Search Engine Optimization is a huge cornerstone in web design and web development today, and with good reason. Search engines have become a big part of our lives. People utilize these for everything to research, event planning, shopping, or even finding perspective employees for their businesses.

Today I interview a truly talented Graphic Designer and Digital Artist you may be familiar with, she has been featured in Advanced Photoshop Magazine, and Photoshop Creative Magazine just to name a few. I am personally a huge fan of her work and have had the pleasure of talking with her about it, her name is Karen McDade and her work is nothing short of spectacular!

Thanks to the OneOnSoftware.com plugin Genuine Fractals 6 I’m able to resize and recrop a lot of my work for different purposes. Everything from creating desktops, to prints! It really is an amazing plugin and well worth the investment to any graphic designer for the range of things it allows you to do with your images, all without a loss of quality. I decided to offer one of my favorite early Fantasy Photo-manipulations, Light Bringer, as a free desktop background.

Today’s interview is with Christopher Ang a.k.a Cierseruwal, a talented Digital Artist you may know from the Deviant Art Community. I first came across Christopher’s gallery on the Photoshop Creative website, and knew that I had to have him talk about his work.

Today I wanted to showcase the work of another Graphic Designer I’ve come to admire. 20 year old Chicago Graphic Designer EJ Santiago. Santiago’s portfolio on the Advanced Photoshop website is very popular, and with good reason. You can see his amazing work with beauty based Photo-manipulations here, but be sure to visit his profiles on Advanced Photoshop and Deviantart and let him know what you think of his work.

Some people have the mistaken impression that Non Destructive editing is simply using layer stacks properly, but its so much more than that! Photoshop has come a long way in how it allows you to presever the natural integrity of your images.

In this photoshop tutorial we’re going to be looking at retouching a photo using mostly adjustment layers. Were going to make the model really pop and give her skin a nice healthy glow and some dynamic lighting. We will also address masking.

Mostly this image was an opportunity to take and advantage of my skill with light, shadow, and smoke effects in an interesting and purposeful way. I approach this project with the idea of a redesign for the cover of the book “The Summoner” by Gail Z. Martin, a great read by the way.

I was approached by another Graphic Designer “Okee”, to develop a logo for him. Okee specializes in original designs for products, mostly t-shirts and occasionally commission digital artwork and has several products featured in online stores.

Divine Rhythm
Mostly throughout my Photoshop workflow I’m inspired and motivated b music. I decided to work on a few projects that specifically center around music.

Star Girl #2 is one of my newest pieces, using effects and techniques I’ve learned since I did the original “Star Girl” graphic. Like before I created a set of custom flare brushes for this image, but I also decided to use more colors and a few of the techniques demonstrated in “Dark Leap”.

Cloud Chaser, was probably the image I enjoyed working on the most this year in my portfolio. This photo montage allowed me use a lot of different elements and effects in combination. Some of these combinations were a first for me and I have to say I’m happy with the results.

Many designers, have and will continue to underestimate the amazing power and range of typography.
There are several reasons for this, but the reality is that typography is essential to a design skill set.
When stacked against photo-manipulation, digital painting, vexel artwork, and animation, the prospect of working with type, doesn’t sound all that exciting to most people.
Truthful, its because they don’t know any better.

Magic Melody
This image was something that came to me while watching the Brothers Grimm movie. I decided on the concept for a girl walking through the dark forest spreading enchantment with an instrument, then remembered the perfect stock image by Marcus J Ranum

Raven Dawn
Model Katanaz-stock at deviantart.
Raven Dawn was chance to use a combination of different effects, that I hadn’t combined in my previous images. The stock for this model comes from the amazing stock gallery of Katanaz. The background texture was done by myself using a Wacom Tablet.

Paper Gangsta Girl
Like my other image Poker Face, Paper Gangsta Girl is an image inspired by a Lady Gaga song. For this image I wanted to combine certain effect in a subtle way.