Interviewing people on your own podcast show is a great way to:

• Tap into another person’s huge success by associating yourself with them, to their listeners and yours (sometimes referred to as the “Halo Effect”)
• Give you a chance to network with other people you want to build future business opportunities with
• Advertise your popular interview podcast to build your business leverage and credibility online or offline
• Build other income opportunities (like being invited to give keynote talks) as a result of your presence created from your interviews
• Be considered a journalist by a lot of people, and therefore capture people’s interests in a new way
• Receive future job offers because of your breadth of experience and skills exhibited by people simply listening to some of your podcast shows
• Subtly divulge your personality appeal over time
• Collect valuable interview transcripts which can be repurposed into many different information products (now or later on) by you
• Keep copyright of your interviews for you to sell later with the interview podcast show if you decide to do so

When you record an interview, you can record it as an “audio only” file (MP3) or as a video (MP4).  Both are fairly easy to do, however, audio is the easiest. It is also the quickest and cheapest.  So if you are a beginner, consider creating an audio podcast show to start with and build up to a video if you think your listeners would value a video podcast more.

Audio

People who are new to podcasting should seriously consider starting with audio only interviews.  Why?

1. It’s easier to plan an audio show
2. It’s easier to prepare
3. It’s quicker to record
4. It’s easier to edit
5. It’s quicker to upload and publish

What will you need to record an audio MP3 media file?

1. A good microphone (you can get good mics from Amazon.com for under $50)
2. Computer with Internet connection
3. Software to record, edit and save as an MP3
4. A hosting site (hosting starts from $5pm)
5. An iTunes account (free to set up)
6. A blog (which most podcasting hosting sites will provide you with for free)
7. A Feedburner account (which is optional)

Video

There are pros and cons of creating a podcast show with video.

Pros:

You can list it on YouTube, and you can save it as an MP3 and upload only the MP3 on your podcast.

Cons:

Videos take up a lot of bandwidth. This can make your hosting fee very high if you don’t have a plan with unlimited hosting.

Other considerations when you create a video

If you are creating a show that has to be video, then you need to also consider your:

• Lighting
• Sound
• Recording device (ideally HD)
• Any actors “appearance” (eg. Hair and make up)

Once you have created your media file, you need to save it in the correct format for iTunes. For audio it is MP3, and for Video it is MP4.

What is involved in hosting a podcast show?

The main things you will need to consider if you are going to interview someone on your podcast show is:

• What equipment you will need
• How to contact the people you want to interview
• How to prepare for the interview
• How to conduct the interview
• How you will edit the footage (if at all)
• How to host and upload your media file to iTunes
• How to monetize that interview

Each and every factor above is the bare minimum consideration you should make when you start out your interview podcast show. Many podcasters will do one interview, then one “how to” show, and so on.  In other words, the interview podcast show format is one amongst many and it may get a bit neglected and difficult to juggle with the other show formats.

Today we will focus on the big picture and the bare minimums you’ll need to have in place in order to ensure a successful podcast show!

Start up tips and techniques

Just remember there is no ”right or wrong”, it’s your podcast show, and you can run it any way you like. Although, there are some commonly held beliefs amongst many podcasters you should seriously consider. They include:

• Get transcriptions of your interviews, whether you publish it on your blog or website immediately (for SEO purposes) or keep them for publishing later.
• Keep interviews 30 to 60 minutes if possible.
• Get your interviewee to “sign-off” on the show before you publish it.
• Send out your proposed “questions” before the show, some podcasters do, and many don’t.
• Always ask the interviewees what they would like to draw attention to in the interview. This way you’ll be sure to cover it (including any call to actions or URL links).

If you think the Skype connection will not be good, ask the other person being interviewed if they would be willing to also record the show, then have them save it as a media file, and send it to your “Dropbox” for you to download and edit into your interview recording.  This will ensure a good recording overall.

• If you are using skype for the interview, turn off all your other internet browsers so that all the power for the interview is being given to your skype connection.
• If you can, organize two “recorders” at once, that way if one of them doesn’t work, you can rely on the other.
• Always keep an eye on your recorder to make sure it’s working.
• Never be afraid to say to your interviewee “the connection is breaking up, can I call you back for a better connection”. In a podcast – audio quality is “paramount”!

1. The Equipment You’ll Need

You must have a microphone (of good or better quality) and a computer with internet access.

If you are starting out, first try your standard microphone on your PC/Mac.  If it doesn’t meet the standard you want, you need to buy a new microphone.  A popular purchase right now is the Audio-Technica ATR 2100 which sells for around $50 and it will plug straight into your PC/Mac with a USB connector.

If you want to go pro, then you should invest in a heap of expensive and exciting equipment. The problem is, if you are starting out, you won’t want to spend that kind of money, we are talking about hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars. A popular, more expensive, microphone on the market right now is the Yeti.

So to start out, ensure you have a good microphone.

If you are interested in going pro, then there are a few basic investments you could make to get professional sound quality:

• Mixer
• Processor
• Headphones
• Pop cover (for your mic)

Mixer

The mixer Mackie 802-VLZ3 is an 8-channel mixer with an aux in/out for handling a mix-minus (required for Skype).

Processor

The Alesis 3630 Compressor/Limiter/Gate is a dual-channel processor that provides compression, limiting and gating. It handles sound irregularities in your recording and takes out background noises you don’t want in the recording.

Headphones

The headset Shure SRH240 is a very comfortable pair of headphones with superior sound.

You can also look for the following items if you want to get even more professional with your podcast show:

• A pop filter (to go over your mic)
• A mic stand
• A portable mixer

Equipment can be expensive, so you should upgrade only if you must. If you have the money, starting out with quality equipment is the way to go. However if your budget is unproportional, take it easy and upgrade when you can.

2. How to contact the people you want to interview

There are three basic ways to approach people to interview:

1. Email (contact them directly)
2. Network with them on social media
3. Get introduction by a mutual acquaintance

Most people you contact really need to know “what’s in it for them” before they will even consider an interview with you. That’s fair enough considering:

a) Their time is money (to them)

b) They are popular enough that you have contacted them, so they will be in demand elsewhere too

c)  They may not be familiar with “podcasting” so you may need to educate them on the benefits of being on your podcast show

d) If they don’t know you, they will know nothing about your podcast show either

When you approach someone out of the blue, the reaction will be mixed depending on some basic factors:

• How established is your podcast
• What is the quality of your past podcast shows that they can listen to
• Whether your target audience is a good fit for them
• If they have time to dedicate
• If they even want to do interviews on a podcast
• The popularity of your podcast show, which can be gauged from your podcast show statistics (which  you could disclose if it helps you)

Many people you contact directly will not respond to you.  This can be for various reasons, but should not dishearten you, or stop you from approaching other people.

Some people are always looking for marketing opportunities, and these are the kind of people who will be most receptive to your interest in an interview with them.

When you approach someone, try to draw attention to your past interviewees, what they spoke about, and what their “call to action” was (eg. Did they get people buying their product as a result of your interview with them?)

When you’re starting out!

When you start out, you won’t have a past list of interviewees, but you could do a couple of quick podcast shows (maybe discussion podcasts) so that prospective interviewees can go and hear what you’re all about, and how you handle yourself.

It’s always a good idea to do an introduction podcast show explaining what your podcast is about, your bio, people you intend to interview, and how to subscribe to your podcast.

3. Preparing for an interview

Make sure you check out their website/blog or any products they have created, or written before you conduct the interview (if that is possible). Send them a list of questions you wish to ask,  just to make sure you’re both on the same page. It’s also worth asking them if there is anything they specifically want to cover or discuss. Most people you interview will get their message across without a problem.

Right before you start, make sure your Skype connection is good and your Skype recorder is working. Do a test run with a friend to make sure everything runs properly. If you don’t want to spend money on Pamela.biz or PowerGramo.com – then download the free Skype recorder iFree-Recorder.com. All of these recorders will do the job.

4. Conducting the interview

You should start out be welcoming the listener to your podcast and introducing the guest. If you have any hiccups, don’t panic and run it again. The show is pre-recorded and you can edit the audio file at any time.

You should have a set of questions (or topics to discuss) set out on paper in front of you, which you can edit and add to as you go through the interview. You’d be surprised how much “fresh discussion ideas” can evolve from the answers in an interview. Try to find a another question within the given answer.

Of course you could have a very straight forward “question – answer” format, where you simply ask a question, they answer it, and you move onto the next question.  This is a common tactic for interviewers who are more interested in SEO gained from the interview than the actual interviewee themselves, but it’s completely up to you.

Always remember to do what you’re comfortable with, because as long as you have a consistent interview style, no one will be concerned on how you actually personally conduct your interviews.

“Consistency” is important for guest anxiety, if they know the kind of interview format and style you have, they will be excited to do an interview with you.

The benefit of allowing people to see what questions you intend to ask them is that they can prepare great answers for your questions. If you just write bullet points, and then “ask away freely” within the interview, you will probably find that they don’t give the best answers they could have if they had time to prepare. You can often tell that some interviewees have prepared their answers because they tend to be more thorough and informative.

A good exercise routine would be for you to listen to other people who host interviews, and how they do it.  This will help you decided what formats you do and don’t like.

5. Editing Your interview

There are two ways to approach publishing your interviews:

a) Simply record and publish the media file as is; or

b) Edit the media file, put an intro (maybe music) at the beginning and make it pretty to publish.

Every podcaster has their own style and “footprint” to their podcast shows. This is called “branding”. If you want to find some good intro tunes, check out Audiojungle.net. Don’t think about what’s perfect, think about what your listeners might think while listening to your podcast.

A great interviewer will ask questions their listeners want to know the answer to.

This is the difference between a person listening to one of your interviews and never hearing another, and a person listening to one of our podcast shows and thinking, “I like what I hear, how can I subscribe to this podcast show?”

You want people to subscribe to your podcast show for many reasons, the main one being you want to have a high download number, so you can:

• Monetize your shows easier
• Attract better people to interview
• Build a popular podcast show

Editing your podcast show

If you decide to do some work and edit your podcast show before you publish it, you have two options:

a) To download editing software to edit the show yourself;

b) Outsource the editing process to someone with those skills.

Edit your audio shows yourself

The easiest way to edit your audio podcast shows yourself is by downloading the free software program for audio editing, Audacity.

audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Audacity can be downloaded for PC’s or for MACs.  However, if you have a MAC, you will probably have access to the free audio editing tool called Garageband.  Therefore it is completely up to you which editing software you chose to use.

There are numerous free video tutorials on how to use both Audacity and Garageband on YouTube.

For example, you should enter a search “Audacity tutorial” in the YouTube search engine, and select from there the best tutorial to suit your training needs.

When you finish editing your Audacity file editing, you need to export it as an MP3 file.  This will require an additional download of the “LAME” software, also available from the Audacity website.

Edit your video shows yourself

If you chose to edit your video footage yourself, you can try to use the built-in editing tools in YouTube. YouTube now offers a great variety of free editing software right in their website youtube.com/editor. Again, you will need to do some training to get familiar with what editing tools are available and when you should use them.

You could also use any of the following video editing software in order of cost to purchase below:

• AVS Video Editor
• Sony Vegas Editing Software
• Camtasia
• Adobe Premiere Pro

The above list is not definitive; there are plenty of other options available to you, at various pricing.  Many of the above options also have trial periods of 30 days to “try before you buy.”

Again, free tutorials are always available on YouTube training you on the basics of learning these software programs. Always remember to have your final videos saved in MP4 format.

Outsourcing the editing work

If you can afford to outsource your video footage to an expert, you can look for editing experts on any of the following websites:

• Elance.com
• Odesk.com

Again, there are many outsourcing websites where you can find experts who can edit your footage for you.  Their rates will vary, and you should always seek out examples of their finished work before you hire anyone.

Always remember to have your final videos saved in MP4 format.

6. Hosting & uploading your Media Files

When you have recorded your interview, saved it as an MP3 (audio) or an MP4 (video) then you are ready to upload your media file to a hosting account and publish it to iTunes.

Hosting

You have two options for hosting your media files:

a) Your own host, like Amazon S3 AWS; or

b) A dedicated posting hosting company like Libsyn.com

Both options have benefits and disadvantages.  The main benefit of hosting on Libsyn.com or Blubrry.com is their low cost and they have detailed statistics on your downloads and traffic.  Whereas Amazon will have very limited stats available, and iTunes will give you virtually no stats you can work with.

There are two aspects to your hosting company:

• The cost to “store” your media files; and
• The cost to you when people “download and watch” your podcast shows.

The downloading and watching part is called “bandwith”.  So you will often see hosting companies advertise “5MB pm Storage – Unlimited Bandwith”.  Therefore when your show becomes popular, the more downloads you get, will cost you nothing extra.

When you are starting out, your downloads will be low, so a site like Libsyn may seem overkill, but their other features like statistics, providing a free “player” to embed in your website etc, will make the low monthly fee more viable.  Also, bear in mind Amazon services is not free, there are charges to store your media files, and you are charged download usages too.

If you decide to use Amazon S3, then you need to create a blog (or use the blog you are going to host your podcast shows on) and download the Blubrry.com free plugin “Powerpress” which will create your RSS feed, upload each podcast show as you upload it to your WordPress blog, and publish it to iTunes for you.

• blubrry.com/powerpress/
• aws.amazon.com

If you have a Blogspot or WordPress.com blog, you will need to create the media elsewhere and insert a player into your blog.  This requirement would be simplified if you used a Libsyn account for this kind of blog.

• blubrry.com
• libsyn.com

Creating an RSS Feed

Once you have recorded your first podcast show, you need to set up an RSS feed. If you use the Powerpress plugin mentioned above, it will create your RSS feed for you.  If you use a podcasting host like Libsyn or Blubrry, they will provide you with an RSS feed for your podcast show too.

Feedburner

Most bloggers are comfortable with Google Feeds, however, it is not uncommon now for podcasters to try and avoid using Google if possible.  You would only submit your RSS food to Google for the statistics and to allow subscribers.  However, you will get superior statistics from a podcast hosting company like Libsyn or Blubrry and subscriptions are mostly made to iTunes or your blog.  Therefore, Feedburner is not a necessary and sometimes unpopular process.  Use Feedburner at your discretion, but if you are using a podcasting hosting site, many would recommend you not use Feedburner at all.

Publishing Settings

Tags – Tags are “labels” for your post that help people find your podcasts by searching specific keywords or keyphrases.  If your program does not save your MP3 file with tags, you can download a free program that will do that for you:

mp3tag.de/en/download.html

These tags are useful for SEO purposes.

Publishing to iTunes

Before you can publish your RSS feed to iTunes, you must first create your first podcast show. Once you have created your first podcast show then you can go and submit your podcast show to iTunes for approval. Approval usually takes around 24 hours.

You will need to have an iTunes store account to do the next step.

To set up your iTunes settings and lodge your podcast show for approval, you’ll need to configure iTunes related settings under menu “Settings > Feed/iTunes”.  To submit your podcast show to iTunes go to the “Podcast” page, and click on “Submit a Podcast.”  It will open up one box for you to type in your podcast show RSS feed URL.

Submitting your podcast to iTunes gives you more chances to be known by worldwide audience. The “iTunes Preview” window shows you exactly how your podcast will appear in iTunes. The corresponding settings are shown below:

iTunes Settings:

iTunes: FeedID – This is the ID you’ll receive after you register your podcast service with the iTunes Music Store.

iTunes: Summary – This defaults to your hosting account podcast show description in your hosting account, but you can change it for your iTunes listing by editing this box.

iTunes: Podcast Logo – This defaults to your default logo for your hosting account but you can change it here for your iTunes listing by using the drop down box to choose another image.

iTunes: Author/Owner – The creator/owner of the podcast.

iTunes: Subtitle – Give your podcast a subtitle (optional)

iTunes: Keywords – These default to the channel tags you created when you uploaded your podcast.

iTunes: Category – iTunes allow you to select up to 3 categories.

iTunes: Email – This defaults to your registered hosting account email but you can change it here if you want.

Once you finished those settings, now it’s ready for you to submit your podcast to iTunes.

Statistics

Your statistics are best viewed from podcasting hosting sites like Libsyn and Blubrry. Remember that Blubrry will provide statistics for podcast shows that aren’t listed with them. So if you host your media files on your Amazon S3 account, then register your podcast show with Blubrry.com and you can still receive detailed statistics.

Embeddable Player

If you’re eager to share your podcast via blogs, an embeddable player is designed for this purpose.

If you have your podcasts show hosted with a podcasting host like Libsyn or Blubrry, you will be provided with an embedded player from your host site, configured and ready to post in your blog posts or your social media accounts.

If you need to create a fresh embedded player, many sites online will provide this service for free.

Go see:

podtrac.com (under “publishers”) – free to join

soundcloud.com - free to join, a lot of options for players here too

If you use the Podtrac player, and you program it properly, once the player is embedded on your website/blog, it will automatically feed up the new podcast shows as you publish them in the future.

7. Conclusion

Once you’ve completed your first show, you’ll learn from your experience and be comfortable to set up another recording. How you carry out the interview is completely up to you. Think like your audience and create a strategic process to follow. We wish you luck, growth, many subscribers, and thousands of downloads!

Check out more informative articles:

• Multiplicity in Action Photoshop Tutorial
• 35 Fresh Text Effect Photoshop Tutorials
• How to Increase Download Speed
• Useful Photoshop Layer Styles Tips and Tricks

We hope you found this article useful! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Today I’d like to showcase 40 awesome Photoshop photo effect tutorials. They are designed for both pros and amateurs. So, don’t waste your time: choose the tutorial you like the most and create a stunning picture you will be proud of. Practice makes perfect!

1. Urban Photo Effect

2. Create Light Leaks and Lomo Effects Using Actions in Photoshop

3. How to Digitally Add Shallow Depth of Field

4. Video tutorial: Complete the vintage toy camera aesthetic

5. Dreamlike Illustration

6. Grunge and Dirty Retro Photo Effect in Photoshop

7. Photoshop tutorial: Lighting effects for vintage photo looks

8. How to Make Instagram Filters in Photoshop: Earlybird

9. Create a Realistic Broken Glass Effect in Photoshop

10. Movie Still Effect

11. Master stylish light effects in Photoshop

12. Photoshop tutorial: Advanced Compositing Techniques

13. Lomo Light Leaks

14. Photoshop tutorial: Master Photoshop CS6.1′s new Conditional Actions

15. HDR: Exposure Blending Tutorial

16. Creating Depth of Field Using the Lens Blur Filter

17. Create a Lomo Effect in 3 Simple Steps

18. Easy Depth Of Field Effect In Photoshop

19. Give Your Photos a Color Ink Sketch Effect

20. Create a Toaster Effect in Photoshop

21. Create Cool Watercolor Effects in Photoshop

22. Black & White Is the Key to Better Color

23. Cool Colorization Tutorial

24. Photoshop tutorial: Wrinkle reduction

25. Dramatic Sunlight Effect

26. Add Rain to a Photo

27. Learn How to Recreate The Instagram Nashville Effect in Photoshop

28. Dramatic Skin Retouching Technique

29. Retouching with Cloning Tools

30. Photoshop Quick Tip: Creating Film Edge Burns

31. Photoshop Effects: Add Autumn Colour to Your Landscapes

32. Instagram Quick Effect In Photoshop

33. How to Create a Porcelain Skin Effect in Adobe Photshop CS6

34.  Photoshop tutorial: Give photos a retro distressed look

35. How to Give a Retro-look to Your Photos

36. Goustly Photo Effect

37. Brightening Underexposed Subjects in the Snow

38. Vintage Analogue

39. Golden Skin Tutorial

40. Video Tutorial: Fix Frizzy Hair with Photoshop’s Oil Paint Filter

Check out our previous articles!

• 40 Free Fantastic Sans Serif Fonts
• 28 Free Fantastic Retro Styled Fonts
• 48 Free Amazing Display Fonts
• 40 Free Highly Functional Dingbat Fonts
• 25 Well Crafted Free Minimal Fonts

We hope you enjoyed this article! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Create an Explosive Flaming Poker Card

“In this tutorial I will show you how to create your own custom poker card from scratch by using the wide variety of shapes that come with Photoshop. I will also show you techniques on how to manipulate fire by using simple methods.”

Source

Create a Vintage Badge in Illustrator and Photoshop

“To create some nice vintage effects using Photoshop is pretty easy, it’s all about playing with layer masks and textures. However the most important thing on this design is the Illustrator part in which I played with typography and other elements to create a nice composition. So the tip is, look for inspiration and try to learn as much as you can about design principles, the effects afterwards are the easiest part.”

Source

A Life Of Aquatic Sounds

“In this tutorial I will show you how I created ‘A Life Of Aquatic Sounds’. We will realize it using a variety of blending mode tricks, photo filters and other useful Photoshop techniques. At the end of this process we will have a beautiful photo manipulation, realized in a short time and a very easily way.”

Source

Create a Diablo III Inspired Text Effect in Photoshop

“If you’re a big fan of playing video games, then you are probably aware of the release of Diablo III. The Diablo franchise has been a popular video game title for over a decade. In this tutorial, we will explain how to create a Diablo-inspired text effect in Photoshop.”

Source

Learn How to Photo Manipulate the Colorful Portrait ‘Transcendental’

“This tutorial will guide you on how to turn a plain portrait into a unique, colorful and complex piece of art. You will learn how to modify resources and blend them into the piece, as well as adjustment layers and masking techniques.”

Source

Design a Sleek, Dark Mobile App Website

“In this tutorial we’ll be using Adobe Photoshop to design a sleek web interface that can be used for any mobile app website. We’ll be covering an array of techniques including shapes, textures, masks, custom icons, typography and much more that can be easily adapted and applied to your own web designs.”

Source

Learn How to Design a Charming Collage Composition

“Today we’re going to learn how to create a super creative collage effect, using a range of photo manipulation, blending and compositional techniques. You’ll learn how to correctly extract your images, layer up various effects to create a sense of depth and detail, and create a cool sketchy hand-drawn effect for your photos.”

Source

Create an Amazing Fashion Photomanipulation with Abstract Some and Light Effects

“In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to integrate a model in dark environment and apply abstract lights effects over the scene. Basically we’re going to create some nice sparkly effects and connect them with a certain model, mixing up everything with a nice suitable background.”

Source

Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster

“In this tutorial I will give you an example of how to create a movie teaser poster. It will show you how to draw a mask for your character using the pen tool , blend modes and textures.
Also, I will be talking about usage of color for your environment, how to make your images sharper and I will give some tips on how to add more detail to your work.”

Source

Create a Mixed Media Style Design In Photoshop

“Learn how to create this creative mixed-media composition in Photoshop! You will learn how to combine different graphic elements with extensive use of layer masks. This is a great tutorial for designers who want to experiment with a more modern approach to digital collages.”

Source

Simple Facial Manipulation with Layer Mask and Custom Brushes in Photoshop

“In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to have some fun with vectors, custom brushes, and stock images to create a colorful and eye-catching nature themed girl composition in Photoshop. You’ll see how to use various effects to focus the viewer’s eye, how to mix vectors and stock images so that it looks coherent, and find yet another application for custom brushes from our previous tutorials.”

Source

How to Draw an Ultra Clean Apple Keyboard in Photoshop

“Today, we’ll be creating a photo-realistic Apple wireless keyboard in Photoshop! In this tutorial, we’ll whip-up the main keyboard in a few simple steps and then finish off the image by creating the keys, duplicating them, and adding icons on them!”

Source

Create a Nebula Cosmolady in Photoshop

Source

Design Abstract Human Manipulation with Milk/Liquid Texture in Photoshop

“In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to design this Abstract Human Manipulation with Milk Texture and Custom Brushes in Photoshop. You will learn how you utilise a range of photo techniques to manipulate textures in order to form certain effect, mixing with some basic photo retouch skills.”

Source

Create a Cosmic Space Girl 3D Photo Illustration

“In this tutorial, we’ll be putting together a variety of techniques from previous tutorials, including a 3D wireframe from our Liquid Explosion artwork tutorial, custom brushes from our Wild Effects with Custom Brushes tutorial, as well as some new techniques involving photographs, textures and fractals. Combining techniques is one of the best ways to achieve varied and interesting results in your digital art, and it really helps with your experimentation and creative process when you can rely on a variety of techniques.”

Source

Create a Beautiful Abstract Portrait in Photoshop

“In this tutorial, author Wojciech Pijecki will combine several stock images to create an artistic, abstract portrait of a woman.”

Source

Create a Funky Perspective of a Model Riding Digital Volume

“This is a tutorial illustrating perspective techniques and how you can achieve the feeling of depth and motion. We will be doing this in a few steps, such as placing the main character, creating the volume fading away and adding foreground and background images.”

Source

The Making of Mystic

“In this tutorial Nik Ainley walks us through the process of making a spectacular image. This tutorial focuses on the big picture steps taken to create this image. You’ll learn some incredible techniques in this tutorial, and get a view into how Nik creates beautiful photo-manipulation based images.”

Source

Learn How To Create A GUI Volume Dial/Knob

“In this photoshop tutorial I’ll be explaining how to build a brushed aluminum knob for a graphical user interface (GUI). The tutorial is quite simple but the outcome is something shiny and new.”

Source

Na’vi Avatar Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

“This is a Photoshop tutorial showing you all the steps you need to take in order to photo-manipulate yourself into a Na’vi (based on the characters in James Cameron’s movie “Avatar”). I used Photoshop CS2 in order to create this, but newer and older versions should do the same, as I used basic Photoshop tools only.”

Source

Check out our previous articles:

• Not Getting the Desired Traffic? Time to Change your Web Design!
• Big Ideas Make Big Things Happen – SEO Analysis
• Doing the Internal Linking the Right Way
• Google’s Search Results Requested To Be Removed
• Apple Safari 5 – What’s in it for a Windows user?

We hope you enjoyed this article! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Why did we find hand-pick all of these tutorials? Because search engines don’t always provide the highest quality photoshop tutorials. Anybody can say that their text-effect tutorial is the best, therefore you need an expert to declare and separate the gems from the trash. Plus when you search through millions of search results, your time is wasted. So don’t waste your time and enjoy these thirty-five high quality text effect Photoshop tutorials!

Grungy Rusted Carbon Fiber Text Effect

Abstract Text Effect with Brush Dynamics and Filters in Photoshop

Realistic Water Text Effect

StarCraft Interface Design

Stylish Floral

Create a Great Typographic Wallpaper In Photoshop

Create a Layered Glowing Text Effect

Hell Of Tutorial

Icey Styles in Photoshop

Retro Text

Typography Wallpaper in Photoshop

How to Create 3D Text Blocks in Photoshop

Create a Steam Powered Typographic Treatment

Add Fantastic Color to 3D Text

How to make a Typographic, Retro, Space Face

Using Light and Shade to Bring Text to Life

How to Create Eroded Metal Text With Photoshop

Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop

Create a Spectacular Flaming Meteor Effect on Text

Dramatic Text on Fire Effect in Photoshop

A Slick Supernatural Text Effect

Create a 3D Text Effect

Creating a Tron Legacy Text Effect

Logo Design Process and Walk Through of Design

Making of a Cool Text Effect Puppet Warp Tool

Design a Skin Textured Typography Scene

Create a retro sci-fi movie poster

Modern 3D Text Effect

Create Super Glossy 3D Typography

Creating of a Pipe Typography in Photoshop

The Revolution Artwork by Aoiro Studio

Draw a Woodcut-Inspired Typographic Illustration in Photoshop

Create a Futuristic, Grungy Metal Text Effect

Create Elegant, Glassy, 3D Typography in Photoshop

Create an Ice Cream Type Treatment in Photoshop

Check out our previous articles:

• Useful Photoshop Layer Styles Tips and Tricks
• 10 Inspiring Pixelmator Tutorials from PXM Tuts
• Tutorial Roundup: How To Draw People
• Photoshop Tutorial: Underwater Turtle

We hope you found this collection useful! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Step 1. Before you set out to increase your download speeds, you’ll want to first find out what kind of internet connection you have. If you have dial-up, then slow download speeds are normal and the only way to fix them is to upgrade your service. If you have DSL or Cable, then you have broadband or “high speed” internet and your download speeds should be pretty fast. Call your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and ask them what kind of download speeds you should be receiving. Write this information down.

Step 2. Now that you know what kind of speeds you are supposed to be receiving, you’ll want to test your connection speed to see if your are indeed getting what you are paying for. Simply do a web search for “connection speed test” and you’ll find many website that offer such tests for free. The tests can be done in under a minute, and will give you a good idea of how fast your internet connection is. Once you’ve selected a speed test website, simply select this server that is nearest to you, and fill in any other needed information. Begin the test and wait for it to finish.

Step 3. Once the test is finished you will be shown your connection speed in kbps (kilobytes per second). If you are not getting the speeds your internet service provider said you would, then you should call them and complain so they can fix the problem. If the speed test confirms that you are getting the speeds you are paying for, then the problem lies within your computer and you should continue on to step three.

Step 4. In order to optimize your download speeds, you’ll want your computer to be running as smoothly as possible. TO achieve this you should run your computer’s defragmenter, run a registry cleaner, and use a TCP Optimizer.

Step 5. Try to keep in mind that your bandwidth is not infinite, so the more you download at one time, the slower your downloads will be. Downloading one file at a time will probably make things go a lot faster. Also try to minimize the amount of programs you have open while you are downloading. Disable any add-ons and close any programs that you do not need.

The above tips should help anyone get their download speeds to go a bit faster. If all else fails you should call you ISP and tell them about your problem. Tell them that you will not continue to use their service if you do not get the download speeds you are paying for. Once your computer has been cleaned off and optimized there should be no reason left for slow download speeds.

Check out our previous articles!

• 7 Apps That Will Make Your Life Easier
• Apps for Keeping Track of Your Monthly Spending
• Top 100 Tasty Palettes from Colourlovers
• Need Some Free Vector Graphics? Try One of These 8 Sites
• The Most Affordable and Functional Online File Storing Services

Did you enjoy this article? We would love to hear your thoughts, so don’t be shy and comment below! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Requirements:

• Underwater Image
• Optional Sky
• Waterfall Brush
• Island
• Turtle
• Water 

Step 1

First select a cool image. I selected this turtle image. Duplicate the original turtle image and hide the bottom(1st layer). Now, you will erase the sky as shown in the images below. Keep only the turtle and the sand. You may do so by any method you prefer. You can erase the background by using masking, pen tool, polygonal lasso tool or any other method. Name the layer as turtle.

Step 2

Open an image of the ocean.

Select the ocean image and place it over the turtle image layer. The ocean is smaller than the turtle so you must press crt+t and hold down the shift button to re-size the sea, making it bigger. Look at the image below.

Adjust the image at a slight angle.

Step 3

Now use the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” to select the sea.

Once selected, click crt + t and right click the mouse to select the  “Distort” option. This will allow you to distort the edges of the selection. Distort the bottom edges as shown in the image below.

This is done so the perspective of the water matches up with the overall image. Your image should look something like the image below.

Step 4

You will need the original light from the sky in the future and it will need to be the opposite way around because of the lighting on the turtle. Therefore, you click ctrl + T on the sky/ocean image and right click the mouse to flip the image horizontally.

Step 5

Name the ocean layer as ocean.

Step 6

Now for the meat of the tutorial. Create a clip-mask on the ocean layer.

Step 7

This step can be pretty tricky but very useful. With the crtl button pressed, click on the turtle layer. This will make a selection over the whole turtle as shown in the image below.

Now, erase the water and sky from around the turtle.

Step 8

Choose an underwater image.

Select the image and paste it under the turtle layers. Now re-size the image so it looks like the picture below. Name this layer underwater.

Step 9

Clip-mask the turtle image and gradually erase the sharp edges until it looks like the image below. This will give more perspective to the underwater scene.

Step 10

Open the underwater image from step 8 and place it over the turtle image. If part of the water gets put over the top part of the turtle(the part that is over the water) just erase it normally with the eraser tool. Create a clip-mask for the bottom part and gradually erase the turtle’s body until you make a replica of the image below.

Step 11

Duplicate the ocean/sky layer and blur it as shown in the image below.

Lower the blur layer by a few clicks with the down keyboard button. Erase the top part of that layer leaving only the blurry boarder.

Step 12

These are the basics to create an underwater image. Keep working with the lighting and colors to create your final image.

We hope you enjoyed the tutorial. Do not forget to check out DailyGraphicDesign.com and please add them on Twitter for constant updates! For more inspirational tutorials don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter+ Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

I am a self-taught artist with a passion for the pedagogy side of art. When I was young, I often searched the Internet looking for drawing tutorials and lessons to help me develop fundamental drawing techniques. Most of the time, I looked for tutorials that taught me how to draw people. I loved portraiture and felt if I could get a likeness of a human subject in my drawings, I would be able to replicate anything! Portraiture is considered to be the ultimate test of your drawing skills because it incorporates all that one learns about light, perspective, shading, proportion and anatomy.

If I could draw portraits, I could draw anything! Unfortunately, I did not find many tutorials on the web and often was frustrated and left alone to figure out my own techniques. During that time, I was only a teenager and could not afford to pay $300 for a 4 hour crash course in drawing. Moreover, I was not old enough to even work. I also did not want to put that financial strain on my parents.

So, my only alternative was to teach myself to draw. That is exactly what I did! As, I got older, now 25, I wanted to create a place where everyone could learn How To Draw for free. I wanted everyone to have a place where they can find clear drawing instruction. This is why i created HowToDrawItAll.com.

The site provides articles, inspiration, resources and tutorials for artist to learn how to draw on a professional level. Below are a few step-by-step tutorials that will teach you How To Draw People from the site. Enjoy!

- Portrait Tutorials - 

How To Draw People: Colored Pencil Portrait

HOW TO DRAW A FACE: Young Woman

How To Draw People: Sam Rivers

How To Draw People: Portrait in Colored Pencil

How To Draw People: Jim Woodhead

- Feature Tutorials -

How To Draw Lips

How To Draw An Eye: Digital Tutorial

How To Draw An Ear

- Hair Tutorials - 

How To Draw Hair

How To Draw Hair: Dark Hair

How To Draw Hair: Light Hair

- Anatomy of the Human Figure -

How to draw people: Male and Foreshortening

How To Draw People: Female Body and High Contrast

Did you enjoy this article? Don’t be shy, comment below and let us know! For more useful articles, please don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook ! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

My biggest frustration was that many art & image editing applications all claimed to be the best and yet had such a wide variety of opposing layouts and workflows that just didn’t fit me. Photoshop you say? This was out of my reach for my budget at the time as is the case with many today. I needed to find something affordable, fast and powerful. Pixelmator seemed to fit the niche I was after. After years of using Pixelmator in my work-flow I now share my passion and knowledge with the community through the forums and have teamed up with designer and developer, Ashley Rich to create the tutorial site PXM-Tuts.

What is Pixelmator?

Pixelmator is a powerful image editor for Mac OS X. Version 2.0 has brought a beautiful new design, feature rich, and affordable price tag to Mac users looking to move away from the heavy bloat and cost Adobe brings. Codenamed Chameleon, it keeps things simple on the surface, but power users will be able to dig in and reveal many amazing features. I see a lot of people not realize the full potential of what Pixelmator can accomplish. I’m glad I can share these inspiring tutorials covering everything from image editing & web design, to text effects & vector tools!

If you haven’t tried Pixelmator yet, grab the free trial and try some of our tutorials.

Render a Cool Vector Droid in Pixelmator

In this advanced Pixelmator tutorial we will give the Pixelmator 2 vector tools a nice workout. We’ll show you how you can build bigger vector objects from smaller parts. Also learn to use the screen measuring tool, guidelines and vector center points to align objects. Let’s get vectoring!

Create an Awesome Progress Bar

Learn to easily create a stylish progress bar graphic in this Pixelmator tutorial. We will show you how to build selection shapes, blend effects, use clipping masks, and blending modes to produce this simple beautiful graphic.

The Art of the Pixel Tool

Pixel Art takes us back to a time when console games and computer graphics had a lower resolution and limited colors. These graphics were completely hand drawn, shaded and colored. Many retro artists like to mimic this unique look but put a modern stylish spin on it.

Bring Your Own Siri Icon to Life!

Siri is the main feature of iPhone 4S. In this tutorial you will create the the icon that is viewed by millions of users! Some of the instructions have several slides that go with them, make sure to scroll down a bit if something doesn’t make sense.

Retro Pop Art

In this Pixelmator tutorial we will create a Retro Pop Art style design, common in the 1950s. We will be combining stock images, color, brushes and textures to give our design a vintage comic book appearance.

Design a Clean Portfolio Layout

Pixelmator is an excellent tool for editing images, but can it be used for web design? In this two-part tutorial we are going to create our very own portfolio homepage. In part 1 we will create our design in Pixelmator. In part 2 we will take our Pixelmator design and turn it into a functioning webpage using HTML5 and CSS3.

Create a Killer Glowing Power Button

Today we will show you how to build this beautiful glowing power button with ease. Yes, Pixelmator can go beyond just image editing, producing quality graphics and icons, and today you’ll be able to step up your skills. We’ll cover blending layers with masks, layering drop shadows, blending mode effects and more.

Create a Stylish Login Modal Window

Orman Clark over at Premium Pixels is one seriously talented designer and his free resources always provide a good source of inspiration. Have a look around his site to get an idea of the style we’re aiming for, clean and simple is the name of the game:

Age your Photos into Instant Classics

Aging your photos is so easy in Pixelmator, you’ll have more flexibility and can be more creative than just pushing a button in an app. No this isn’t a stock photo, I took it myself with my iPhone. So get out there in your own town and grab a shot of something no one else has, and make it unique.

Create a Simple 3D Metal Bucket in Pixelmator

For those just getting the hang of how Pixelmator works, this is a great tutorial to follow. It will sharpen your skills without being overly complicated and lengthy. You’ll notice I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts in these tutorials. You can still go up to the menu to do many of these tasks but learning these shortcuts will vastly improve your experience and ease of workflow in Pixelmator

We hope you found this article helpful. For more useful tutorials don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter+ Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

This tutorial will show you some really useful, and time saving, tips and tricks for dealing with Layer Styles.

Tip 1: Adding and Modifying Effects

You can double click the layer to open the “Layer Style” dialog box, then click whatever effects you want to add, and modify the settings.

Alternatively, you can click the Add a layer style icon down the Layers panel (Window -> Layers) to go directly to the effect you want to apply.

Once a Layer Style is applied, a small “fx” icon and an arrow will appear to the right side of the layer. If you click the arrow, you can expand the list of effects used or collapse it.

To modify an effect, you can double click it from the expanded list, or click the Add a layer style icon then choose the effect you want to modify.

Tip 2: Disable Auto-Expanding the Effects List

Does it ever bother you that the effects list expands automatically whenever you apply or paste Layer Styles to one or more layers? Well, you can simply disable that by clicking the Layers panel menu icon in the top right corner of the Layers panel (Window -> Layers), then choose Panel Options…. This will open the Layers Panel Options dialog box, where you can un-check the Expand New Effects box. click OK, and that’s pretty much it!

Tip 3: Hiding and Showing Effects

To disable (hide) an effect without deleting it, you can click the eye icon next to it in the expanded effects list. This will make the effect temporarily invisible. You can hide more than one effect at the same time as well.

To enable (show) the effect, click the empty area where the eye icon was, and the effect will be visible once again.

To hide all the effects, right click the “fx” icon to the right, and choose Hide All Effects.

To show all the effects, right click the “fx” icon, and choose Show All Effects.

Tip 4: Removing an Effect

Sometimes, you need to remove (delete) an effect completely from the list, not only disable or hide it. To do so, click and drag the effect then drop it in the Delete layer icon down the Layers panel.

To delete all of the Layer Style’s effects, right click the layer, then choose Clear Layer Style.

Tip 5: Scaling Layer Styles

Scaling Layer Styles comes in handy so often when applying a Layer Style to objects that have different sizes. Instead of modifying the values one by one inside the Layer Style dialog box, you can scale them all together. To do so, right click the “fx” icon and choose Scale Effects…. In the Scale Layer Effects dialog box, you can scale the Layer Style up to 1000% or down to 1%. This is a real time saver.