Orkron Studios

Freelance Folder has a great article this morning about how to never miss a deadline. Head on over and check it out; I highly recommend these folks for a daily read!

One of the most common complaints that client’s have about freelancers is that they’re not reliable. What is this complaint based on? You can bet that missed deadlines had something to do with it. The project took twice as long to complete. Or you met the deadline, but it wasn’t tested for bugs. Perhaps this complaint was due something simple like failing to reply to an email in a timely fashion. These are all variations on the same key element of reliability. That is the ability to deliver a finished product, on time, every time.

One of the best things you can do when planning a site is to get the client involved. Forcing them to confront, and iterate, their expectations can save you time (and money) down the road. The best way to do that is to listen to them. The following is designed not to be a hard-and-fast checklist, but a tool to stimulate thought, and, from that, to stimulate conversation.

You can either give it to the client to fill out in advance of a meeting or simply use it as a guide while you talk to them. It is best for small- to medium-sized projects.

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Today I’m going to walk you through the steps to create a StickyNote paper with realistic shadow using Photoshop CS3. This tutorial will work with any version of the Creative Suite too, you’re tools may be located slightly different however. I also have the Photoshop CS3 file for download at the end if you’d prefer to work on the original.

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On the way to my kid’s school, there is an abandoned building with a really nice graffiti piece across the front. Today I decided to take some high-res photos of the graf for you to download to use as texture or stock photo.

I started by taking all the images I had taken, and used Photoshop to photo-merge them into a single panorama; the graf art is very wide.

[TIP] To Photo Merge many files into one, with all the files open inside Photoshop, click File -> Automate -> Photomerge and choose the type of layout, then click “Add open files” … The box will populate with the filenames of all open documents -> Click OK

I have the finished piece available in 300 dpi JPG image at 11,629 x 1,707 pixels, and the rest available in 3 separate sections in 2,500 pix wide, 300 dpi PNG files with transparent backgrounds.

Get Graffiti Wide JPG (106) 3MB
Get Graf 01 PNG (97) 4MB	Get Graf 02 PNG (106) 3MB	Get Graf 03 PNG (99) 3MB

Check out Media Militia for a great Graffiti Brushes/Texture resource.

I recently searched for a Polaroid Image template to use for a project and found a tutorial for creating a collage of Polaroid images from one stock image. This gave me an idea on how to integrate their idea within my design.

I quickly lost interest in the tutorial as it was overly complicated and spread across 5 pages with little visual aid. Having lost interest in their way of creating this effect, but still wanting to do the effect myself, I set about figuring out the fastest way of achieving the same result.

Below is the final result of my tutorial; click through after the jump to learn the process and download the final PSD file if you prefer that way.

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Freelance Folder has a great article for Freelancers on how to minimize or even eliminate Scope Creep (work not agreed upon in an original agreement) from their clients.

This article by Laura Spencer offers some great insights, be sure to read the comments after the article for more suggestions and dialog!

The article lists The Five Steps to Controlling Scope:

1. Know how much time you are spending on your project–Far too many freelancers don’t keep good records of how they use their time. You won’t notice scope creep if you don’t really know how much time you are spending on a project…. READ MORE ->