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This article is a guest post written by Dirk Jesse, the developer of YAML (Yet Another Multicolumn Layout), an (X)HTML&CSS framework which explains his motivation for YAML in the last paragraph of the article. This article is supposed to initiate the discussion about the need for more flexible layouts in modern web design and explain why flexible designs are still important — even despite the Full Page Zoom-functionality implemented in most modern browsers.

The new generation of web browsers — Firefox 3, Opera 9.5 and Internet Explorer 7 — provides a feature which seems to save a lot of work for web-developers in the future, namely the Full Page Zoom. Instead of allowing users to increase and decrease the font size on a given web-site, browsers now enable users to literally scale the rendered layout including visuals and background images. The whole design layout is scaled proportionally according to some adjusted zoom-factor, with all the elements of a page’s layout expanding equally. Consequently, every fixed, pixel-based layout becomes “scalable”; the content area always remains within the layout box it is supposed to be in and there is no chance of producing overlapping boxes as we’ve seen in the previous generations of web-browsers.

However, is the new zoom-technique indeed so advanced that we don’t need flexible layouts any longer? Just as this question is extensively discussed in the blogosphere, it is extensively answered with “yes”. And there is a good reason behind it. The coding of a fixed layout is much easier and, when used properly, produces exactly the results a designer is willing to achieve. With fixed layouts, designers can ensure the exact positioning of each pixel (a dream of many graphics designers comes true!) and the user can adjust the size of the layout with a scaling zoom on demand. No wonder that it’s tempting to motivate the switch to fixed layouts. However, as professionals, we need to consider how reasonable it is from the professional point of view.

In the following let’s discuss why we strongly believe that this paradigm won’t lead web design to more user-friendly and accessible web-sites, why flexible layouts still remain important today and why they will become even more important in the future.

Where Full Page Zoom doesn’t help at all

The main difference between fixed (px-based) and flexible (%-based) layouts is the simple fact that flexible layouts can better adapt to user’s viewing preferences. With flexible solutions, the width of the layout depends on the viewport of the browser and can perfectly fill the viewing space without any manual adjustments from the user’s side. Fixed layouts can’t do that. Full page zoom, when applied to fixed layouts, enables users to manually adjust the design after it has already been rendered.

Another important aspect which is worth keeping in mind: Internet Explorer 6, probably the nightmare of every web-developer out there, has a market share of almost 40% — and it doesn’t support zoom at all.

According to w3schools.com, the larger and wider screen resolutions (larger than 1024×768px) will become a standard in the future.

More problematic is the overwhelming confidence of developers that the individual decision-making is better for users from the accessibility point of view. When applied to fixed layouts the web-developer delivers a clear message:

Dear users, your browser can zoom my fixed layout - so please help yourself if you want or need to!

From designer’s perspective with this argument it is tempting to switch to a more comfortable (fixed) design solution at expense of accessibility. Why should a user adapt his viewing preferences to a web-site? Shouldn’t a web-site rather adapt itself to the viewing preferences of its users? If you think about it for a second, you have the same situation as in a cloth store where you are offered cloth only in some very specific size. If the size doesn’t fit to you, it’s your problem, not store’s owner. And if you want to you can take a needle, some fabric and create the cloth of its own choice for free. That is not user-friendly.

Even more crucial is the simple fact that full page zoom isn’t really feasible in practice. Let’s assume that the designers has a fixed layouts with the width of 960px. To zoom it using a 150% scale factor and still browse the page without horizontal scroll bar, users need to have at least the screen resolution of 1440px and a browser opened in the full-screen-mode. Is it really a path for the Web to take in the years to come? As Nancib states, “problem is that sometimes the font on a page is friggin’ tiny without zooming it in, but zooming the page (with the images) doesn’t just make it more readable.”

Web developers often tend to argue that flexible layouts are too complex and with full page zoom every fixed layout is becoming scalable anyway. That’s right, scalable, but not flexible. Why should a browser correct the mistakes a developer or designer has done when creating a site layout?

Flexible layouts are hard to control? That’s not true!

Whenever designers argue against flexible layouts they tend to use the following argument:

In flexible layouts the text flows in the width when expanding the browser window, making the content hard to read. This text flow is hard to control.

Wide text flow is definitely not a nice thing to offer your visitors. However, text flow doesn’t need to flow in the width when the browser window is expanded. To achieve attractive flexible designs one can use the properties min-width and max-width. Of course, Internet Explorer 6 doesn’t support both of them — just as it implements both hasLayout-model and the Float-model incorrectly. However, this is not the reason to not use floats for your design layouts, right?

To simulate max-width and min-width you can use various workarounds (JS Expressions); and to simulate min-width you can even use a pure CSS-solution. But what happens if the user’s browser doesn’t support JavaScript? Well, in this case a flexible Layout without max-width doesn’t necessarily destroy the layout, although the text flow may be too wide. But this is what the Progressive Enhancement is all about, so this is not that problematic.

How to find an ideal width for a flexible layout?

Let’s consider how wide the layout should be for an optimal flexible layout:

• Layout width: use width:auto or any %-value to make sure that the layout makes use of the available width of the browser windows automatically.
• Minimal width: use some px-value (e.g. 760px). This lower bound should be used for all pixel-based layouts, so the content remains readable when displayed in the minimal screen resolution.
• Maximal width: use an em-value (e.g. 90em). Thus the text flow doesn’t grow in width in an uncontrollable fashion, but remains constant for various screen resolutions. Side effect: the maximal width is scaled according to the font-size of the browser.

Also keep in mind that we, designers, don’t really have the design layout (whether fixed or flexible) under control as the presentation of our layouts depends on the browser, font size adjustments, operating system, alternative user-stylesheets etc.

The Holy Photoshop Mockup

The most frequent argument used to motivate the fixed layout solution is the fact that customers are confident that a perfect Photoshop mockup would look best when displayed 1:1 in user’s browser. Indeed, it is hard to explain to the customers that flexible solution, although looking differently in different context, has some advantages. After all, if the design doesn’t look as expected on senior project manager’s wide screen laptop, then this is not something the customer would agree on.

However, following customer’s decisions blindly you neglect your professional responsibility to develop accessible, user-friendly web-sites. It’s your duty to complement your customer’s wishes, compromise and seek for the best possible solution for users and not for the senior manager. A quick argument that a user-friendly solution which doesn’t look best at some specific configuration would bring more satisfied customers and consequently more money in a long run usually suffices.

Vivabit.com: transparency, patterns and background images can lead to impressive and flexible results.

The end-result layout isn’t supposed to be used as a nice screenshot for one single portfolio. It has to serve users’ needs and enable them to get to the content of the site as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Take your time and go through some of the layouts presented in numerous CSS-showcases. In way too many cases the attractive pixel-based design breaks down completely when the browser window is resized or the content is scaled. A Photoshop Mockup isn’t necessarily easy to convert into a flexible design layout, however it is definitely worth consideration. Transparency, patterns and background images can lead to impressive and flexible results.

In most cases we design web-sites not to present some design, but to let the design help users to achieve some objectives such as finding the information they are looking for. Graphics-heavy flexible layouts are not easy to achieve and require planning, patience and confidence that the results are worth it. However, these efforts improve user experience and make the design medium-independent.

Mobile Browsers – Why flexible is better

Mobile Web layouts as well as its small and big problems are a topic which is worth a single discussion. Just one year ago my old mobile phone could access the Internet, however it was extremely hard to browse web-pages, read them and navigate. With the improved user interface of iPhone it has completely changed. Mobile web-browsers (e.g. Opera Mini or Safari on the iPhone) have dramatically improved over the last two years — at the moment it is almost natural that they render web-pages without any considerable display errors.

My iPhone has no problem displaying flexible layouts in the landscape format or portrait format; in fact it automatically adjusts them to the best format which fills the whole iPhone window. At the same time I often experience problems when loading fixed layouts — from time to time they need to be zoomed in to fill in the whole browser window.

What holds for mobile devices holds also for printing devices. Ironically, nobody really argues about the advantages that flexible layouts for print layouts manage to deliver. Flexible design allows to use portrait / landscape - formats for optimal printing.

The decision for flexible layouts against fixed layouts doesn’t only improve the accessibility on Desktop-PCs, but also creates robust and flexible medium-independent layouts which can be easily adapted to any output devices. After all, with flexible rules (relative measure units, minimal margin and padding, alignment etc.) instead of fixed rules (px) rendering engines can better consider the properties of the used media.

The future, the unexplored land

As mentioned above, the mobile Web is becoming more and more important. Are we now going to optimize layouts for 640×480 or 800×600? The screen resolutions are increasing, the prices for high-resolution displays are decreasing. At the same time the physical resolution of devices as well as the spatial printing resolution (dpi). Consequently, the absolute size of one pixel decreases. No wonder that pixel-based definitions are becoming less expressive.

The gap between low-resolution displays and high-resolution displays hasn’t bridged over the last 10 years. On the contrary: the gap has increased dramatically. Web-sites are viewed in hundreds of possible screen resolutions while each user may have his own preference for the viewport of his browser. This consideration alone explains how important flexible design layouts are today and how important they will be in the future. Consequently, fixed layouts won’t make the cut in the future as designers will need to consider more and more different devices to optimize the design for. What we need in web design to come to grips with all this variety are dominating relative measurement units.

Flexible Layouts with YAML

YAML (”Yet Another Multicolumn Layout”) is an (X)HTML/CSS-framework which was developed especially to meet the requirements of flexible and user-friendly design layouts. Since June 2007 YAML is available in English and provide an extensive documentation. Most CSS-Frameworks like Blueprint CSS or YUI Grids offer designers a predefined system of CSS-classes to create grid-based layouts visually. To create a layout designer needs to create a HTML-structure of the site and to assign CSS-classes to containers. The rest is automatically taken care of.

YAML takes a different route. The Framework supports the development of grid-based layouts as well as the development of the grid system - with the emphasis on flexible layouts. If a designer wants to create a grid-based layout he can use the basic skeleton with three columns, header and footer. Each element can be removed or adjusted to user’s needs. The actual design, the positioning of the columns, is done using CSS-definitions (and not HTML-structure as it is done in other CSS-frameworks). The benefit for designers: with YAML one has better options for defining his own system of classes, using any measurement units and getting clean code.

Based on the HTML-structure of YAML, the framework includes layout presets which already prevent IE-bugs; thus the framework makes it easier for designers to create a layout which works in both modern and older browsers. Layout examples provide an overview of what is possible with YAML and may deliver some ideas for your future layouts. Apart from that, YAML offers a set of flexible grid-components which you can use to create columns within columns and thus design a more complex but flexible Grid-layouts.

YAML Example: a demonstration of YAML’s flexible grids.

Consider the example above. BluePrint CSS has a demo-page which displays a layout created with Blueprint CSS. And this is the result of the very same template created using the flexible grid-elements of YAML. The scaling works even in IE 5.5, including min-width and max-width.

Apart from layout design, YAML also delivers style sheets for print layouts, as well as components for horizontal and vertical navigation. YAML definitely requires some time to climb the learning curve: the tool offers a variety of functions and user-friendly flexible layouts are definitely not easy to build.

The concept of YAML is, however, well documented in the online- and PDF-documentation and my provide beginners and professional with a good introduction to the framework. For practical purposes you can also use YAML-Builder, a handy tool for visual development of YAML-based CSS layouts which allows you to put the containers of the layout visually together via drag-n-drop. The valid HTML- and CSS-code is generated automatically on the fly.

Labels: Ecommerce Web Design, effects, Smoke tutorial, tutorials, Web Site Design Development, web site design services

In this tutorial, I will show you one of the ways I make smoke in Photoshop.




Step 1. Create a document with a black background. On a new layer, draw something similar to what you see here using a soft edged brush. Make sure at all times throughout this tutorial, that the smoke layers are not merged with the black background layer.


Step 2. Duplicate the layer and Gaussian blur it. I used a setting of 23. Then merge the two layers.


Step 3. Duplicate the newly merged layer. alt/click the layer to select it, then go to select/ modify/ contract. I choose 10 pixels. Then invert the selection, and delete. It should now leave a thinner version of what you had on the other layer. Then lower the opacity of the layer behind it.


Step 4. Merge layers. Then duplicate the layer again, and resize it, and move it to somewhere else in the smoke. I moved mine to the top and center, and then flipped it.



Step 5. I then used the liquify filter on both layers, slightly tweaking both layers to give it more of a smoke effect. Now merge the layer.




Step 6. Now duplicate the freshly merged layers once again. I then went to filters/distort/wave. Use the default settings. Then lower the opacity of the filtered layer. Merge both layers.


Step 7. Now duplicate the layer and go to control T, and make the smoke thinner and taller. Merge the layers.


Step 8. I ran it through filter/liquify again. I tweaked it a little more to give it more of a smoky feel.

Step 9. Create a new layer and set it to overly. With whatever color you would like, start to give the smoke some color. I used a reddish color.


Step 10. I repeated step 9, and added some blue to the smoke.



And there you have it. Smoke in Photoshop.

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Lighting effects in Adobe Photoshop are used to add flare and polish to images. They communicate feelings of creativity, technology, magic, and fantasy. Creating beams, glows, motion trails, rainbows, or an assortment of other lighting effects, give your images ambiance and depth.

Now it’s time for a sparkling dose of related Photoshop learning material. This article provides a resource of Adobe Photoshop Light Effects tutorials. These tutorials offer an assortment of techniques for making your work creatively glow.

Please consider them as an extension of our ultimate Adobe Photoshop series:

• Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Best Of philwebsupport features some of the best Adobe Photoshop tutorials out there,
• Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials - Best Of philwebsupport showcases 80 excellent Adobe Photoshop video tutorials which you can use as a starting point to improve your skills or observe how professionals do their job.

Photoshop Light Effects Tutorials

• Lines Tutorial
  A super simple tutorial that makes rainbow colored lines. It shows you how to give them an appearance of brightness and depth.

  

• Expressive lighting effects
  This tutorial combines both vector and raster based techniques to achieve a glowing floral design. The glows are applied in Photoshop.

  

• Vector Polishing Techniques
  This tutorial covers numerous ways to transform your vector illustrations into masterpieces by using Photoshop lighting techniques, glows, and filters.

  

• How to Make the “Flare” Effect As Seen On WPCustomization.com
  In this tutorial, the Lens Flare filter is used on the background. Then the lighting is created with brushes and different blending modes.

  

• Sparkling Hot Girl in Photoshop
  Utilize an assortment of techniques to achieve a sparkling design. Masks, blurs, brushes, layers styles and other effects are used in this tutorial.

  

• Amazing Photoshop light effect in 10 Steps
  “If you know a bit of Layer Styles and the Brush engine in Photoshop you will be able to create amazing effects. It will depend exclusively on your imagination and playing with the tool. Sometimes just changing some settings and you get a totally different effect.” This tutorial applies lighting effects to a coffee cup icon.

  

• Creating A Fantastic Fantasy Night Sky In Photoshop
  Create cartoon style clouds with rainbows, stars, and glowing effects. Based on a Nik Ainley design.

  

• Neon lights with Photoshop
  Tutorial on how to make glowing lights effects out of vector shapes and brushes.

  

• Electrifying Energy Beams
  In this tutorial you start with the pen tool by drawing a line. Then you transform that line into an energy beam with layer effects. This makes it glow white and purple around a microphone.

  

• Add Another Dimension
  Use glows and blending modes to “add another dimension” to your Photoshop artwork

  

• Magic lighting effect in Photoshop
  Learn to magically make text wave and glow out of a magician’s hat.

  

• Extreme sports branding
  This tutorial first covers creating a logo then it gets into the main snowboard illustration. Vector shapes are applied with layer effects and brushes to make the illustration stand out. This is part one in a series.

  

• How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop
  This tutorial shows you how to create light streaks that appear to flow around an object.

  

• Chroma Wallpapers
  This tutorial explains how to create an energetic design with lines. Utilize blurs, warps, and other effects. Add glowing and vibrating colors to give this image a dynamic feeling.

  

• Advanced Glow Effects
  This tutorial teaches how to create glow effects using layer styles, the pen tool, and some color blending effects.

  

• Lighting Effects - Beam Wave
  Learn to transform a one pixel lines into a glowing beam. Then add radial balls of light to emulate a pulse explosion.

  

• Add A Sparkle Trail To A Photo
  Learn how to add a sparkling trail of stars to your photos using brushes, layer styles, and effects.

  

• Creating light motion trails & glowing sparks
  This tutorial covers creating light motion trails by using the pen tool with layer styles. It also covers creating sparkling stars in Illustrator and then importing them into the Photoshop design.

  

• Blue Glow Layout
  This tutorial reviews the process for creating a simple layout in Photoshop, while revealing techniques for creating an abstract glowing centerpiece design.

  

• Fantasy Art Photoshop tutorial
  Learn to create a fantasy image with glowing halos of lights and stars. Notice how you can apply glow directly to a cropped image. The tutorial creates the halos with the Elliptical Marquee tool. It applies a stroke and then a glow to the selection, on its own layer.

  

• Photoshop: Light Beam
  This tutorial reviews the basic process of creating a light beam in Photoshop; however, it does refer to other tutorials for some effects. The techniques in this tutorial involve using different brushes to paint the light, and then they are smeared with the Smudge Tool. There are a few filters used as well.

  

• Even fairies have to rest - glow and lightning tutorial
  First, the photograph is treated to make it a little darker so that the points of light in the design will stand out. Both a linear wrapping beam and points of radiating light are covered in this tutorial.

  

• Beautiful lighting FX effect in Photoshop
  This tutorial will show you how to make a beautiful lighting effect with the scatter brush. This tutorial covers the basics.

  

• High-Tech Swirling Aurora
  This tutorial covers how to apply the Wind Filter to a waving light beam to create an aurora effect.

  

• Slow shutter text effect - Photoshop
  Layers of blurred elements are used in this tutorial. This blurring technique is worked into glowing linear text and circle shapes.

  

• Seriously Cool Photoshop Explosion Effect
  Use layer masks and light effects to creatively break apart an image. Points of bright lights, swirly brushes, and warped lines help bring this design together.

  

Which techniques can be applied?

At the compositional level, these effects are often applied through shapes. So, you might start with the pen tool by drawing a curvy line. Or, grab a brush and draw some scattered stars. Or, open up Illustrator first to compose design elements that you then pull back into Photoshop. The tutorial Expressive lighting effects demonstrates how to use interesting design shapes first and then apply glowing effects to them.

Once you know how you’d like to use shapes, you can apply effects to them. Layer styles and Blending Modes are common effects used to create this look. With Layer Styles, you might apply Glow. Or, with Blending Modes, you might set the layer to Lighten, Overlay, or Color Dodge – get the element you’re working with to sparkle and shine.

In the tutorial Chroma Wallpapers, lines are bent with the Warp Transform tool before being given a glow treatment.

There are more techniques often used; such as different types of blurs and gradients. You could play with Photoshop’s built in lighting effects, like Lens Flare, as well. Or get creative. Mix in rainbows. Paint glowing bursts of light. Manipulate the lines and shapes your working with.

In the tutorial Chroma Wallpapers lines are bent with the Warp Transform tool before being given a glow treatment. This puts a new spin on the use of glowing light techniques.

Where can I get some inspiration?

Consider raising it to the next level, after you’ve mastered the basics of lighting and glow techniques. To raise the quality of your glowing work you’ll need inspiration and imagination.

Look at artists, such as Chuck Anderson, that have mastered these techniques. Try to figure out what they have done – beyond the basics.

Chuck Anderson’s work impresses with the beauty of its lightning effects.

Also, look at photographic effects; for philwebsupport , look at how light appears to blur and travel in long exposure photography. See the Flickr Group Light Stream for samples of this kind of photography.

Keep your eyes and mind open. You’ll start to see these effects in the real world. Or look to fantasy art; the sparkling feel of these effects can be used to supersede reality, magically transforming your designs.

Labels: effects, graphics, light, photoshop, tutorials