Best of Tuts+ in September

Each month, we bring together a selection of the best tutorials and articles from across the whole Tuts+ network. Whether you’d like to read the top posts from your favorite site, or would like to start learning something completely new, this is the best place to start!

Psdtuts+ Photoshop Tutorials

Create Animal Textured Typography

In this tutorial we are going to create fun, realistic, animal textured, 3D typography in Photoshop using CS5′s Repousse tool. Let’s get started!

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Create a Detailed User Interface for an iPad Application

In this tutorial we will show you how to design a detailed user interface for an audio-themed iPad application. We will design this application using a retina display resolution and will make use of Photoshop’s shape layers and layer styles. Let’s get started!

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How to Apply Light, Shading, and Shadow to Round Objects

Photoshop is an excellent tool for manipulating photographs but it can also be used as a means to create stunning digital art. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video tutorial series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start producing digital art in Photoshop. Digital Art for Beginners, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak will begin by teaching you how to draw in Photoshop. At the conclusion of this series you will know all you need to produce your own concept art and matte paintings in Photoshop.

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Nettuts+ Web Development Tutorials

Ways you can be Sure you’ve Married a Geek

Everyone knows that when you get married, your life changes. When Jeffrey and I recently tied the knot, we were advised by the older and wiser that the first year of marriage is the hardest. But so far, it has been fantastic. Dont get me wrong; just because married life is proving to be bliss does not mean there havent been any of those aforementioned changes. Recently, I realized that the ’married life changes” that I am adjusting to are all coincidentally related to the fact that Jeffrey is a web developer, a.k.a Geek.

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Is Conference Pricing Out of Control?

You’ve surely experienced the letdown of registering for a conference, only to find that it costs $1,000 (or more) to attend (not including travel expenses). Isn’t that a bit extreme for two days worth of training? Then again, is that the only way the conference organizers can cover the high cost of planning such an event? Let’s see…

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The Best Way to Learn JavaScript

Learning something new is scary. For me, the biggest issue with picking up a new skill is that I don’t know what I don’t know. Given that, it’s often useful to find a plan for learning whatever you’re interested in. That’s what this post is: your blueprint, your roadmap, your plan of action for learning JavaScript! You don’t have to worry about finding the best resources, sorting out the bad ones, and figuring out what to learn next. It’s all here. Just follow it, step by step.

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Vectortuts+ Illustrator Tutorials

Free, Vintage Vector, Medieval Heraldry Graphics

It’s free vector graphics time, my favorite hour of the day! We’ve roundup up a truckload of heraldry graphics available in EPS, SVG, AI and other vector formats for free download. These medieval packs are composed of emblems, crests, shields, dragons, knights, helms, armor, swords, flourishes, banners, and all sorts of vintage design elements. Whether you’re designing a stylish brochure for your favorite client or your personal portfolio website, these graphics could add the perfect stylish touch your project is needing.

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Top Tips and Secrets from Talented Vector Artists

Today we share top tips and secrets from talented vector artists, which can help add insight into their processes and can give us the advice we need to improve in our own artwork.

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Playing with Stationery Art Brushes and the Live Paint Bucket

In today’s tutorial I’m going to show you how to create some line art style stationery art brushes. You’ll then learn to combine them with the Live Paint Bucket to create a typography piece.

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Webdesigntuts+ Web Design Tutorials

A Beginner’s Guide to Successful Conversion

Converting visitors into valuable users is arguably the most fundamental element of managing a website. We’re going to take a closer look at conversion, discuss what it is, cover some common pitfalls, and tackle improving your site’s conversion rates.

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Sign-in or Register: Form Design From Scratch (Day 1)

We deal with web forms all the time; when we log in to YouTube, Facebook, or any other web service, we have to get through a login or sign up process. Often this can be difficult because some forms are too long, or too cluttered. We’re going to build a stylish, straightforward login form, and today we’ll be looking at the Photoshop side of things.

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Weekend Freebie! The Aureus Landing Page (PSD)

I originally designed the Aureus Landing Page for ThemeForest. However, I changed my mind and decided to share it with all of you guys instead I love giving back to the design community!

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Phototuts+ Photography Tutorials

More than 60 Amazing Examples of Black & White Portraiture

The life of the monochrome portrait contains a rich history dating back to the birth of photography itself. Upon the invention of the camera, it was the portrait that took precedence. The opportunity to capture fellow man in a moment in time on film was finally a reality. So when put into context, appreciating the continued importance and wide scale exploitation of black and white portraiture today, it’s clear that the art is not lost and has survived the test of time.

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Travel Portraits: Methods for Making a Connection

If you love to travel and take photographs, you have likely come across the dilemma of what to do when photographing people. Most see it as a catch 22. If you ask permission (as I believe is proper) then the person is not being ‘natural’ as they were before you asked, doing whatever it was that caught your eye. If you snap away, you risk being seen as rude and offending your subject which, for one reason or another, you thought of highly enough to take a photo. So what to do?

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FlashMasters: Off-Camera Flash

Off-camera flash holds a tremendous amount of potential. With the ability to remove the flash from the same axis as the camera, off-camera lighting gives a photographer more creative options than ever before. Today, we’re going to learn about getting started with off-camera flash.

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Cgtuts+ Computer Graphics Tutorials

The Warrior” – Part 1

In this tutorial you’ll go through the entire character creation pipeline using Zbrush, Maya, UVLayout and Photoshop. We’ll go through the whole process of creating the “Warrior” character including texturing and rendering with Metalray. This tutorial is divided into 8 parts and in the first part, we’ll start blocking out the character in Zbrush using Zspheres.

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Create A Realistic Candle & Flame In 3D Studio Max

In this tutorial, regular author Chandan Kumar will show you how to create a realistic candle and flame in 3d Studio Max. The candle’s flame will be made entirely in 3dsmax using built-in tools, rather then expensive third-party plugins! Let’s take a look!

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An Introduction To Vue 9 xStream – Day 1

When you first start using a new software package, you’re a little bit lost. As you don’t really know where to start, what the options and parameters stand for, what the buttons do, etc… This tutorial series was made to introduce you to the best software for creating Natural 3D Environments, that software is: Vue 9 xStream. We’ll take a in-depth look of every aspect of Vue 9, starting with the user interface and working up to very complex environments!

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Aetuts+ After Effects Tutorials

Kaleidoscope Of Dancing Veggies Using Echospace – Day 1

Today’s tutorial is on how to create a colorful motion graphic piece meant for a food show or cooking program. With the often forgotten Trapcode Echospace you can turn as many photos as you want into one cheerful looking animation. I feel this two part tutorial has principles that could carry over into endless unique results. I hope you enjoy the tut!

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A Look At Hollywood’s Biggest VFX – Part 1

This is a brief introduction of some of the most unbelievable Visual Effects in Hollywood’s biggest movies. This “Part 1″ will describe the making of movies: 2012, Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings.

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Walking Through 3d Text – AE Premium

In today’s tutorial we’re going show how to create the super popular effect of having a person walk right through a 3d logo or text. We’ll cover shooting tips, matchmoving principles, and a whole lot of other helpful info to pull this shot off right! We’ll also show you a way to create this effect without using ANY expensive 3rd party plug-ins!

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Audiotuts+ Audio & Production Tutorials

Dubstep for Beginners – Part 1: The Drums

With three equally important focal points, this tutorial series will initiate you each of these areas of dubstep and how to start producing your own grooves. This first tutorial will focus around the drum beats and what makes the dubstep beats unique. Get ready for some head nodding grooves!

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How to Get The Most Out of Your Drum Loops

I’m really bad at creating beats. I prefer to use a real drummer, and when that isn’t an option, I try to use loops. When I’m sketching ideas for a song, trying to create an arrangement and such, I like to throw a few loops into the DAW and play over that. I’m really bad at using a metronome or a click track so a drum loop is a much more comfortable option for me.

After I’ve recorded the rough chords and arrangement into my audio program I like spicing up the drum tracks a little bit. Logic Pro makes this easy for me as they have all sorts of different loops and corresponding fills I can use. I usually throw some loops together to create a somewhat fluid arrangement and then create from there. I don’t really end up using those drum loops because I always want to record some actual drums instead, but during the creation process, using loops can really help.

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Do Artists Really Need Managers Anymore?

Over time the music industry has been constantly evolving and managers have continued to play a pivotal role in the accomplishments of the artist they represent. But do artists really need managers anymore?

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Activetuts+ Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials

Learn HTML5 With This Simple Avoider Game Tutorial

In this tutorial (the first of a series), you’ll learn the basics of HTML5 game development with JavaScript and the <canvas> element. You don’t need to have any programming experience, or even any HTML experience (apart from this one article). Let’s get started!

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Exclusive Freebie: Tr.ace(), an Excellent AS3 Debugging Utility

We’ve got another Activetuts+ Exclusive Freebie for you! This time, Matt Stuttard (aka MSFX) is offering you his brand new debugging utility, Tr.ace(), which adds some very useful extra features to Flash’s trace() function. Read on to find out more, and to download your copy.

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An Introduction to FlashPunk: The Basics

Learn the basics of how FlashPunk works – an amazing library to save you time and help you create the perfect game!

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Wptuts+ WordPress Tutorials

Customizing the WordPress Dashboard For Your Clients

Have you recently started using WordPress for your client’s project and want to further impress your client with better packaging? This article will focus on packaging WordPress so that, in just few minutes after completion of a project, it will feel more unique to the client and not have the generic feel.

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Developing BuddyPress Themes – Part 1 : Working with the BuddyPress API and Loops

Last month, we looked at the basics of BuddyPress and how you can use it to increase social networking in your projects. The response was great and many requested theming tutorials. So, in this three part series, we’ll explain some core elements of the BuddyPress API and unpack how to create a custom child theme that will survive both BuddyPress and WordPress updates.

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Steps to Securing Your WordPress Installation

WordPress is open source which means that everyone, including hackers with a malicious intent, can scour the source code looking for holes in its security. That is why I’m going to show you some good precautionary steps to take to protect you, your WordPress and most importantly, your users.

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Mobiletuts+ Mobile Development Tutorials

Android Futures: Preparing For Ice Cream Sandwich

The next major version of the Android SDK, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, is due out within the next couple of months. While were waiting for the release, here are some quick tips to future-proof your applications.

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Full Screen Web Apps

One of the first problems encountered when building a mobile web app from scratch is the amount of space consumed by the browser’s address bar. This tutorial will demonstrate how to reclaim the screen real estate otherwise lost to the address bar while accounting for orientation changes, content height problems, and internal document links.

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iOS SDK: Adding a Table of Contents to an iPad Reader

This is the third installment in a series on creating an iPad PDF reader for the book The War of the Worlds. In today’s tutorial, I will demonstrate how to add a Table of Contents to the project. In doing so, I’ll cover working with plist files, layering subviews, basic UIView animations, and manually creating interface components.

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FreelanceSwitch News, Tutorials & Jobs for Freelancers

Top 10 Free Online Storage Apps

Cloud computing oppens new opportunities for freelancers. One of them is free online file synchronization and storage. Nowadays you can sync your PC files and manage your documents on the go. Share files with your employer or other freelancers. Make an online backup or roll back to previous file version. All these actions are possible with modern online file sharing applications.

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5 Ways to Find Freelancing Virtual Assistants

As a freelancer, Im not really in a position to hire someone as a full-time employee and pay all the payroll taxes and other expenses that go along with such an arrangement. Hiring someone on a contract basis, like a virtual assistant, for just those hours that I need her, is the simplest solution. From there, it becomes a matter of finding the right virtual assistant.

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7 Sins of Website Copywriting That Send Prospects Fleeing

Remember: your website is your virtual salesperson. The design is the way that salesperson is dressed. It makes the first impression. But the copy are the words coming out of that salespersons mouth: thats what will make or break the sale.

When a prospect is looking at your site, they have a question in their mind: "Do I want to hire this person? Your copys job is to make sure the answer is "Yes! as often as possible.

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