Creating Radials, Rays, & Stripes from the Center in Photoshop

How does one create stripes radiating from the center of the screen in Photoshop? You can do it manually but then you fight with equal spacing between each one. Here is the best way:

1. Create blank document and choose your foreground and background colors.
   
2. Create the stripes. Click: Filter-> Sketch->Halftone Pattern. Adjust "Size", "Contrast", and make sure the pattern type is "Line".
3. Crop the canvas so that you see one half-sized A color stripe at the top and one half-sized A color at the bottom (B color is not at the top or bottom).
4. Turn it on the side. Click: Image-> Rotate Canvas-> 90° CW.
5. Now the magic. Click: Filter-> Distort->Polar Coordinates. Make sure it is Rectangle to Polar.
6. (Optional) Add a white (or another color) to transparent gradient fx. Choose radial (or I prefer diamond) and try inverse or not.

Enjoy the hypnotic effects.

Where’s my desktop files? (Mac)

Ever save a Photoshop .jpg or a Word .doc or really any file to your Mac desktop only for it to not appear? You save it again - still not there. You go into the program and look to open it- Wow it’s there on the desktop- but you cannot see any thumbnail picture. 5, 10, 15 minutes later the file suddenly appears and only now can you transfer this file to a network folder or the live server. Inefficient to say the least and quite frustrating.

The file is hidden on your desktop and won’t appear for you. It delays for absolutely no reason! Well the next time that happens open a FINDER Window. Click “Desktop” under “Places” on the left side and instantly all the files you’ve been waiting for appear. Works every time!

Transparent Background with Full Opacity Text

I recently came across this problem creating one of my newest websites. With the advent of CSS3, (so awesome, I only wish all the browsers supported these features easily) one can create transparent divs quite easily. The following is the code for all browser compatibility for 70% opacity:

filter:alpha(opacity=70);
-moz-opacity:0.7;
-khtml-opacity: 0.7;
opacity: 0.7;
zoom: 1.0; /* IE Hack for CSS (IE6 must have layout */
}

But using this code for a background, anything within that div will also have that opacity, including your text. The best way to combat this is to create another div within the div with the background opacity with the following code:

filter:alpha(opacity=100);
-moz-opacity:1.0;
-khtml-opacity: 1.0;
opacity: 1.0;
zoom: 1.0; /* IE Hack for CSS (IE6 must have layout */
}

Problem solved! Your welcome.