Photoshop has become a favorite among designers for various reasons. In this collection, we look at 50 of the best web layout tutorial around the web. The collection contains tips, and tricks that can be handy for both beginers or advanced.

how to design an elegant website layout in Photoshop

Software Layout #4

Photoshop a Paper Texture from Scratch then Create a Grungy Web Design with it!

How To Create a Clean and Colorful Web Layout

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

Design a trendy business & finance layout

Design a trendy business & finance layout

Design a creative portfolio in Photoshop

Create an awesome soft portfolio layout in Photoshop

Create a Bright and Sleek Web Design in Photoshop

Design a clean sports web layout in magazine-style with Photoshop

Learn To Create A Photography Style Web Layout

How to create a distinguishable textured web layout in Photoshop

Design a Warm, Cheerful Website Interface in Adobe Photoshop

Create a Theme Store Website Layout in Photoshop

Design The Brilliante Website Layout in Photoshop

Creating a Stylish Blog Design Layout in Photoshop

Create an Elegant Photography Web Layout in Photoshop

Create a Stylish Portfolio Site Design in Photoshop

How to design a psd layout in Photoshop

Design a creative unusual layout

Web Layout for Italian Restaurant

How to create a restaurant psd template in Photoshop

Design a Cartoon Grunge Website Layout

Design an impressive web hosting layout

How To Create a Rockin’ Website Layout In Photoshop

How to design a landing page or a light psd layout in Photoshop

Product/Business Style Layout

How to create a modern portfolio layout using Photoshop

Create a Magic Night Themed Web Design From Scratch in Photoshop

Create a Game layout – Clan Layout

Create a company/business web layout using Photoshop

Watercolored Design Studio Blog Layout

Create a real estate web layout in Photoshop

How to create a wordpress theme in Photoshop

Create Colorful Blog Web Layout Using Photoshop

Making the ‘Clean Grunge’ Blog Design

Create A Minimal Portfolio Site Design

Portfolio Layout Design Tutorial with 3D Look

Many of these tutorials show detailed steps, so even the beginners can try them and for the advanced you can easily find some tips and tricks that are sure to come in handy. As they say, practice makes perfect, so try out a couple of tutorials and with photoshop here to stay for the long haul, you don’t need to worry about it becoming outdated. Did we miss any of your favorite tutorials? Which one was your favorite? Please let us know by commenting below.

To have a website with a trustworthy, user friendly interface and appealing design is now a days more important then ever. While more people are getting known on the world wide web they need to know what the company stands for, when they visit there site. A potential customer also needs to see the most important things in a easy and understandable way without any distractions.

It was a tough job finding great and usable designs in the financial industry, 80% of the financial related services which have a website should think twice before they continue with there outdated, not-usable and terrible looking designs.

Today we’ve selected a few of these interfaces from financial related businesses. You will notice that a lot of Dutch businesses are shown, this is because they’re some of the best in this field.

AEGON

Amsterdam Trade Bank

Insinger de Beaufort

Bank of Ireland

National Australia Bank

US Bank

Xero

Dexia

Santander

Robein

Nationale Nederlanden

MoneYou

Centraal Beheer Achmea

Mint

oanda

GFT Forex

Unbelievable don’t you think. Just a few worth mentioning in this showcase, they make so much money out of us and they simply just can’t give a better and more usable web in return. Do you think I’m wrong and you’ve seen more great designs in this line of business then feel free to either send me the link or post it in here. Thanks.

Blue Texture Tiles

Take a closer look

Swiss House Roof Tiles

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Drop Texture

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Misc Texture

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Shuffled Texture Pack

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Paper Texture

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Cracked Texture

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Random Texture

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Old Wall Texture

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Fabric Texture

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Crinkle Texture

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Wood Texture

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Wood Texture

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Grunge Texture

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Local Texture

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Metal Texture

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Glitter Texture

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Colorful Grunge Texture

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Scratched Texture

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Grungy Texture

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Bokeh Textures

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Hi-Res Stone Textures

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Paper Textures

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Scrapbook Texture

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Aqueous Sun Textures

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Designer Texture Pack

Take a closer look

Other Resources:

• 22 Free Colorful Textures
• 30 Free Cardboard Textures
• 28 High-Res Foam Dot Textures

Getting started!

Photoshop offers us a bunch of tools for background removing, but lets take a closer look at this. To actually remove the background or a subject from a picture, first thing you have to do is to select it. Because of this, I have split up this process in two parts:

• The selector tools.
• The eraser tools.

The selector tools offer us the power to delimit the subject, so in later actions we can copy or remove it. The tools are:

• the lasso tools;
• the pen tool;
• quick/magic selection tools;
• quick mask;
• the color range app;

The eraser tools remove the pixels from inside the selection, or outside the selection.
This tools are:

• the eraser tools.
• the extract filter.

Note: even if every tool has a different objective they will not always give the best results, that is why a combination of them all will create the perfect selection/background removal.

Lasso Tool

One of the oldest tools offered by Photoshop, the lasso tool a beautiful way to select something fast and with no headaches. The lasso tool lets us create a continuous manual selection by click around the subject.

Photo Source: Yellow Flower

So we have this nice photo of a flower, with a cleare contrast that will help me show you how to use the lasso tool.But first thing, create a new copy of the photo, in case we do to much damage, or need to compare the final result, we can go back to the original and see.

Stellar Quotes

What the Duck?

What is Love?

Thumbs Up

JobQuote

QuoteBuilder

Fuel Quoter

planB Holdings

StelMM

Brand Events

Albatros

Full Time

Blooming Lens

Particular

Reforger Films

Strada Film

Art Film

Bananas Films

FilmLab

Posh My Pup

Dog Click Training

Devil Dogg

Lucky

Shirt Pepper

Chill

Mexican Grill

Chil Up

La Cazuelita

Hopefully, after reading this article where 25+ beautiful vibrant and modern logotypes were showcased, you’ve gain another great source of  inspiration, by this, you may keep your designs (not only logotype ones) fresh, and up-to-date!

Other Resources:

• Logos on the Internet: The Importance of Simplicity
• Logo Inspiration: The excellent use of Peppers in Logotypes
• Top 10 Sources of Logo Design InspirationYour Profile

Biltmore

Bokche

Board

Hey Indy

Premium Pixels

Lassez

Icon Moon

Need Style

Beavory

Comwerks

Tvl Corp

Logic Design

Key Fruit

Shuzzle App

DRK Rush

Aaron Rudd

Camp Craze

Paramount (Themeforest Template)

Creative Mints

Design Zoom

Umpquaoats

Rockstar New Media

Courier

Denis Echandler

Mitch Designs

Green Planet Solutions

Panoetic

Cloud Networks

Latte Sole

The Monk

National Money Help Line

Allison Nold

Captovate

After you took a look at this numerous number of  beautiful websites compiled above,  you’re inspiration should be already enhaced. For more great websites inspiration you may take a look at other articles listed below:

Other Resources

• 25 Websites with Beautiful Backgrounds
• 40 Textured Websites for Design Inspiration
• 88 Single Page Website Designs for Inspiration

I started with Joomla as a web designer, but knowing just one CMS, I couldn’t say that Joomla is much better then any other CMS’s out there. So I tried other CMS’s like WordPress, Drupal, Magento and many others to make a comparison between them.

Honestly till now I couldn’t find one CMS that can accomplish so many tasks like Joomla. And many cheap web hosting providers support Joomla just like any other CMS.

But enough with so many awards to Joomla and let’s get to business. Let us find the purpose why you are reading this article.

For the ones that already use Joomla on they’re websites and for those that want to give a try to this amazing software, I will provide in this article 5 extensions that are a must have on your Joomla installation:

Cache Cleaner

What it does?

Cache cleaner is helping you by cleaning the cache of your Joomla installation in an easier and faster way.

Why is a must?

Because every time you make a change you have to clean the cache in Joomla so you can see the changes you made.
In order to clean the cache every time in the default Joomla installation you must accomplish a time consuming process like the following one:

Go to tools, select clean cache,

select the cache

and press delete.

Do this a couple of times in a day when you work on a Joomla project for a client and I assure you, that you loose at least one hour of work.

Here comes in hand Cache Cleaner. With Cache Cleaner, you don’t have to do all those time consuming clicks, in fact, you don’t have to make not even one single click. Why? Because Cache Cleaner has an option, which automatically clean the cache on save or apply.

You have two modalities and many options to delete the cache with Cache Cleaner:

One is by making a click every time you change or apply something, on the link provided by the cache cleaner plugin in the right upper corner of your Joomla installation,

or just set the option in the control panel of the plugin to automatically delete the cache every time you save or apply something.

Other features included in Cache Cleaner are the option to delete the cache from frontend, clean the cache on an interval of time and also to delete the temporary folder of your Joomla installation. All of them you can do it manually or set the auto option and let the software work for you instead.

Be very careful with the customize path option, do not enter paths to folders that contain important files of the Joomla software or any other files important for the good functionality of your website.
If you typed a path to a folder, and click apply or save, everything from that folder will be permanently deleted. In this case I hope you have a recent backup. Believe me I had many clients ho crashed the website with this option.

Optimize Tables

I remember how I found this life saving plugin. In the beginnings, first times when I worked with Joomla, suddenly a blank screen appears from nowhere in front of me, with a message from the database, I knew that the tables weren’t optimized. I looked for a solution and I find this plugin.

What it does?

Optimize the database tables.

Why is a must?

Automate the process of database optimization.

After you install the plugin just enable it,

and keep the parameters settings unchanged.

JCE Editor

From default, Joomla has the Tiny MCE editor, but it’s just not enough. After you try JCE believe me nothing will be the same.

Is so much to say about this editor and I can’t cover all on this tutorial.

Maybe I will do a tutorial just for this editor. All I can say is that from my first installation of Joomla after one week, I installed this editor, and never change it since then.

What it does?

It brings a lot of benefits when writing content for the web, within a Joomla website.

Why is a must?

Because Tiny MCE the default editor of Joomla is just not enough.

Xmap

What it does?

Xmap is a Site map generator component for Joomla, is based on the popular Joomap component. Xmap allows you to create a map of your site using the structure of your menus.

Why is a must?

I think everybody knows how important a sitemap is, for your site visitors and for search engines.

This component not only that generate an html map for your website, but also an xml map that you can submit to search engines.

To find the XML map link go to components click Xmap,

then click on options and select preferences,

and voila, all the sitemap links, the XML sitemap is the first one.

SEO Simple

This simple Joomla 1.5 plugin simply takes the starting chunk of text from the page’s content and applies that as the value for the meta description tag in the page’s head. Search engines often use a Web page’s meta description in the SERPs, and as such it is important that these meta descriptions have relevant text related to the page’s content.

What it does?

Is generating content for your metadescripiton tag.

Why is a must?

Because it grabs the first paragraphs from your article and applies that as the value for the meta description tag, let you set the length of the meta description tag and also let you set how do you want the title and the site name to appear on browsers.

This plugin is just great.

Enable the plugin from the plugin control panel,

and to generate text for meta descripiton tag select “No, Generate based on page content”.

Conclusion

I hope these extensions will help you in your future Joomla projects. And of course, do not limit your Joomla installation only to these extensions. Believe me, out there, is more must have extensions then you can handle. In one word don’t stick with what you have. Try everything till you get satisfied. In the future I hope, I’ll have more time to write more stuff about Joomla. I love this content manager so much, and I like teaching others about it.

If you know a must have extension for Joomla, please share the secret with us in the comments field below. I am curios to here about it.

Rewards and Achievements

When someone visits your website they tend to be rather selfish, (subconsciously, of course). They look around and try to determine what the purpose of the website is and how they can benefit from the content. If the user gains something from the experience then they are more likely to return.

If you regularly visit design blogs then you will notice that giveaways are a common occurrence throughout the community. A few people who enter, may revisit the website to have a look around but it is almost assured that your traffic will resume to its original state once the competition has ended.

Now the trick in giving things away or rewarding users is to never stop giving and rewarding. Competitions are great but once they end, they end. If you had a competition to win $2000, you would no doubt get a lot of traffic your way (so long as your marketing is up to par) but once you’ve given the $2000, traffic is likely to resume as normal. If you gave the $2000 away every time a user commented or posted in the forums, then almost everybody would keep returning. Now because you have removed the idea of losing, you are giving the user a win win situation. Thus, you can reduce the amount given away to $200, or $20, or even $2.

You will find that you don’t even need to give something of monetary value away to entice users to return. For example, look at Xbox live, people complete challenges to achieve a certain badge to impress their friends. So long as there is always something to achieve, there will always be competition and so users will replay the game again and again. Another example closer to home is the badges used in the Envato Marketplace forums. Now I don’t use the forums but I’ve heard that users almost go out of their way to acquire a badge (a tiny little image) for their profile.

But what if you’re not a major brand – just a small online service provider? While failed projects and disastrous clients are unlikely to spread the word as far, they’re just as likely to cause a great deal of damage to your business. From minor fallouts to projects that didn’t quite go as planned, there are hundreds of reasons for formerly solid client relationships to turn sour.

We’ve prepared this guide to help you respond to such situations. With Google’s dynamic search results pushing “scam” terms to the top of the ranks and speculation-friendly social media outlets giving almost any disgruntled client an outlet, monitoring your online buzz is more important than ever. These five strategies can help you keep your name under control, and keep your clients from turning against you.

Offer alternatives, new solutions, and even a discount.

Managing problematic clients is an art that requires practice. It’s also something that requires a reasonable understanding of trade-offs and sunk costs. If a project has gone poorly and ended in what could become public criticism, you’re faced with two possible choices as a service provider.

The first is to leave it be, pushing your client towards other providers and increasing the chances that you’ll end up with a very public negative testimonial. The second option is to offer a solution to clients in private, extending your service and possibly missing out on such a lucrative project payment.

It’s up to you to decide between the two, but we think it’s worth preserving your name in exchange for a slight hit in your company’s bottom line. If you’re forced into a position where a dispute could result in negative feedback and a search-friendly public posting, offer a discount on the project or eliminate costs altogether. It will hurt in the short-term and you’ll likely lose any future business, but it’s certainly more welcome than a smear post or high-ranked “scam” forum topic.

Have your own public outlet prepared.

Don’t have a blog? Start one. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to challenge most companies on their promises, not due to a devaluing of opinions but because of the huge increase in company blogs over the last few years. Businesses that were once uninterested in blogging and unresponsive to public criticism have taken a different stand, posting weekly to keep a public outlet open.

That one blog can be the difference between a very public fallout and a reasoned response to criticism. With the anonymous nature of the internet and the occasionally shady tactics of many online workers, it’s inevitable that you will one day attract public criticism, particularly if you operate a large business or work with hundreds of different clients.

Prevent that criticism from being the only post on you or your company by building your own public outlet. All it takes is a single blog post weekly – something that takes less than ten minutes and has its own set of promotional benefits. Control your own outlet and you’ll be prepared for criticism and public disputes, both in the blogosphere and in the search results.

Respond to blog posts, “rip-off” reports, and forum bashing carefully.

Not every critical blog post deserves a response. Major companies and in-demand online presences often selectively ignore unfair criticism of themselves, instead choosing to focus on their goals and respond to complaints that are justified. It’s a situation that’s difficult to navigate – when trolls post unfair and inaccurate opinions on your business, many people can take them at face value.

But responding to trollish, untrue comments can sometimes make a bad situation worse. When the complaint is based on nothing but hearsay and anger, a reasoned response can often just ignite fires and push more people to post unfair criticism. The United States Air Force has a ‘counter-blog‘ chart which we’re big fans of – it demonstrates how to respond to the right criticism, and why you should ignore criticism that’s not grounded in reality.

Fire your problem clients.

Some clients aren’t going to love your service, no matter how great it may be. They’re a type that’s present in every form of business, complaining that extra features aren’t the norm and continually bartering for a discount. It’s tempting to cater to problem clients and offer discounts to cut down could-be controversy, but doing so leaves you in an annoying and financially difficult position.

Marketing expert and ultra-blogger Seth Godin made the same point in a recent blog post, stating that you can “put up with the whiners, write off everyone, or, deliberately exclude the ungrateful curs.” We agree with him – it’s best to tailor your business to the clients that bring you more than just long-term projects and income, and eliminate those that could lead to issues.

So take a more forward stance to could-be problem clients, and work them out of your portfolio before they grow to be an annoyance. Some service providers and consultants recommend using your prices to drive away problematic clients, but we think it’s best to just close the door entirely. Eliminate problem clients before they produce crises and you’ll have more time to focus on those that your business meshes with.

Don’t astroturf: make it clear who you are and why you’re defending yourself.

The only thing more damaging to your business than an anonymous complaint is an anonymous complaint with a very suspicious ultra-positive response. With most online complaint boards open to almost anyone, users have grown conditioned to think that anyone singing a company’s praises must be a paid shill.

Don’t fight it – there’s no way to overcome online conditioning and the way people respond to controversy. Instead, be completely open about your affiliation or ownership with the business in question, and explain exactly why you’re responding to any public criticism. Users aren’t against service providers and businesses from the get-to, they just like their information free of bias and false impartiality.

Preventative action: 3 ways to keep your company’s online image dispute-free.

Responding is one thing – actively monitoring is another. We’ve picked out three strategies that can help you keep your online reputation clean and criticism-free. Think of public responses and visible explanations as a last case scenario, and use these tools and tactics to ensure that you’re never put in a position where it’s a necessity.

1. 1. Use Google Alerts to keep track of your trading name

Google Alerts should be one of the most frequently used tools in any freelancer’s arsenal. Both an amazing marketing tool and an incredibly effective service for reputation management, it’s one of the most immediately accessible tools out there for searching the internet for your name (or your business name) and monitoring the conversation.

If you’re in high demand, set a daily reminder and check over the results once every evening. Small businesses and freelancers can get by with once-weekly alerts, which should be configured to email information on their competition, client reviews and public forum posts, and any potential clients with an interest in their services.

1. 2. Reach out to clients in private if you feel things could turn sour

Never make things public if your name is at stake. Every designer has run into at least one dispute with a client, sometimes over the most minor and inconsequential of details. Even if you feel as if you’re being unfairly targeted or treated poorly, don’t take the matter public unless you’re forced to.

Reach out to troubled clients and offer them a solution via email, phone, or an instant messenger. As tempting as it may be to name and shame a problematic client, it reflects poorly on your business to release details of a client’s requests to the public. Aim for private solutions, and let disputes become public only once you’ve exhausted any private options for reconciliation.

1. 3. Control your search results using social media outlets

Every online business should aim to control their first-page search results. Not the results for their industry, but the results for their trading name, or for freelancers their full name. It’s an exercise that takes surprisingly little effort (unless you’re called John Smith) and is immensely rewarding when it comes to reputation management and handling online disputes.

Start with the top spot – one that should be inhabited by your own website – and work your way downwards with social media outlets and other small websites. Controlling your name has obvious benefits when it comes to your online reputation, and it’s also an indispensable method for helping potential clients find your business when referred to you by a trading name.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and let us know when you’ve been in a situation like this and how you handled it.

Images by ShutterStock

You can see that call to action makes a lot of difference in the user’s decision.

If you want to use some of the best CSS3 call to action buttons, my favorite one is BonBon buttons. They are probably the best buttons I have seen. It is free to use them on your site. So, if you are interested, check them out. The preview of some of the possibilities with the BonBon buttons are shown below.

Call to action can be achieved by different methods such as bigger size, contrast, color, shape etc. The main goal of the designer is to grab the attention of the user. They are very important in making sure that the user knows their button or section and impresses the audience to click. Here, I have collected websites with some of the best usage of call to action.

TheCommentor

Clover

QuoteRobot

WPCoder

PSD2HTML

EmailCraft

PixelCrayons

Elegant Themes

WooThemes

Think Vitamin Membership

Honey Grove Design

John Shammas

Go Freelance Jobs

FluentBox

fatih tanrverdi

Who is Leon

Grzegorz Kozak

Curio Productions

Maksimer din konverteringsrate

VPS

charity: water

Sensational Jobs

Boxed Art

xhtmlCafe

RIPIE6

Miro

HappyTapper

Orlando Web Design

Quodis

Carbonmade

Tucson Web Design

FINCH

Alexarts

Flavors.me

IconEden

Wistia

Ruler

Ashraf Khattab

m3mi

10 Buck Tuesday

iBrainstorm

Weather Maps

Sonny T.

SmartCube

Aviary

DIYthemes

Basecamp

Tender Support

Appcelerator

Pictage

Get Satisfaction

SpiderOak

Hoptoad

Page.ly

Tweetment

Realmac Software

Zendesk

Denote App

Notebox

CloudFlare

Conclusion

As you can see, the buttons and sections are very enchanting and pressures you to click. Some of the website have added extra elements to make it even more tempting. The call to action is very clear and I hope this has motivated you to create your own call to action buttons or sections.