Painting the Web

Reverse-Engineering Ideas

I found the idea for the "stand up" screenshot created in the last section—using perspective, reflection, and a shadow—from a dressed-up screenshot I saw at the Apple site for iTunes, shown in Figure 5-38. I get many ideas from sites online, or even in desktop applications or the operating system interface. My products may not be as polished as many that I find, but they don't send children running in fear or cause grown men to wet themselves in laughter either. That works for me, especially when I have fun trying out the various ideas. "Fun trying out" is the operative term here.

Figure 5-38. Apple iTunes page that served as inspiration for my own O'Reilly stand-up image

I mentioned earlier that after you've had a chance to work with different types of graphics, using all of the techniques covered in this chapter—including Gaussian Blur to create both shadow and highlight, Gradient Fill to add depth, the selection tool to create shadows and shine, and layers, layer masks, and the transformation tools—you'll find yourself eying every graphic you come across online, figuring out how to create the effect yourself.

Copying images directly is a violation of copyright unless the copyright owner gives you permission to use the image. In addition, re-creating an image exactly is also a violation of copyright, unless the original image is provided as both model and ...