The Photoshop Guru's Handbook - The Guru's Studio: navDesign (Final Analysis

navDesign 4 - Creating The NUI
(Final Analysis)

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Section 2 - 'Nuts & Boltz': (contents covered)

The Shape of things to come...
More Shapes
Mini-Interface Project
Customizing the look

In Section 2 we began where Section 1 left off; completing our initial concept(s) for our interface, aftering sketching them out on paper. We then went over ways of creating a wide variety of 2 dimensional shapes in Photoshop that we could use to 'piece together' our design.
Then we went through a few ways of turning flat 2D shapes into 3D forms, using some simple methods in Photoshop. These later gave our interface the depth it needed to have a 3 dimensional appearance.
And to complete Section 2 we actually put some of these techniques to work by creating a simple interface as an excersise.
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Some important things to note from Section 2 would be:

learning how to use the Selection Tools to create various types of simple shapes. As well as ways of combining these primary shapes to create larger more complex shapes and designs.
learning and understanding 3 basic methods of how to produce depth in a 2 dimensional shape:
1. Using white and black outlines and gradients, on multiple layers, with the addition of Gaussian Blur and/or the Noise filter for certain effects.
2. Using the Emboss filter, with the addition of Gaussian Blur for certain effects.
3. Using the Lighting Effects filter, which involves knowing how to use the Channels palette as well.
developing a better understanding of the steps involved with creating an interface from scratch. Part of which also involved learning to use multiple Layers, the Gradient tool and the Lighting Filter to achieve certain kinds of results.
taking your design to the final stages by applying colours and textures to your interface. As well as learning how to produce reflections and lighting effects to achieve a more realistic look and feel, which helped to give our interface some real world characteristics.

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Creating the NUI: Concept of Design / Nutz & Bolts / 2D & 3D / navDesign Summary

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