How to fix for backlit photos

A tip for Photoshop users: here's a nice action for brightening bad pictures, especially backlit photos with a blue or gray tint. It's the Sunshine Photoshop Actions set from Charmbox Studios. It contains six different actions for a variety of lighting effects. I bought it for $4.50 and it's been worth the money in time saved.

Kissed by the Sun is the most useful of this set, I think. Above is my fixed up photo.

Here's what it looked like before I ran the action:


Today I edited a few snapshots for a client. Here's the original image:


And here it is, sunnier:


I made a few minor tweaks after running the action to brighten the floor in the foreground, but the action got me pretty far.

If you're not familiar with an "action" in Photoshop, it's a series of pre-recorded steps. Instead of applying each step manually yourself (brighten, adjust levels, increase saturation, etc.), you simply click the "play" button in the Actions palette and they all happen in order instantly. A huge time-saver, and if the action is designed correctly, each adjustment layer is still editable so you can tweak effects as needed. For how to install a new action, see here. There are lots of freebies floating around the web, too. Anybody have some they swear by?

4/14/14 Update: You guys must have purchased a bunch of products, because I just got a note from Charm Box Studios. They'd like to offer a thank you! To get 30% off anything in the Charm Box Studios store, enter the code: CBS-loves-orange now through 4/30/14. One use per customer, no minimum purchase. Sweet.

Free font: Composition

Composition is a quirky little handwriting typeface by Noe Araujo. Download it here, free for personal and commercial use. Be sure to type in all caps to make it work! I installed the OpenType file and noticed that uppercase I's, L's and dashes seem to have a strange preview in which they look outlined instead of filled (and print that way, too), but converting the type to outlines in Illustrator solves it. The upshot: it could come in handy for something, but has a few kinks that need working out.

Free font: Akura Popo

I've gotten a few requests for the name of the main typeface I used on yesterday's Oscar bingo cards. It's Brothers Regular, available from myfonts.com for $49. If you're looking for something free that has similar 19th century squared-off properties, try Akura Popo by Twicolabs Design. It's fair game for personal and commercial use. Akura Popo is more condensed and you'll have to do some manual kerning, but it might come in handy for your craft beer and banjo night invitations. Get it here.

P.S. I almost hit the publish button without noticing I'd made an unfortunate typographical error on "Popo." I have corrected it.

Stocksy: better stock photos?

Designers and bloggers in need of realistic stock images, have you checked out Stocksy yet? I looked it up after seeing an ad in HOW. I use Getty and iStockPhoto (owned by Getty) constantly as sources of images for clients, but finding realistic-looking photos can be a challenge. Plus they're criticized for paying photographers next to nothing. Stocksy apparently pays 50% of the purchase price back to the artist who made the photo— an improvement, offers relatively inexpensive pricing to those of us buying, and the images seem much more authentic. I suppose they'll have their share of women laughing alone with salad, but maybe the women are more likely to look like your neighbor or the owner of the hipster knitting shop down the street instead of a phony model.* The search function isn't as sophisticated as the Getty sites and the image library is smaller, but I'm going to start shopping here.

*Getty's Lean In collection is a huge leap forward in depicting women; check that out, too.

Helpful typography websites

Here are a couple of useful websites for those interested in type. The first is Fonts in Use. It's a gallery of, you guessed it. Search for typefaces used by a particular industry, a particular design format, or look up particular fonts. Let's say you're considering using Cooper Black on the flyer for your new high-end hair salon, and you're wondering if it could ever look anything but dated and kitschy. Check out the designs users have shared and form your own conclusions (The answer is no.)


If you want to impress your friends because you know what the little doohickey is called that hangs off certain lowercase "g's," Aaron Bloom's Typography site will help. Read about type anatomy and classifications, consult the glossary, or take a short quiz to see if you learned anything.

Awesome free PSD mockups and backgrounds

Designers, have you visited Graphic Burger yet? It's a site full of terrific free Photoshop mockups you can insert your own designs into— great for helping clients visualize a final product. Also download free background images, PSD text effects, icons, and more. All art is fair game for both personal and commercial work.

I played with the faux letterpress effect, above.

Free font: Fantaisie

Fantaisie is a typeface designed by Lev Berry, based on lettering from 1882. It comes in six varieties you can layer and color to create depth and gorgeous titles. Best of all, it's free for commercial use. Wowzers! Get it here. Along with the fonts, the .zip file contains interesting examples of Fantaisie in action, plus tips for working with it.

Zombie lorem ipsum!

Lorem ipsum, the fake text designers use as placeholder copy on layouts, has been around for ages. Maybe you've seen Bacon Ipsum, Cupcake Ipsum, Hipster Ipsum, and many other ipsums. (Ipsa?) But nothing is more festive this time of year than Zombie Ipsum. Generate paragraphs in regular, lite, or with 50% more brains, right here.

I used it in a layout the other day and sent it off to the client. No comment so far.

Ten free Halloween fonts

If you're planning to make any Halloween invitations or banners this month, a round-up of ten free Halloween fonts from Creative Pro might be just what you're looking for. I tried out Tango Macabre and Needleteeth above. (Thanks for the tip, Elizabeth!)

Free ornamental font: South Rose

South Rose is a free typeface inspired by the South Rose window at the Notre Dame Cathedral. This ornamental loveliness was designed by Sydney Goldstein, and it's available for non-commercial use from here at Behance. Grab it!

Free fonts and backgrounds for designers

If you're a graphic designer, particularly of the web variety, you'll like Freebiesbug. It's a site with a constantly-updated gallery of free resources to download. Grab fonts, backgrounds and textures, photoshop mockups that show off your branding projects, and all sorts of buttons, icons, and navigation menus to use on websites. As a print designer, my eyes glazed over when I got to "JS effects & plugins" and "HTML UI kits." If it has weird acronyms in it, usually assume it's for building spaceships or robots. I don't know anything about that. But I like fonts. Go help yourself!

Free vector frames and ornaments

Vectorian is a great resource for graphic designers, featuring beautifully digitized vintage ornaments, illustrations, and frames. Best of all, there are some great free .eps files you can download. If you like art nouveau or calligraphic illustrations, and you've got Adobe Illustrator so you can open and use them, go check 'em out!

Creative Market: resources for designers

Graphic designers, have you come across Creative Market yet? It's an online shop full of useful goodies.

Some examples from the store: textures for adding flavor to your images. Product mockups, like the vector iMac shown above ($2)— useful for showing off websites or desktop wallpapers. Also find fonts for sale, plus a selection of templates for everything from business cards to WordPress blogs. Personally I'm most interested in the Photoshop actions. Get automated processes that turn average photos interesting, like the 42-action set below ($10).

It's a good resource to keep in mind for projects, since there's lots of stuff that will save you time. Buy something for $5 that would take you three hours to make. Or if you've already spent those hours, consider selling your own digital products over there!

Library of Congress images for download

I'm always on the lookout for photo and illustration sources for work or personal use. When I saw this wall art idea in the April issue of Martha Stewart Living, I followed the source of the balloon illustrations back to the Library of Congress's prints and photographs catalog. It's a gallery of digitized images you can download and print, sorted by collection. All the images I looked at had "no known restrictions on publication," and in most cases, you can grab high res files ranging from 3"x5" to 11"x16" at 300 dpi.

The hot air balloons on the clipboards are from this collection. I also loved the WPA poster collection. Enjoy!

Manlike, a free font

Roydon Misseldine recently created Manlike, a free font with a name that made me smile. You may need to do a little custom kerning and some leading adjustments, but Manlike might be just the thing for a quirky logo or bit of headline type. Download it here at Pixel Pixel Pixel.

Free thin fonts

Hi, all! I'm up to my eyeballs in design work, but pausing to fix some coffee and share some recent typographic finds. If you need a cool, skinny font for your next project, try these freebies: Hagin Caps, Florence, and Mountain Retreat. Happy designing!

Free font: Qumpellka No. 12

On the hunt for pretty script typefaces that don't cost a penny? Check out Qumpellka No.12 (scroll to the bottom of the page for download options). And for more typographical pleasure, visit We Love Typography, a visual roundup of gorgeous lettering by amazing people. Search by color or keyword for extra fun.

Free fonts and web design resources

Turning to the electronic side of design for a moment, I stumbled upon Pixel Pixel Pixel yesterday. It's a site full of free downloads for web designers mainly, but there are goodies there that everyone can enjoy. Free fonts, anyone? Check out the full archive of seamless patterns, textures, vector shapes, buttons, icons, and more at pixelpixelpixel.com. A huge thank you to the designers who have generously shared their work!

Free font: Trocchi

If you're up for a Friday freebie, you might go grab Trocchi, a Clarendon-like slab serif type family by Vernon Adams. Bold and regular weights are available for download right here at Font Squirrel.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday, everyone! I'm on vacation next week, but I've prepared some posts ahead of time. I'm designating it Orange Week. Prepare to feast your eyes on orange galore! I've scoured the internet for the best orange things to put on, carry around, gaze at, sit on, and decorate with.

Free Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials

Those who want to learn useful techniques in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and photography might be interested in Nicole's Classes. Find an ever-growing series of free video tutorials, how-tos, and downloads. Or sign up for classes you can take at home in the comfort of your pajamas (one of my favorite working uniforms, I admit). New, helpful content is posted every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Here's an example of one of the goodies offered on the site: printable Summer Reading bookmarks in two designs. Help yourself right here and learn a couple of Illustrator tips along the way.