I don't know about you but I often look at artworks and/or designs and wonder how on earth that particular effect was achieved. And knowing how eager I am to find out which software or resources various artists use to create certain artworks and designs, I thought that today I would use this blog post to briefly mention one of my favourite pieces of photo editing software and one of my extra favourite design resources.

I'll start with my extra favourite design resource, which is Design Cuts who offer discounted design bundles for creative professionals. They are also on Facebook. I know I have mentioned them before but this is for any newcomers to my blog. Two great things about their deals are that 1) their discounts are around the 90% mark, so for example their current deal, mentioned below, is $320 worth of resources going for $29, and 2) they generally come with an extended license which means that, yes, you can absolutely use them to create designs that you sell such as greeting cards, prints, t-shirts, mugs etc.  

Obviously whenever you purchase a design resource it is important to check the terms of use (TOU) carefully, and I find that if TOU's are too complicated it becomes very time consuming, when working on designs, having to sift through purchased resources and work out which ones can be used for what.  Hence, I find Design Cuts TOU's so easy.

Here is an example of a work I created using resources purchased via Design Cuts Keep Calm and Put the Kettle On

All the fonts and nearly all the decorative elements in this design came from Design Cuts. I drew the birds myself in Adobe Illustrator and not being overly familiar with Illustrator, they took me absolutely ages to do! 

Funnily enough, the current design bundle being offered via Design Cuts The Giant Vector Elements Bundle actually includes some vector birds, if only I'd had that before! The birds are only a tiny part of the bundle, there are also some seamless patterns, curly patterns, colourful patterns, vector elements such as party, loving, curls, banners, badges, swirls, flowers, foliage ... and lots more.  I suppose the bad thing about the Design Cuts discounted design bundles is that I find them virtually impossible to resist! lol  I just LOVE having plenty of design elements in my armory, then when an idea comes to me, I'm likely to have everything I need to create the design.  

Moving on now to one of my favourite pieces of photo editing software, the Google Nik Collection. Like many people who are into photography I do of course mostly use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. So, whilst I use the former for all my photographic artworks, I do also regularly use this piece of software as well, as it gives me scope to create a plethora of additional and exciting effects.  I find it easy and intuitive to use and there are lots of options to adjust the preset effects to achieve exactly the look you are after.  It's not the cheapest piece of software but for the amount of creative possibilites it offers, I do tend to feel it's good value for money at $149.

At present the various elements within this software are:

Analog Efex Pro - for retro, vintage, classic camera effects. Color Efex Pro - for color corrections and creative effects. Silver Efex Pro - for some great black and white effects. Viveza - for selective adjustments to color and tonality. HDR Efex Pro - for HDR effects. Dfine - for noise reduction. Sharpener Pro - for sharpening.

I tend to use Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Anolog Efex Pro mostly, but obviously each to their own with regards to which parts of the software are most suited to their particular workflow.

Here is a recent work of mine, Summer Time Flowers Peaceful Moments, where I used Analog Efex Pro to create both the double exposure and three sections effects of the image which are really fun to experiment with. I opted for no borders then added my own dividing lines in Photoshop afterwards. 

Again, many thanks for dropping by and I hope that you found this blog post useful.  Should you wish to keep up with all my latest work and special offers, please do come and join me on Facebook. As you probably know, Facebook are always changing things, so at the time of writing, if you do want to be sure of getting all my Facebook posts you'll need to check the 'Get Notifications' option in the drop down menu attached to the 'Like' button. I don't over post and it's always possible to uncheck that option at a later date if required.

If you have any questions about this post or any of my artwork, please don't hesitate to contact me.