It’s been a while! I realise that things have been a little quiet here, and today I wanted to share exactly what I’ve been working on.

As you may know in addition to PSDFAN I also run Design Cuts, which has established a reputation for being one of the most active and friendly communities for creatives online. This really followed on from the incredible audience right here at PSDFAN.

For the past 3 years I’ve been super busy building up Design Cuts, and I’m so incredibly proud of all we’ve achieved there. Recently, we launched a new marketplace for designers. This has been a massive project, and I’m so excited as this isn’t simply ‘just another marketplace’, it’s something much more special than that.

Today, I just wanted to share what’s so unique and incredible about this new marketplace, and give you some insight into what I’ve been working on these past few months.

I Wanted to Create The Most Quality-Focused Marketplace in the World

As a creative, I have always found that other design marketplaces simply had too many items – making it difficult to find the truly great resources. After all, who needs to trawl through 5000 near-identical packs to find the one that’s right for them?

At the Design Cuts marketplace, I’ve hand-selected and carefully curated every single product, to ensure that you only need to browse through the very best products in the world. This features top products from the likes of Ian Barnard, Latinotype, Retro Supply Co, Yellow Design Studio, Lisa Glanz, 2 Lil Owls and many more world famous designers. You don’t have to second guess the quality of resources as every single product in the marketplace is at the top of its field.

Here’s a look at just some of the awesome products you can find in this new marketplace:

I Wanted to Give Creatives a Unique Way to Save

The most unique feature of this new marketplace is the ability to create your own bundles. The more products you grab, the more you save! As you add products to your cart, you can see your savings increasing, and our recommendations ensure that you find the best and most relevant products for your needs.

This is the only place that you can save on these items, which otherwise are only available at their regular full price.

I Wanted to Provide Crystal Clear, Super Flexible Licensing

Licensing can be a tricky issue, and many of the main marketplaces impose needless restrictions, such as only using items for a single project (meaning that you need to purchase additional licenses each time you use the resources for a new project!). That just didn’t sit well with me.

At Design Cuts we have the most clear and generous license that we’ve seen anywhere. This means that you can use your items within wider designs available for sale and merchandise. All of this means less worrying about licensing, and more time spent creating amazing work!

Join the 85,000 Designers Already There

I’m so proud of what we’re building at Design Cuts, and I’d love for you to join us. You can visit our new marketplace via the link below, and I’d love it if you dropped us a line to say hi. I’m now leading an amazing, incredibly friendly team, and our sole aim is to give you the maximum possible support and guidance on your creative projects.

Click here to check out the new Design Cuts marketplace

Today I’m going to introduce a PSDFAN community member to you who is doing seriously special things with his creative work. Prepare to be blown away.

Henk has been with us for a couple of months now, but after just 3 short weeks he was creating Photoshop work that I wasn’t capable of making for years! You’re going to love this story if:

• You’re trying to improve your design work, but can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel
• You aren’t sure if you’re capable of creating awesome designs
• You don’t know exactly how to create better work in Photoshop
• You like badass guys who break up fights and protect the innocent

Let Me Introduce Henk

Here’s a picture of Henk. He just turned 27, and is based in the Netherlands. He also has an ex military background and his name isn’t to be confused with ‘Hank’ (which I was guilty of at first!).

Henk uses his self defence skills (and massive stature) in his work as a bouncer. Whilst the rest of us are sharing our peaceful nights with each other in the forums, Henk is often returning from some lunatic threatening people with a gun, or trying to attack him. Proof designers don’t always fit the same mold!

How Henk Started Out

So how does an ex-military bouncer get into Photoshop design?

Like many of us, Henk started out in this crazy design business almost by accident. Here’s a post of his from back in November on our community forum.

“Well most of you already know I am just doing this photoshop work / hobby for just like 3 weeks now.

I love it, and I think this is my way of letting out my fantasy.”

Soon Henk’s work started to get the attention of the other members, including our resident expert Eric Vasquez:

”I think it is really impressive what Henk has been able to achieve in such a short time. You’re like a design prodigy man! Your quest for knowledge is admirable and I have no doubt that if you stay the course you will be creating your own amazing compositions in no time.”

Henk originally started, like many of us, by digesting and recreating Photoshop tutorials. It’s certainly a great way to learn. Here are some of his tutorial recreations. Again, bear in mind this is 3 weeks into using Photoshop!.

It Wasn’t All Plain Sailing

Of course Henk’s early work wasn’t always perfect (whose is?). He had his fair share of difficulties, but the point is that he worked hard, and kept learning and evolving through this.

Here is one of his less successful pieces:

In Henk’s own words: ”Respect for the digital painters.” (Amen to that!).

Here’s another piece that didn’t quite come together:

I’m sure you can empathise with how tricky fire and water can be to work with in Photoshop!

However… Soon He Was Creating AWESOME Original Compositions

It was awesome to see Henk moving on from simply replicating our tutorials and start creating original designs.

In this piece, he uses a photo of his little nephew to place him in a fantasy setting. The image is intended as a sweet, very creative gift for the family.

After dozens of posts from other members (including myself) we helped Henk to improve some elements of blending and details within the piece. Here’s the final design:

Not bad for 3 weeks into Photoshop right? Personally it took me years of practice to get to this kind of level. Truly inspiring work.

The whole point is that Henk realises his work can always be better, more original, more refined. But that’s the point of design, or really any skill. The harder your practice, the faster your improve.

Some Words From Henk Himself

I wanted to quiz Henk on exactly how he improved so rapidly with his design work. I thought his story would help to inspire the rest of the community, and offer you guys some awesome tips. Here’s a little mini interview we did recently:

ME: You’ve shown a huge amount of improvement in your design work since starting out just a few weeks ago. What would you attribute your success to?

HENK: Well to be honest, and I know this sounds kinda cliché, but the main reason I gathered this experience is all thanks to Fanextra.

As the most members (the fairly active members) of Fanextra already know I was just playing around with different programs, because I wanted to edit just one image. I wanted to change something in the image, I believe it was something like making the skin more smooth, but for this change I needed some tutorial as I never worked with Photoshop or any other photo manipulation program before.

I looked up some great tutorials via Google, and before I knew it I ended up here.
And this is when I started to grow interest in Photoshop and learned lots of different techniques from many other experienced members in the Fanextra forum.

ME: Were there any particular tips/tricks that helped you along the way?

HENK: Well there wasn’t really a particular tip/trick that improved my skill in photo manipulation.

As a matter of fact the thing I learned most from are all the tutorials in Fanextra which I love to try and play around with.

This website just learned me the basics in the beginning, like what every icon and button in Photoshop does for your image or photo.

Once I finally learned the basics I started to understand how and what I had to do to achieve something in an image.

What I did do learned from was the video course “Take your design work to the next level”. This helped me a lot after understanding the basics in Photoshop, like choosing quality images, using little adjustments at the end of your designing to make it all blend together and not to ‘overshop’ it.

This taught me that even the smallest adjustments will improve the overall picture.

ME: What mistakes were you making initially that you’ve now rectified in your design work?

Well I made a lot of mistakes, but let’s say that “initially” means after I learned the Photoshop basics and before now.

I think that blending and the use of dodge/burn where my biggest failures.

You could say that the pictures I used where so poorly blended with the image you could perfectly say that this pasted image doesn’t originally fit in with the background.

Now I learned lots of tips and tricks how to blend in other images (I even blend in images that aren’t correctly coloured) and one of the reasons why my images blend in now is because of the use of dodge and burn (This way I can change the light on the image, so it fits with the light source in the background). And for anyone reading this and you have problems blending in images as well, try this tutorial.

ME: What would your single biggest tip be to aspiring designers looking to improve their work?

HENK: My single biggest tip, well there is always room for improvements that is something you should keep in the back of your head.

But I experienced sometimes a lack of imagination, the best way for me was to check out other artists their work.

This is also a good way to improve yourself by checking others and learning from them.

It is also a good idea to speak to them by any means (e-mail, forums, phone or whatever) and swap each others ideas and experience.

Also learn from tutorials, try them out and learn from every tip or trick you never used before (almost every tutorial has a refreshing way of working and every tutorial learned me something new).

So I think, if I read back what I just wrote, trying out different tutorials and having fun is the biggest tip in improving aspiring designers their work.

ME: Would you mind sharing your thoughts on the forums and perhaps how they have helped you?

HENK: Uhmm, I almost live on this forum, it is basically my second house haha.

Because Fanextra (Tom, Eric and all the other great members) taught me so much I wanted to give something back.

And what can I give more then sharing my experience and helping others to improve their work.

I am already doing this, and I plan to keep this going on.

I hope I inspire many beginning designers and I hope I can keep on helping others with their art.

Level Up Your Design Work Like Henk

I love Henk’s story as it’s a perfect example of how far you can evolve as a creative simply by putting in the right work.

Henk worked tirelessly, and was happy to make lots of mistakes along the way in order to improve.

Now he’s in a position where he’s already developing a fantastic eye for design and giving quality feedback to other aspiring creatives. This is within his first 2 months designing!

Do you have any questions for Henk? Please post any questions or comments below and we’d love to read them. I’m sure Henk would be more than happy to chat over his experiences learning design and help out all you aspiring creatives.

He promises not to drop kick you either .

If you’re curious about the FanExtra forum, then we’d love for you to check it out. It’s a place where you can get unlimited feedback on your design work. Anything you’re struggling with, or specific pieces you’re working on, we have a dedicated team of experts here to help you work through it. Besides this, it’s just an incredibly fun place for creatives to hang out and chat. We’d love to see you in there.

Click here to join FanExtra and come say ‘hi’ in the forum

You’re working away on a design, only to find that you’ve made a few mistakes along the way.

However, you can’t undo them, so you have to either start over, or lose a ton of your work!

We’ve all been there, but luckily there is a better way!

Non-Destructive Editing!.

Non destructive editing essentially means that everything you do to your images is non-permanent. Each adjustment, each change, each tweak can be removed, altered or hidden at any stage in your workflow. Basically, you can stop letting your images control you, and start controlling them!

In this 12 part course I cover the most useful non-destructive techniques.

These are the techniques that totally transformed the way I use Photoshop, and had me creating work faster, more effectively, and of a better quality. Not to mention the fact that I no longer have countless hours of frustration, struggling to undo mistakes!

Seriously, check it out, and I guarantee it will be the most useful 46 minutes you’ll spend to level up your design skills.

COURSE PREVIEW:

I’ve included the first lesson from the course below to get you started. If you’re serious about improving your designs and workflow, then I would love for you to join us at FanExtra.

COURSE RUN TIME: 46 MINS. INSTRUCTOR: TOM ROSS. EXPERTISE LEVEL: BEGINNER

Lesson 1: Adjustment Layers

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Please Leave a Comment Below:

If you found the above lesson helpful, and have any questions about the course (or design) then please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you and I’m always here to help with your own design struggles.

As promised in my last post we’re taking a bold new direction this year, including weekly updates.

As well as publishing in depth written tutorials, I also want to bring you guys regular quick video tips, showing you some of the most effective techniques that I use in my own design work.

Today show you how to use the edging technique to improve the blending of your Photoshop work.

Let’s get into it!

Today I’m excited, and honestly a little anxious, because I’m revealing some changes that will have a big impact upon this website, and I hope upon your development as a designer.

You see, now that we’re over 5 years old, it’s safe to say that PSDFAN has gone through some major phases in it’s lifetime.

What started as a hobby blog, quickly grew into a respected source for Photoshop tutorials and design information.

Along the way, we’ve continued to publish quality tutorials, but at times these have been drowned out, as we fell victim to the trend of ‘link bait’ articles (I’m sure you’re familiar with the ’50 greatest XYZ ever!’ style posts that have littered the design community).

A look through our archives and you’ll discover some of the types of posts that I’m least proud of having approved.

It’s not that these posts don’t serve a purpose, but I like to think that PSDFAN has a greater goal; one that has true impact upon it’s audience.

Audience.

It’s that single word that’s driven me to take this site in an entirely new direction, and one that I hope you’ll love.

You see, over the past 5 years, it was easy to attribute our ‘success’ to the 10 million unique visitors that have landed upon our little corner of the web.

In fact, I became obsessed with these metrics. Asked at a dinner party what I did, I felt a need to back up ‘blogger’ with ‘that receives 250,000 visits each month!’, as if that somehow made our content more worthwhile.

Here’s what I’ve learnt…

I’ve learnt that one engaged, eager, creatively geeky reader is worth 100,000 empty visitor statistics.

I’ve learnt that my true love is in helping individuals, not chasing numbers.

I’ve learnt that in digging deeper and going beyond the meaningless, bloated numbers, we have a highly active, incredibly talented core of designers.

As the new year begins, I wanted to write this post to let you all know that it is this core that is my entire focus.

10 million fleeting visitors are worth nothing to me, but 100 fantastic individuals all helping one another, growing creatively and showing talent they didn’t know they were capable of is worth a hell of a lot more.

That’s why I’m so proud of the blossoming forum community we’ve been building at FanExtra. The guys and girls over there are already taking it to places I couldn’t have imagined, and it’s amazing to get back to those roots of helping individuals overcome real problems and develop creatively.

One of our community rockstars Henk, created this piece after just 3 weeks of using Photoshop and working with us to improve. Apparently he didn’t sleep much during this time!

So what will change this year?

Well to start with, you may notice that the blog is looking considerably simpler as of late. I made the big decision to remove all adverts from the site, as they don’t help YOU, the reader.

As well as link-bait posts being long gone, I’m also reassessing the types of tutorials we’re putting out. Sure, some tutorials can be fun to skim through, but my main focus is now helping you to improve your design work.

Here’s what you can look forward to:

• As well as helpful tutorials, we’re imminently launching quick video tips (packed with value and tips that’ll instantly benefit your work).
• We also have a soon to launch Podcast, where I’ll be bringing on some very special guests to dig deep into what it takes to become a successful designer (success as measured in progress, not awards).
• There is a big redesign also in the works, which should launch early this year. Look out for teasers of this soon! I hope you’ll love it.
• If you want to be part of our core, active audience, then I’m here for you wholeheartedly. Struggling with something? Wanting to achieve a certain effect? Need some motivation to overcome a creative block? Comment or email anytime, and I’d love to help.
• It is now this core group who defines the future of this site. Your suggestions, ideas and feedback are always welcome, and in fact I’ll be asking you directly about the content which will help you the most.
• After reigning back our posting frequency to focus on what was really important, I’ve setup a weekly posting schedule, to give you regular content, but the kind that will have true impact on your work, and hopefully be a lot of fun to digest!

If you made it this far, then it’s you who I intended this post for.

No, this post won’t go viral on Twitter. It won’t set the design community on fire. But that isn’t my intention…

If you’re reading this post then it’s about you, and how I can help you as a designer.

If you’re serious about levelling up your design work, then let me know. Leave a comment. Send a tweet. Drop me an email. However you want to get in touch, that’s fine by me. But we’d love to have you, and there’s a ton of creative folk here just waiting to help you.

I can’t wait to share the new PSDFAN with you, and the new posting schedule will begin as of next week.

It’s going to be fun .

To be honest, I’ve been working incredibly hard to setup a huge new part of the site for you guys.

Take a look at the video below to learn more (and see a very unprofessional blooper on my part):

It’s been incredible helping so many of our members to improve and seeing their reaction when they realize what they’re capable of producing! Here’s what one member, Jess Brown emailed me saying:

As a beginner graphic designer, I have been struggling with creating graphics the best they can be. I really didn’t have anyone to critique my graphics and give me the help I needed. Then I joined FanExtra and started working with Tom. He’s been so great in helping me improve the quality of a graphic I have been struggling with for a client. He’s reviewed several drafts, provided honest, helpful feedback, and even checks in with me to see how I’m doing. Tom goes above and beyond and when he says he’ll help you, he REALLY will! I strongly recommend FanExtra and working with Tom. You will benefit and improve your skills no matter what level you’re at.

The new forum is coming very soon, so look out for it!

We’re pretty sure you already have the talent and are prepared to put in the work, so to celebrate the upcoming launch of our new site Design Cuts (which will help you in a BIG way) we’ve put together a series of design training from some of the worlds top creatives.

This training series is only available for 10 days, and features in depth tutorials and awesome freebies, provided by the top designers in the industry.

The first session is from Chris Spooner over at SpoonGraphics. Chris has put together a pack of awesome free textures, which he’ll show you how to use to create a beautiful vintage text effect.

Sign up free today and you’ll receive more tutorials and freebies throughout the week.

This is a one time chance to learn directly from some of the world’s best designers in one place. Once the training is over it won’t be accessible again, so be sure to sign up today.

No, this isn’t me. It’s my co-founder Matt, who hates this video still, but is a great designer!

Click the lovely green button below to get started.

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Do you aspire to create work like the design masters you look up to?

Do you want to take your work from average to awesome, but don’t know how?

These issues are far too common, and the annoying thing is that most designers feel that world-class work is out of their reach.

The truth is, you already have all the tools you need to create incredible work. What’s lacking is creative direction, and that’s exactly what I give you in our first ever video course, available at FanExtra.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking with our readers, sending out surveys and planning which course would help you the most. You answered in your hundreds, and there was an overwhelming demand for this specific course.

This course is different from any other I’ve seen. Most design courses are far too vague, and generally target beginners. This course is specifically for the intermediate Photoshop user, who knows all the basics, but needs to bridge the gap to superb work.

I’ve included the first two lessons from the course (there are 14 lessons total) to get you started. If you’re serious about leveling up your design work, then I would love for you to join us at FanExtra.

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Useful Links Mentioned in the Video:

Ten By Fotolia

Expert Designer Workflow

A Course Overview:

Here’s an overview of the course:

I’m so excited to share this with you, and I want it to have a big impact upon your design work. Hundreds of you asked for this specific course in our recent surveys. I listened, and built you the best course that I could.

As part of this course, I’ve even included a real-life casestudy, where I directed one of our top authors, and helped their original composition evolve into what is one of our best ever tutorial outcomes.

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Please Leave a Comment Below:

If you found the above lesson helpful, and have any questions about the course (or design) then please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you and I’m always here to help with your own design struggles.

So…. have you noticed some of the changes happening around here?

Have you?

Huh?

No worries if not! I’ll be doing a full post on how our little blog is changing for the better in the next week or so.

In the mean time, I have another very quick survey for you.

I know what you’re thinking. “2 surveys in a single month?? Whoa there!”.

However, even if I have a pretty good idea what you guys want, I don’t want any guess work here.

I want hard stats to back up my assumptions, and I want to give you the most helpful content I possibly can.

So…

If you have just 30 seconds to spare (cummon, even Richard Branson has 30 seconds) then click the link below and help shape our wonderful community for the better.

Thanks in advance, you rock!

Click Here to Take the Survey (4 Quick Questions)

Here’s the deal. We know that many of you guys love learning great design by video. That’s why we’ve begun work planning a series of in depth video courses to help you improve.

I’m so excited to start work on this new series and I know you’ll all get a ton of value from it.

Rather than try and guess which courses would help you the most, we would really appreciate you taking 30 seconds to answer the 2 question survey below.

Thanks in advance, you rock!

Click Here to Take the Survey (2 Questions)