Social Media Marketing

8 Free Alternatives to existing products that you use

1. Operating System:

Instead of downloading pirated copies of windows and living with the guilt, download Linux and relax. If you are new to linux and want a user friendly interface, but also some eye candy, your best bet would be Linux Mint. Ubuntu is the next safest option, but mint has quite a few codecs and applications to run out of the box. You can also run it off a live CD if you want to test it out before you use it. Do remember to backup your data first!

2. Office Suite:

MS office is another software that makes you feel shifty isn’t it? Well there’s an alternative to be guilt free there too. Openoffice.org offers a free office suite that can replace MS office for you. Don’t worry it is compatible with MS office documents, so you don’t have to worry about files not opening.

3. Programming:

Always wanted to learn code? Don’t have time to join classes? Want to learn from the comfort of your office or home? Codeacademy teaches you how to build websites games and apps right in your browser. It’s fun, interactive and you can easily keep tabs on your progress as well as friends’s.

4.  CD Burner:

Nero license expired? Want a free alternative? Give Ashampoo Burning Studio a try. Its interace is quite similar to Nero, making it easy to navigate. It also features Blu-Ray support in case your require it.

 5. Photo Editor:

GIMP boasts of features to rival that of Photoshop, while at the same time requiring you to pay nothing. As it is a volunteer developed beta software, the interface is not all that flashy, but it is more than dependable once you look beyond that.

 6. Video Editor:

Windows Movie maker is the best solution here. It’s already built into most Windows editions. If you are still not satisfied and want an alternative,you can try out Wax, AviDemux,  or Blender if you are into 3D rendering as well.

7.  Antivirus:

While there are a lot of options here, I found Microsoft Security Essentials to be the most light weight and user friendly. Avast and AVG are excellent alternatives which offer a few more options.

8. Video Calling:

While you might be loathe to relinquish your hold on Skype, you could also try out Google Hangouts. You could use it to schedule webinars, take classes or work on some documents with your colleagues. This require you to have an account on Google+ though.

There you have it! 8 alternatives for stuff you use every day and now don’t have to spend a single penny on. Of course, our blog is also another rich source where you can get information on social media marketing, social bookmarking, tips to increase productivity, tech reviews and a lot more for free. Hope this article helped to enhance your productivity. Feel we left out an app that should have been on this list? Do let us know.

Ciao – Ravi

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• Free Google Tools that every Web Developer & marketing expert should use
• Marketing & Social media trend setters of 2011 & what we can expect in 2012
  

Why do you need a personalized background (BG) for your Twitter Profile?

Personal branding is the key term here.

Let us look into the “WHY TO” for creating your own personal twitter background.

In our earlier article, Twitter, the power of Micro-blogging we have given few tips, tools, guides, how to use, free twitter background creating applications etc – Power Of Twitter article Link Here

Here are a couple reasons for why you might want to build your own BG for twitter:

WHY Twitter BG

Your Twitter BG should be created keeping in mind the above 4 categories:

BRAND – What does your Brand speak of

PRODUCT – Core Products Mentioned

AUDIENCE – Target Audience expectation

MESSAGE – What you intend to Tell them

Who needs to create a personalized twitter background profile?

Corporates, Professionals, Freelancers, Marketing Consultants, Freelance consultants, Artist, or anyone who needs to reach out to a target audience with a clear message, a personalized background helps you tell people who you are and what are you here for.

It also helps you to create a one pager profile including your core services, your skills, interests, website/blog & other details with your contact information for others to reach you directly.

For eg.

Take a look at our Customized Twitter Background, simple, nothing too flashy but yet creative and connecting with the user out there. We needed to keep in mind that:

1. We are a creative advertising & marketing agency with core services

2. Offering across multiple platforms.

3. We needed to portray ourselves as we really are, corporate yet creative and in sync with the latest in technology out there to help our clients achieve the best outcomes / goals.

@Techdivine

Make sure in the process of creating a customized creative twitter background, you do not forget who you really are and what is the message that you would like to give your user.

Guide to creating your own Twitter Background:

Size requirements: There are mainly two things you need to be sure of:

1. File size needs to be less than 800 Kb
2. Your Background image should fit into most screen resolutions (To be safe: Create an image higher than 1024 X 768 Pixels)

Next, the actual dimensions. This is important because improperly-sized images can be covered up by your Twitter profile or can start to tile, which often leads to an undesired effect. In most circumstances, you want your background to be large enough not to tile. To achieve this, the total image size should be around 1600px wide by 1200px tall. This encompasses almost all screen resolutions. The dpi can be kept at a little higher resolution of around 90 here for a high quality image.

Dimensions of Margins:

Right Side & Left Side: Maximum 240 Px width and Max 500 Px height

This is so as to keep in mind that the middle area of the twitter content does not majorly overlap the background image at most of the resolutions. Keep in mind that a computer with a low resolution of 800 X 600 Px will see only part of the images and not the whole picture / background image. So make sure, the text content in the design is always closer to the margin area and smaller in width size.

Creating a customized Twitter Page:

Use a background image that is free from copyrights or create your own using photoshop or such other image editing software.

How to plan a twitter background for your Personal Brand?

What we considered when we planned our Twitter BG:

What our Twitter BG means:

The core is the Coffee cup on top middle with the letters TD on top of the foam distinct denoting identity clearly visible across any platform and medium.

Techdivine Mark

The coffee mark denotes the core efforts and hours of inputs of a creative artist.

Dedicated Hours

The white badge denotes our flagship product which is social media marketing services.

social media services

The wood and pencil in the scene stand for traditional values, integrity, strength and ethics whereas the edge of the laptop denotes fresh ideas with the best that technology has to offer.

Strong Values

Monitoring tools

Finally on the left side our contact information with few of our core connecting platforms including Blog, SNS, site and our core products and services.

Social media connect

Just like we had planned above on how we needed to present ourselves to our friends, colleagues, peers etc via our twitter BG page, the first thing you need to do is create a simple storyboard of what you need to tell your audience. Once you are clear with that, start with the background of your design.

Step 1: Creating a Background – Select the right background that suits your theme, message and style.

Step 2: Select few Props for your page like Books, carts, chocolates, graphs, fabric etc depending on what is your core product and service.

Step 3: Make sure the Contact details furnished by you are accurate and not too complex for the reader to understand. Remember, the average surfer would spend not more than 15 – 30 secs on your page unless you have something very exciting and bang on target. So make sure the textual content is not too much, but has the right links and contact sources.

Step 4: Your Logo, icons for the pages should again be in sync with the theme you have selected.

Step 5: Once your image is ready, go to sign in to your twitter account, and follow the steps given below:

customize twitter

Done!

One very easy to use and yet wonderful site for creating your own twitter BG’s in seconds below:

http://www.freetwitterdesigner.com

Feel free to share your own creative designs for Twitter profiles too here with us.

Happy customized tweeting!

How to Create Bubble Animation Using Adobe

Till now we have seen tutorials for still images, in this tutorial we will learn how to animate in Photoshop.

Take a water glass image (free from copyrights) from the internet or download this image I am using.

CLICK On images to Enlarge

Fig1

Fig1 Empty Glass

Now with the help of pen tool or polygon lasso tool, which ever you are comfortable with, make the selection of the water area of the glass as in Fig2

Fig 2

Take a new layer and select gradient tool and select the settings as shown.

Fig3

Fig 3.

Now fill the selection dragging from top to the bottom and then change the blending mode to linear burn. We are creating Liquid in the Glass with Bubbles.
Fig4

Fig 4.

Now create a new layer and with the elliptical marquee tool make the following selections. These are to draw and create bubble shapes in the liquid.

Fig5

Fig 5.

Now fill this selection with a very light shade of red, for example this color code #fff2f2.

Go to the blending option and change the following settings
Fig6

Fig 6.

Now change the blending mode of this layer to overlay
Your image now should look like this.
Fig7

Fig 7.

Now duplicate the bubble layer and increase its size using transform tool.
Fig8

Fig 8.

Now go to menu Window>Animation and then make 4 duplicate frames. In case your Adobe Photoshop version does not have this option (It will surely have) you can use these layer images in Adobe Imageready too and follow the steps ahead.

Fig9

Fig 9.

Now select frame1 and hide the duplicated bubble layer.
Fig10

Fig 10.

Now select Frame2 and hide the original bubble layer

Fig11

Fig11.

Now select Fram3 and show all layers
Fig12

Fig 12.

Now adjust the bubble layers like We have done it here.

Fig13

Fig 13.

Now select Frame4 and hide duplicated bubble layer

Fig14

Fig 14.

Again adjust the position of your bubble layer.

Fig15

Fig 15.

Now select Frame5 and show all the layers

Now change the duration timing for the frames.

Click on the frames where there is down arrow and select 0.5second for Frames 1 to 4 and for Frame 5 select 1second.

Fig16

Fig 16.

Now go to menu File>Save for Web & Devices and then save the file without any changes. Always create a backup of whatever work you do (Just In Case)

Create Whatever Shape You would want the Bubbles to form. Our Bubbles form the Shape “TD” for Techdivine, Of course!

Bubble Effect

Creating Techdivine Bubble Effect

CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE. Let It Load completely and see the Bubbles getting animated in TD Shape!

Hope You enjoyed the tutorial.

Share your comments and views with us.

Have Fun!

Techdivine Creative Services

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Related Posts:

How to Create GLASSY TEXT Effect

How to Create Text on FLAMES

How to Create Rain Effect with Photoshop

Creating Special Effects with Photoshop

Creating ICE Effect using Adobe Photoshop

Fire Text Effect Part 2

We have seen in the previous tutorials FIRE how to create fire on text, but in this tutorial, we will be using Adobe Photoshop and create the Text Effect to be precisely in flames.

In this tutorial you will need a resource file for fire. Well, You can either search the net or just save the image of fire which is in the later part in this tutorial. (Titled FLAMES) numbered as Fig 8. below.

You Can click On Most of the Images for an ENLARGED Zoomed View

First of all take a new document with 300 resolution and black background.

Type a text you wish to, here again I am using the “TD”. Select a good smooth font you prefer with size 200pts and color white.

fig1

Fig 1. Photoshop Tutorial

Step1

Go to blending option for the text you typed and in there select Outer Glow and set the values as shown under

fig2
(Color code #f70603)

Fig 2

Step2
Now select Color Overlay and set the values as below in the image.

fig3
(color code #cd8f2f)

Fig 3

Step3
Select Satin now and do the changes as shown below in the image.

fig4
(color code #883f19)

Fig 4.

Step4
Now select Inner Glow with the settings shown below.

fig5
(color code #f0c41b)

Fig 5.

Step5
Now we will Rasterize the text layer since the blending part is done.
Right Click on the text layer and select Rasterize Type.
Now select Eraser tool and set the brush size to 450px and make it softer. Set the flow value to 95 and erase off the top portion of the text. See below for example.

fig6

Fig 6.

Step6

We will now distort the shape of our text.
Go to menu Filter>Liquify, select the Forward Wrap tool and set the settings as below and make the shape some what like shown under.

fig7

Fig 7.

Now is the time to use the resources file as I mentioned in the very beginning. Below is the file which I am using. You can save it for working further in this tutorial or search through net for a different image.

fig8

Flames

Step7
Open the fire file in Adobe Photoshop and go to the channels tab and select only the green layer.
Now pressing Ctrl click on the green layer to get a selection of green colors.

fig9

Fig 9.

With the selection still active select the RGB layer, go back to the layers tab and make a copy of the selection and paste it in the document we are working with.

fig10

Fig 10.

Step8
Take Eraser tool  of 45px and Flow of 60% erase out the excessive flames leaving those covering the text.
fig11

Fig 11.

Duplicate the flame layers, set Opacity to 30% and the blend mode to Overlay

Step9
Repeat the step7 and step8 until you get a nice flame of your choice. You can select the red channel from the flame file and repeat the same.

Final output of this tutorial

fig12

Fig 12. "On Fire" with Adobe Photoshop

Stay Creative

Techdivine Creative Services

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Related Posts:

How to Create Rain Effect with Photoshop

Creating Special Effects with Photoshop

Creating ICE Effect using Adobe Photoshop

Blogs replace Magazines with Social Media Marketing

connect online

That would be a powerfully misquoted statement, especially in today’s “give them all” technology served new age media world.

I recently read somewhere of the statement above and was utterly confused. Today the digital age and new media are here to work collaboratively and give every consumer what they are looking out for.

Let us look at two scenarios based on a B2B and B2C with a practical approach and perspective.

A top class executive from a big corporation today will prefer to go through the sites online probably during his lunch break of which he might have allotted his daily ‘surfing’ time to be not more than 5-10 minutes which too is on the higher side. Having worked at different levels of marketing & product departments with Directors, Presidents and departmental heads of MNC’s and corporate biggies, this is the one thing that I am extremely sure about. Here too their rigid schedule is made up of email alerts added to their daily dose of reading related to their industry and market so that they do not spend time searching online. Their schedule revolves around a set time every single day. Time is everything. Today we find them working while traveling to and fro from work in their automobiles. Yet, we find the subscription to corporate & industry based magazines being the highest from their group.

Why? Because underestimating the power of print is pure ignorance of the true power of real connect and reach.

Now looking at the second scenario & coming back to the daily consumer by shifting away from the corporate board room. The average consumer today feels comfortable looking at a print magazine at his time of leisure. As a matter of fact, we tend to ignore any ad based pop-up and flashy banners that ‘surf-up’ during our browsing time. Another point to look and give a deep thought is the power of the print media even today especially in third world and developing countries.

The chances of an average consumer looking at a print ad in a magazine and then browsing about it online are much higher than vice versa.

Why?

The age of technology & new media have also pushed across boundaries of providing one with massive information across industries. Today, I spend on an average reading about nine to ten thousand (10,000) pages of content and news information every single week across media’s. Still there is so much updating needed.

With all of these factors, the right way to reach a consumer today, be it a B2B or a B2C consumer is by blending in the traditional media with the new age technology and providing both to the consumer. A magazine today has much stronger power in communicating a message than a blog to an average household as it reaches and is delivered in hard copy in their hands. It adds up a trust about the company, about the team of professionals associated with the organization and gives one a form of assurance about the organization being real and not just another virtual company with a work from home concept who would be handling your brand or product.

The idea to cater to both the scenarios today would be to add a healthy amount of resourceful information in your magazine for local demographic distribution and use the power of online media for a much larger field zone with more content and resources.

As a generation gifted with the power of speed & timely information it is our core duty to today combine all that we can and leverage it to fulfill the needs of the advertiser and at the same time serve as a catalyst who not only evangelizes a brand but also caters to the consumer’s needs.

Blog rules, sites dominate, social networking is growing massively, but the power of a media tool works best when you have both the traditional media and the new age technology combined as one.

Make sure when you hand over your product or brand to any agency that they are not just another technically sound organization promising a higher seo for website and analysis, but understand the market, consumers and have a powerful presence too in the web today. Make sure to know if they themselves practice what they preach and if they do, they would have a much better chance to deliver than anyone else.

Go local, get global and stay connected. But most importantly make sure that in the race to reach a client across seas we do not miss out on a prospect next door who needs the same set of services too.

Go BRAND Yourself!

Give us your views on the same. We would love to hear from you.

Connect with us here:

Twitter: @techdivine

Facebook Group: TD Studios:Social Media Marketing Services Group

Write to us:   socialmedia@techdivine.com

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

Social Media, Design Services, Your SMQ & Creative Writing

In this tutorial, we will learn how to Create Artificial Rain effect on any image.

To begin with select an image to which you want to add rain effect. I have used this image which one of  my colleague has shot while his trip to RIE Mysore. Fig.1

RIE Mysore (Click to Enlarge) -Fig.1.

In this step we will first make a new layer and apply Clouds it.
Make a new layer.
Fig.2

New Layer (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.2.

Now go to menu Filter>Render>Clouds
Fig.3

Cloud Filter (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.3.

With the new layer still selected, reduce the opacity to 70%
Fig.4

Opacity - Fig.4.

Now we will add some noise to this layer.
Go to menu Filter>Noise>Add Noise
Fig.5

Add Noise (Click to Enlarge) Fig.5.

Set the value of Amount to 60%
Select Gaussian from Distribution and check Monochromatic
Fig.6

Filter Noise (Click to Enlarge) Fig.6.

In this step our work is almost 70% done. We will now give some motion blur to the same layer we were working on.
Go to menu Filter>Blur>Motion Blur
Fig.7

Blur Effect (Click to Enlarge) Fig.7.

Set the angle to 70° and distance to 10 pixels.
Fig.8

Rain (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.8.

Change the blending mode of this layer to Screen
Fig.9

Blending Mode - Fig.9.

We have almost through with our work, just we need to give it a final touch by different blends and contrasts.

So first we will flatten the layer on which we were still working on to the image we are using.
Fig.10

Flatten Image (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.10.

Now go to menu Image>Auto Levels.  This will make our rain look little more realistic.
Fig.11

Image Level (Click to Enlarge) Fig.11.

At this stage, You can do some color correction, contrast settings to suit your image style.

Go to menu Image>Adjustments> (Select the option that suits your image style to adjust Contrast/Color etc)

With this, our artificial rain is complete and the image now looks like this
Fig.12

Final Rain Effect (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.12.

Final Image to compare the Before & After effect:

Rain Effect Before/After (Click to Enlarge)

Hope you liked this tutorial!

Lots more coming your way.

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Yasir A

Designer

Techdivine Creative Services

Related Post:

How to create Glowing Lines Tutorial

Part 1 – Photoshop Tutorial – Creating Fire & ICE

Stunning Rays Text Effect in Photoshop

Here comes my fourth tutorial in Photoshop after the first 3: First Rays Effect Second Fire Effect

Third Ice Effect Creating your own Special Effects: Glowing Lines and VFX effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will create our very own special effect cool glowing lines.

It is a simple tutorial from which you can make your own desktop wallpaper and do so much more.

Step1:
Create a new document. I prefer selecting the size of 1280×1024 pixels and resolution 300.

Select background color as Black or you can change the background color later too.

Select the Brush tool then change the settings of the brush to size 3 pixel, 0% hardness and color white.

Create a new layer and then select Pen tool. Change the mode of Pen tool to Paths.

Now create the shapes like I have done below. Once you are comfortable with this tutorial,

which you will be very soon, you can add and create effects for your own shapes.

After drawing the line, right-click anywhere in the document and select stroke path.

Then in the options select Brush and check the box of Stimulate Pressure and hit OK.

Repeat this step for 4-5 times to get a good curved brush stroke.
Fig1

Fig1 (Click For Larger Image)

Step2:
Now we will make pattern of this stroked path. With the same layer active, hold Ctrl button and click on the active layer.

This will create a selection of the stroked path.

Now go to menu Edit>Define Brush Preset and save as a Brush.

Now hide this layer and select Brush tool.

Go to Brush settings and select the brush you just created (Hint: the recently created brush will appear at the very end) and change the settings as shown below.
Fig2

Fig2

Fig3

Fig3

Step3:

Create a new layer and with the same brush as active that we just created

and edited, start drawing from left of the document to the right. You will see that all the lines must be different from each other due to the settings we have done. The image should look somewhat like below.

Fig4

Fig4 (Click For Larger Image)

Step4:

After completing the above step, we will now give some glow to it.

Go to the blending options of the layer you are working on and use the settings below.

Fig5

Fig5 (Click For Larger Image)

Fig6

Fig6 (Click For Larger Image)

Step5:
Now make a duplicate of this layer you are working on.

Again go to the blending option of the duplicated layer and change the outer settings as below.

Fig7

Fig7 (Click For Larger Image)

(Note: In the previous layer under the blending option for outer glow, we had gradient with transparent color at both the corners and for this step the ends are filled[colored] & not transparent)

Step6:
Draw some small dots of about 4-5 pixels in a new layer and repeat the steps 4 and 5.

Fig8

Fig8 (Click For Larger Image)

Step7:
Now make a new layer and select the Gradient tool and select the following pattern and style

Fig9

Fig9

Fill the gradient in whichever way you like to. Change the blend mode to Color and set the Opacity to 55%

Fig10

Fig10 (Click For Larger Image)

Hope you liked this tutorial.

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Yasir A

Designer

Techdivine Creative Services

Related Post:

Part 1 – Photoshop Tutorial – Creating Fire & ICE

Stunning Rays Text Effect in Photoshop

Here is the Part 1 of the Tutorial: Creating Fire Effect: Part 1

Part2: Creating ICE Effect in Photoshop:

Ice effect
Take a new file with black background and type a word you want.

For example if have written “ICE”

As far as possible use some Big / Bold Font style like IMPACT to give you the proper effect.

Rasterise the text layer and merge down with the background

Now go to menu Filter>Stylize>Solarize

After this, go to menu Image>Adjustment>Auto Levels

Now we have to rotate our canvas in 90° CW.
Go to menu Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CW

We have to now give a wind effect.
Go to menu Filter>Stylize>Wind

Select “Wind” under Method and “From the Right” under Direction

Repeat this step for 4-5 times, here i have used same step for 4 times

Now rotate back the canvas to its original position.
Go to menu Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CCW

We will now give ripple effect to the image.
Go to menu Filter>Distort>Ripple

Set the value of Amount to 100% and Size Small

The image will now look like this

Now create a new fill layer.
Go to menu Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color
And just select OK from the New Layer window.

Select the color that will have a feel of ice, i have selected #0e67df.
Change the blend mode if the new layer as Vivid Light

We are almost done with the image, we now just have to give it a icy glow effect.
Select the background layer and go to menu Filter>Filter Gallery

Now Select the Distort Menu and under that select Diffuse Glow

Set the values as
Grainness – 0
Glow Amount – 16
Clear Amount – 13

With this our final result looks like this

To further Improvise, you can use few tools like Brush, Eraser as below:

To Soften the Bottom Edges of the Image, We have taken a soft brush and used it to erase and black out few of the bottom edges and make it smooth

You can further tone down the “Blue-ness” of the Image by using Photo Filters from Image- Adjustments – Photo Filter

Select whatever drop down suits your style, but for Ice, recommended would be

Underwater at Maximum of 100% density

This is how your final file should look like:

ICE

Hope you liked this tutorial.

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Yasir A

Designer

Techdivine Creative Services

Related Post:

Part 1 – Photoshop Tutorial – Creating Fire & ICE

Stunning Rays Text Effect in Photoshop

Creating FIRE & ICE Effect in Photoshop – Part 1

Creating FIRE Effect:

Select a new file with background color black

Type the text you want to, I have typed “FIRE” with font style Impact. Change the color

of the text to white.

Rasterize the text layer and then merg down to the background.

Now go to the menu Filter>Stylize>Solarize

Go to menu Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels

We will now rotate the canvas in clockwise direction.
Go to menu Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CW

Now, give the wind effects from the Filter.
Go to menu Filter>Stylize>Wind

Now select “Wind” option from Method tab and “From the Left” from the Direction tab.

Repeat the same step for 3-4 times. I have repeated it 5 times.

Now, rotate the canvas to its original position.
Go to menu Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CCW.

We will now give some ripple to the image.
Go to menu Filter>Distort>Ripple

Select the Size as Small and Amount as 100%.

Now is the part where we begin to Give the Text a look of fire.

Now to keep the file size in Control and get hold of that unique color mode titled “Color Table”,

this is what we need to do.

First, convert your file to Grayscale. This brings down the file size a lot.

Now, to get that magical color table (the one at the bottom of the  above image – not highlighted),

we first need to convert the mode of the file to Index Mode.

Select the Discard from the message that will appear

Convert the color mode to Index Color. Go to menu Image>Mode>Index Color

Now we will change the color scheme of the Index color and use the Color Table which is available for selection.

Go to menu Image>Mode>Color Table

After this, select the Black Body option from the Color Table’s drop down menu.

The image now looks like this.

The Black Body option once selected, will give you Your Effect.

We will now give some glow to the fire but before that, since our color mode is in Index Color,

the Filter gallery will not work, so we have to change the color mode to RGB again.

Go to menu Image>Mode>RGB Color

Now we can give the effects what we want.
Go to menu Filter>Filter Gallery

Select Distort from the Style Menu and under that select Diffuse Glow.
Set the values
Grainness – 0
Glow Amount – 10
Clear Amount – 12

That the final step and our image looks like this

We are through with the PART – 1 Of the Tutorial.

Now to create ICE effect: Click Here for Part 2

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Designer

Techdivine Creative Services

Are you Creative?

Can you think, create & put into words amazing stories, plots and characters

Then be a part of this unique Contest: Write, Design and get a chance to

win Fabulous Prizes

This contest is solely conducted by  TECHDIVINE Creative Services

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Techdivine Creative Services is here with its 4^th CONTEST

(Celebrating TD’s 10,000 member registrations at our Blog / Forum & website)

Celebrating TD’s 10,000 member registrations at our Blog / Forum & website, we are very excited to launch the new Creative writing mascot & the contest with us: Creative spills café’ writing contest.

Entry Fee: FREE

Prizes:

1^st Prize:

-         A cool creative writing & graphic tutorial e-suite from Techdivine Creative Services

-         A fiction novel chosen from our top advertiser AMAZON’s fiction list of 2009 from Techdivine Creative Services

2^nd Prize:

-         The complete creative writing & graphic tutorial e-suite from Techdivine Creative Services

Contest Theme, Topic, Registration & Submission guidelines

Contest details:

-          Open to everyone (all ages) – You just need to be creative

-          Contest submission is to be done online at the following email ids (both):

techdivine@gmail.com with cc: to admin@techdivine.com with subject: “Techdivine Creatives Creative spills café writing contest – (Write your full name here with Subject topic or theme name) eg. If your full name is ABC DEF and Topic / Theme is Women’s Rights:

Your email’s subject will read: “Techdivine Creatives Creative spills café writing contest” ABC DEF (Women’s Rights)

-    Contest Starting date: December 4^th, 2009 10:00 hours IST

-          Contest ends on: December 30^th , 2009 23:00 hours IST

-          Winning Entry will be declared on 2^nd January, 2010

-         Last date for Registration for the contest with us: December 8^th 2009 23:00 Hours IST

-          Last date for Submission of final works: Contestants are free to submit their final works anytime and date between 4/12/09 to 30/12/09 23:00 hours IST (The earlier you submit, better are your chances to win)

How to Register for the contest:

Last date for Registration for the contest with us: December 8^th 2009 23:00 Hours IST

Register in our blog, mail us the required info (given below in detail) to our ids: techdivine@gmail.com & cc: admin@techdivine.com

Explained in detail below:

• Visit our blog: http://techdivine.com/tdblog -
• Register with a username at the blog eg.“your username” and password (this will also help you stay updated about the contest and during registration e-mails)
• E- Mail for registration: Contest Register with your full name
• Email Text contents:

Send your blog Username / Your Full name / email address/ website url(if any) with your subject or topic chosen for the contest and the medium used to create the same to both the mail ids: techdivine@gmail.com & cc: admin@techdivine.com

For eg. The Registration email would read:

Subject: CONTEST REGISTER –  ABC DEF

Text of email would read:

“Techdivine Creatives Creative spills café writing contest” Abcdefg / ABC DEF  / abcdefg@domain.com / www.abcd.com /  (Women’s Rights) / Mixed media (2d & 3d art)

Mail us your complete info:(This is to keep track of any copyright content issue & to protect your works as much possible from our end and avoid duplication of entries with us to the extent possible)

Submission details:

-          Submit your final entry at our email ids: techdivine@gmail.com & cc: admin@techdivine.com : on or before 30/12/09 23:00 hours IST (The earlier you submit, better are your chances to win)

Following is only an example:

Email Subject – Final Entry CONTEST – YOUR FULL NAME – YOUR Blog Username

Email Text content: “Techdivine Creatives Creative spills café writing contest” Abcdefg / ABC DEF  / abcdefg@domain.com / www.abcd.com /  (Women’s Rights) / Mixed media (2d & 3d art)

Submit your story in Word document (*.doc) format only and artworks in (.jpeg / jpg) formats only to qualify for the contest. (Total file size of both files cannot exceed 2MB)

Do not post your final contest entry story / entries / artwork in your website or any other website during the contest before the final winning entries are declared from our end. This is to avoid others from duplicating your works which may disqualify you too if two final entries are submitted to us which have same content.

Contest Topic/ Theme / Rules /Guidlines

-          All entries should have both, write ups (Just one story) and creative art (one or more) to qualify for the contest

-          Both, write ups and artwork have to be finally submitted together only to qualify for the contest

-          The style of writing  – There are “No restrictions”: Make it humorous or a fable or a short story or a thriller… anything that you like, No restrictions at all.. Let your creative juices flow

-          Start your story with the following sentence only:  “As I sat at Techdivine Creative studios ‘dream’c lab’ & I kept thinking of an idea that would…….”

-          Story should not exceed 800 words

-          Add as many characters / plots that you want and make it filled with life

-          The story should have a message: A Positive message. So no particular topic is given to contestants, you are free to choose one of your own.

-          Stories that have adult content or speak negatively of any person living or dead or on pass racist remarks or harm religious views will be immediately disqualified.

-          The idea is to give a positive message using creative style and a strong storyline.

-          Each participant can enter one story with one or more creative artworks – based on the storyline or complementing the storyline

-          Artworks can be any still works: “drawings / sketch / paintings/ graphic art /3d / 2d art or cartoon illustrations. (Photographs taken by contestants can also be used if they fit appropriately to the topic in discussion) But should be original, created or designed by the contestant only”

-          Each  participant / entry can have only one submission

-          Each entry can have at the most two participants in one team

-          Entry Fee: FREE

-       Prizes:

• 1^st Prize  – A cool creative writing & graphic tutorial e-suite from Techdivine Creative Services& a fiction book chosen from Amazon’s best of 2009 fiction works from Techdivine Creative Services;
• 2^nd Prize – The complete creative writing & graphic tutorial e-suite from Techdivine Creative Services

-          Copying others works / using copyrights content other than yours deems to disqualify the contestants immediately

-          Judges at Techdivine Creative Services will have the final say on the entries and voting is not open for public discussion. Judges final votes will decide the winning entry and the decisions will not be questioned or discussed any further.

-          The contestants by participating to our any or all of our contests on submitting their entries give complete authority to publish the works with or without the storyline on all or any of the sites of Techdivine or any other sites that we choose fit, without any other approval or prior permission or intimation, from the contestants whatsoever at our discretion during any period of time. We will however put the artists name at all such cases unless deemed inappropriate.

-          We respect the works and originality of the artists and would take complete care to protect the artists name & works wherever and whenever it gets published or displayed form our end.

-          This contest is from Techdivine Creative services only to purely encourage creative skills from varied walks of life from all ages.

Do feel free to mail us in case you have any queries to the above:

techdivine@gmail.com

Please Note: Techdivine Creative services or any of its members will not be held responsible in any manner for the contest entries loss / misuse / duplication elsewhere for any reason whatsoever. From our end we will take complete precautions to safeguard the interest of the entries.