Check out this fantastic collection of completely free gradients! LadyOak has provided over 300 sets of nifty, useful colours for download. Load them up into Photoshop and start putting them to good use!

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Photoshop has a wonderful tool called Actions, which basically allows you to record what you are doing to an image on a canvas, then ‘play’ those actions back on other images. This is great if, for example, you need to resize a batch of 100 images. You could go through them once by one, resizing and saving each of them. But, if you automate the process, you only need to specify the parameters for the first image; then hit a button, sit back, and watch Photoshop churn out all 100 images perfectly sized.

Let’s do something a little more complicated with our first attempt at a Photoshop Action. I’ve recently posted a downloadable action which allows you to automatically apply reflections to small photographs. Here is a tutorial on how I created that action – feel free of course to modify any part to suit your needs.

Let’s get started detrast teg s’teL!

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You already know how to make great reflections. In fact, you love them! However a project has recently come up where you need to make a lot of reflections – and fast. Sure, you could go and do each image/text by hand, tediously duplicating, flipping, and adjusting layers. However, Photoshop provides a way to automate that process! Download the Reflection Action below, load it up in Photoshop’s Actions window, then sit back and watch those pesky images reflect themselves.

This Action works well with smaller images (and can be used to make wicked thumbnails!). Make sure that you’re only working with one layer (flatten everything before beginning). If you want to know how to make one of these nifty things, or customate the action to work well with larger images, be sure to check out the tutorial!

>> Download the Reflection Action Here <<
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I’ve published a tutorial before on how to make a favicon from scratch, how to turn it into an .ico file, and how to get it working on your webpage. Remember?

However, if you’re having trouble shrinking that logo down to pixel-size, there’s an online generator that will help you in that process. Upload your logo to Genfavicon, adjust the area you want to shrink, pick your size (a drop-down list of the standard sizes are at your fingertips), then preview and save your creation. This saves you the trouble of adjusting and saving the same image in Photoshop again and again, then converting each one individually to the required .ico file!

[via WebAppers]
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Image from Photoshop Cafe (PlisKen)

From those who brought you the Cereal Box Contest: Photoshop Cafe’s 8th Annual Design Contest is underway, with a truckload of great prizes up for grabs! The grand prize includes Adobe products, as well as a tablet, books, and other great design software. Second and third place also have considerably awesome prizes, and even a bonus prize worth $150, which is nothing to sneeze at for having a bit of fun.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design a video game cover using a tool from Photoshop as the title of the game. Anyone can enter provided you use your own work, and scoring is done by a panel of three judges. If you want to give a shot at this, get your entries in soon! The contest ends at the end of this month at midnight of January 31/08. Good luck!

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Head on after the break to see some early sweet picks from this year’s contest.

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Image from Etsy

Want the world to know how much you love graphic design? Pin on one of these cool buttons! Each measures 1 1/4″ in diameter and was hand-crafted by Etsy user and fellow graphic designer BarrelofMonkeys. They’re on sale for $4 for the lot with only $1.00-$1.50 shipping depending on your location and really, who could pass these up?

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Image from Vector Magic

Vector Magic is an online vectorization tool, which will convert your raster image (jpg, gif, png, bmp, or tiff) into a scalable vector (eps, svg, png). While automatic-tracing programs are not a substitute for hand-traced images, if you need something quick, Vector Magic will spit out something workable in a few easy steps. In fact, they claim that their online program is actually more accurate as a tracing tool in comparison to the other leading commercial programs on the market (namely Adobe and Corel). Their samples are certainly impressive, and for the low low price of FREE can you really say no?

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It’s that time of year again! 2007 is now long gone, having been replaced by the more vicious, cunning character of 2008. When I first started the Minty Ferret back in the summer of good ‘07, I wanted to create a great resource for fellow Photoshop users. It was after the mess that my previous host caused that I realized I would not be able to keep the website updated frequently with the tutorials, freebies, and resources that I wanted to.
I have thus decided, in an effort to keep this blog active, alive, and vibrant, that I will be expanding the Minty Ferret to encompass much more – photoshop news, tutorials, and freebies will of course still be provided. However they might be interspersed with smaller tidbits of news, including those of the non-Adobe type (most likely relating to my other loves, which include many randomly Awesome Things).
So stay tuned! The site may soon go undergo some minor aesthetic changes in response to the wider focus, but the Minty Ferret will still be that furry little blog you all know and love.