Have you ever tried taking a color photograph and converting it to black and white? A lot of programs do this for you automatically, but they simply desaturate (take away all the color data) and leave a limp grayscale image with no contrast. The leading quality of black and white photography is contrast. In order to take your photo from good to great, you need to add contrast and possibly some synthetic grain to your image. I’ve created a quick tutorial to show you how to easily make your photo go from Ooooo to Ahhhhh.

If you don’t have Photoshop, try downloading GIMP which is a free alternative to Photoshop.

From time-to-time we highlight the creative Christian talent on Mister Nifty and today I want to introduce my friend Wendell Fernandes.  Wendell loves God first and foremost and has devoted his life to following Christ. He uses his talent to bless the Kingdom of God. Wendell is a prolific dreamer and an accomplished illustrator, UI and web designer. He has worked for Monster.com, Dell, and many other large corporations. His work has been featured in the prestigious Smashing Magazine and the very popular Colorburned.com, and most notably his custom icons are part of the core of Dell’s latest smart phone, Aero.

Today, I’m excited to help him announce the launch of a huge project, Printed Piece. Here is a little bit about Printed Piece from the Wendell himself:

Have you been frustrated in your search for high quality print designers and providers? What if there was a place online where you could search for inspirational material for your next printed project and then find a designer and printer to do the work? This is the idea behind Printed Piece.

Printed Piece is a website where you can find print design inspiration from everything from corporate identity, collateral, apparel, posters, banners, logos, brochures, postcards, mugs, mouse pads, and much, much more! Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, Printed Piece goes one step further and helps you locate a designer or a printer in your area to help you get the project done.

Printed Piece is an all-in-one, flavored, creative-driven community. It allows you to set up a profile, send messages, apply for jobs, and even rate and review companies and designers.

If you’re looking for a print designer, this is the place to find one. If you are a print designer, surf on over and open a free account to post some of your work or just browse for some inspiration.

Here are a few screenshots of Printed Piece.

If you would like to hire Wendell for your next project visit him at Dellustrations.com

Visit Printed Piece

If you haven’t read Dear Church Designer – Part 1 – you should probably read it (along with all the comments) before you read part 2.

This is a tongue-in-cheek piece, so my point is not to offend anyone, I’m just having a little observation fun here.

Photoshop by hook, crook, or legit means is in the hands of most church designers. The one thing that hastens to me to write this post is the onslaught and might I say slaughter of the layer effects palette. I’m not against using the native effects in Photoshop. In fact, I find them very valuable to create really nice looking designs. The key is moderation and most of the time, sparsity.

If you’ve ever done anything remotely similar to the following -> You’re an Effects Abuser.

Bevel is one of the most overused effects in the history of Photoshop. The use of bevel should be used sparingly and with caution. A slight, soft bevel can be good for your design. Too much bevel and you’ve bloated your text to typographical obesity.

WHOA THERE MR. GRADIENT. You’re hurting my eyes! If you’re going to use gradients, please take a look at color theory before mixing two colors together. There is a science behind color that reflects in human behavior. When two adjacent colors are mixed in a gradient, it’s not so good to the eyes or the attitude. I’m a big fan of gradients, when used with care. Gradients can make your designs go from good to great, but they must be ever so unobtrusive that the audience doesn’t even notice them.

Our earth is filled with gradients, but they are not harsh. The sky is a beautifully simple gradient that reflects many shades of blue. We’re used to subtle gradients in nature, and we can please the eye of the audience by using subtle gradients in design. (more…)

If you’re a web designer you know how troubling it is to embed fonts into your site without creating images or using a service like siFR or cufon or the paid service, Typekit. There are only a few select universal fonts that everyone has on their computer such as – Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet, Georgia, Times New Roman, Tahoma, and several others. While some of these may work great for copy text, they aren’t the best for creative heading texts.

Last week Google announced the inception of Google Font Directory. At first I was skeptical because there are so many solutions out there. So, I tried it out today. With one line of code and one CSS attribute, I had a beautiful, selectable font embedded in my website. There are quite a few fonts to choose from, and I imagine this will be a great platform for font designers to get noticed in the community. Expect a large library of fonts in the future. See the library here.

The silky smooth process goes like this:

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I love you, but I can’t let you use these fonts any more. This is an intervention.

Scriptina was sooooooooo 2008. It was cool for the very first project you used it on, but it’s not cool now. Also, every nail salon in America has contemplated using it for their logo.

If you don’t think Papyrus is outdated and overused, please look up the meaning of Papyrus at Wikipedia.

Ministry Font Spotlight

OK, now I’m being serious. Please forgive me if I’ve offended you. It wasn’t my purpose, but the fact that you’re reading this far down means I piqued your interest.

You don’t have to use default fonts for everything. There are a ton of great quality fonts that are free to download. Take some time to learn to install them and use them in their appropriate place.  If you are a church designer and don’t know about fonts and typography, go to Lynda.com and take their typography course, or go to Barnes and Nobles and read up on the subject.

If you don’t know the following terms, you might need to take a typography course:

• Serif
• Sans-serif
• Oblique
• Monospaced
• Kerning
• Leading
• Tracking
• Baseline

Here are some advanced structural type terms to get your feet wet:

• Counter
• Bowl
• Ligature
• Ascender
• Terminal
• Spine
• Descender
• Stem

Here are a couple Mister Nifty links to help find free alternative fonts:

• 35 Fresh Free Fonts
• Font Squirrel
• DaFont

The Scripture declares:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: … a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; Ecclesiastes 2:1-2

Creativity is seasonal. The very foundation of creativity is the expectation of a harvest:

1. We plant seeds of idea and concept.
2. We nurture with faithful attention to detail.
3. We weed and prune with constructive feedback.
4. We harvest with implementation and presentation.

Genesis 1 shows us the first example of a creative season. Our Creator spoke words and concepts into the dark abyss, and in six days we see the culmination of the greatest creative work ever in the history of the universe. Then came day number seven.

(Silence)

God rested. God had a season of creative dormancy. This was for our example.

Creative Dormancy

A deprivation of dormancy can render our creative field deficient and deplete.  Dormancy is not laziness, it is restoration. The curse of a creative is the compulsion to create constantly. We all need a seventh day. There are no eternal batteries.

Sometimes you just need some time – sometimes five minutes – sometimes a day – sometimes a week. Sometimes you need to walk in the fresh air. Sometimes you need to read and learn. Sometimes you need to pray. Sometimes you need to sleep.  Sometimes you need to be yourself. Sometimes you need a hobby. Sometimes you need to laugh. Sometimes you need the Creative to create something in you.

The most fruitful times come after we rest. Let us never forget the most important season of creative dormancy.