Author: James Qu

James is a seasoned Photoshop expert with over 25 years of experience based in Australia. As the driving force behind PSD Vault, he authors the majority of its in-depth tutorials and insightful articles.

Futuristic City Themed artwork is a style I always love looking at. I’m alwasys attached by the emotions that are expressed in those artworks, and this amazing creativity and telent those artists displayed in those artworks.

In this post, I will include 30 Magnificant, Simply Stunning Urban City Matte Painting Artworks for you to browse through. They’re wonderful works done by some awesome artists with tons of effort.

Hope you enjoy them and if you wish, share your thoughts with us : )

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“An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files—menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. For example, you can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format.” – From Photoshop Help File.

The above says it all: By using Photoshop Actions, you can greatly improve your productivity and efficiency, especially if you would like to apply the same effect over and over again. I use it all the time

In this post, I have included 10 Highly Useful Articles (Intro + Roundups) that Talk About Photoshop Action, which I have in my personal collection for you to go through. Get ready for some actions!

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Welcome to the eighth volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run fortnightly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantanstic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

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Regardless whether you’re an Apple fan or not, it is no doubt that iPhone is a revolutional product that has taken mobile communication to a brand new level. Meanwhile, there are many graphic designers/digital artists utilised their creative flares to produce some truly awesome design works for iPhone.

In this post, I included 22 highly creative, ultra-stylish Advert designs for iPhone from deviantArt.com. The majority of those works were not done on paid basis and are just purely for fun/experiments, but no doubt they are of very high quality and the techniques used in those iPhone designs are simply superb :)

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In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to drastically change the Mood and Colour Tones for your photo via Adobe Photoshop. Along the way, I will also demonstrate an interesting method of adding misty effect to your image.

This mood/colour tones changing method can be particularly useful for images that are reletively dark and lack of colour depth. We will be using a lof image adjustment tool, masking techniques and layer blending options. Have a go!

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In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to design a simple, yet elegant abstract spectrum lines in Photoshop. You will see how easy it is to achieve this nice effect and you can use it a wide range of occasions including perhaps site header backgrounds, logos, or add extra flavor to your photo manipulations.

This tutorial is suitable for beginners and I included the ways of creating new brush presets and also the use of Pen Tool. You will ample opportunities to practive layer blending, filters and Free Transform Tools. Have a try!

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According to DeviantArt.com, Digital Portrait is a “Digital Art of a person that usually shows them from the shoulders and up, focusing on the persons face.”

I always enjoy looking at those digital portraint artworks, simply because I love the emotion that is convayed via the portraits, the expressions on faces, and overall environment those protrait people are in. You can always sense the powerful feelings behind those paintings – some are sorrow, sad and dark, yet some are full of joy and happiness.

In this post, I included 30 absolutely Breath-Taking, Beyond Awesome Digital Portrait Artworks from devaintArt.com. They are exceptional works done by some very inspirational artists. Hope you enjoy them!

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In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this cool, ancient-style typography using dry soil texture and floral brushset in Photoshop. I will also share with you the technique I learnt for creating some really cool light strips for your image.

Along the way, we will be using a lot of layer blending technqiues, musking, image adjustment tools and adjustment layers, plus the gradient tool and blur tool. This is an intermediate tutorial so beginners may find it a bit tricky. Well, never hurt to have a try!

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Welcome to the seventh volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run fortnightly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantanstic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some really cool designs and would like to share them here, simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group!

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Welcome to First Free Giveaway Contest on PSD Vault! This contest is sponsored by Stock Graphic Designs, which offers several premium vector packs on their site and this time they offer 3 sets of MASTER PACK – Decorative elements – Vector + Brush (3 * 10 = 30 Packs) to 3 lucky winners absolutely free!

This contest has now ended, winners will be announced shortly.

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In this tutorial, I will show you an interesting technique I use to produce realistic break-apart/disintegration effect in Photoshop by using debris brushes, with a watercolour background attached. There are many tutorials on the web showing techniques about break-aparts but, it never hurts to learn more :)

It will be a bit boring if the whole tut is just to break something apart, so I also combined a bit of photo retouch techniques along side and hopefully they can be useful to you as well. Together we will be using layer blending options, masking, the pen tool, adjustment layers and of course, brushsets. Have a try!

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I have always been a huge fan for those surreal, fantasy-styled digital artworks. Every time I look at them, I’m captured by the powerful theme they represent, and the spiritual meaning behind those artworks. Not to mention the technique used in those artwork are simply world-class.

In this post, I hand-picked 22 Absolutely Amazing Surreal Fantasy-Styled Digital Artworks from deviantART. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do and maxmise your creativity :)

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In this tutorial, I will show you the process I used to create this super delicious, shining and glossy text effect in Photoshop. In fact, I once again accidentally discovered this interesting effect while playing with Photoshop filters this afternoon and thought I could share it with you guys :)

Along the way, we will be using techniques such as layer blending options, filter effects, adjustment layers and a few photoshop tools. It’s a very simple tutorial, have a try!

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Welcome to the second post in “Freebies from the Vault” section here on PSD Vault! This time I have 17 High Resolution Brick and Stone Textures available for download. There is no restriction for any files in the freebies section on PSD Vault and you can use them whenever, wherever and for whatever :)

Also, I (or I should say we – the reader of PSD Vault) would love to see your work if you decide to share it. Simply post a link in your comment or join the PSD Vault Flickr Group and upload your work there!

Hope you enjoy these textures and have fun Photoshopping!

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Welcome to the sixth volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run fortnightly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantanstic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

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Think you have got the best PSD design for your website? That’s pretty interesting as long as you get time to code it optimally. But however, it is sad for a fantastic designer to code the design when he can put his efforts in producing something incredible at Adobe Photoshop.

In this post, I will attach a review for PixelCrayons, who is a world-class PSD to XHTML conversion service provider that I have used in the past, and hopefully this review will be of help to you!

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In this tutorial, I will show you the methods I use to seamlessly combine multiple objects and create some truly awesome lighting effect for your image through the making of this “spiritually connected” abstract style design in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will be practicing a lot of Photoshop skills relevant to achieving the seamless result and generating lighting effect , including selection, masking, and layer blending options. We will also be using a lot of layer adjustments and Photoshop Filters. Have a try!

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It continues to amaze me as to how the web is brimming with PSD to XHTML conversion tutorials – showing experimental WebPages with step by step coding process. But then, with more and more people getting hooked to web development, the demand of tutorials is being equally proportionate.

One of the frequently asked questions addressed in PSD to HTML Tutorials is how to slice your PSD into quality HTML and CSS code. It may sound too random, but the beginning in XHTML conversion process matters a little too much.

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