Creating black and white photos in Photoshop is quite useful and easy. We will learn basic de-saturation and ways to influence color without destroying our photo. College students learn this within the first few weeks of Photoshop class. I suggest using filters when ever possible to save the original source.

1) Open Photoshop, Press [Ctrl + N] to open a new document. (Web – 800×600px – Landscape)

2)  Press [M] to select Marquee Tool for the region you want Black and White. For this example I will split it down the middle. You can select the whole photograph by pressing (Ctrl + A). **Make sure your image has color, durrrr**

3) Using the easy way press: (Shift + Ctrl + U)

NOW —- Stepping back to step 2, I will now display the un-destructive way:

3) On the Layers Panel go to ‘Adjustment Layer’ and add ‘Black and White’ to the selection.

4) When you apply the ‘Black and White’ you will notice another layer added to the layers panel, this layer can be triggered on/off so your photo is never actually affected from the black and white effect. When you choose the adjustment layer with Black and White you have more options to adjust the contrast based on the original color of the image.

That’s how you create a black and white image – fast and super easy.

Have you ever wanted a high paying job while having a blast at work. Ever consider being a digital artist. If this gets your creative juices flowing, motion graphics might be right for you -- or your just greedy and want money.

The top in-demand careers of 2009 includes industries of Business, IT, and Law. Technology is used in each of these industries creating market definition while using creative tools to voice the definition. Your hired to be the voice of the company while making sure everything looks appropriate to market definition.

You can get jobs as a Interactive Art Director.  Which pay an average of 70k depending on your experience.  You Develop creative concepts and push the limits of design.  This job isn’t for people afraid of critics.

There are Design jobs that don’t require years of schooling or experience.  A Production Assistance Specialist for example… Which means your the person responsible for various aspects of a production on set.

Revision3 always has opportunities (revision3.com/jobs/) for beginning students or inspired filmier’s, developers, editors, and assorted talent.

The best chance of landing a position in this economy is to do your research and make sure you are up-to-date with current standards in your industry. Here are some free resources, hope you find this helpful. From art schools to career salaries, how the market is working and real life examples.

Education:

The Art Institute of California – Los Angeles
B.S./A.A. - Visual Effects & Motion Graphics

The Art Institute of California -- Hollywood, a Los Angeles based design college is one of the Art Institutes, America’s leader in postsecondary career-oriented education for the creative arts. We offer degree programs in Interior Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, and Web Design & Interactive Media, Set & Exhibit Design, and Visual Effects & Motion Graphics.

Careers:

Motionographer -- Jobs

http://motionographer.com/jobs/

Indeed -- Jobs

http://www.indeed.com/q-motion-graphics-jobs.html

Tools:

Inspiration - Motionographer (http://motionographer.com//)

Tutorial - Ayato@web (http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html)

Software - Adobe Aftereffects (www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects)

Goodie - Trapcode (http://www.trapcode.com/)

Market:

Motion Graphic v.s. Graphic Designer
150% Percent Growth from June 05′ -- Jan 09′

Average Salary of Jobs with Related Titles to Motion Graphic
34k [Media Technician] -- 93k [Senior Interaction Design]

PrestaShop provides a simple e-Commerce solution for designers in the need of something clean yet extremely powerful putting your brand into the spot light. Other e-Commerce like Zen Cart, OS Commerce, and Wordpress (Using Plugins like: WP e-Commerce) -- gives the user an overwhelming amount of admin tools and data. Experienced web developers would consider community size and usability support which PrestaShop lacks being founded in France and standards could vary depending on your location and needs.

Over the years I’ve seen the PrestaShop community grow from strictly European to a slow mix of American’s or at least people speaking English. I tested version 1.0 back in 2005 for an experiment to see if my sisters clothing site could benefit from something they could easily use and adapt to. Since they were familiar with online stores like eBay, Etsy, and Smashing Darling I knew when it came time to launch a website for them I would considered form over function (not to say PrestaShop doesn’t understand function).

The Google Font Directory lets you browse all the fonts available via the Google Font API. All fonts in the directory are available for use on your website under an open source license and are served by Google servers. View font details to get the code needed to embed the font on your web site.

Simplicity is a state of mind for many tea drinkers, so it doesn’t surprise me how large and innovative the design community is. I just wanted to spend a moment and track down some inspiring/different designs in tea related products. Here are some gems I found, click the image to view the source:

Modern Tea Bags -

Modern Tea Pots -

Modern Tea Cups -

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. “Exit Through the Gift Shop” tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the worlds most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interviews. As Banksy describes it, “It’s basically the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed!”

I just purchased my ticket for Friday 5pm at One Embarcadero in San Francisco. I’ll have more posted details here.

UPDATE:

Friday Movie Time was pushed to 7pm.

San Francisco is known for it’s rich & diverse culture. These niche community’s came together to create and produce some of the highest quality and most stylistic backpacks. I’ll cover 3 San Francisco Inspired Backpack companies and what made them special.

Timbuk2 –

We’re like super glue, or a Chinese finger trap (that doesn’t suck); we just stick. We know you don’t need another bag. You need a sidekick, a constant companion. You need a bag that will take the hit when you skid out or literally “bail” you out of a leaky boat. You need a bag that will be a fire blanket for your stuff; a bag that will float your laptop when you’re drunk and your girlfriend drops it in the ocean. We hear you and we get it because we wear Timbuk2 bags too. We’re fully committed to meeting your needs and we’re confident that with your help, we’ll continue creating like-no-other products that don’t kick Mother Nature in the ‘nads.

Chrome -

San Francisco, a city with a huge urban cycling scene. The business grew. Bags were joined by clothes, gear and shoes. Our products showed up from Brooklyn to Berlin to Tokyo. But what matters today is what mattered in the garage – building products that work, and standing behind everything we make.

The North Face -

We have helped explorers reach the most unfathomable heights of the Himalayas. But The North Face legend begins, ironically, on a beach. More precisely, San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, at an altitude of only 150 feet above sea level. It was here in 1966 that two hiking enthusiasts resolved to follow their passions and founded a small mountaineering retail store.

Digg Wrote:

To celebrate the Digg for iPhone launch, we’ve partnered up with ColorWare to give away 14 highly-coveted, limited edition custom iPads! What’s that? You want a free iPad you say? Just follow the directions below… we’ll be giving away one every day for two weeks to lucky tweeters (one of which could be you!)

To Enter:

Did you know that the tortilla chip brand Tostitos features two people represented as letter T’s. The Tostitos people are also happily dipping to represent the brand line of chips & dip. The Tostitos sign was first highlighted in a Facebook group called, “i just realized that the tostito sign is 2 people eating chips and salsa”, which already has an active user database of 430,000 and growing. I spotted a Google trend that arrived Wednesday night after a spark of conversations via twitter and Facebook. Frito Lay makers of Tostitos tailored the logo for the 2010 Super bowl which premiered on television. The logo says community with warm festive colors. I Digg it.

A comment from a friend:

“wow i really never noticed the logo and why are they sharing one chip lol !! xD haha thats weird!!”

Pharmaceutical companies continue to compete in marketing a safe and honest health ’solution’. Since websites are a key to a companies marketing, executives will spend thousands if not millions of dollars to prepare a fully functional corporate site. The message is simple, simple. The key to making a truth-worthy site is to make things clean with a clear hierarchy. Here I cover the top 5 best riches Pharmaceutical Websites reviewing the good & the bad.

Johnson & Johnson

The Good – Consistent theme w/ beautiful imagery and large readable fonts.

The Bad – Red is overpowering, even if apart of brand identity (mainly suggesting the submenu overlay onto the image banner. The homepage and main navigation elements are developed in Flash which increase load time and also is confusing for SEO & the user.

Pfizer

The Good – Top down hierarchy with contrasting colors and educational content.

The Bad – Little to say about the bad, they could consider reaching out to different demographics by tapping into social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, and other relevant health related forums.

Roche

The Good – Simple, Clean, Informative, Font, Effective SEO. Extremely impressed with 99% of the development/design.

The Bad – Same thing as said before, little to say. I think they should consider removing the Flash homepage banner and use jQuery/AJAX to achieve more SEO rank thou companies like Roche aren’t worried about achieving traffic since this isn’t a B2C relationship.

GlaxoSmithKline

The Good – Full catalog of information inventory of products, company overview and history. Images are effective but lack proper cropping.

The Bad – Oh, man… The problem’s I have with this site could be a page alone – but in the sake of time. I think they should start from step one and redesign the pages with their current content. The colors – awful, The Images(cropping) – awful, hierarchy - awful layout, alignment of type/layout/images – awful. I shouldn’t ‘bag’ on this site since some of my previous portfolio work were designed without research. But since, this company pulls in over 44M yearly I can’t really accept minor issues like this (and in comparison to the others above).

Novartis

The Good – In Touch with their Online audience. Great colors & fonts that allow your eye to easily rest of key elements within the page. Well thought out navigation and good contrast from brown to white type. Mobile application support and video content on display at multiple social media & video publishers.

The Bad – Some wasted white space will little focus on content (text). I think they should reconsider the images used in the homepage to their core clients. From a snap shot view you wouldn’t understand the company mission which is easily identified in Johnson & Johnson.