Hey, guys! Today is the 29th of October and there is something we have to say before the weekend – Happy Halloween! Yes, All Saints’ Day is near at hand so hurry up to prepare your freaky costumes and cut out the pumpkins, the preternatural power is knocking at your door! We wish you a marvelous celebration with lots of fun, fruitful trick-or-treating and wild party till dawn!
Maybe you want to tell us about your preparations – costume ideas, what kind of Halloween party you will throw and what crafty tricks you have prepared? We’d love to hear about it! And don’t forget to adorn your Twitter account with the new Halloween background we’ve designed especially for this occasion.
You are free to download this Halloween Twitter background at our Free Twitter Backgrounds page.
Let us know how you find it..
Beware of what you heard in the scary stories – you are on the threshold of the most eerie night of the year! Are you scared yet? We hope you are 
The warm October of 2009 has come and it is high time to resume the delicious web design findings and tools that have seen the world in September. It should be said that this month was rather fruitful and rich for incredible design solutions, new useful webmasters resources and creative concepts ideas though there is always something innovative in web development every day, not to mention every month. In spite of the fact that it is hard to sum all the solutions in one article we did our best and prepared a list of the most valuable web design resources worth your attention.
1. 70 Fresh And Inspirational Blog Designs
Sometimes you just can’t make up your mind and are in need of something very inspiring to evoke fresh ideas and show you the way to your own creation. This showcase comprises the most vivid examples of beautiful and creative blog designs which will help you to find your own unique solution.
2. 30 Incredibly Useful WordPress Hacks
WordPress is known to be the most powerful and popular blogging platform used by webmasters all over the world, so no wonder some new techniques and extensions for WordPress are always in demand. This September compilation includes the best hacks which will appear a helping hand for making the most out of your WordPress weblog.
Being your number one solution when it comes to flash and everything related to web design we have prepared a selection of the most interesting articles of the past month that you might find useful for your work or just entertaining.
Marketing Rules and Principles for Freelancers
Really fruitful article by Jeff Gardner from Smashing Magazine. Being a freelancer you are not only a web designer, you actually are more of a businessman. Of course an idea of working for yourself, not for another guy, is tempting, but you’ll have to face many issues, marketing among them. This article will give you a number of really useful marketing tips and will teach you how to embed them and make them work for your business.
10 Killer Flash Tips For Beginners
This pretty much detailed flash guide will be very useful for the beginners. If you do not know how to create a simple preloader this article is a must read.
Adobe Flash Accessibility: Best Practices for Design
Flash can add value when kept relevant and designed for every user. This is the essence of the article by Erik Johnson from Skaan Design written specially for Six Revisions, check it out for the details.
15+ Stunning Adobe Flash XML Slideshow Tutorials
This is a very good selection of useful flash XML tutorials put together at Tutorial Lounge. It is never late to study, thus I believe not only flash beginners will appreciate this collection of flash tutorials. To learn how to create a flash slideshow image gallery read the article carefully.
25 Amazing Flash Portfolio Sites
Inspirational showcase of truly brilliant flash portfolio websites by Steven Snell from Design Mag.
30 Flash-Based Photography Sites
Another selection of 30 awesome flash-based photography sites. These websites are great examples of not only exceptional photography, but also of very quality flash designs. Truly inspiring selection every flash designer should see.
Inspiration: web design trends in 2009 (and probably 2010): Where are we heading?
Another view on web design trends of this and upcoming year of 2010. Some of the websites showcased as the examples here are really very inspiring. Go check them out.
If you enjoyed this post, you might want to subscribe to FlashMint feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader or consider leaving a comment and just say Hi to FlashMint See you in the month of September with new delicacies coming up!
Fantastic Beauty of HDR Photography
As the old saying says – everything old is new again. As unbelievable as it may seem but HDR photography is actually not new at all.
According to Wikipedia “high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques.”
The idea to use several exposures to fix a too-extreme range of luminance came to Gustave Le Gray in the 1850s. To create seascapes showing both the sky and the sea which was impossible at the time considering the luminosity range of the standard techniques being too extreme, Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea and combined these two in a single picture in positive.
The age of digital photography gave the High Dynamic Range photography new techniques that Gustave Le Gray couldn’t even imagine at the 1850s but the fundamentals are still the same.
There are several ways to create HDR. The most popular one is the one Le Gray suggested when a high dynamic range image is created from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. The digital techniques of our age (Photoshop for instance) allow creating synthetic HDR images from one single exposure.
Properly used HDR techniques create magnificent images that boggle the imagination and raze the boundaries between reality and illusion. Here is the selection of incredible HDR images, just look how unbelievable the world around us is!
Marlow Lock HDR - FreePhotoResources
Crossing over II - VitaR
The Crystal Cascades of Mt Washington HDR - friday1970
July 4th 1776 the Declaration of Independence has been adopted, since then the 4th of July is the most important holiday of our prosperous country. This day along with the country itself is the essence of Freedom and Independence our ancestors fought for, and for most of us it is the brightest day of the year full of tasty food, fun and fireworks. Thus, before you go for picnics and barbeques FlashMint would like to congratulate you and your families with the holiday. Here is a small selection of Independence Day clip art to inspire you and create a holiday mood.
from funmunch.com
The symbol of the day is the flag of the USA. No one could praise it better than Florence A. Jones did:
Freedom’s natal day is here.
Fire the guns and shout for freedom,
See the flag above unfurled!
Hail the stars and stripes forever,
Dearest flag in all the world.
from download.it168.com
from traditionalpatriot.info
from wallcoo.net
The main things associated with the 4th of July are of course fireworks:
from sparta.vn.ua
And barbeques:
from amiestreet.com
from thedailygreen.com
from wirededucator.wordpress.com
Well, I think the mood is created, now is the time for the presents – only at 4th of July 2009 you can download any FlashMint web product with the nice discount of 20% using the code “independence”. Enjoy your presents from FlashMint and the most glorious day of our country.
Happy Birthday, America!
