Weekly Presets - Graduated Filters

Well everyone, once again I’m deferring my weekly preset duty to some one else. See, Sean McCormack has some graduated filter presets available over at his site. Here’s the deal. He’s selling a package of 70 graduated filter presets for Lightroom 2 (they cost about $7.75 US). But, he’s also got some samples available free [...]

Well everyone, once again I’m deferring my weekly preset duty to some one else. See, Sean McCormack has some graduated filter presets available over at his site. Here’s the deal. He’s selling a package of 70 graduated filter presets for Lightroom 2 (they cost about $7.75 US). But, he’s also got some samples available free for download. Here’s the link to the website where you’ll see some samples of the presets in action as well as instructions on how to download them. Sound good? I’ll be back next week with a cool preset I’ve been working on (hint: it’s something that lots of folks asked for in Lightroom 1 but we just couldn’t do it). Enjoy your day

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Photo Update

Howdy! Feel free to scroll down to the next post to get right to the tip for today. This post is just for folks that would like to see a few photos I’ve taken as of late. If you’ve noticed that I’ve been a little silent this week it’s because I’ve been on a cruise [...]

Howdy! Feel free to scroll down to the next post to get right to the tip for today. This post is just for folks that would like to see a few photos I’ve taken as of late. If you’ve noticed that I’ve been a little silent this week it’s because I’ve been on a cruise in Hawaii teaching Photoshop and Lightroom with Moose Peterson, Laurie Excel and Dave Cross. We’ve had a great time with the class and gotten some fabulous photo opportunities. I thought I’d share a few here:

1) Photo taken during sunset at Lahaina Beach

2) Another sunset photo from Lahaina

3) Sunrise at Wailea Beach

4) Another Sunrise at Wailea Beach

5) This one was taken at a hotel in Maui (the little girl’s father and I started talking photography and the light was just too good).

6) The lava flow on The Big Island from about 1/2 mile off shore on our cruise ship (shot at 3200 ISO - the photo just doesn’t do it justice)
Note: This one is just for fun. I thought it was an amazing site to see and wanted to share it with you. That lava flow doesn’t happen all the time and many folks come here and never get to see it. However, the photo is just too noisy and not sharp enough to print.

Please do me a big favor and leave a comment to let me know which one you like best (if any). I’m going to be doing some printing when I get back and maybe you can help me narrow the list down. Anyway, the cruise is over tomorrow and I’ll be really sad to say goodbye to some great friends that I’ve made during the week. Now I gotta go get some sleep. Getting up at 5:00am for a sunrise shoot. See ya!

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Presets - Matt’s Dramatic Sky presets

Well gang, it’s time for another round of presets. This time around I’m following up Matt’s Deep Blue Sky presets with Matt’s Dramatic Sky presets. Most of the presets I’ve used that dealt with enhancing skies usually just enhanced the color. But I’ve put a few other things in these presets that specialize in making [...]

Well gang, it’s time for another round of presets. This time around I’m following up Matt’s Deep Blue Sky presets with Matt’s Dramatic Sky presets. Most of the presets I’ve used that dealt with enhancing skies usually just enhanced the color. But I’ve put a few other things in these presets that specialize in making the clouds look better too. You can use ‘em in photos with no clouds, but you’ll find they really do some cool stuff where there’s a decent amount of clouds to be found. Or use them in photos with no sky at all. They probably won’t work well but they’re your presets now right?! Oh yeah, when I say clouds, I mean those big white puffy clouds - not an overcast cloudy day OK. Hey… I’m just sayin’

Anyway, let me know how they work and what you think in the comments area. Thanks and have a great Monday!

Click here to see a sample of the presets.
Click here to download Matt’s Dramatic Sky Presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

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35 Beautiful Music Album Covers

35 Beautiful Music Album Covers

Album cover art is often considered to be one of the "extincted" fields in modern graphics design. In times when digital copies are cheaper and quicker to get, album covers have somehow lost their importance as less and less customers actually buy CDs and LPs in the stores. That's a pity because album covers can be extremely expressive and convey the message of the album in a number of creative ways. This post attempts to prove exactly that.

Music and art go hand in hand. And the best way to get a potential buyers' attention is with an eye catching album cover. We all know you can't just judge a book by it's cover but it doesn't hurt to give a CD a spin based off a sexy piece of art.

Do you know the title of the album?

Below we present 35 excellent examples of beautiful, creative and impressive album covers that will certainly inspire you to head down to the local record shop and start browsing through records and labels. We have tried to address various cover designs and present both CD covers and LP covers from 60s to 2000s, however some excellent album covers are definitely missing. Please let us know about them in the comments to the post!

By Ashley Ringrose and Smashing Editorial Team

Album cover art is often considered to be one of the “extincted” fields in modern graphics design. In times when digital copies are cheaper and quicker to get, album covers have somehow lost their importance as less and less customers actually buy CDs and LPs in the stores. That’s a pity because album covers can be extremely expressive and convey the message of the album in a number of creative ways. This post attempts to prove exactly that.

Music and art go hand in hand. And the best way to get a potential buyers’ attention is with an eye catching album cover. We all know you can’t just judge a book by it’s cover but it doesn’t hurt to give a CD a spin based off a sexy piece of art.

Below we present 35 excellent examples of beautiful, creative and impressive album covers that will certainly inspire you to head down to the local record shop and start browsing through records and labels. We have tried to address various cover designs and present both CD covers and LP covers from 60s to 2000s, however some excellent album covers are definitely missing. Please let us know about them in the comments to the post!

This post was updated. Thank you for the comments!

Album Covers

The Mars Volta “Frances the Mute”

Danger Doom - The Mouse and the Mask

Michael Jackson: Dangerous by Mark Ryden

Devil’s Gun - Raising The Beast

Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist by Shepard Fairey

Keane: Under The Iron Sea by Sanna Annukka

Kisschasy: United Paper People by Debaser

Editors: The End Has a Start by Idris Khan

Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue

Ground Components: An Eye for a Brow, A Tooth for a Pick by Jonathan Zawada

Arcade Fire: Funeral

Kool & the Gang - Still Cool

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon 1973

Gallows: In The Belly of a Shark by Dan Mumford

Muse - Origin of Symmetry (thanks, Paul)

Linkin Park - Reanimation

Lemon Jelly: Lost Horizons by Airside

Tool: 10,000 Days

Circa Survive: On Letting Go

The Last Goodnight - Poison Kiss

Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

Thom Yorke: The Eraser by Stanley Donwood

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (thanks, yaara)

Architecture in Helsinki: Places Like This by Will Sweeney

The Chemical Brothers: Push the Button by Tappin Gofton

Rolling Stones - Forty Licks

Rafale: Rock It, Don’t Stop It by Akroe

Dream Theater - Scenes from the memory (thanks, OverZero.it)

Guns N’ Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Relayer: Yes

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies
Designed by one of today’s most influential designers Peter Saville (thanks, Shaun)

Soulwax - Nite Versions

Pixies - Doolittle

Deerhunter - Cryptograms

Hot Chip - The Warning

Muse - Absolution

The Police - Ghost In The Machine

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing…

Wow - Moby Grape

Genji Siraisi: Censorsh!t by Razauno

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

VHS Orbeta - Bring On The Comets

Van Halen - 1984

Fort-Minor - The Rising Tied Front

The Roots - Game Theory

Led Zeppelin - Mothership

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

The Cribs - Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever

Elton John - Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy

XTC - Drums and Wires

Queens Of The Stone Age: Era Vulgaris by Morning Breath Inc

Beck: The Information by Big Active and you
“The album was issued with a blank sleeve and booklet and one of four different sheets of stickers for fans to make their own album art. Beck explained to Wired magazine he wanted no two copies of the CD cover to be the same: “The artwork is going to be customizable. The idea is to provide something that calls for interactivity.” However, because the unique album art concept was seen as a gimmick to bolster retail sales, The Information was deemed ineligible to enter the UK Albums Chart.”

Merzbow - Frog: Remixed and Revisited

Last Click

The World’s First Album Cover
Alex Steinwess, a then 23 years old designer, convinced Columbia’s suits to create the first true album cover. Until then, 78s were sold in generic sleeves. Please notice that there is the word “smash” on the cover.

About the author

Ashley Ringrose is better known as Mr Truffle and editor of Sleevage a music design blog. He occasionally plays with Mr Potatoheads and dresses up in costumes. He is also a founding member of Soap Creative an Australian based digital agency.

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