Freebies

I’m in the process of updating this page to include more textures that I’ve created as well as photoshop brushes and actions. I plan on adding new items on Fridays. If you would like to be notified by e-mail when I do so please sign-up for my newsletter using the form in the left sidebar. You can also follow me on twitter – @jmaleski – if you would like to get updates that way as well! Thanks so much!

Textures for the Taking

My son had been asking me to take a picture of his dog, India, that he could use as a wallpaper for his ipod. Well, here is the result. I think it was a little over-processed for his taste but I’m quite happy with the result and will be submitting this to the French Kiss “French Script Brush” contest over on Leslie’s blog.

I’ve used quite a combination of textures and techniques, including several of the free French Kiss textures as well as one of my own. Here’s the layers palette (click for a full-sized view to be able to read the layers info):

The gradient overlay on the Robin’s Egg layer is a brilliant technique that Leslie blogged about here. I used a gradient preset from the pastel collection to turn the blue texture into a warm tan and beige one. It is such a very useful technique that really increases the variety of textures at your fingertips.

And finally here is my texture that I used in India’s picture and two variants I created using a similar technique — click on the thumbnail to download.

Instead of using a layer style, I used a gradient map adjustment layer. You know how photoshop is, there is always 2 to 3 ways to do something. That’s just part of the fun!

Freebie Friday: Valentine Hearts Photoshop Brush Collection

Here is a quick collection of photoshop brushes I put together yesterday when I was making the Love & Hearts texture. Almost all of the hearts are from the ETC clip art website. It’s a great source of public domain, old-fashion looking clip art. I will get that tutorial out next week on how to make these. It is soo quick and easy there is no reason all of us can’t have huge arsenals of photoshop brushes!!

Valentine Hearts Photoshop Brush Collection

Love & Hearts Texture

Boldly ignoring the dust and dog hair accumulating around me, I decided to spend my free time this morning playing with photoshop. And I’m so pleased with the result! At least of the photoshop work — not the messy house! I’ve got a new set of brushes to share with you all tomorrow and a pretty little texture to share today!

It’s a “Happy Valentines” texture with plenty of time to play around before the big day!

The shot above is my son hanging out in the igloo he made after the snowpocalypse left us with over 3 feet of snow last year! So far this winter it seems the snow is bypassing the DC area and I’m just fine with that! ; )

Here’s another example:

You can download a hi-res copy of the texure here.

Freebie Friday: New Photoshop Brushes — Musical Staffs

You can download the brushes here. I think that the next ten-second tutorial will be about making brushes from clipart like I’m doing here. There is so much free clipart out there and the brushes are so easy to make — if you know how to do it than you can have unlimited brushes to stamp and play with!

Freebie Wednesday: New Photoshop Brushes — Assorted Doodads

I’ve put together a collection of six Photoshop brushes that began life as free clipart. They include two very Baroque feeling scrolls, one with a crown and the other with a cherub reading a book (because what else would a cherub do but read a book? Right?). There are also two very strong graphical wreaths, one with a torch and one with three shafts of wheat. And then finally two dividers, one very simple and graphic one (in an earlier version of my blog I actually used that in the title piece), and a harp divider that I just love!

You can download them here. Now to go and work on the freebies page template!

Baking Day: Keeping it Real

This weekend is our school PTO’s largest fundraiser of the year. It’s part junk sale, part carnival, part restaurant/bar and it really does raise a good amount of money for the school. So, being a good school parent I am doing my part today by baking brownies for the bake sale. Six sticks of butter and one dozen eggs later, my kitchen is a mess! But the good news is that I managed to whip up three batches of the best brownies EVER all while my 3 year old was at preschool. Truth be told I only needed to make two batches. But then I sure would be sad tonight remembering all that fudgey chocolate goodness and not one single one to have with a cold glass of milk!

Did you know that brownies prefer to be cut when they are warm? Me either. At least I learned that for the second batch. Oh well, ugly brownies still taste good, right?

I also spent some time putting together labels for the brownies since they have to be individually wrapped for the bake sale. Do you like it? Here is a link to a .psd file that you can download and alter the words to fit your baked goods! Enjoy!