So let’s say you meet someone at a party or shindig and they discover you are a designer. “Oh I’ve been meaning to get a nice website. My current site was built by my second cousin twice-removed for my yoga lessons and I’m not happy with it.”

Ok what’s your budget? “I’ll have to check under the couch cushions and see what I can dig up.”

{sigh} So logic and finances be damned you still want to give them great site. Maybe they have connections to better business, maybe you want them to practice their yoga moves naked in your living room, maybe you’re just a good person. I don’t care, what ever lies get you up in the morning is fine by me.

Well there are shortcuts to good design, without actually doing design. Open Source or Freeware websites, if nothing else it can give you a bit of grid and color scheme inspiration when you have Designer’s Block.

The best site is Open Source Web Design, stick Open Source in front of anything and it’s automatically better.

Also is Free Programming Resources list of free web template sites.

Ars Technica does a comprehensive review of Photoshop CS3 new features, and faults. Photoshop has inhaled ImageReady wholly, but managed to burp back up a few features that will be sorely missed. Oh and for Mac users it’s universal, but no surprise there.

High praise for the new interface features and Smart Filters. Also new Clone Tool features rise to the top of “Why didn’t they have this before?” Nice touch being able to select sampling from “Current Layer; Current and Below; All Layers”, but I already think they should have taken that farther with “All Selected Layers”. No?

Well looks like a lot of new toys in PS3, can’t wait to pirate it.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 [Ars Technica]

ELogoDesign.com put together an excellent online color guide with links to the basics, psychology, theory, and combination tools.

Complete Color Matching Guide [eLogoDesign]

11amDesign Tutorials posts 101 Hidden Tips & Secrets For Photoshop. I think secret and hidden is a bit much, and some of these tips are bit well-known.

12. Hold Space bar, it will make any tool into “Hand Tool” until you release Space bar.

ORLY? To think I’ve been using the Navigator Palette all this time. But I digress, there are a few good gems in here.

4. Double click the gray background will bring up open file option, Hold Shift+double click will open up the browser.

Oh.. didn’t know that one. However when you throw together 101 keyboard shortcuts and tips together you eyes kinda glaze over. Go ahead and browse through, you just might find that keyboard shortcut that’s been haunting your dreams.

101 Hidden Tips & Secrets For Photoshop [11amDesign Tutorials]

After bashing GIMP in my previous article I feel I should do something to lift the spirits of any GIMP fanatics out there. Here is a round up of GIMP tutorials. Learn to play with that {cough} toy of yours.

Gimp Tutorials [Tutorials Blog]

Digg post on a short, puff-piece comparison {mirror} of GIMP {GNU Image Manipulation} vs. Adobe Photoshop.

A common misconception is that Gimp lacks many more features that Photoshop has. In fact, with the exception of features that depend on patented algorithms, Gimp is 99% on par with Photoshop in capabilities.

No..all you have to do is read the manual to see that there is no misconception, it’s quite obvious there is less features in GIMP, patented or otherwise. Right off that bat, I’m not seeing Vector Mask, Adjustment Layers, CMS or even duotones. I’m sorry but 99% seems way off base, GIMP would likely have more features than the modestly priced Photo Elements. So what if some features GIMP can’t implement because of software patents (which I staunchly oppose), I HAVE DEADLINES, I NEED THOSE TIME-SAVING FEATURES. I don’t want excuses, I want to send a comp to the client, now. NOW, DAMMIT!

There is more to this comparison than just comparable features such as filters or how they handle layers. The author admits GIMP’s interface is not as polished as Photoshop, when working under tight deadlines while concurrently using layout programs such as InDesign and Illustrator, familiarity and interoperability counts. Also some of the finer touches Adobe puts in their interface matter immensely. Use the ruler tool to measure the angle of a slightly skewed scanned photo, note how that angle automatically pops up in the Rotate dialog box. Those little time-saving touches matter, they show how much the developer strives to create an efficient, time-saving applications. I would love to see a side-by-side comparison of the execution time of GIMP’s filters and manipulation algorithms vs. Photoshop, I feel confident Photoshop would smoke ‘em.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge supporter of open-source software. I will gladly recommend GIMP to any non-designer trying to hit me up for a pirated copy of Photoshop so they can fix their underdeveloped digital photos. So are you really gonna trust GIMP to accurately correct and manipulate the photos in the annual report you have on press end of the week? I doubt it.

Battle of the Giants [Ask Rea Maor]

Anyone who’s had a Fortune 500 client has dealt with the red tape of getting their corporate logo for a project. First you get an email from your marketing rep, inevitably they send you some worthless JPEG off the website or a BMP embedded in a Word doc. Worse, after that they forward you to their in-house graphics department who resent you for being more creative and will happily stall you for weeks after grilling you about why you need the artwork.

A better solution is just to simply go around them. I’ve personally bought CDs filled with corporate logos in vector format, usually black and white version with the TM or (R) mysteriously left off. Still they work, however I stumbled across this website a few days back which make the process easy and free, logotypes.ru