Happy Valentine's

Happy Valentine's day lovers!

Valentine's day

Dear friends,
our creative community is looking for Valentine’s day materials! Lovely shots, vectors, fonts and all other useful materials for lovers are more than welcome. Upload some girls and boys! Thnx in advance www.multimedia-stock.com

Merry X-mass everyone!!!!!

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Vector Tips & Tricks: 1

Making vector stock images... some flair adds a lot to any design. Here's some tips!

1. Make it Shine

Shine is a vector trick that's a bit trendy, but if done right can add a wonderful amount of realism and creativity.

First is a FLAT SHINE - this can add the glass appeal.

How To: Apply it only to half of your object by creating another shape over the top of the intended "glass surface" using the pen tool. Add a slight curve to the inside of the object. The trick behind making a great flat shine is to get the gradient right. Add a gradient to your new shape and make each stop white. Now change the stop alpha on the second stop to be about 10 to 20 percent visible. Then use the Gradient Transform tool and angle of the gradient till the desired look is achieved. Edit the angle by click (and hold) to create a start point and drag to where you want the gradient to end.

CONTINUE READING IN FORUM

Tips & Tricks: 1

Postby reznor70 on Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:31 am
Making vector stock images... some flair adds a lot to any design. Here's some tips!

1. Make it Shine

Shine is a vector trick that's a bit trendy, but if done right can add a wonderful amount of realism and creativity.

First is a FLAT SHINE - this can add the glass appeal.

How To: Apply it only to half of your object by creating another shape over the top of the intended "glass surface" using the pen tool. Add a slight curve to the inside of the object. The trick behind making a great flat shine is to get the gradient right. Add a gradient to your new shape and make each stop white. Now change the stop alpha on the second stop to be about 10 to 20 percent visible. Then use the Gradient Transform tool and angle of the gradient till the desired look is achieved. Edit the angle by click (and hold) to create a start point and drag to where you want the gradient to end.

Tip: Experiment with adding a 1 or 2 pixel padding around the shine from its parent object to enhance the effect even more in some cases. It will achieve something of a beveled glass surface effect.

Next is a SPOT SHINE - this can add a liquid, high gloss effect.

It works best on objects with bends or curved edges. Ex., balloons, water drops, metal/plastic appearance.
How To: Create a shape with the pen tool that follows the curves or shape of your object. Try experimenting with thin, thick, and even clones of your original shine shape.

Tip: To get sharp points at each end of your object, set a point near the middle of your object to create the curve of your object, allowing you to have a sharp point at the "turning point."

Tip: Don't create 200 water drops or 50 balloons. Make one complete with shine, gradients, stokes and effects. Duplicate the complete object, rotate, scale and change the color. It saves a LOT of time and keeps your design consistent.

2. Simple Shapes Create Amazing Designs

Designs don't need to have HUGE detail and puke random unnecessary complicated all over the art board. Simplicity can add a certain flair all it's own and a designed style of abstract. When I started simplistic vectors, I would make the full detail and delete until it appeared how I wanted it. Make a glass, make the shines, gradients, parts... everything detailed. When done, delete 90% of the detail. Leave one side of the shape and the shine on the opposite side. Experiment. Find a style you like. Even submit both if you want! Give some variety.

Tip: Simple line elements and a spherical gradient background can add a lot to a simple vector when complete. Make the appearance look desirable for downloaders. Backgrounds can always be deleted if they don't want it... it is vector after all. Perhaps they want the simple background! Never know. :)

3. Shape Explosions & Twirls

Explosions and twirls are a great way to add a bit of excitement. Used sparingly and in the right design they can work perfect.

Shape explosions: a whole bunch of shapes that look like they are exploding or pouring out. Great for adding color and a bit of surrealism. Be sure to try out everything you can think of, including mixing and matching shapes and colors.

How To: Create your first shape, add colours and gradients to it, then copy and paste, resize, rotate and edit the color. Repeat.

Tip: Once you start to build up shapes, grab a few and copy and paste. This will make the whole process a little quicker. After the first few shapes, you will start to pick up speed pretty quickly.

Tip: Use the skew tool. When you have an object selected, your cursor changes to the skew icon when you are just outside the bounding box on any point that isn’t a corner. Try adding a skew to some of your objects to give a little more depth to your explosion.

Twirls: Also great when you want to add color and a surreal effect. Use curves as vines that wrap around an object or just to fill out your design.

How To: Grab your pen tool, and create a smooth curved path or use the spiral tool. These can take a little practice to master and get the right distance between your path but just remember you always have your direct selection tool to fix it later. You will notice that my twirls don’t actually go behind images. This is because it would be impossible to make the path go from behind an object and then in front. Easiest way to make these behind an object is to create the swirl or curl. Copy your object and paste in place. Trim down the copied object with squares subtracted from the copied object. Crop the swirl with the cropped object. The swirl lines will line perfect with the object and gaps will be avoided. This requires some practice, but is very effective once mastered. After experimenting with this a bit you can do many at a time with one modified copied object over swirls.

Tip: Expand the curl or stroke (if bush was used). Select the new object and "combine shapes". A gradient can now be added to the curl for some added depth and effect.

Tip: If you want all curls to appear to have a shadow of the object above, copy the object above. Paste into place. Change the color to 70% gray. If there's multiple shapes to the object, combine it into one shape. Feather the gray object. Move the gray object behind the colored original and move it slightly. Next, change the gray shadow effect in transparency from "Normal" to "Multiply". You'll have a shadow that extends over your curls and backgrounds without all the work of modifying each curl individually.

4. Glow, Shadows & Reflections

Glows, shadows, and reflections can add that final touch to any design, but the key is subtlety. Most people believe you need strong shadows and reflections because people won’t notice them otherwise. But adding a very light shadow or a slight reflection to your object can make a massive difference even if people don’t notice its there. Shadows and reflections are an everyday part of our lives. We see them all the time, so we might not notice them in a design, but sub-consciously it will heighten the effectiveness, realism of the overall usability of the design.

How To: Use simple shapes such as a circle, and creating a radial gradient from black to transparent, this can be used as a simple shadow under an object or text. Using that same technique with a bright color will create a nice glow around an object.

How To: Reflections, copy and paste the original twirl, move it behind the object (crtl + [ or - ] moves your objects backwards and forwards in the layer order), and then manipulate the points using the direct selection tool. Leave the low points the same but slowly moved the tip points away from the original object to create and effect that the twirl is getting further away from the screen. Finally change the opacity to transparent, around 10%. Full object reflections: copy all and paste all in place. Reflect the object vertical or horizontal to your liking. Skew as desired. Add a square over the reflection the same color as the background. Using the gradient tool make one side 30-40% opaque and the other side 100%. Adjust with the gradient adjustment same as the shine used.

Hope these were helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions or need further instruction for any of these. :)

Free Editing and Painting Tools

While many of us are fortunate enough to be able to take the perfect photo which needs no cropping, brightening, rotating or other editing, most photographers find themselves having to do at least some basic editing sooner or later.

continue reading in forum

MMS has some basic standards that require logos and copyrighted material to be removed, and other editing issues. I personally use Adobe Photoshop, and have friends who use Adobe Elements and Paintshop Pro, but not everyone can afford to buy these programs, or use them enough to justify the purchase.

So, for those of you who might need or be interested in some of the Freeware programs out there that are available to you,I have put together a list of ten reviewed free editing and painting programs. Feel free to add you own to the list, or share your own experiences with these programs

1. PhotoScape http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php- Free user friendly program which offers several modules including a viewer, editor, batch processor. It supports RAW, as well as all other major image formats from JPEG and PNG to animated GIFs. The publisher says of their software: “Major capabilities are: viewer, editor, batch editor, page, combine, animated GIF, print, screen capture, color picker, rename, raw converter, resizing, brightness/color/white-balance adjustment, backlight correction, frames, balloons, text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal and blooming. Works with Windows Vista, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98.

2. GIMP for Windows- http://www.gimp.org/ - GIMP is a popular free and open-source image editor often compared to Photoshop because of all of its powerful features. GIMP uses XCF file format natively. Although this is not a widely used format, GIMP has the capability to save to PSD formats and can read/write to BMP, JPEG,GIG,TIFF, PNG plus several others. Offers a full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc. , a gradient editor and blend tool, transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip. So many features I cannot possibly name them all here. GIMP should run on any NT-based version of Windows (NT4, 2000, XP or Vista).

3. Paint.NET- http://download.cnet.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html - Freeware Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. Paint.NET started development at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft, and continues to be updated and maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Paint.NET features layers, painting and drawing tools, special effects, unlimited undo history, and levels adjustments.

4. Serif PhotoPlus- http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/photoplus/ - This is a great photo editing program for the beginner, and was flexible enough to allow for some advanced editing and optimization. Currently you can download a completely free, fully-functional version of PhotoPlus 6. General editing includes removing blemishes, and eliminating other unwanted elements, and Automatic Level and Contrast adjustment is an option. If you want advanced editing you haver the option of playing with channels, gamma, hues, and saturation. It also offers an export optimizer, editable text, image slicing and image maps, selection tools, smart shapes, third-party plug-in support, red-eye removal tool, and photo enhancement tools. PhotoPlus 6 works on Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, 2000, NT4, and XP.

5. Pixia -http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/ - Pixia is the English version of a popular free painting and retouching software that originated in Japan. The biggest complaint I have seen for Pixia is that the tools are unconventional, so if you are used to other editing programs, Pixia can have a steep learning curve. It features custom brush tips, multiple layers, masking, vector- and bitmap-based drawing tools, color, tone, and lighting adjustments, and multiple undo/redo. Like many freeware editors, there is no support for saving GIF format. Pixia is also available for many other languages. Pixia works with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, and XP.

6. VCW VicMan's Photo Editor - http://www.vicman.net/vcwphoto/- Free photo editing and graphic creating tool. Supports more than thirty popular image formats and a majority of Adobe Photoshop compatible filters, of which a hundred or so have been already imported to the editor. Features include a text tool, gradients, selections by color or region, color replacement, editing in any scale, special effects and so on. The free version used to be an enticement to upgrade to the Pro version, but as of December 2006, the Pro version is free.

7. PhotoFiltre -http://photofiltre.en.softonic.com/- PhotoFiltre is free for private, non commercial or educational use (including non-profit organizations). Offering one-click image adjustments, filters, and effects.. Filters allow you to adjust brightness, contrast, dyed, saturation, gamma correction, and also artistic filters. Also supports batch processing to apply filters, sizing, adjustments and transformations to a large number of images at once.

8. Ultimate Paint Freeware Edition -http://www.ultimatepaint.com/download.php - Ultimate Paint Freeware Edition supports all popular image formats, and image acquisition from twain-compatible scanners is possible. Some basic features include resizing, rotating, flood filling, and text operations, multiple undo/redo, and symmetry tool. It comes with image filters and special effects, image creation, viewing, and manipulation. Designed to be fast and compact. The freeware version is an older release of the full-featured shareware product.

9. ImageForge - http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_imffw.html - Freeware art studio for creating or editing images, simple .avi animations, photos, picture albums and screensavers. Includes features such as: Clipart brushes, soft brushes, smudge and spatter to smooth damaged areas, special effect filters, twain scanner & device support, color-replacement, gradients and patterns, crop, enlarge, resize, resample, skew, rotate by degree, avi and bmp filmstrip animations, tools to produce slide shows, much more. This graphic apps program is freeware, so you can download and use it absolutely free. ImageForge Standard 3.60 supports different languages (including English). It works with Windows 98/XP/Vista

10. Picasa –http://picasa.google.com/ - Free product offered by Google. While Picasa doesn’t have many of the in-depth editing capabilities many editing programs do, it does offer some super and easy to use tools with Picasa's one-click fixes for common problems like red-eye, color, and lighting, contrast, resizing, and the ability to straighten images. It also offers the ability to do some effects such as desaturation, (turning the image black and white) tinting and sharpening.

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS FREEBIES

Dear friends,
Our creative community is looking for Christmas and New Year shots, vectors, fonts and all other useful materials these days. If you have some Christmas trees, bows, balls, snow globes or any kind of decorations in your hard disc storage please be kind to share with us. Thank you in advance!

One more thing, we sent out third newsletter. I hope you'll like it.

Stay tuned here!

HOW TO WRITE DEADLY KEYWORDS FOR YOUR STOCK MATERIALS?

Keywords are so important, and the most abused and neglected part of MMS. When someone is looking for a certain kind of media they find it in their search by typing a keyword. If you have the wrong keywords, your media may not get the exposure it deserves.

This forum thread will help you to write keywords which really works!

TWITTER

Do you have a Twitter account?

MMS does! http://twitter.com/MultimediaStock

If you have a Twitter account, follow us, and we'll follow you! Post your Twitter account here!

MMS IS LOOKING FOR FORUM MODERATORS

As the headline sais we're looking for confidential forum admins so if you think you can be that person who can make our forum better, you're welcome to apply at info(AT)multimedia-stock.com

We have only one condition; please do not apply if you don't have at least 15 uploaded materials at Multimedia-Stock.com :p

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2nd NEWSLETTER

We have sent our SECOND newsletter!

If you want to receive our newsletters and Multimedia-Stock notifications please edit that in your user profile. Very simple; log in than go edit profile than mark a place below questions: Do you want to receive Multimedia-Stock.com newsletter? and Do you want to receive email notification when someone comment you or your work? Press submit button and enjoy in comments and Multimedia-Stock newsletters.

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NEWS ABOUT MMS2

Unfortunately we have to inform you that we won't be able to follow our plans about the new site development. Our programers (our friends from Tocka) have a load of work and aren't able to start to the development of the site until 1st of December.

4000 MULTIMEDIA-STOCK MEMBERS

Thanks to all of you the unexpected happend and in less than a month 1000 people registered and we have reached the number of 4000 MMS's members. Thank you again. And again ☺

1st Multimedia-Stock NEWSLETTER

We have sent our first newsletter!

I hope you all will like it. If you want to receive our newsletters and Multimedia-Stock notifications please edit that in your user profile. Very simple; log in than go edit profile than mark a place below questions: Do you want to receive Multimedia-Stock.com newsletter? and Do you want to receive email notification when someone comment you or your work? Press submit button and enjoy in comments and Multimedia-Stock newsletters.

That’s all folks!
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hmmmmm - 6000 stock materials!

You're awesome guys! really!
In less than 2 weeks we have uploaded a little bit more than 1000 materials and we have reached number of 6000 creative materials at Multimedia-Stock.

Do I need to say thank you all or you know that already?!
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5000 free creative materials at MMS

This is great news for me and I hope you'll be happy too when I tell you that we had a news about 4000 uploaded materials on the 24th of August and 16 days later we had reached the number of 5000 free creative materials at MMS.

Thank you so much my dear MMS artists!