Photoshop Tutorials | Fire Effect

Title: Fire Effect




1.) Open a new document to the required size. I will be using 500x500 with a white background.



2.) Go to Filter -> Render-> Clouds


3.) Your image should now be similiar to this


4.) Go to Filter -> Render-> Difference clouds

5.) Your image should now be similiar to this

6.) To maximise the effect repeat step 5, keep going untill you are happy with the style. An easy way to do this is to press
crtl/Apple F .

I repeated step 5 about 10 times to produce this


7.) Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Gradient map

8.) Now click on the gradient bar to apply your own personal settings.


9.) Now select a gradient similiar to the desired colours. In this case I chose the circled gradient


10.) Go to the bar at the bottom and modify and add your colours. There is no need to supply colour references here, as this can be altered to make a number of different effects.


When completed play around with the various liquify tools and warp tools to enhance the fires realism.

The fire can now be used as a filter layer for text effects, great for blowing up stuff and creating hell.

Jeff Bezos: After the gold rush, there's innovation ahead

Need reassurance to keep pushing on?. Here is a great video from C.E.O. and founder of Amazon.

Cool Quotes | great sayings | one liners

"what did you say?"

"You heard!"

"Thats what I thought you said"

Get the best deals from Adobe

Adobe have long been known for silly prices, Sadly they provide the best progs to do our work, I found this little gem of a page

Twitter Blog: Twitter Rocks

Twitter Blog: Twitter Rocks

Twittering Away

Do you guys twitter yet?

Its fantastic

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send posts via SMS, instant messaging, email, the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific.

Twitter was set up in March 2006 and should be hear to stay for the long haul

www.twitter.com

Online Marketing Starter Package

For the fastest way to gain more traffic an overall strategic approach is recommended.
As well as Search Engine Marketing and optimisation, We offer a full service in Online Advertising and Press releases in an ongoing package.

We search for Site specific relevant and authoritative online sources suitable for placement advertising to aid you in both extra hits and off Site Optimisation.

As part of this package we also create your Online Advertising Banners and promotional materials to use as a generic advert.

The art of link baiting

This post has some interesting thoughts on link baiting

Read here

Search Engine Optimisation | Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing and Optimisation or S.E.M / S.E.O helps you gain a higher "organic" position in the search engine results page or serps for short.

Being found organically in the serps is what many online business's are striving for because it is so effective to gain new targeted traffic and create an overall online presence.

There are many factors involving S.E.O/S.E.M. including the current algorithm used by the Search Engines to determine the Search Engine Results Page,the QUALITY of your competition as well as, their SPEED TO RESPOND to the shift of the results. Because of this NO ETHICAL SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISER can guarantee you top placement (unless the use of Pay Per Click advertising is used). If you have been offered top placement by any body, be cautious.

There are many unethical techniques known as Black Hatting that can be used for a quick rise and added site importance. Some of these include Keyword Stuffing, Link Farms, Invisible Text, and Doorway pages. If the major search engines assume you or your optimiser are performing Black Hat Techniques your site will be de listed instantly from the Search Engines.

The major part of any good search engine optimisation and marketing campaign is to create back links from other sites to yours. A back link is simply a link from one site to another. Consider a link a vote. The amount of Back Links that you have,and even more importantly, the QUALITY of the back link you have dictates your Page Rank which aids you in a higher positioning.

We value that the ultimate goal for any of our clients should be to reach the top of the search engines with a long term view in mind. We understand how important an online reputation can be for you which is why we make clear our values to all clients before any work commences.

We offer a full service in Search Engine Optimisation. to clients wishing to branch out online more faster and efficiently.

Our services include:
Stage 1 -
Preliminary Key Word and Market Research
On Site Evaluation and Report


After your site has been reviewed for stage 1, and optimised by your web designer or ourselves for your target market relevant to our findings outlined in the report, we will start an on going Search Engine Marketing Campaign which consists of


Stage 2 -
Installation of Analytic Program
Directory Submission - Manual
Back Link Building and Brokerage
Article Submissions
Online Press Releases
Pay Per Click Campaigns
Banner Creation and Brokerage
Ongoing Analysis.


We do offer the implementation of On-Site SEO work to accommodate our recommendations, this will be charged separately from the Package as the quantity and speed of work will vary depending on the many attributes set by your existing web site.

Creative Sites | Leo Burnett

With out a doubt one of my favorite sites online Leo Burnett



The perfect flowing navigation, interactive mini features, creative content and originality work seamlessly together.



Visit it and have a good look around, I was on there for hours when I found it.

Enjoy
Find the pool ball!!

A resource of link bait thought food ;)

Looking for link bait concepts?

Well......every newspaper ever printed is actively promoting some other content or information.

Stay clear of the news, thats the obvious, but there will be hundreds of past head lines that could act as perfect page titles - worth looking in to. After all editors have been in the game far longer then web marketers, just because its a different medium it does not mean we cant learn from it.

Look for creative avenues to maximize the potentials
Look for similarities in regular occurring news posts
Target local press for local phrases and sayings for direct marketing


There are billions of ways you can develop interesting strategies from this alone.

If that alone dosn't stimulate you to research the figures then you shouldn't be reading this blog.

Link Baits of Comical Note

A decade-old toasted cheese sandwich said to bear an image of the Virgin Mary has sold on the eBay auction website for $28,000.

Brought by Golden Palace Casino, the auction itself closed the sale had received over 1.7 million hits on the auction site. Although it was in the year 2004 it still is a comical example of link bait


See post here

Link Baiting | Interesting post Matt Cutts

This is an interesting blog post from Matt Cutts regarding link baiting.

Quite an interesting comment by Dave posted on January 24, 2006 @ 5:12 pm.

He refers to link bait as simple content.

This makes me ask myself.......

What is the difference of good content and link bait?

or

is it the same?

I personally consider link bait /in our field of creativity, to be a custom designed creative concept to actively encourage linking as opposed to - good content that you hope people will link to.

I guess an OBVIOUS example would be a site like meebis people visit the site to decorate their myspace page with images and styles. When a visitor visits meebis they have to COPY THE HTML CODE and paste into their profile page to display the image. The image code can also contain a back link and a button to take guests to the users profile page back to meebis to start over.

Viral link bait!


What do you guys think?

Link Baiting

Random Thoughts | Daily Post

Its the first official Random Thought Post. A perfect place to share some useless but thought promoting material that has crossed my tiny mind today.

Yesterday I registered the domain name www.linkbaitjunkies.com

A great name I think, although not perfect for seo, its catchy and explains perfectly the area of internet marketing I am interested in.

With starting this blog as our main "creative thought" place, I have been considering ideas to develop for the domain name.

The obvious ones would be forums or chat rooms, where other similar people can join to discuss all matters relating
In true link bait junkie style, ANOTHER FORUM wont cut the mustard in this case, so......

I am thinking of any other suitable ideas for the domain name.

Top ones so far would be a

Myspace style script promoting creativity and media rich content as opposed to music and to act as a place for meeting and sharing from other creative s.

A social book marking site to book mark the very best flash, image banners, cool java de dum de dum

A Top 100 style script trying to find THE SINGLE MOST POPULAR CURRENT VIRAL MARKETING STRAT AROUND


A Search Engine Marketing Recruitment Site

looking for ideas

Creating Realism

Creating banners, link bait or any media rich content is a fun and challenging task. Adobe and other applications are making it easier and easier to add that touch of class to your files.

You are only limited by your imagination and own creativity. Adding realism, interaction and other ways of increasing your chances of a click through is all about creativity.


One of my favorite concepts in creating online materials is giving items a touch of realism.

A very simple to apply but very effective effect is simply achieved by adding slight movement in an image.

The movement can be interactive or self standing, the point is creating a touch of realism itself. It doesn't really matter how you do it, just do it.

Just by adding a simple concept like making animated water in the below picture makes it visual more interesting and also creates a sense of awe to the viewer.

There are many possible ways that can increase the sense of realism.

Break the image in to obvious sections in photo shop. Separate the clouds, trees, water, cars, or any imagery that usually has some movement and exploit. Importing in to flash and playing around the layers can instantly increase the images appeal.


Over powering an image will detract from the point. I find that subtly works better. If its slight and un apparent at first glance, then usually the viewer wont grow a distaste for it. Keeping it simple and aun obtrusive will increase its shelf life.

Your images should be more unique and original. perfect link bait material. The web should be a showcase for your own work, so challenge it....


In this case I have added a simple water effect to make the water look like its moving.



"Roll your mouse over the pool near the steps!!"

Click here for Full sized image example


If we look at the image , we notice certain discrepancies that need to be considered.

The water under the bridge for example has the same attributes applied to the overall body of water.
Along the pools edge some of the ripple effect spills over and creates the illusion that the actual concrete is rippling like water.

The rain effect act at the WRONG angle for the image.

All of these are issues that I have left in purposely to demonstrate how an image can appear wrong if small imperfections are left.


"Roll your mouse over the pool near the steps!!"

Click here for Full sized image example

As opposed to animating the clouds, I have opted for a blue sky (all be it a badly done one to save on both file size and time for the example of this presentation.

Video Find

Why do we love this video so much?
Its funny
Its viral
Its original
Its Web.2
Its Creative
It uses a combination of creative packages to put together
It has encouraged many other similar videos
It is thought promoting
It has had 11380 comments posted so ITS RELEVENT
it has over 12976 ratings
and it is Favorited: 13743 times

Learn from it!!

Core Values

Our main core value lies in that we are following closely on what google WANT as opposed to following carefully little loop holes in their algorithm to try and gain the top spot unethically.

We relish in the fact that Google's long term plan that creative content will indirectly play a big part in where a sites positioning is on the search pages.


With more and more aggressive Web.2 marketing strategies being pounded and link buying becoming more obsolete, a good onsite optimisation package followed by ongoing off site and marketing strategies will be ever more needed.

Matt Cutts says it best in this video here,

What is S.E.M | According to Wikipedia

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet Marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs) and has a proven ROI (Return on Investment). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include: Search Engine Optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings, different from SEO which seeks to obtain better free search listings.

wikipedia | Search engine marketing

What is S.E.O | Accoring to Wikipedia

Search engine Marketing | Wikipedia

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as "Black hat" SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove their listings.

The initialism "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers", a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Interview with Matt Cutts | Explaining Creativity in Optimisation

PubCon: Exclusive Interview With Matt Cutts

Matt reiterates the importance of creativity in search engine optimisation and points out some usefull infomation on white hat and black hat techniques.

Matt Cutts works for the quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. Matt is a renowned blogger and is at the fore front of the industry..

Internet Marketing - Search Engine Optimization - Google

Good video if you are new to S.E.O and S.E.M. After a small plug of the advertisers company, there is some sound info on what Search Engine Optimisation is, how it works and some basic tutorials. Perfect for starting out

Josh Spear and the Digital Youth

Content and Functionality

Why Online Marketing?

Advertising and promotional materials online is so much more fun, CREATIVE, efficient and beneficial then off line marketing.

Advantages of online marketing set out by Wiki

Media Rich
Online marketing allows for media rich content. Before multi media advertising was only accessible to big business's with bigger budgets. With the birth of the Internet and in particular faster connection speeds, anybody can create eye catching, mouse clicking materials that are media rich to encourage a surge of traffic. Flash banners, movies, animated pictures and interactive banners are helping people all over the web create traffic.

Analysis
When webmasters track the traffic, online marketing really gets interesting. Being able to tell how many visits you have receive from each individual banner campaign combined with evaluating the quality of the traffic source makes online marketing way more cost effective then traditional marketing strategies.

Going Global
World Wide access - as simple as it sounds!!

Flexibility
With no print deadlines or anything set in stone, a properly set up marketing campaign should easily be able to accommodate change in the process. After all what use is analysing your sites traffic sources, if you cant make effective change to facilitate it.

Wedding Favors | Favours

Wedding Favors

With my wedding approaching I have been looking in to the ins and outs of all the little things I may have over looked.

Wedding favors are by far one of the last things I have thought about but one of the most important things to get so I have been told.

Scouring on and off line, the yellow pages, local shops and considering making my own I have managed to find a perfect supply of wedding favors possible. Party Supply Shop and Wedding Favors

Wedding favors are small gifts given to guests from the bride and groom during a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception.

Originally a wedding favor was called a bonbonniere which was a small box made of crystal, porcelain, and/or precious stones. The contents of these precious boxes were generally candy or sweets like in a Pinata, which symbolize wealth and royalty due to the high cost of sugar at that time.

Wedding favors have become a part of wedding reception planning, especially in the England. Wedding favors can range from the classic sugared almonds to small metal based items. Some gifts may be personalised with the couple's names, dates and personal offerings.