Create Lightning in Photoshop

Open the image you’re editing or make a new file. The example shown here uses an RGB 300 x 100 with a black background.
Draw the lines in the position you want the lightning to be. Use a 1px paintbrush.
Use the ‘Wind’ filter. Filter > Stylize > Wind. Select the method as ‘Wind’ and the direction ‘From the left’. Now repeat except change the direction to ‘From the right’
Rotate the image 90 degrees. Click Image > Rotate Canvas > 90° CW. Repeat the previous step and rotate it 90° CCW.
Move to Filter > Distort > Ripple, set the amount to 100%, and hit “OK”.
Go to “Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or press Ctrl + U”. At the bottom right corner, hit “Colorize”. Now adjust the “Hue” bar and the “Saturation” bar until you get a color you like.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Read the rest of this entry »

Date December 12th, 2008 Filed in Photoshop, Video No Comments »

How to Spoof an Email

Go to Domain Dossier to find the mail server.
Type in the domain of the mail server eg. yahoo.com for a yahoo mail address.
Select DNS records then click go.
Find the DNS record which says MX in the type.
Press Start > Run > Type CMD > Press Enter
Once the command prompt window opens type telnet and hit enter
Type o (name of mail server) (port) without brackets eg o screencastr.com 25
Type helo and press enter (one L it’s not a typo) the mail server should respond with hello and your ip address. I forgot this step in the video because it isn’t necessary for my mail server however many mail servers need you to type helo before you can go to the next step.
Type MAIL FROM:(From Address) eg MAIL FROM:info@screencastr.com press enter
Type RCPT TO:(To Address) eg RCPT TO:other@screencastr.com press enter
Type DATA press Enter
Type To: (To Address) eg To: other@screencastr.com
From: (From Address) eg From: info@screencastr.com
Type message eg Hello, Type contents of message then press enter for a new line
Type . then press enter again the message will now be sent.
Ensure you don’t make any mistakes as pressing backspace doesn’t work.

Date December 10th, 2008 Filed in Video 2 Comments »

Screencastr #9

This episode shows some tricks for getting the best quality Youtube videos.

Direct Downloads

H.264

Tutorial Links

KeepVid
Code for High quality embed “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ – paste after value and source in the embed code

Download of the Week: DVD Flick

Sponsor: DreamHost PromoCode: SCREEN1

Website of the Week: Hackosis Brute Force Calculator

Date December 8th, 2008 Filed in Podcast No Comments »

Retrieve Images from Browser Cache

This video shows how to retrieve an image from your web browsers cache.

Firefox

Type about:cache into address bar.
Under Disk cache device navigate in windows explorer to the cache directory.
Look through all the files in this folder until your find the right file. They have no extensions so this may take a while.

Internet Explorer

Click Tools > Internet Options
Under the Temporary Internet Files section in the General Tab click on Settings.
Click on View Files
The Folder is opened for you to look through the files.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Date December 8th, 2008 Filed in Video 1 Comment »

How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop

1. Open a color image in Photoshop. To get the best sketch image, high contrast images are preferable. If it’s needed, you can adjust the image’s contrast (Image>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast).

2. Desaturate the layer that contains the image. You can desaturate by clicking on Image>Adjust>Desaturate.

3. Duplicate the desaturated layer. On the layer palette, you can duplicate the layer by right clicking on the previous layer and selecting the option of duplicating that layer.

4. Note that there should now be at least two layers: two desaturated layers, and depending on which version of Photoshop you’re using, you may have a blank background layer.

5. Select and invert the duplicate desaturated layer. You can invert an image by clicking on Image>Adjust>Invert.

6. Notice that now, with the inverted layer selected, change the blending mode to “color dodge.” The image will turn all white with few black spots on it.

7. Set the Gaussian blur to this layer. You can do that by clicking on Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Then you can set the radius in between 3.0-10.0. Choose the one that creates a nice sketch effect.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Read the rest of this entry »

Date December 6th, 2008 Filed in Photoshop, Video 1 Comment »

8 uses for Twitter Search

Twitter search previously known as summize is a great way to search through the vast amount of information tweeted by people around the world every day. This post shows 8 less common uses for the service.

Search @username to find the replies to that person. Especially useful if they asked a question you want to know the answer to.
Search ? to see all the questions being asked on twitter. Following people and answering their question is a fast way to gain new followers.
Search hilarious filter:links to find links to funny websites. You can also add video, picture or flash game to the search query if you want something more specific.
Search for a Movie title to see what people are saying about that movie. You could also use a service like flixpulse.com to find twitter movie reviews.
Search “is down” to find all the website which twitter users are reporting are down.
You can also search for a certain site and “is down” to see how much that site is down.
Search just registered .com to find newly registered domian names.
Twitter search also provides a feed for any search which you can subscribe to in Google reader or any other rss reader.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Date December 5th, 2008 Filed in Video No Comments »