MyInkTrail, is my trek through the articles, tutorials, freebies and general news from the design community for each month. November was a fast moving month filled with quality design articles, resources, and plenty of turkey and family.

Today, we are going to look at two of Photoshop’s primary masking techniques – layer masks and clipping masks. We’ll be comparing the two by looking at how they work on a practical level, the basic similarities, and the much more significant differences.

Not too long ago I stumbled across the US Air Force site, and was immediately struck by it’s style and slick patterns. The inner pages of the site focus on large background images with a cool mesh overlay. I decided to play around in Photoshop to see if I could replicate the effect. It turns out to be rather easy, so I wanted to share this quick tutorial with you.

There are a lot of cool and effective ways to call attention to portions of a design. When writing 6 Ways To Take Your Webdesign From Good To Great I used a simple blur technique that proved to be quite popular. I’ve seen the effect a lot of places before, so in no way can I take credit for it

This is part 2 of the Design Toolbox Series where I ask top designers what design tools they use to help them complete their work. This series was largely inspired by Grace Smith’s “Show Me Your Dock Series.” It’s my hope that you can gain insight into what other designer’s are using, and hopefully find some new apps/tools to check out.

MyInkBlog’s Flickr Group has grown to 400 awesome members! At this point, every 100 new members will result in a Flickr group showcase; this is the sixth such showcase. If you missed the prior ones, be sure to check out I, II, III, IV and V.

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this Surreal, Ancient Fantasy Scene in Photoshop. We will take several real world objects and seamlessly blend them together to form this artwork. We will also use a number of Photoshop brushes to spice up the effect.

The cool folks at CodeSublime approached me about offering a giveaway on MIB that could really show off there coding skills. After some brainstorming we devised a unique PSD to Wordpress Contest Giveaway. I’ve seen quite a few PSD to HTML style giveaways, but I can’t recall any that go the extra mile of offering a full Worpress Theme.

Blogging as we all know is much more than writing an article. In most posts, you need to take screen captures, edit, copy, paste, format, etc.. Basically, there is much more to it than meets the eye. Any decent article will take at least an hour to write and may take several.

The difference between good and great webdesign is relatively small. The average person may not be able to explain the tangible differences that make up great design, but they can usually spot a design they like. By examining some awesome sites, I’ll attempt to put my finger on some of the small details that make up the difference.