Falling snowflakes are a great way to make your winter photography much more interesting. Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, however, and you have to…
Digitally created snow can often be quite difficult to generate in Photoshop, in a realistic-looking way. We recently published a tutorial showing how to add…
In this quick video from our Photoshop in 60 seconds series, learn how to install and load custom brushes to use for your designs and digital paintings.
Tutorial Assets
The following assets were used in the production of this tutorial:
Press Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 1000 x 1000 px; 300 dpi.
Step 2
Click U and select the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Create a shape with the following settings: Width: 30 px; Height: 720 px.
Step 3
After that, we need to create a duplicate of the shape using Right Click > Duplicate.
Step 4
Hit Control-T and change the Height to 20%.
Step 5
Rotate the shape by 45° while holding Shift.
Step 6
While holding Shift, move the layer 305 px up and 40 px to the right.
Step 7
Create a duplicate of the layer, and then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.
Step 8
Move the duplicate of the shape 80 px to the left.
Step 9
Select the small shapes while holding Shift and then Right Click > Merge.
Step 10
Create two duplicates of this new layer, and move each new shape 70px down.
Step 11
Merge all the shape layers and create a duplicate of your new layer. Then rotate it 180° while holding Shift.
Step 12
Merge the shapes again, and create two duplicates of the layer. Rotate these duplicates by 60° and -60°, and then merge these shapes into a snowflake.
2. How to Create a Snowflake Brush Using the Shape Layers
Step 1
Now we can start to create our brush. Make the background layer Invisible, and then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset, select any name you want to use, and hit the OK button.
Step 2
Now we need to change the brush’s settings to create a complex brush texture. Select the Brush Instrument and hit the Brush Settings icon.
Step 3
Go to the Shape Dynamics panel and set the Size Jitter to 100% and Angle Jitter to 100%.
Step 4
Go to the Scattering panel, set the Scatter to 1000%, and put a tick on Both Axes. Our snowflake brush Photoshop settings are almost ready now—we just need to add some dynamics to the opacity of the snow brush Photoshop preset.
Step 5
Go to the Transfer panel and set the Opacity Jitter to 100%.
Step 6
Click on New Brush Preset to save the settings for the brush.
3. How to Create an Overlay Using a Custom Snowflake Photoshop Brush
Step 1
Open the image you want to use for overlaying, and then create two layers using Shift-Control-N.
Step 2
Select the brush, change the size to 250 px, and draw with this brush on the first empty layer to create an overlaying brush texture.
Step 3
Draw some more snowflakes on the second layer, and finally, to add some motion to the image, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and use the following settings:
Angle: 90°
Distance: 25 px
Awesome Work, You’re Now Done!
Congratulations! You have created snowflake brushes and snow overlays for an image using Photoshop shapes and brush instruments. Here is our final result:
Looking for some more snowflake or sparkle brush Photoshop items? Check these products from GraphicRiver:
This pack contains 60 hi-res snowflakes brushes with different brush textures. It could be extremely useful for creating Christmas and winter pictures.
If you want something more realistic, check this 17 snow brush Photoshop pack. This item will work well for adding snow to your images. These brushes could be also useful if you need to create sparkle brush Photoshop presets, as it gives you realistic-looking particles.
This „30 snow decoration brushes” item contains a complex snowflake brush Photoshop pack with different complex shapes, great for creating elements of your Christmas background.
This brushes pack contains six Photoshop snowflake brushes with crystal effect brush textures. A great choice for creating winter and Christmas decoration elements or backgrounds.
Want to learn snowflake brush Photoshop techniques, or maybe how to create illustrator vector snowflake shapes? Check these awesome tutorials:
Falling snowflakes are a great way to make your winter photography much more interesting. Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, however, and you have to…
Digitally created snow can often be quite difficult to generate in Photoshop, in a realistic-looking way. We recently published a tutorial showing how to add…
In this quick video from our Photoshop in 60 seconds series, learn how to install and load custom brushes to use for your designs and digital paintings.
Tutorial Assets
The following assets were used in the production of this tutorial:
Press Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 1000 x 1000 px; 300 dpi.
Step 2
Click U and select the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Create a shape with the following settings: Width: 30 px; Height: 720 px.
Step 3
After that, we need to create a duplicate of the shape using Right Click > Duplicate.
Step 4
Hit Control-T and change the Height to 20%.
Step 5
Rotate the shape by 45° while holding Shift.
Step 6
While holding Shift, move the layer 305 px up and 40 px to the right.
Step 7
Create a duplicate of the layer, and then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.
Step 8
Move the duplicate of the shape 80 px to the left.
Step 9
Select the small shapes while holding Shift and then Right Click > Merge.
Step 10
Create two duplicates of this new layer, and move each new shape 70px down.
Step 11
Merge all the shape layers and create a duplicate of your new layer. Then rotate it 180° while holding Shift.
Step 12
Merge the shapes again, and create two duplicates of the layer. Rotate these duplicates by 60° and -60°, and then merge these shapes into a snowflake.
2. How to Create a Snowflake Brush Using the Shape Layers
Step 1
Now we can start to create our brush. Make the background layer Invisible, and then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset, select any name you want to use, and hit the OK button.
Step 2
Now we need to change the brush’s settings to create a complex brush texture. Select the Brush Instrument and hit the Brush Settings icon.
Step 3
Go to the Shape Dynamics panel and set the Size Jitter to 100% and Angle Jitter to 100%.
Step 4
Go to the Scattering panel, set the Scatter to 1000%, and put a tick on Both Axes. Our snowflake brush Photoshop settings are almost ready now—we just need to add some dynamics to the opacity of the snow brush Photoshop preset.
Step 5
Go to the Transfer panel and set the Opacity Jitter to 100%.
Step 6
Click on New Brush Preset to save the settings for the brush.
3. How to Create an Overlay Using a Custom Snowflake Photoshop Brush
Step 1
Open the image you want to use for overlaying, and then create two layers using Shift-Control-N.
Step 2
Select the brush, change the size to 250 px, and draw with this brush on the first empty layer to create an overlaying brush texture.
Step 3
Draw some more snowflakes on the second layer, and finally, to add some motion to the image, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and use the following settings:
Angle: 90°
Distance: 25 px
Awesome Work, You’re Now Done!
Congratulations! You have created snowflake brushes and snow overlays for an image using Photoshop shapes and brush instruments. Here is our final result:
Looking for some more snowflake or sparkle brush Photoshop items? Check these products from GraphicRiver:
This pack contains 60 hi-res snowflakes brushes with different brush textures. It could be extremely useful for creating Christmas and winter pictures.
If you want something more realistic, check this 17 snow brush Photoshop pack. This item will work well for adding snow to your images. These brushes could be also useful if you need to create sparkle brush Photoshop presets, as it gives you realistic-looking particles.
This „30 snow decoration brushes” item contains a complex snowflake brush Photoshop pack with different complex shapes, great for creating elements of your Christmas background.
This brushes pack contains six Photoshop snowflake brushes with crystal effect brush textures. A great choice for creating winter and Christmas decoration elements or backgrounds.
Want to learn snowflake brush Photoshop techniques, or maybe how to create illustrator vector snowflake shapes? Check these awesome tutorials:
If you’ve created an app that works on different devices, it’s good to let your potential users know about it by showing the app on a responsive mockup. You can do it easily with the online responsive mockup generator at Placeit.
How to Make a Responsive Mockup for the iPhone Without Photoshop
Step 1
Go to Placeit.net. Navigate to Mockups and find the Responsive Devices tab.
Step 2
Here you can see a whole library of potential mockups for your app. There are many devices available, but if you’re particularly interested in one, you can narrow down the search using the filters on the left.
Step 3
Even after applying the filter, you’ve got over 100 propositions to choose from. You can show your app on many screens at the same time, either in a neutral setting or inside a photographed scene. Place your cursor over the mockup to see an example of it being used. After you find the one you like, just click it to start editing. I used this mockup template.
Step 4
Believe it or not, you’ve done most of the work already! Once you’ve chosen your mockup, you just need to upload the screenshots of your app to it. Depending on the mockup, you’ll find a couple of Upload Image buttons on the left. Click the first one—here it will be the iPhone screen.
Step 5
Select your iPhone screenshot and crop it to the size of the screen. Click Crop when you’re done.
Step 6
Give it a second to upload. After it appears on the mockup iPhone screen, you’re ready to add another screenshot. Click the other button and repeat the process, this time selecting your iPad screenshot.
Step 7
After you upload your screenshots, you can remove them or crop them again. You can also add some text or a graphic.
Step 8
Once you’re done, just scroll up and click Download. You can purchase this one design, or download it for free as part of your unlimited subscription.
Responsive Mockup Templates
See how easy it is? Now let me show you a couple of mockups that you can use to present your app to potential customers.
If you’re going to sell your app in the Google Play store, you need something eye-catching! This mockup template offers you dozens of modern-looking backgrounds, along with different fonts for the text.
Create a neat screenshot for App Store in seconds with this mockup template. Play with different colors, fonts, and graphics to create a perfect presentation for your app.
If you need something more dynamic, you’ll like this one! Here the screen is angled, which gives an organic feel to the presentation. Combine it with a cool background and a clean font for the best look!
That’s All!
Now you know how to make a responsive mockup for the iPhone without Photoshop.
If you want to learn more about using Placeit for your designs, try these tutorials as well:
If you’ve created an app that works on different devices, it’s good to let your potential users know about it by showing the app on a responsive mockup. You can do it easily with the online responsive mockup generator at Placeit.
How to Make a Responsive Mockup for the iPhone Without Photoshop
Step 1
Go to Placeit.net. Navigate to Mockups and find the Responsive Devices tab.
Step 2
Here you can see a whole library of potential mockups for your app. There are many devices available, but if you’re particularly interested in one, you can narrow down the search using the filters on the left.
Step 3
Even after applying the filter, you’ve got over 100 propositions to choose from. You can show your app on many screens at the same time, either in a neutral setting or inside a photographed scene. Place your cursor over the mockup to see an example of it being used. After you find the one you like, just click it to start editing. I used this mockup template.
Step 4
Believe it or not, you’ve done most of the work already! Once you’ve chosen your mockup, you just need to upload the screenshots of your app to it. Depending on the mockup, you’ll find a couple of Upload Image buttons on the left. Click the first one—here it will be the iPhone screen.
Step 5
Select your iPhone screenshot and crop it to the size of the screen. Click Crop when you’re done.
Step 6
Give it a second to upload. After it appears on the mockup iPhone screen, you’re ready to add another screenshot. Click the other button and repeat the process, this time selecting your iPad screenshot.
Step 7
After you upload your screenshots, you can remove them or crop them again. You can also add some text or a graphic.
Step 8
Once you’re done, just scroll up and click Download. You can purchase this one design, or download it for free as part of your unlimited subscription.
Responsive Mockup Templates
See how easy it is? Now let me show you a couple of mockups that you can use to present your app to potential customers.
If you’re going to sell your app in the Google Play store, you need something eye-catching! This mockup template offers you dozens of modern-looking backgrounds, along with different fonts for the text.
Create a neat screenshot for App Store in seconds with this mockup template. Play with different colors, fonts, and graphics to create a perfect presentation for your app.
If you need something more dynamic, you’ll like this one! Here the screen is angled, which gives an organic feel to the presentation. Combine it with a cool background and a clean font for the best look!
That’s All!
Now you know how to make a responsive mockup for the iPhone without Photoshop.
If you want to learn more about using Placeit for your designs, try these tutorials as well:
If you’ve created an app that works on different devices, it’s good to let your potential users know about it by showing the app on a responsive mockup. You can do it easily with the online responsive mockup generator at Placeit.
How to Make a Responsive Mockup for the iPhone Without Photoshop
Step 1
Go to Placeit.net. Navigate to Mockups and find the Responsive Devices tab.
Step 2
Here you can see a whole library of potential mockups for your app. There are many devices available, but if you’re particularly interested in one, you can narrow down the search using the filters on the left.
Step 3
Even after applying the filter, you’ve got over 100 propositions to choose from. You can show your app on many screens at the same time, either in a neutral setting or inside a photographed scene. Place your cursor over the mockup to see an example of it being used. After you find the one you like, just click it to start editing. I used this mockup template.
Step 4
Believe it or not, you’ve done most of the work already! Once you’ve chosen your mockup, you just need to upload the screenshots of your app to it. Depending on the mockup, you’ll find a couple of Upload Image buttons on the left. Click the first one—here it will be the iPhone screen.
Step 5
Select your iPhone screenshot and crop it to the size of the screen. Click Crop when you’re done.
Step 6
Give it a second to upload. After it appears on the mockup iPhone screen, you’re ready to add another screenshot. Click the other button and repeat the process, this time selecting your iPad screenshot.
Step 7
After you upload your screenshots, you can remove them or crop them again. You can also add some text or a graphic.
Step 8
Once you’re done, just scroll up and click Download. You can purchase this one design, or download it for free as part of your unlimited subscription.
Responsive Mockup Templates
See how easy it is? Now let me show you a couple of mockups that you can use to present your app to potential customers.
If you’re going to sell your app in the Google Play store, you need something eye-catching! This mockup template offers you dozens of modern-looking backgrounds, along with different fonts for the text.
Create a neat screenshot for App Store in seconds with this mockup template. Play with different colors, fonts, and graphics to create a perfect presentation for your app.
If you need something more dynamic, you’ll like this one! Here the screen is angled, which gives an organic feel to the presentation. Combine it with a cool background and a clean font for the best look!
That’s All!
Now you know how to make a responsive mockup for the iPhone without Photoshop.
If you want to learn more about using Placeit for your designs, try these tutorials as well:
If you’ve created an app that works on different devices, it’s good to let your potential users know about it by showing the app on a responsive mockup. You can do it easily with the online responsive mockup generator at Placeit.
How to Make a Responsive Mockup for the iPhone Without Photoshop
Step 1
Go to Placeit.net. Navigate to Mockups and find the Responsive Devices tab.
Step 2
Here you can see a whole library of potential mockups for your app. There are many devices available, but if you’re particularly interested in one, you can narrow down the search using the filters on the left.
Step 3
Even after applying the filter, you’ve got over 100 propositions to choose from. You can show your app on many screens at the same time, either in a neutral setting or inside a photographed scene. Place your cursor over the mockup to see an example of it being used. After you find the one you like, just click it to start editing. I used this mockup template.
Step 4
Believe it or not, you’ve done most of the work already! Once you’ve chosen your mockup, you just need to upload the screenshots of your app to it. Depending on the mockup, you’ll find a couple of Upload Image buttons on the left. Click the first one—here it will be the iPhone screen.
Step 5
Select your iPhone screenshot and crop it to the size of the screen. Click Crop when you’re done.
Step 6
Give it a second to upload. After it appears on the mockup iPhone screen, you’re ready to add another screenshot. Click the other button and repeat the process, this time selecting your iPad screenshot.
Step 7
After you upload your screenshots, you can remove them or crop them again. You can also add some text or a graphic.
Step 8
Once you’re done, just scroll up and click Download. You can purchase this one design, or download it for free as part of your unlimited subscription.
Responsive Mockup Templates
See how easy it is? Now let me show you a couple of mockups that you can use to present your app to potential customers.
If you’re going to sell your app in the Google Play store, you need something eye-catching! This mockup template offers you dozens of modern-looking backgrounds, along with different fonts for the text.
Create a neat screenshot for App Store in seconds with this mockup template. Play with different colors, fonts, and graphics to create a perfect presentation for your app.
If you need something more dynamic, you’ll like this one! Here the screen is angled, which gives an organic feel to the presentation. Combine it with a cool background and a clean font for the best look!
That’s All!
Now you know how to make a responsive mockup for the iPhone without Photoshop.
If you want to learn more about using Placeit for your designs, try these tutorials as well:
If you’ve created an app that works on different devices, it’s good to let your potential users know about it by showing the app on a responsive mockup. You can do it easily with the online responsive mockup generator at Placeit.
How to Make a Responsive Mockup for the iPhone Without Photoshop
Step 1
Go to Placeit.net. Navigate to Mockups and find the Responsive Devices tab.
Step 2
Here you can see a whole library of potential mockups for your app. There are many devices available, but if you’re particularly interested in one, you can narrow down the search using the filters on the left.
Step 3
Even after applying the filter, you’ve got over 100 propositions to choose from. You can show your app on many screens at the same time, either in a neutral setting or inside a photographed scene. Place your cursor over the mockup to see an example of it being used. After you find the one you like, just click it to start editing. I used this mockup template.
Step 4
Believe it or not, you’ve done most of the work already! Once you’ve chosen your mockup, you just need to upload the screenshots of your app to it. Depending on the mockup, you’ll find a couple of Upload Image buttons on the left. Click the first one—here it will be the iPhone screen.
Step 5
Select your iPhone screenshot and crop it to the size of the screen. Click Crop when you’re done.
Step 6
Give it a second to upload. After it appears on the mockup iPhone screen, you’re ready to add another screenshot. Click the other button and repeat the process, this time selecting your iPad screenshot.
Step 7
After you upload your screenshots, you can remove them or crop them again. You can also add some text or a graphic.
Step 8
Once you’re done, just scroll up and click Download. You can purchase this one design, or download it for free as part of your unlimited subscription.
Responsive Mockup Templates
See how easy it is? Now let me show you a couple of mockups that you can use to present your app to potential customers.
If you’re going to sell your app in the Google Play store, you need something eye-catching! This mockup template offers you dozens of modern-looking backgrounds, along with different fonts for the text.
Create a neat screenshot for App Store in seconds with this mockup template. Play with different colors, fonts, and graphics to create a perfect presentation for your app.
If you need something more dynamic, you’ll like this one! Here the screen is angled, which gives an organic feel to the presentation. Combine it with a cool background and a clean font for the best look!
That’s All!
Now you know how to make a responsive mockup for the iPhone without Photoshop.
If you want to learn more about using Placeit for your designs, try these tutorials as well:
One of our yearly traditions here is to thank all y’all CSS-Tricks readers at the passing of a new year. It means a lot to me that people come here and read the words I write, and the words of all our staff and guest authors that contribute here as well.
Thank you!
Plus, we dig into the numbers this time of year. I’ve always tried to be open about the analytics on this site. Looking at them year after year always serves up a good reminder: niche blogging is a slow game. There’s no hockey-stick growth around here. Never has been, never will be. The trick is to build slowly over time, taking care of the site, investing in it, working hard, and with some luck, numbers trend upward. This year, overall traffic didn’t even do that. Sometimes you gotta fight for what you’ve got! Growth came in other areas though. Let’s take a gander.
It was January 1st, 2019 that the current design of this site (v17) debuted, so this entire year overlaps perfectly with that. I’ll certainly be tempted to release major iterations with that same timing in the future for comparison sake.
Overall numbers
Google Analytics is showing me 90.3 million pageviews, which is a bit of a decline from 2018 at over 91 million. A 1% decline. Not a big problem, but of course I’d way rather see a 1% increase instead. We’ll take that as a kick in the butt to produce a stronger year of content to hopefully more than win it back.
Looks like we published 726 articles over the year, which includes link posts and sponsored links. A good leap from 636 last year and 595 the year before that. Clearly quantity isn’t the trick to traffic for us.
I don’t know that we’ll slow down necessarily. I like the fact that we’re publishing multiple times a day with noteworthy links because I like to think of us as a timely industry publication that you can read like a daily or weekly newspaper in addition to being an evergreen reference. I don’t think we’ll invest in increasing volume, though. Quality moves the needle far more than quantity for this gang.
There is a bunch of numbers I just don’t feel like looking at this year. We’ve traditionally done stuff like what countries people are from, what browsers they use (Chrome-dominant), mobile usage (weirdly low), and things like that. This year, I just don’t care. This is a website. It’s for everyone in the world that cares to read it, in whatever country they are in and whatever browser they want to. We still track those numbers (because Google Analytics automatically does), so we can visit them again in the future and look historically if it gets interesting again. Taking a quick peak, however, it’s not much different than any other year.
Performance numbers are always fascinating. Google Analytics tells me the average page load time is 5.32s. On my fast home internet (even faster at the office), the homepage loads for me in 970ms, but it’s more like 30 seconds when throttled to „Slow 3G.” „Fast 3G” is 8 seconds. Sorta makes sense that most visitors are on faster-than-3G connections since the traffic is largely skewed toward desktop. No cache, we’re talking 54 requests (including ads) and 770KB (fits on a floppy). It’s good enough that I’m not itching to dig into a performance sprint.
Top posts of the year
You’d think we would do a section like this ever year, but because of our URL structure, I haven’t had easy access to figure this out. Fortunately, in March 2019, Jacob Worsøe helped us add some Custom Dimensions to our Google Analytics so we can track things like author and year with each pageview.
That means we can find things, like the most popular articles written in 2019, rather than just the most popular articles looked at in 2019 — regardless of when they were was written. Here’s a graph Jacob sent:
8.25% of traffic came from articles written this year. If you look at where these articles fall on the list of all URLs in 2019 (not just those published in 2019), the top article starts at #75! Hard to compete with older articles that have had time to gather SEO steam. This kind of thing makes me want to get re-focused on referential content even more.
Interesting that our top article was editorial, but everything else is referential. I like a little editorial here and there, but clearly our bread and butter is how-to technical stuff.
Search
There are two aspects of search that are interesting to me:
What do people search for right here on the site itself?
What search terms do people use on Google to find this site?
On-site search is handled by Jetpack’s Elasticsearch feature, which I’m still quite liking (they are a sponsor, but it’s very true). This also means we can track its usage pretty easily using the analytics on my WordPress.com dashboard. I also installed a Search Meter plugin to track search form entries. I can look at Google searches through the SiteKit plugin, which pulls from Google Search Console.
Here are all three, with duplicates removed.
Jetpack Search Data
Search Meter Search Data
Google Search Data
1
amazon (?!)
flexbox
flexbox
2
flexbox
grid
css grid
3
css tricks
flex
css tricks
4
flexbox guide
animation
css important
5
css grid
svg
css triangle
6
css flex
position
mailto link
7
grid guide
css grid
vertical align css
8
css important
css
css comment
9
the great divide
border
css shapes
10
css shapes
background
css background image opacity
There is a bit of a fat head of traffic here with our top 10 pages doing about 10% of traffic, which syncs up with those big searches for stuff like flexbox and grid and people landing on our great guides. If you look at our top 100 pages, that goes out to about 38% of traffic, and articles past that are about 0.1% of traffic and go down from there. So I’d say our long tail is our most valuable asset. That mass of articles, videos, snippets, threads, etc. that make up 62% of all traffic.
Social media
It’s always this time of year I realize how little social media does for our traffic and feel stupid for spending so much time on it. We pretty much only do Twitter and it accounts for 1% of the traffic to this site. We still have a Facebook page but it’s largely neglected except for auto-posting our own article links to it. I find value in Twitter, through listening in on industry conversations and having fun, but I’m going to make a concerted effort to spend less time and energy on our outgoing social media work. If something is worth tweeting for us, it should be worth blogging; and if we blog it, it can be auto-tweeted.
But by way of numbers, we went from 380k followers on @css to 430k. Solid growth there, but the rate of growth is the same every year, to the point it’s weirdly consistent.
I also picked up an Instagram account this year. Haven’t done much there, but I still like it. For us, I think each post on Instagram can represent this little opportunity to clearly explain an idea, which could ultimately turn into a nice referential book or the like someday. A paultry 1,389 followers there.
Newsletter
I quite like our newsletter. It’s this unique piece of writing that goes out each week and gives us a chance to say what we wanna say. It’s often a conglomeration of things we’ve posted to the site, so it’s an opportunity to stay caught up with the site, but even those internal links are posted with new commentary. Plus, we link out to other things that we may not mention on the site. And best of all, it typically has some fresh editorial that’s unique to the newsletter. The bulk of it is done by Robin, but we all chip in.
All that to say: I think it’s got a lot of potential and we’re definitely going to keep at it.
We had the biggest leap in subscribership ever this year, starting the year at 40k subscribers and ending at 65k. That’s 2.5× the biggest leap in year-over-year subscribers so far. I’d like to think that it’s because it’s a good newsletter, but also because it’s integrated into the site much better this year than it ever has been.
Comments
Oh, bittersweet comments. The bad news is that I feel like they get a little worse every year. There is more spam. People get a little nastier. I’m always teetering on the edge of just shutting them off. But then someone posts something really nice or really helpful and I’m reminded that we’re a community of developers and I love them again.
4,710 approved comments. Up quite a bit from 3,788 last year, but still down from 5,040 in 2017. Note that these are approved comments, and it’s notable that this entire year we’ve been on a system of hand-approving all comments before they go out. Last year, I estimated about half of comments make it through that, and this year I’d estimate it at more like 30-40%. So, the straight-up number of comments isn’t particularly interesting as it’s subject to our attitude on approval. Next year, I plan to have us be more strict than we’ve ever been on only approving very high-quality comments.
I’m still waiting for WordPress to swoon me with a recommitment to making commenting good again. 😉
Forums
There were a couple of weeks just in December where I literally shut down the forums. They’ve been teetering on end-of-life for years. The problem is that I don’t have time to tend to them myself, nor do I think it’s worth paying someone to do so, at least not now. Brass tacks, they don’t have any business value and I don’t extract enough other value out of them to rationalize spending time on them.
If they just sat there and were happy little forums, I’d just leave them alone, but the problem is spam. It was mostly spam toward the end, which is incredibly tedious to clean up and requires extra human work.
I’ve kicked them back on for now because I was informed about a spam-blocking plugin that apparently can do incredible work specifically for bbPress spam. Worth a shot!
Interestingly, over the year, the forums generated 7m pageviews, which is 7.6% of all traffic to the site. Sorta makes sense as they are the bulk of the site URLs and they are user-generated threads. Long tail.
Goal review
✅ Polish this new design. Mixed feelings. But I moved the site to a private GitHub repo half-way through the year, and there have been 195 commits since then, so obviously work is getting done. I’ll be leaving this design up all of 2020 and I’d like to make a more concerted effort at polish.
✅ Improve newsletter publishing and display. Nailed this one. In March, we moved authoring right here on the site using the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress. That means it’s easier to write while being much easier to display nicely on this site. Feels great.
☯️ Raise the bar on quality. I’m not marking it as a goal entirely met because I’m not sure we changed all that much. There was no obvious jump upward in quality, but I think we do pretty good in general and would like to see us continue to hold steady there.
❌ Better guides. We didn’t do all that much with guides. Part of the problem is that it’s a little confusing. For one thing, we have „guides” (e.g. our guide to flexbox) which is obviously useful and doing well. Then there are „Guide Collections” (e.g. our Custom Properties Guide) which are like hand-picked and hand-ordered selections of articles. I’m not entirely sure how useful those hand-curated guides are, especially considering we also have tag pages which are more sortable. The dudes with the biggest are the hand-written articles-on-steroids types, so that’s worth the most investment.
New goals
100k on email list. That would be a jump of 35k which is more than we’ve ever done. Ambitious. Part of this is that I’m tempted to try some stuff like paid advertising to grow it, so I can get a taste for that world. Didn’t Twitter have a special card where people could subscribe right from a Tweet? Stuff like that.
Two guides. The blog-post-on-steroids kind. The flexbox one does great for us, traffic-wise, but I also really enjoy this kind of creative output. I’ll be really sad if we can’t at least get two really good ones done this year.
Have an obvious focus on how-to referential technical content. This is related to the last goal, but goes for everyday publishing. I wouldn’t be mad if every darn article we published started with „How To.”
Get on Gutenberg. The new WordPress block editor. This is our most ambitious goal. Or at least I think it is. It’s the most unknown because I literally don’t know what issues we’re going to face when turning it on for more than a decade’s worth of content that’s been authored in the classic editor. I don’t think it’s going to hurt anything. It’s more a matter of making sure:
authoring posts has all the same functionality and conveniences as we have now,
editing old posts doesn’t require any manual conversion work, and
it feels worth doing.
But I haven’t even tried yet, so it’s a don’t-know-what-I-don’t-know situation.
Again, thanks so much!
I was thinking about how stage musicians do that thing where they thank their fans almost unfailingly. Across any genre. Even if they say hardly anything into a microphone during the performance, they will at least thank people for coming, if not absolutely gush appreciation at the crowd. It’s cliché, but it’s not disingenuous. I can imagine it’s genuinely touching to look out across a room of people that all choose to spend a slice of their lives listening to you do your thing.
I feel that way here. I can’t see you as easily as looking out over a room, but I feel it in the comments you post, the emails you send, the tweets you tagged us in, and all that. You’re spending some of your life with us and that makes me feel incredibly grateful. Cheers.
Today, we’re taking a look at over 50 of the best rose art files available at Envato Elements and Envato Market that you can and should use in your projects. And if you’re interested in learning how to draw a rose, check out this fabulous tutorial:
Unlimited Premium Rose Vector Art From Envato Elements
Envato Elements is the perfect place to find a wide range of stunning rose vector files. And the great news is that you can download as manyas you want for one low price. Let’s take a look at some of the premium rose vectors you can find at Envato Elements.
A gorgeous rose ornament vector for you to use on your stationery, DIY projects, wallpaper, posters, blogs, and more. The file contains four beautiful patterns in both EPS and JPEG files.
This beautiful watercolour collection of rose background vectors, rose wreath vectors and other decorative elements is a rose lover’s dream. The collection offers over 50 EPS, PSD and PNG files that are quick to download and easy to apply to the project of your choice.
Discover 64 fabulous rose ornament vectors in vintage style for you to download and apply to your product designs, patterns, logo designs, etc. The files are available in both EPS and PNG, and the colour can be easily changed to suit your needs.
These watercolour vector rosebuds are an excellent choice for your custom-made cards, invitations, DIY projects, and a host of other projects. The package consists of 12 seamless patterns, and each flower is presented in a separate EPS and PNG file.
If you’re looking for red rose clip art or vector rosebuds, check out these awesome single red roses in various stages of bloom, from tight bud to full bloom. The editable vector AI and EPS files are also presented in PNG and JPG and all can be used for print templates, emblems, cards, branding, print, stickers, and much more.
This kit of rose ornament vectors contains seven different elements in EPS, PNG, and JPEG. Use it to create beautiful borders and flourishes on any number of products.
If you’re looking for rose background vectors, my are you going to love this collection. It features six seamless rose background vectors for use on fabric, clothing, wallpaper, wrapping paper, etc. If you’re on the lookout specifically for a rose black and white vector, note that this collection includes one that you will love.
Looking for a rose tattoo vector? You may not have had a whale swimming in roses in mind, but once you’ve set eyes on this whale and rose line art image, you won’t be able to resist it. One file each in EPS, SVG, PNG, and JPEG included for your convenience.
Looking for a field of roses combined with other flowers for your blog or website? This rose background vector may be just what you need. It contains one EPS vector file, and all flowers are presented separately in a PNG file.
Okay, so this may be a bit cheesy, but when you’re in love, all roses are red might seem like good poetry. Go ahead and use this rose vector to tell someone you love them in no uncertain terms. You can use Adobe Illustrator to edit the EPS file or Photoshop to edit the JPEG file included.
Another nod to love and Valentine’s Day. Use this rose black and white vector and red rose clip art to create your own greeting card, banner, decal, poster, invitation, flyer, etc.
Red rose clip art that everyone will love. This collection contains nine watercolour EPS and PNG files for you to use as a beautiful rose background vector in your next project.
An awesome watercolour rose vector that is perfect for invitations, greeting cards and the like. The package contains ten EPS files that are quick to download and easy to apply to your next project.
Need a rose tattoo vector? These next two items are for you. First up is this vintage hand-drawn rose tattoo vector featuring three different illustrations, with only one of them being a rose. The package comes with editable vector AI and EPS files as well as PNG and JPEG files.
This soft and lovely rose blush vector offers ten separate watercolour clipart files, one watercolour background, and two floral arrangements. They are presented in EPS, PNG, and JPEG files. Use them to add beauty and variety to any project.
Another rose vector file for Valentine’s Day. Just download the zipped files containing two fully editable EPS and JPEG files and edit them to create a special Valentine’s surprise for your loved one.
Bring a bit of romance to your next project with this collection of rose wreath vector files. The collection includes flowers with the roses which help them to shine even brighter. Also included is the wooden background, which will bring a nice earthy quality to your project.
Another gorgeous floral background filled with roses and other gorgeous flowers. The single vector file can be downloaded and applied to just about any project.
If you have a fondness for rose line art, you’ll love this collection, which features the most beautiful and whimsical line art floral arrangements in EPS and PNG files. Add to your invitations, photos, albums, blog posts, etc., to bring a soft romantic touch to your project.
Doodles are a fun and playful way to add a bit of lightheartedness to a project. Why not try out this rose vector silhouette with your next project? It offers a vector rosebud and drawings of loads of other flowers, leaves, and seeds besides.
If you love the beautiful rose black and white vector above, you’ll love the rose art to be found among the other flora and fauna here as well. The collection contains EPS, JPEG, and PNG files.
Tea and roses are a perfect combination, so it makes sense that so many china tea sets would have illustrations of roses on them. If you’re looking for your own tea and rose art, try this collection, which contains an EPS, AI, and JPEG file.
For those who celebrate Mothering Sunday, there are these four rose vector illustrations that can be used to create cards and unique items for the special day. The set includes four EPS files and four JPEGs.
Rose PSD, JPEG, and PNG Art From Envato Elements
Most of the rose vector art collections above also contained PSD, JPEG, and PNG files, but the focus was on rose vector files. Now we’ll take a look specifically at rose art presented in PSD and JPEG files.
A beautiful and delicate piece of rose art which presents roses in various stages of bloom, from a closed bud to maturity. It’s rendered in beautiful colours, and you can use this layered PSD file for stationery, websites, posters, etc.
This set of 37 hand-painted watercolour roses and other flowers is bound to bring a touch of freshness and colour to any project. Just download and use as you would any other Photoshop file.
If you’re looking for a beautiful seamless floral background that is filled with roses, then this elegant collection of ten patterns is bound to make you happy. Perfect for packaging design, fabric, posters, and many other projects, these files come in PSD, JPEG, and PNG for easy use.
This seamless pattern contains 18 seamless files featuring delicately hand-painted watercolour roses as well as dots and stripes in six pastel colours. Try them out.
This soft and romantic set of 28 hand-painted roses and leaves in various configurations is offered in PNG files so that you can integrate them easily into any background of your choosing.
We’ve featured a lot of watercolour rose art here, so we thought it only fair to include oil-painted rose art to even things up. This collection contains several templates in layered PSD and PNG files that you can use for cover designs, stationery, and all sorts of backgrounds.
If you regularly create projects for weddings, Valentine’s, engagements, or any other theme to do with love and relationships, this set of 50 red rose isolated photo-realistic petals is indispensable. Just download the PSD and PNG files and place them on any background.
This collection of rose art PSD files contains four ready-to-use backgrounds that allow you full customisation. The backgrounds also include text that you can edit to match your brand or colour scheme.
More watercolour goodness for watercolour lovers. Here are 15 gorgeous rose art illustrations to brighten up your next project. The files are presented in both JPEG and PNG.
An Instagram-ready rose art file for rose lovers, this one template lets you create 12 unique posts. It contains a layered and fully editable PSD file.
These 22 stunning watercolour roses are presented as hi-res PNG files with transparent backgrounds that allow you to place them in any scene you want to. The files offer a lot of variety as they are divided into branches, leaves, petals, roses of varying sizes, and wreathes. A versatile and useful package.
One-Off Rose Vector Art From Envato Market
GraphicRiver is another resource that offers a large selection of excellent rose art files. If you need a one-off resource and your budget is tight, GraphicRiver is a great option for high-quality graphics. Let’s take a look at the the best rose vector art found there.
These terrific rose black and white vectors are great addition for any project. They feature vector rosebuds as well as young and mature blooms. The files are presented in EPS, AI, and JPEG.
If you need more rose vector silhouettes, check out these 13 rose black and white vectors. This elegant collection includes a few selections of vector rosebuds and some fully opened roses. The files are both EPS and JPEG.
Looking for a yellow rose vector for a special project? This collection of four roses offers four colours to choose from, including a yellow rose vector. If, of course, you need another colour—for example, a purple rose vector—you can always modify the colour of any of the roses here to the colour you need.
This red rose clip art is part of a sugar skull combo which includes guns on either side of the skull, between the roses. A cool spin on the rose theme.
Those who are interested in rose line art will appreciate this collection of delicate line drawings of roses and other flowers. The file is presented in vector EPS and AI, as well as PSD and JPEG.
This beautiful pink rose would complement any project. Just download the rose ornament vector, which is presented in both AI and EPS files, and apply it to any project.
This beautifully illustrated rose vector silhouette comes in vector EPS and AI as well as JPEG. Choose it when you need a silhouette or rose black and white vector for that special project.
If you regularly create resources with wedding, engagement or romance themes, you should keep your toolbox stocked with a variety of vectors of rose petals like this one. It is offered in EPS, AI, and JPEG, so you have a range of files to work with.
Another gorgeous rose black and white vector, Four Black and White Roses—as the name indicates—offers users four beautifully executed roses in EPS and JPEG file formats.
This set of four high-quality, detailed rose vector illustrations is perfect for creating floral background patterns for stationery, wedding invitations, thank you cards, etc. The collection consists of four separate rose vector illustrations and one combined bunch of roses presented in EPS and PSD files.
For those times when you need a border of roses to add to stationery, a web page, or a poster, there is this rose ornament vector. File downloads are available in vector AI, EPS, or JPEG.
One-Off Rose PSD, JPEG and PNG Art From Envato Market
This cheeky rose art, featuring a skull with a beautiful red rose between its teeth, would make an excellent graphic for a poster, T-shirt, or banner. Download the PSD file and let your imagination run wild.
Use this beautiful rose art illustration to create stunning backgrounds for wallpaper, stationery, websites, fabric, etc. Once you download the files, you can decide whether you want to use the editable EPS or PSD formats.
This rose vector silhouette is another terrific seamless pattern you can use for wallpaper, as a background for stationery, etc. It is offered in both PSD and vector EPS and AI, so take your pick of whichever works best for your project.
Finally, this collection of nine red rose clip art illustrations offers a nice variety of styles to choose from. Some are rose line art, while others offer beautiful shading in soft colours. Download the collection, which is offered in PSD, JPEG, EPS, AI, and PNG files, and use the format that works best for your project.
Select Your Favourite Rose Art Files Today
This is just a small sample of the terrific rose vector art files available at Envato Elements and Envato Market. So if you haven’t found just the right one for you here, head on over to both sites and have a browse to find one that suits your needs.
And if you’re interested in learning how to create your own rose illustrations, check out these great 'How to’ articles below:
In this tutorial, learn how to make a 3D effect Photoshop action to create a simple 3D text effect.
Photoshop in 60 Seconds: 3D Text Action
The 3D functions available in Adobe Photoshop open up a world of endless possibilities for creators. And you can apply amazing 3D text effects to your designs with a fast Photoshop action. In this short video, I’ll show you how to create a Photoshop action that creates a stunning 3D effect you can use for any project.
Create a New Document at any size; mine is at 1000×750 pixels. Then go to Window >Actions and create a new Group and Action dedicated to your 3D effect. Hit the Record button when you’re ready to record the next steps.
Fill the background with a dark gray color using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Use the TextTool (T) to write out your light gray text at a Size of 300 pt. Make a Duplicate(Control-J) of your text, and then Hide the copy for later.
Right-click the background layer and select Postcard. Then select the text layer and go to 3D > New 3D Extrusion From Selected Layer. Select both visible layers and hold Control-E to Merge them together.
For a simple effect, go to Environment on the 3D panel, adjusting the Color Intensity to 164% and the Shadow Softness to 25%. Next, select 3D > Render 3D Layer and allow the text to render before Rasterizing the 3D layer.
When it’s complete, unhide the 3D text copy, adjust the size to fit, and use the Blending Options to add color, shadows, or colorful gradients. And don’t forget to hit Stop on the Actions palette to use this action for later projects.
Here’s the final result.
5 Premium Text Effect Actions & Layer Styles
Want more actions? For mind-blowing text effects and more, browse the amazing
selection of Text Effect Actions available to you through GraphicRiver and Envato Elements. And check out a few of our favorites below!
Create gorgeous metallic text effects in only a few clicks! This brilliant package features six different actions with a superb selection of shadows and reflections to choose from. A help file is also included to guide you through the process with an informative video.
Short on time? Make the most out of your efforts with a Photoshop action that gets the job done with just one click! This well-rounded action includes five stunning styles for six different actions. An additional brush set is also included to help complete this effect.
Make life a whole lot easier with this pack of 3D Photoshop actions. Designed to give your text or vector shapes a realistic wood finish, this pack includes 36 high-resolution actions with four wooden styles. You can even change the depth and perspective for more fun options!
Mix your love of retro design with exciting 3D styles. This pack includes 10 vintage-inspired graphic styles perfect for headers, logos, and so much more. Customize your text easily with these fully editable files and enjoy additional vintage backgrounds to complete your next project.
Create fancy text effects that dazzle your audience! This amazing pack includes 10 beautiful gold and metal layer styles we’re sure you’ll love! Just add your text to the easy-to-use smart objects and enjoy wonderful metallic effects in no time at all!
60 Seconds?!
This is part of a series of quick video tutorials on
Envato Tuts+ in which we introduce a range of subjects, all in 60
seconds—just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments
what you thought of this video and what else you’d like to see explained
in 60 seconds!
Agregator najlepszych postów o designie, webdesignie, cssie i Internecie
WinterHow to Draw a SnowflakeMonika Zagrobelna
WinterHow to Create a Set of Snowflake Icons in Adobe IllustratorAndrei Stefan
Adobe PhotoshopPhotoshop in 60 Seconds: Create 4 Unique Custom BrushesMelody Nieves
WatercolorHow to Create Realistic Watercolor Photoshop Brushes From ScratchIvan Gromov
