (Digg, Delicious, DesignFloat, Reddit, StumbleUpon)
• Contribute
  I’ll be putting up a contribute page shortly, as I’m interested in buying tutorials from my readers if you have any ideas. So far I’ve had some success buying tutorials from deviantART uses in exchange for one-year deviantART subscriptions (they come to me I swear!)
• Improved Searching (with Google)
  I’ve always found Google search to be the most efficient, and now you can benefit from it on PhotoshopStar. I think this is a great improvement over the standard WordPress search because you will have more options.

OK, so I said it was a short list! It’s still nicer, right?

I would now love to hear suggestions, comments, critique, and bug reports from my valued readers! I’m now going to go and make sure everything is working properly.

Photoshop birthday party coming soon! Prizes and stuff.

I needed a fresh wallpaper so I whipped this up, and since it looked pretty nice I thought I’d share.

Download

• 1680 x 1050
• 1440 x 900
• 1280 x 1024
• 1280 x 900
• 1024 x 768

I would have included the PSD file for the wallpaper so you could have a poke around, but it ended up being 35mb zipped, so I couldn’t exactly upload that with ease!

You might notice some nice splatters in the background, for these I used a brush set by Bittbox. I also used a bunch of random textures that you should be able to find on websites such as CG Textures.

If you’re not into subscribing to 40 different Photoshop blogs and checking them all every time, I recommend you subscribe to this one and you will be able to see all of the best Photoshop tutorials from around the web in just the one place!

Oh, don’t forget to subscribe to PhotoshopStar as well, though

*please note that this is not a paid review*

This offer is only standing for the next 18 days, so you had better get downloadin’.

As far as SitePoint books go, I’ve only bought one once before: the hard copy of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, and I have to say their stuff is top notch.

Learn the Basics of Curves

Very important tutorial. Curves are great for adjusting your photos and art works.

Digital Makeup with Photoshop (part 1)

Although girls don’t always need their faces beautified, this one may come in handy in case you’re ever working as the Photoshop expert for a magazine

Using Layers for Effects

Very interesting tutorial, particularly helpful for the newbies learning new effects.

Using the Extract Filter

Personally I don’t vouch for the extract filter, as I find the Pen Tool much better for cutting objects out, but you may find this good as a beginners option.

Aqua “Sphere” Effect

Interesting interface design.

Toning & Burning

Interesting, old-timey effect to add to your photos.

Turn a Photo into a Sketch

Very cool photo effect

CGing Manga using Photoshop

Please note: The author of the above tutorial has told us that the audio quality is very low, so you may need to turn up your volume.

Quickly & Easily Change Hair Color

A must-watch video tutorial if you’re a learning photo manipulator!

Creating a new Planet with Photoshop

Love this effect because it reminds me of the Heroes intro!

Do you know of any more great video tutorials? Please be sure to leave a comment with the link below!

I wanted to choose the winners judging by if they would use the subs to their fullest extent, so I looked at how active the users were. The winners I’ve come up with:

• Mattzy (12-month)
• adipotter (12-month)
• Maquita (3-month)
• dreamon72 (1-month)

I decided to throw in a 3-month and a 1-month subscription as well

Sorry to those that were left out, but thank you all for leaving a comment on the previous post.

(Quick note: if you want to add me to your dA friends, visit my page!)