It's nice to use Photoshop and similar programmes to fine tune your photography or to make nice designs for websites etc, but combining the two can also be fun!

Here, I've taken a photo from my collection and applied a simple Photoshop filter - the stained glass effect. Then, applying it at different levels, I have saved 4 images that vary from difficult to comprehend to the original image.

This feature could easily be used to hide the identity of a photo for a guessing game or competition on a website - with the half-way images used for clues when the competitor is stuck. The setting used for each shot are shown at the bottom of the photo. Just go to Filter -> Texture -> Stained Glass.. to eneter the effects menu:

There are a variety of ways to create sepia effects on photos using a simple photo editing programme. Some seem more complicated than others, but they don't need to be - here's a very simple technique for creating a nice sepia effect using photo shop - starting with a standard colour digital photograph.

First, choose an image and open it up in Photoshop. The following image will be used in this tutorial, so the effect can be seen from start to finish:



Firstly, remove the colour from the image. This can be done by converting it to black and white, but can just as easily be done by following this menu path: Enhance -> Adjust Colour -> Remove Colour.

Next, add a new adjustment layer and use an orange colour similar to #9b6921. Now, in layer options simply select 'Soft Light' rather than 'Normal' and you have yourself a nice sepia image.



**For an even simpler (but slightly less effective) method, simply add a new fill layer with the colour above and set the opacity to around 15%.

Due to the christmas break, the blog may well have a week or two off so I thought I'd leave on a Christmassy note! So here's a wee christmas message from Beats! Design:

The following example is quite self-explanatory, just click the labels to get a zoomed in image at full resolution:
 

The UK Webcam Map (beatsdesign.co.uk/ukwebcams) has remained the same design since its inception, with a nice marroon theme - but it felt like it was time for a change, so a new, more professional was created using a grey background and a nice new logo! Click the screenshot below or the link above to check it out:

After exploring techniques for showing multiple-layer images on the web, it occurred to me that this technique could be applied to add content to an image by zooming into higher detail areas.

The following example is quite self-explanatory, just click the labels to get a zoomed in image at full resolution:
 

Google added a draggable routing system to the travel directions applet a few months ago, but it was a relatively low-key update. I've tried using this service and it's quite useful, although you need a bit of practise to get the most out of it. But the JavaScript / AJAX behind it is pretty intuitive and really opens doors for intelligent web services of the future.

Instead of me explaining it, here's the official Google video, although it's a little bit cheesy. I know english and american have pronounciation differences but for some reason 'route' rhyming with 'out' really grates - anyway, enjoy!

Well after discussing the possibilities of multi-layer photographs using JavaScript and HTML, I felt the system could be quite effective with a bit of fine-tuning.

The following an image taken from Nelson's Monument in Edinburgh and 5 layers are included and are toggled using the little key in the top right hand corner. The same applies for the image below, which is of the coastal view from Culross, Fife but this uses a blog key toggle as an alternative. I may use this system in the future as it is nice and simple and doesn't require any plugins, such as Flash (although does require a JavaScript-enabled browser - but they're pretty common!).

The letters in the key refer to: (c) colour image, (s) sepia image, (b) black and white image, (a) artistic image, (i) inverted image.