Cats are known for being their own personalities - they don't do things to please humans, they do things purely to satisfy themselves! Cats have a great ability to find places to curl up that suit their immediate needs - with no consideration given to whether the humans wish them to be in that place. The result is often a cute cat in 'the wrong' setting!

Here we have collected 20 cute images of cats 'in' things - some of which they shouldn't be in at all!

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Today I am bringing you 2 sets of free textures. The Satin Stripes is a set of 8 textures each with a different gradient overlaid. They are 2434px x 2434px 72ppi.

RGB Textures is a pack of 3 in red, green a blue - quite different and unusual textures. 3000px x 2000px 72ppi.

I hope you can use and enjoy these free packs.

Click on the images to download the .zip files.

Urban decay is all around us, I don't think there is a country in the world that doesn't have some kind of urban decay. It's a sad fact of life.

However, we can try to find the beauty within the destruction. Sometimes the old saying holds true: Beauty is more than skin deep.

In this round-up I have gathered some images of urban decay that incorporate still life. I have chosen these photographs to invoke memories... albeit not your own memories – if you really get your imagination going with these images, the whole experience can be quite sad and moving.

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This tutorial will walk you through the steps to create this liquid gold text effect. There are many gold text effect tutorials out there, but with this one I will show you how you can easily adapt it to create just about any liquid-filled text.

It is a fun effect using a method that can be played around with to achieve very different and interesting results.

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Today I am bringing you a free Photoshop action.

This action will give your images a dreamy, romantic effect. All layers are left unmerged so they can be adapted for your image.

Enjoy!

Click on the image to download the .atn file.

Photographing foggy/misty scenes requires much skill from the photographer. Fog usual occurs in the evening and lasts until early morning. Very often over water as the water is warmer than the surrounding air.

Fog and mist naturally knock out colour, rendering the scene quite ‘flat’ and lacking in contrast, so longer exposure times are required to achieve a good photograph. When there is light involved, generally at night, the fog/mist create refraction which can fool the camera’s light monitor – these are a couple of the obstacles the photographer faces when shooting foggy/misty scenes, and where great skill is required.

This round-up brings you more than 40 outstanding and beautiful photographs shot in foggy/misty weather.

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Here is a Photoshop action that will give a photo a watercolour painting effect.

When using this action, if the effect is too much and is knocking out all the details, reduce the opacity of Layer 1 and/or Layer 1 copy 2

I hope you like this action, can use it and enjoy it!

Click on the image to download the .atn file

The title seems to be a contradiction in terms: how can natural cloud formations be unrealistic? But it does happen, and often!

Many times I look at the sky and consider that if an artist faithfully represented the cloud formation it would be considered unrealistic as a painting - which throws a shadow over the concept that artists are only limited by their own imagination - that is, if they want their art to appear realistic!

The best times to catch unrealistic cloud formations are sunrise and sunset and before, during or after a storm, however, strange formations can occur at any time of the day, any time of the year.

Here is a selection of beautiful but unrealistic natural cloud formations produced by outstanding photographers.

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Here is a set of 20 gradients for Photoshop. I have called them 'New Year' simply because they were created at the beginning of the year. There is no real theme to them, just a collection of gradients that will hopefully be useful.

Although many designers don't like to use pre-made gradients, they can be a good starting point for creating your own, therefore saving a lot of time - always a bonus for busy designers!

Click on the image to download the .grd file.

Snow is a very unforgiving type of weather – it is cold, icy and generally dangerous to be out in.  However, there is no doubt it is beautiful – nature plays tricks with us with snow!

For those of us who see snow most years, it is difficult to imagine there are people in this world who have never seen it – I expect that is the same vice versa too!

Here I have collected a selection of 30 snowy scene photographs that are of picture postcard quality. The beauty of the scenes draw us in… but beware, snowy weather will chew you up and spit you out!!

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