Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Tucked Photo Frames Made Easy

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3VmV2R8

Anyone who has spent any time touring the GingerScraps Gallery knows that we have some inordinately talented and creative scrappers in our midst. And some equally superlative Designers. If you’re ever needing a healthy dose of inspiration, you won’t have to look far. Karen found a layout using one of these fabulous tucked frames in the Gallery and had to try it for herself. Turns out Sheri (Jumpstart Designs) has already done ALL the work and all we have to do is customize. Here’s a link to the product in her Shop.

So how easy is it to use these gems? I’ll show you! While I’m at it I’m going to add my tucked photo to a template from this month’s Spotlight Designer, Connie Prince. (Alas, it’s discontinued, but this will work regardless.) As you can see in the screenshot below, I’m using a layered file, in this case a PSD.

The only difference with using PNG files for this is that you’ll have to add them to the template’s photo spot manually, one at a time, aligning them as needed. I dropped this photo of my grandson Aaron onto the Photo Mat layer of the PSD.

When I Resized my photo, I found it still wasn’t a great fit; there were important details I didn’t want to crop out.

But… I CAN Resize the rest of the layers to fit to the photo. I Activated all those layers EXCEPT the photo and made my adjustments. The nice thing about the Photo Mat layer being black is that it’s easy to see if the Resized frame still isn’t right.

Did you notice the tab is partially covered by the photo – which isn’t the look I want? To solve that problem I just Clipped the photo to the Photo Mat layer. There are always multiple ways of doing these types of things in Elements, and I usually will show you two of them. Right-click>Create Clipping Mat is one way. The keyboard shortcut for Elements 14 and earlier versions is CTRL/CMD>G. For Elements 15 and more recent it’s CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>G.

Simply by Clipping the photo to the Mat, the tab now looks like it’s part of the paper the photo/frame combo is tucked into!

Now to move it all to the template. I just moved the whole stack as one object onto the photo spot on my template. Will it still work like a PSD though? One way to find out!

Brilliant! All I did was turn visibility for the template’s photo spot off and the tab looks like it’s the same paper that’s under the photo.

As you can see on the finished layout, Clipping a paper to the template did exactly what I wanted it to do, and my photo is neatly tucked under some brown cardstock.

Now I can’t wait to try the others in the package!!

Next Tuesday, it’s YOUR turns to shine! Which Challenge will be in the Spotlight?

 

 

 

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Text on a Custom Path – Keeping the Path

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3ToXcyv

One of the very first tutorials I wrote for GingerScraps was about putting text on a path – geek-speak for lettering that isn’t on a straight line. (If you want to see it, look here.) Early last week I got this message from Karen: “I found your tutorial on how to put text on a wavy line but what I want is for the line to stay with the text. I just cannot accomplish that.” So immediately – literally – I opened up Elements and figured out how to do it. We decided it would be a good tutorial topic, so here’s what I did.

If you’re a frequent reader, you know one of my mantras is to put things on their own layers so they can be manhandled without manhandling anything else. So of course, first thing to do is to create a new, blank layer to put your wavy line on. Then activate the Pencil Tool, with a hard, round tip at about 5 pixels in diameter. It can be thicker, but it’ll be more jaggy if it’s thicker, so choose accordingly. (It can be made thicker later if desired.) You can choose a colour now, or add a Fill Layer>Solid Color later. Set the Opacity at 100%.

Now, draw your wavy line. Moving your mouse quickly with the left button down, drag the cursor in a swooping motion. The faster you move the mouse, the smoother your line will be.

The font you choose will make or break this technique. If you’ve got a bit of a bumpy curve, using a font with a slightly wandering baseline will disguise that. But those really fancy fonts might look a bit weird. Choose one you like, and give it an audition. If it’s not what you were looking for you can change it later. I’m using one called Natalia Regular.

Activate the Text Tool and then choose Text on Custom Path Tool. The icon looks like a capital T sitting on a snowboard. The Tool will default to Draw.

The Tool Tip will look like the nib from a fountain pen. For those too young to have seen those, here’s one.

Carefully click-and-drag the Tool Tip along your curvy line. I find it easier to pull when doing this; I’m much more shaky when pushing.  But this can create problems when the text goes the wrong direction. 😉 So my advice is to draw your guideline in the direction you want your text to travel. You can take a break if you need to; to find out where you stopped, turn visibility for the master line layer off momentarily and you’ll be back in the game. Go slowly and try to stick as close to your master line as you can.

Once you’ve gotten your text line in place, click on the Modify Button in the Tool Options. Wherever your text line departs from your master line, Elements will put a dot – they’re your “handles” to move the text line to where you want it. Click-and-drag the dots closer to your master line until you’ve got the text line and master line touching each other.

Know where your Text Tool is going to put your letters. Mine is usually set to Center, so I’ve put my cursor there and clicked to activate. You’ll know you’ve actually activated the Text Tool when a blinking line appears. If you have yours set to start at the left side, that’s where you start. Now I’ll just type my text.

 

The text may not fit properly on your master line. You can easily resize it, or add some extra spaces, change the Tracking if you’re using a more recent version of Elements… or you can change it to a completely different font. Until you Simplify it, you can make all the changes you want. Once it’s Simplified, the text line that told Elements where to put the text will disappear.

All that’s left is to decide how far away you want your master line. Nudge it with your arrow keys. If your master line seems a bit too jagged at the size you’re going to use this, add a small Stroke, centered on your line. That’s easier that trying to Refine it.

Here’s another sample, this time using an arrow brush.

And then I did this, which is when I found out the Tool takes its direction from – well – the direction the text line was drawn. I had started at the top of the bell and drew down to the lower left edge, and the text ended up on the inside of the line, not the outside. UndoUndoUndo! If I Rotated the Stroke line layer, I was able to get the Text where I wanted it.

I might have to try this one again, but with a shamrock, to celebrate my Irish heritage. [Editor’s note: Shamrocks have 3 leaves, to represent the Holy Trinity, not 4. Those 4-leaf clovers aren’t shamrocks!] See you next week!

Designer Spotlight: March 2024

Connie Prince

I think everybody already knows Connie. Some of us know her quite well, either as one half of North Meets South Studios (she’s the South half) with Trixie Scraps, or through her Shop at GingerScraps. But a Spotlight is a Spotlight, so she agreed to (another) chat with me. She’s had a hectic year so far, so this was a gracious act on her part… This is how our chat went.

J: Connie, thank you so much for taking a few minutes with me so I can introduce you to all the new folks in the GingerScraps community and to maybe give the rest a bit more of a glimpse into your creativity. I think this is our fourth Spotlight together, so I hope you’re not bored! Let’s talk creativity for a moment and then we can just gab. What are your most favorite and least favorite colors?

C: I love primary, bold colors. Pastels are my least favorite!

J: I think anybody who’s browsed your Shop would know that. <winks> We’ve talked about all the other mundane stuff, like what got you started and how your workflow goes a few times already so let’s talk about fun stuff! Can you play a musical instrument?

C: Yes, piano and it soothes my soul so much!

J: I know I’ve mentioned this before, that I took piano lessons as a middle-schooler. I wish I could have kept it up, but we didn’t have a piano at home and practicing was very challenging. I love music and, like you, I find it very therapeutic. This is a weird question so let me set it up for you. When we moved into our new house back in May 2020, for the first time in my life I had a BIG walk-in shower. I feel like we could have a party in there! I put a waterproof Bluetooth speaker in there and play my Amazon playlists while I’m unwinding. So, are you more likely to dance or sing in the shower? I do both…

C: Definitely dance!

J: Yeah, a good, non-slip base is really dance friendly. But boy am I glad no one can see me doing it! Good thing my family know I’m… um… quirky. What one word would your friends and family use to describe you?

C: Loyal.

J: Well, that’s a lot better than weird! And it’s an amazing quality to have. I wonder if I can guess your answer to this one. What would you do if you won the lottery?

C: Travel, travel, & travel some more!

J: Yep, nailed it! I “travel” vicariously with you through your Facebook fan group. Except when you cruise. I just can’t… the ICU nurse in me won’t. So, let’s shift to what your dream vacation looks like.

C: Anywhere tropical works for me!

J: I’ve done a few semi-tropical vacays – Florida, Louisiana, California – but the only truly tropical locale I’ve visited is Jamaica. I’ve never been a lie-on-the-beach-baking-in-the-sun kinda gal, but I’d absolutely go back to Ireland any time. England, Scotland and France too. Excuse me a second, I’ve got spaghetti sauce needs stirring. Ah. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

C: Steak and salad!

J: Hmm, not very tropical! <winks> So, tell me. Aside from the necessities like food, water, sleep and exercise, what one thing could you not live without?

C: My phone!

J: I know, right?! My husband doesn’t understand how I can use my phone as much as I do; maybe it’s because he needs his text super-huge so he can read it, he doesn’t really know where his phone puts things or how to get to them, and his fingers just don’t behave accurately enough for a phone keyboard. I don’t know. (I’ve had to teach him how to send text messages, and how to attach photos to them, as well as how to use most of the apps he has.) But I use mine for everything! It’s one of my super powers. If you could have a literal super power, what would you like it to be?

C: Manipulate time, I’d definitely make use of that one!

J: YEAH! Extend your tropical vacays!! Push back deadlines. Get out of things you’d rather not do just by skipping over that day. I could use that. Is there any one thing about yourself you’d change if you could?

C: I would love to master the art of being patient. I’m working on it, but it is for sure a big struggle!

J: I’ve been told I have the patience of a saint. I don’t know about that; there are some things that drive me absolutely crazy and my fuse is short when I have to do them. Anyhoo, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll take care of the rest of the Important Spotlight Information. Thanks again for giving our community a little insider 411 on Connie!

As with all of our Spotlight Designers, Connie is the provider of the Daily Download for this month – links are found here on the Blog each day and are good for 5 days – and the host of the Designer Spotlight Challenge in the Forum. She also is the regular host of the #2024 Challenge that is in essence, a minikit challenge. This is what the March kit looks like. And did I mention it’s FREE?

So cute!!! The other Important Info is that Connie has a coupon for y’all… and a GENEROUS one at that!!!!!

Ready? Set? SHOP!

 

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Quick Trick: Toggling Between Tool and Color Picker

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3V8fV2q

Today’s Quick Trick is one of those Work Smart Not Hard tips I only just discovered. Have you been using a Brush, Pencil or Text Tool in Elements and thought, “Gee, I’d really like to change colours for this fill in the blank” and then clicked through to the Color Picker, chose your new colour, clicked OK and then clicked back on your Tool? Would you like a shortcut for those 4 steps? I have one!

This Trick makes multi-coloured titles easier and much more fun to create, lets you throw a bunch of paint splatters in different colours onto your canvas, and whatever else you might use the Color Picker for. I’ve played with it so I can explain how to use it, but screenshots won’t be helpful, so don’t look for them. 😉

Once you’ve chosen your Brush or Font and applied your first colour, hold down the ALT/OPT key and click on the Color PickerRelease the ALT/OPT key, choose another colour and click OK.  Bingo, you’re back to your Brush or Font and your new colour is ready to go! If you’re working with the Brush Tool, you can change the size, shape, Opacity and orientation after you’ve changed the colour by going into Brush Settings… If you’re working with the Type Tool, you’ll love this! After you’ve changed your colour, you can also change the Font, the Size, add an Underline, turn it Bold or Italic and not have to Simplify in between!!

Okay, I lied. I have a screenshot for you. I decided to run a quick test and count the keystrokes I needed to obtain 3 different colours of paint splatter. 8. The answer was 8.

I’m going to use this Trick ALL THE TIME!!

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

Challenge Spotlight: Mixed Media

Today I’m showcasing one of the new GingerScraps Challenges for 2024. Interestingly enough, it’s hosted by a designer who was a guest at GS for many months before she made it her home: Sarapullka Designs. This is the inaugural month for the Mixed Media Challenge. So we’re seeing the very first layouts posted to the Gallery! Larisa (Sarapullka) has provided an artsy paper and a paper cut element as the foundation for this month’s Challenge; participants were welcome to add anything they liked, as long as it came from Larisa’s store. They are required elements, which makes this Challenge an ideal one for my Individual Style analysis.

Because this is a brand new Challenge, there were only 6 layouts in the Challenge Gallery this morning. I hope, by putting a spotlight on it, we can bring that number up before the end of the month – and we do have an extra day… As always, each layout appears here in the order it was uploaded, and is linked to the Gallery so you can get a closer look, and maybe leave some feedback for the Scrapper. Just click on the Scrapper’s user name and you’ll be teleported to the Gallery.

AJsRandom is up first. She used the paper in the background and turned the paper cut into a blended overlay. The layout is simple in its design and compliments her photo very nicely.

I really like how trinanne has used the paper cut element like a black stamp against the paper background. Then she used segments of the paper cut, recoloured pink and green, to frame her photo. The addition of several artsy brushes and a simple cluster in one corner pulls it all together.

This is truly a mixed-media layout from lm44west. A simple still-life with the paper cut used as a stamp in black, a handwriting brush with gold leaf foiled to it and some subtle shadowing round out the design.

Alasandra went green! I’m adoring the blended daisy photo she’s layered over the paper and the 3D effect on the paper cut.

Oh Mylanta!! This is stunning! Yvonne55 has popped a blue paper into the background, added some crosshatched brushes over the required paper and those adorable little chickadees to the dried-grass paper cut. The extracted photo is the icing on the cake.

And last, we have a layout from the Queen of Challenges, KatherineWoodin herself. To give herself lots of space for her diary entry, she greatly downsized the paper cut element and duplicated it to create a stamped border. She changed Blend Mode on the paper to bring out the pinks and blues hiding within. Her photos are works of art in and of themselves.

What do you think? Is mixed media a style you’d like to try? I think I might give it a whirl… I watched a Facebook Live on creating bokeh mixed media backgrounds for greeting cards earlier and feel quite inspired!

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements 15+)

Ink Smudge Technique for Photos

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3SWPxqJ

Spoiler alert: This technique is an advanced one, but hopefully I’ve made the instructions clear enough that it’s achievable by everyone. Hence the huge collection of screenshots……

As I mentioned last week, Karen is trying to stay busy and has been looking online for new things to try for her digital scrapbooking repertoire. She came across a YouTube video showing a beautifully manipulated photo and wanted to try it for herself. But the video host’s accent was really heavy and he moved through the steps really quickly and soon she found herself lost. AND he was using Photoshop, not Elements – where terminology is different and some options and tools aren’t included. She uses Elements, so she asked me to look at it. I watched the video 3 times, watching what he was doing more than listening to what he was saying, before I ventured to try it. Then I did 3 dry runs, consulting the video as needed, before I started screenshotting my work. Ready for a workout?

Another caveat: There are steps in this technique that weren’t available in Elements until version 15, so if you’re working with an older version, I’m sorry, this one isn’t for you. As usual, I’m including commands for both Windows and Mac. I work in Windows, so that goes first. 😉

First thing is to choose a photo to manipulate. I looked at thousands at Pixabay and almost chose a photo of a cheetah, but then I found this one from Jerzy Gorecki that I really like. Portraits are most effective when the eyes are the focal point, and for me, that’s what I see here. Next, I hunted for some ink smudges or smears in my digistash. I found a bunch, all from the talented Connie Prince. I chose one from Hakuna Moscato and one from My Lucky Stars. And then… I discovered as I was doing my dry runs that PNG-format ink smudges don’t work for the technique. At all. They have to be JPGs. I converted them so I could keep going, but YOU could use brushes in black on a white background, then Save As a JPG and go with that.

It’s a good idea to get in the habit of doing techniques like this on a COPY and not the original, just in case something goes sideways. Right-click on the layer then choose Duplicate Layer.

You can change the name of the layer to keep them straight; you want the Copy layer to be with the original so nothing needs to happen with the Destination Document. Then click OK. If you’re into keyboard shortcuts, you can skip these two steps and just use CTRL/CMD>J.

Filters are marvelous things. I highly recommend playing with them sometime so you can see what you can do with just a couple of keystrokes. But for right now, Filter>Filter Gallery>Artistic will do. Or Filter>Artistic – skip a step. OR… click on the Filters button at the bottom of the Layers Panel. They all end up in the same place.

The Filter we’ll use is the Dry Brush.

Any adjustments to the Filter will depend on the resolution of the image you’re working with, as well as how much you want to alter the image’s appearance. This photo is pretty sharp, so I went BIG, with a Brush Size and Brush Detail of 10, but I left the Texture at the default 1.

The effect isn’t really obvious, but trust me, it’s there. Now let’s drop a New blank Layer on top of the photo layers.

Fill that new layer with white with the Paint Bucket.

Ready for something we’ve NEVER done before in any of my tutorials? We’re going to add an empty Group to the Layers stack. This is what will let us get the special effect on the image in the end. Click on the icon that looks like several sheets of paper spread out on a table, second-from-left at the top of the Layers Panel. The default Blend Mode is Pass Through, and we’ll need to change that.

The Mode we want for the Group is Multiply.

We’re breaking a lot of new ground with this tut! Now we’re going to add a Layer Mask inside the Group. Click on the icon that looks like a blue square with a gray circle inside it, fourth from the left at the top of the Layers Panel. See how the new layer with the mask is indented? That’s how you’ll know you’ve put something into the Group.

Now go back to the Copy layer that we added the Dry Brush Filter to, down there second from the bottom. Click Select>All or CTRL/CMD>A. That will Select the photo and the Filter.

Next, click on Edit>Copy or CTRL/CMD>C. (See the marching ants around the outside of the photo?)

Move back up to the Layer Mask up there at the top of the stack. Hold down the ALT/OPT key and click on the Mask thumbnail. Then Edit>Paste or CTRL/CMD>V.

Now you know what that Mask will do… the photo turned to black and white. It needs a tiny tweak before we go on. The contrast needs some help. Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels or CTRL/CMD>L.

Go for drama with this step. Move the sliders on the histogram toward the middle. Watch as you adjust so you know when it’s right.

Now we’re going to turn the black and white image into a negative by first Deselecting the Mask (CTRL/CMD>D or ESC) then click CTRL/CMD>I.

Drag and drop one of your ink smears onto the canvas on top of the white layer. See how it completely hides the Mask?

Not for long! You can use CTRL/CMD>] to move it up the Layers stack and into the Group, or you can drag it up there. That’s all it takes to have some of the photo show again!

Here’s where you get to play around with it! Resize the ink, Rotate it, Reposition it, move it about until you like what it’s showing.

But first things first. Let’s change the Blend Mode on the ink layer to Multiply too.

Now I’ve added my second ink smear onto the canvas and made sure it’s inside the Group. It’s obscuring the photo though. See the edge of the “paper” background?

Easy fix!

I think I like it. Most of her face is visible, her eyes are sharp, so let’s add some colour back!

We’ll need another Copy of the Dry Brush layer for this step.

The new colour layer needs to be on top of the whole stack. There are a few ways to do that. One is to click Layer>Arrange>Bring to Front. Another is to hold down the CTRL/CMD key and use the ] key to jump it up there. Or grab it in the Layers Panel and drag it!

Some steps just don’t screenshot. This is one of them. Yeah, I’ve added an Inverse Layer Mask to the colour photo layer I just dragged to the top of the heap. That’s how the colour is going to get into our image, so let me tell you how I did it. After the photo layer was positioned, I held down the ALT/OPT key and clicked on that same Layer Mask button – the one that looks like a blue square with a gray circle in the middle. That’s all!

Then I used the Brush Tool and some Ink Blot Brushes to bring the colour up. Don’t have any ink blot/splatter/smear Brushes? Check out Brusheezy.com!! They’ve got a ton of free Brushes and 98% of them are Elements-compatible. For this step be judicious. Drop the Opacity to 40-50%, no stronger. I think I used 3 different Brushes, sized fairly large, and just clicked them one time over a part of the image. Don’t forget that you can go into Brush Settings… and Rotate them, squish them and make them less Hard. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

When you’re satisfied with your efforts, you can Merge or Link the layers and Crop the image. It’ll have a solid background so it can’t be used like a PNG, but it CAN be Clipped to a Mask to eliminate a bunch of the white space and soften the edges. Anything you can do with any other photo can be done with this.

Next week we’ll be looking at Individual Style and a Challenge Spotlight. Where does the time go??

 

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Scraplifting Mother Bear

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3UEo7aA

Faithful reader Karen is in need of some creative distraction and has been combing through the Gallery looking for inspiration. She asked me if I could help her emulate an effect she saw on one of the layouts posted by Julie, aka Mother Bear. Now, Julie is a veteran of the digital scrapbooking game, prolific is her middle name and I’m sure she has a million tricks up her sleeve. But believe me, if I can scraplift her, anybody can. Let’s look at the layout Karen likes.

This beautiful layout was created using a non-GingerScraps designer’s product. The aspect of it Karen loves is the blended photo along the right side of the layout. I could definitely just do a rapid-fire tutorial on how to make a photo look like that, but I thought maybe I’d go all the way and scraplift the whole layout.

I found a template in my stash, from Jumpstart Designs‘ Synchronicity collection (retired), that I could easily adapt to my purpose. I’ll show you how.

The masked area of the template needed to be on the right side, so I Rotated the entire template 90° to the right. The framed photo spot was a bit big, so I resized it then made a Copy slightly larger and tilted a smidge. Some of the embellishments needed to be moved around, but here’s the basic recipe.

The mask wasn’t quite right, even with its new orientation. So I tried a combo of things until I was happy.

Julie‘s layouts always have an ethereal look, many of them with blended photos and solid, neutral papers in the background. I dropped a pretty cream-coloured paper with a hint of texture to it into the background then Clipped my main photo to the masked area. It’s a start!

To achieve the blended look the next step was to change the Blend Mode (snicker) of the PHOTO layer to Screen. Screen is one of the Modes that lightens an image. Elements has very kindly grouped those in the drop-down menu.

I know you’re going to feel cheated, but there’s only one more step to get that big photo blended perfectly. And that’s to decrease the Opacity on the MASK layer to about 40%. This step is very subjective and you may find 40% is too light for you. If you watch your canvas as you adjust the Opacity, you can fine-tune your image to your satisfaction.

Now to emulate the look of the second photo. I suspect Julie uses Photoshop filter Actions for this part. Looking at her Gallery, many of her photos have a similar and distinctive look to them… sharply detailed but faded. There are lots of free Actions available if you know where to look. I don’t want any of you to go out and buy a bunch of things you might only use once, so finding a way to recreate the look using just Elements software will always be my goal. Make a Copy of the photo, please! Right-click on the layer then choose Duplicate Layer from the menu. [Keyboard shortcut: CTRL/CMD>J]

If you didn’t use the keyboard shortcut, this cue will appear. Elements wants to know where to put the Copy. Just click OK and it’ll settle down right on top of the original.

Working on the Copy, change the Blend Mode to Screen. (This is also a really easy way to adjust those photos that are a bit too dark to be good.)

See how this change looks? (If you’re simply adjusting for an under-exposed photo, you’d adjust the Opacity of this Copy until it looks *normal*.)

… which is what I did here.

Because I never Save OVER any of my originals, I’m happy to Merge Layers here to make handling the altered photo easier. Right-click>Merge Layers [or CTRL/CMD>E] If you’d rather Link the layers instead, click on the icon at the left side of the layer looking like a piece of chain instead.

To get the sharp definition click Enhance>Shake Reduction.

Elements will choose an area of the image to focus its effort on, shown below by the marching-ants box. You can adjust the Sensitivity of the tool if you choose; I kept the defaults.

The change is subtle; I could see it easiest in her eyelashes and around her fingers. To further boost the sharpness, I clicked Enhance>Haze Removal. [CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>Z]

The defaults pretty much undo what I’ve done to the photo so far… but all is not lost.

I fixed it by moving the sliders around.

For this layout, composition-wise, the photos should be looking at each other, or toward the centre of the layout, so I’m just going to Image>Rotate>Flip Horizontal and fit it into the framed photo spots. The rest of the scraplift is simply placing embellishments in the right places.

How do you think I did?

[Photos from Bong Baby House Photos]

 

Designer Spotlight February 2024

ScrapChat Designs

Hey y’all! How’s February treating you so far? This month’s Designer Spotlight is on Jill, aka ScrapChat Designs.

Some of you may remember that Jill was my guest here last April. We bonded over our shared enjoyment of a good bourbon. 😉 This time, she was driving so we had tea instead. 🙂 Since we’ve already covered a lot of the blahblahblah stuff during her last Spotlight, this time we just had fun.

O: Jill, it’s so good to touch base with you again! Let’s get the mechanical stuff out of the way and tell me how long you’ve been designing.

J: I started designing templates in May of 2021. Looking back it was such a random decision. I later entered a design contest. I did not win but it certainly gave me the bug to keep designing.

O: I remember your first template designs. I have some… What do you use when you’re creating?

J: I use both Photoshop and Illustrator to design. My skills in Illustrator are very limited but I enjoy the challenge of trying to learn new things.

O: Yeah… Cricut Design Space… I find myself doing my stuff in Elements then converting it to Cricut-friendly format using a free website. It’s less work! What motivates you when you’re designing?

J: When searching for ideas for kit, I often look at photos of my children and grandchildren. Looking at photos from my daughter and daughters-in-laws’ points of view often shows me what a customer might need such as a kit I did called Toddler Life. I imagined either of my daughter-in-laws scrapbooking their photo rolls. Occasions and accomplishments in the lives of my children and friends helps as well.

O: How sweet is that?! Do you have a favourite child …ummm… kit in the Store?

J: My current favorite is my For Your Service collection. Raised by a former Marine, appreciating the military service of our vets was a huge part of my upbringing. My youngest son is in the Ohio National Guard, my oldest is a Navy vet. I really enjoyed creating the collection.

O: Wow, we have something else in common. I was raised as an Air Force brat, married an Airman and raised my own Army cadet. Have you ever met anyone famous?

J: When i taught paper scrapbooking, I used to attend conventions each summer. I met Stacey Julian and Becky Higgins a couple times there.

O: I barely got my feet wet with paper scrapping before I moved to digi-scrapping, and now all that stuff I collected I’m using for card-making. Those 12×12 sheets of patterned paper make fabulous envelopes! Other than absolute necessities, what one thing could you never live without?

J: My photographs or scrapbooks. Photographs are an instant of time that we can return to by looking at them. The same photograph can be a source of a smile or a tear depending on my mood. I would be lost without photos of the past.

O: I LOVE that! I think most of our GingerScrappers do too. That gives me a nice little segué… If time travel was possible, would you go back in time or ahead? Why?

J: I would go backwards. Born the last year of the baby boomers generation, I tend to be a bit old fashioned. Aging myself, I can say I miss the good old days or at least the people from earlier in my life. I would definitely go back and enjoy the time I had with my family and late daughter more. Appreciate things more rather than stressing as much as I did. Ah they say hindsight is 20/20 don’t they?

O: I’m so fascinated by history, I’d want to go back too. It would be hard not to want to change some things though, and that could really mess up the now. I’m absolutely sure I don’t want to know the future, other than in broad strokes, if you know what I mean. Can you play any musical instruments?

J: Nope! I thought I wanted to learn how to play the trombone when I was sixth grade. The band director was old, set in his ways and in a 6th grader’s opinion, mean. I think I went to band for about 9 weeks. After that I skipped band and went to gym. Seriously who skips a class to go to gym. I am one of THE most nonathletic persons on earth but went to gym to avoid band. I’m not sure how long it lasted but I remember getting grounded for a good long time when my mom found out I was skipping band.

O: OMG. I’m dead!! I took piano lessons for awhile when I was about the same age. But we didn’t own a piano – I had to practice on the piano at the elementary school. No supervision, no encouragement, not ideal. Then I broke my left pinky finger and that was my excuse to quit. My oldest grandson is learning to play the cello; it suits his personality to a tee – he’s very introverted and sober. If you had a warning label, what would it say?

J: “Easily distracted.” It’s best not to ask me an open ended question, something that isn’t just yes or no. You will get three side stories, one restart of the story and the answer to a question I forgot to answer that you asked yesterday.

O: Me too! I’m the queen of tangential storytelling! (To no one’s surprise.) What would you change about yourself if you could?

J: It would go right back to the above question. I would like to be able to concentrate for longer periods of time.

O: Well, that got heavy really quickly. Rapid change of subject: Tell me about your dream vacation!

J: Over Christmas we were blessed to be able to go to Lihue, Kauai in the state of Hawaii. Prior to going to Hawaii, I had never thought I liked the beach. Five days there and I’m hooked on beach vacations although I cannot swim. Long quiet walks on the beach with the sun rising or setting. Beautiful and perfect.

O: That sounds so relaxing! I’m not a beach person, so I’m not sure how my daughter ended up one. She and her husband are in Cabo San Lucas right this minute, doing beach stuff. They’ve been to Hawaii twice. The photos are beautiful, but they don’t make me anxious to go… Anyway, I know you’ve got to get on your way, Jill, so I’ll finish up. Thanks for giving our community another glimpse into your world.

Now, as always, I’m going to tell you all the things about Jill we didn’t talk about. For example, as the Spotlight holder this month, she’s providing the Daily Download all month. Check out the post before this one for a sneak peek. This full-sized kit is free for the taking! Each link is up for 5 days, but if you don’t have time to collect all the pieces, or if you miss some, the kit will be in the Store sometime after Jill‘s Spotlight is over. But wait, there’s more!! She’s also hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge on top of the A Year of Blessings Challenge she hosts EVERY month. And if that wasn’t enough, she’s also offering this HUGE discount on her entire store!!

I hope you’ll check out her Challenges and her designs. April was her best month last year, and YOU did that! See you Tuesday with a new tutorial I think you’ll love.

 

 

 

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Quick Trick: All-in-One Alphas

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/4bl74QA

January has flown by! It’s already the last tutorial of the month. Whew!

Susan asked for a tutorial on using those all-in-one sheets some designers provide with their alphas, and it just so happens that topic fits nicely into the Quick Trick deck. Now, I don’t use them, as a rule; I typically delete them and keep the individual letter files. But then, I’ve got a ton of hard drive space for that, and I know not everybody does. However, when I ran a search through my GingerScraps kits, I found more than one folder that had the all-in-ones inside – the only form of the alpha(s) provided. So I was set to get this tut out to you.

For my sample, I’m using this pink striped alpha from the GingerBread Ladies Summer Treats collab.

Once the all-in-one is in your Photo Bin, I recommend opening a New Project/canvas [CTRL/CMD>N] to create your text in a clean, no-distraction space. I have several presets in my Elements bag of tricks, including this one, a Title Strip 6 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches tall.

So on to the actual task at hand. Open up the all-in-one and using the Rectangle Marquee Tool, draw a box of marching ants around the first letter you want to use.

Now click Edit>Copy or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>C.

Flip over to your blank canvas. It will show in your Photo Bin, as well as in the strip across the top of the Elements workspace. Click Edit>Paste or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>V. (They couldn’t use P because that’s already in use for Print. 😉 )

And there’s your first letter! It’s just that easy. Follow the same steps to add the rest of your letters. If you’re reusing one or more, you can always use CTRL/CMD>J to make a Copy right there, rather than going back and forth between your all-in-one and your text.

Each letter you Copy and Paste in this manner will be the same size. Once you’ve got all your letters on the canvas, they’ll need to be organized and distributed, because Elements dumps EVERYTHING in the centre of the canvas, and not always in order. When you’re happy with it, you can Link or Merge [CTRL/CMD>E] all the layers so you can move the whole text box onto your layout. Then you can treat it as you do any of the embellishments you add to your layouts. Easy peasy!

I’ll be back over the weekend with the February Designer Spotlight, so stay tuned!

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

Making Multi-photo Layouts Work

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/42fFbp4

Last week I threw out a “tutorial-writer-needs-topics” plea at the end of the Challenge Spotlight. In the comments, lisar threw a couple of topics back. (For one of them I need some clarification.) “I don’t remember if you’ve done one on a gazillion photos on a page…” As someone who tends to want to scrap single-photo layouts, I’ve discovered I actually have quite a lot of multi-photo (but not quite a gazillion) layouts that turned out quite well. So that got me thinking. What makes a good multi-photo layout? So today, I’m going to pick apart a dozen of my own layouts. Brace yourselves!

I started off thinking about what I consider to be “multi”. Four photos are easily scrapped within the constraints of a 12×12 or 8.5×11 canvas, five only a little less so. That led me to only looking at layouts I’ve created with six or more photos. What became immediately apparent was that the photos I used for each had something in common. A theme, if you will. Some of them were taken on the same day, some of them were taken on different days but were linked in some way, some showed a progression.

Let’s start with this six-photo layout from my 2013 trip to Boston. The theme of my photos is the Boston Marathon bombing. Because we were there only 5 weeks after it happened, it was very much front-of-mind; the blast area was still filled with memorials. Rather than focusing on tragedy I looked at resilience. I chose a template designed by Dagmar Krupalova (who no longer has a shop at GS) because I could fit in all the memorial images I had. The photos are roughly the same size so no one image is the focal point. With the photos arranged in a loose circle gave me room to journal about the event and its aftermath.

You may have seen this layout here on the Blog. The photos are a mélange of images from my two trips to Ireland. They were selected to coordinate with the blessing I chose as my theme. The largest photo reflects both the iconic Celtic cross found everywhere on the island and my Irish Catholic ancestry, the others the beauty of the country. I used a Miss Fish template from her Travelers Notebook V.9 pack.

This layout is built on a Neia Scraps template from Enjoy the Moment V.10 (retired) to commemorate Maeve’s first week with us.  I liked it for this layout because I could have a large photo of my husband holding her the moment she became ours. The smaller photos offer glimpses into her personality. The way they overlap the large photo lets me conceal some background that isn’t interesting. Neia has quite a selection of multi-photo templates that I encourage you to check out.

My last six-photo layout for today is another travelogue with a mariner theme; the photos were taken by my sister who took a 3 week-long driving tour through Canada’s Maritime provinces. I used LDrag Designs‘ May 2019 challenge template because it has large photo spots in both landscape and portrait orientations. That let me crop the photos to keep the important elements of each. I like the asymmetry of the photo spots too. Lina likes journal cards but I tend not to use them, so I swapped them out for journal spots; there was lots to say about this fishing village. At the end I’ll talk about photo and template selection a bit more.

I have a couple of seven photo layouts to dissect next. My “celebration” of Orangemen’s Day in Northern Ireland was memorable for several reasons. The things I saw that stayed with me are a metaphor for struggle. The churches in the village of Derrylin are one kilometer apart at opposite ends of the main road and are starkly different in design. St Ninnidh’s (Catholic) is smaller and plainer than Holy Trinity (Church of Ireland/Protestant). The village is much closer to the Republic of Ireland than it is to most of Northern Ireland, which may be why there’s a visible Catholic presence in the village. Enniskillen Castle was the garrison for English soldiers and looks more Scottish than Irish; it represents the Plantation of Ulster in my mind. Okay, enough history. That’s not what we’re here for. I chose this template for the pocket-scrap organization. Each photo is quite separate and the eye moves around the page easily and it has a big spot for storytelling – which could easily be replaced with another photo.

I like the different photo spot shapes so much better than I like some of my hairstyles in these photos. I used a template from  JBStudio‘s Put It All Together V.1 that I rotated a quarter turn to the left which gave me lots of room for the quote I wanted to use as a subtitle.

Now let’s do some eight-photo layouts. The first two are a sort of diary looking at the same topic from slightly different perspectives. The first was built on a Dear Friends template now retired. The basic grid style works well to provide continuity and the varied sizes of photo spots let me show the details of each.

Its counterpart is more venting than art. I was so glad to see the last of the porta-john! The template I used is one from Tinci Designs Autumn Stories V.1. I replaced the journal card with a photo. The symmetry of the template echoes the symmetry of the new houses being built and shows the haphazard placement of the porta-john so clearly.

Another eight-photo layout captures the horror of Ronan Gillespie’s Famine Memorial in Dublin. I couldn’t leave out any of these images. It would have felt incomplete and dismissive. It’s based on another of Tinci Designs Autumn Stories V.1 templates, and again, I rotated it a quarter-turn to the left. I felt it was suited well to the photos I’d chosen; the four small photo spots let me zoom in on the faces of the statues. I moved and rotated one of the rectangular photo spots, moved the circle of paper up and rotated the paper flag to better accommodate my photos so they told a story.

Let’s move away from sad and depressing. I wanted to document the transformation of our new yard from dirt to landscaped. I like the diagonal arrangement of this Pixelily template; it took some fiddling to get the photos positioned so the overlap concealed things that should be concealed, but didn’t hide what should be visible. But it was worth it in the end. Each of the eight photos here lent itself to my story.

And last, I have a layout with NINE photos. It was created for a Journaling Challenge using another Dagmar Krupalova template. The ring-around-the-page orientation suited the photos and having the journaling in the centre added to the effect. I was able to show the significant parts of each photo clearly, despite the number and size of the photo spots.

So what’s the process for creating a multi-photo layout you can be happy with?

  1. Choose your photos first!
  2. Examine each for the parts of them you want to be featured. Don’t get hung up on orientation. Cropping can deal with that.
  3. Think about the story you’re trying to tell.
  4. Look for a template that will tell your story with the photos you want to include. If you’ve organized your templates the way I do, renaming the preview with the number of photos for easy searching, this step can be a lot simpler than it sounds.
  5. Don’t fixate on using your template exactly as designed. If you find one you like but it’s short a photo spot, look at how you can add one in. Similarly, if you like one but it has too many photo spots, how can you remove the extras? Can you make each spot slightly bigger? Can you combine two spots into one? Substitute journaling for a photo? This applies to photo spot orientation too. If you have 4 photos that are in landscape and 3 that are portrait, but the template has 3 portrait and 4 landscape, rotate the template! If other aspects need to be tweaked, tweak them! You’re cooking, not baking; you don’t have to follow the recipe exactly to have something you love in the end.
  6. Once you’ve settled on the basics, you can choose the kit(s) you want to use. You may have already picked a kit, so now you’ll need to figure out how to make all three components work together. This is the fun part.

So there you have it. Multi-photo layouts that tell your story and look great doing it!

If any of you are wondering about the shelves… I finally had them up securely on Friday by suppertime, and I only had to make one trip to Home Depot for better anchors. Sheesh.

Okay, so next Tuesday is the last of January (insert collective groan here) so it’s Quick Trick Tuesday. I’ll be filling a request…