by abduzeedo
Explore 2009 design nostalgia via a rediscovered Photoshop dew drop tutorial. Reflects on past community vs. modern AI.
2009, just unearthed this old Photoshop tutorial, dew drops glistening on the screen like memories on a rainy windshield, and suddenly, this strange echo from a time that feels like a different lifetime altogether. Sixteen years gone, imagine that. Back then, it wasn't like now, not at all. Now you just whisper your wish to some AI genie and it appears, magic powers humming under your fingertips, the only limit the edge of your own imagination—if you even know what to ask for, that's the challenge, isn't it? You have to know the dream before you can dream it.
But 2009, that was different terrain. It wasn't just wanting the fire effect, the ice, the light, the water drops shimmering on a digital leaf – you had to wrestle it into existence, follow the threads, learn the how. And perhaps that struggle, that figuring-it-out, made the whole thing sweeter, rarer, like finding a hidden spot on a long stretch of highway. The web, the design scene, it was looser then, more like those open-source folks, all resourceful and sharing secrets, tutorials popping up like roadside signs, everyone eager to show you the shortcut they just found. We were all just figuring it out together, posting our little discoveries on blogs, no thought of "influencing," just sharing the excitement, yes, sharing the excitement before Instagram grids and high-polish YouTube productions turned everything into a sales pitch.
Nothing wrong with earning a living, people need to survive, right? But something was lost in the transaction, some of that raw, uninhibited fun, that feeling of a shared journey. Now it feels like you have to adopt the right style, follow the unspoken rules. Maybe blame it on Apple, maybe blame it on time, this idea that there's only one correct way, their way, sleek and shiny and perhaps a little sterile, I don't know. Just thoughts drifting here, another voice in the wind, kicked up by finding this old video, this dew drop tutorial I made and maybe shared, maybe forgot, lost in the digital dust.
But seeing that old macOS interface, those distinct icons, it brought it all rushing back. So here it is, this little technique from the past, simple layer styles in Photoshop, free and fun. Bet you could even do it in Figma now, maybe I'll try, another experiment down the road. For whoever's reading, if anyone still reads these long scrolls, take a look, a glimpse into the design dashboard of 2009. Quite something, wasn't it? Just quite something.
