Archives for January 2017

Yes! You CAN Warp Shadows in PSE!

Photoshop Elements is a great program for most applications the average digi-scrapper wants to accomplish, but it does have limitations. One of these is that shadows aren’t on their own layer. That means getting your photos or other objects to look like they’re lifting off the page isn’t possible. Or is it…….? Actually, there are a couple of ways to move your drop shadows onto a separate layer and the one I’m going to show you today is the one I find to be the easiest.

I wanted to have a photo lift at one corner within my layout for the Mix It Up challenge this month. I chose a template created by Krisztina of Tinci Designs, found in her Autumn Stories V.2 collection. Krisztina’s templates come pre-shadowed, which makes them especially awesome for beginners.

To start the process of making this photo spot look like it’s lifting, first I had to move the shadow onto its own layer. To do that, double-click on the little fx icon as shown below. That opens the Layer Style menu for that layer.

It looks like this. By moving the Distance slider to the right, the shadow is offset – it moves away from the item.

To make the process easier I temporarily changed the angle on the shadow to 180°, which moved the shadow off to the right of the photo spot. (This step might not be necessary, depending on the size of your item and its location on the page. This photo spot is in the lower left corner, so I was a little restricted in what I could do with it.) You’ll see that I also set the distance to 1000 pixels. This gives me some space between the shadow and the photo spot, which is essential to make this technique work. Once I’m done moving the shadow to its own layer I’ll move it back into position at the same angle as the other photo spots.

Now that I’ve set the distance, it’s time to Simplify the layer. VITAL STEP!! Right click on the layer in the Layers panel and select Simplify Layer. That effectively eliminates the fx icon so you can manipulate the visible layer on your layout.

Select the Rectangle Marquee tool then click and drag a rectangle around the shadow portion of your image as shown.

Now I’m going to Cut that shadow away from the photo spot. Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD+X will do it.

Now Edit>Paste (CTRL/CMD+V) the shadow back onto the layout… and look! It’s on its own layer!

Elements will have put the shadow layer ABOVE the item, so move it down so it’s underneath where it belongs. You can click and drag the layer down or CTRL/CMD+[ will do it for you. Now you can shift the shadow back to its correct angle under the photo/item.

Now we’re getting into the really fun part! Select Image>Transform>Skew.

I grabbed the lower left handle (the little box at the corner) and pulled it to the left. See how the bounding box looks wonky? That’s the Skew in action. Then I clicked OK.

There’s another way of changing the shape of an item. Image>Transform>Distort give a little more variety to how the shape can be altered.

Looking at the new shadow, it looks like the photo is resting on something underneath it and it’s too umm… ordinary. So the next step is to nudge the edges of the shadow a little so it’s closer to the photo in some areas. The Smudge tool is the way to make that happen. It looks like a finger.

Using a fairly big setting, click and drag the Smudge tool along the edge of the shadow, positioning the tool’s cursor something like shown below. Don’t take it all the way to the very end of the shadow though, because then it’ll have a tail and it’s not going to make you happy.

The image below shows what happens when you get carried away. It’s very bizarre looking and NOT what I want at all. Rather than try to correct it, I undid (CTRL/CMD+Z) back to where I was still liking the look, and then continued.

Now that’s more like it!

And for that final touch of realism I hit the Image>Transform>Distort again and pushed the corner of the PHOTO (see that the photo layer is the active one) in just a tiny bit. You can see the final result in the gallery. The effect is subtle but it’s there.

Think about how you could apply this new skill to a paper item you’ve stapled to your layout. You can use the Smudge tool to bring the shadow in really close to the edge of the paper where the staple is for a much more realistic look. It also lets you make your photo look like it’s cupped a little and the centre of the photo is closest to the paper. This technique can be used to adjust shadows for a lot of things other than paper too. Flowers, butterflies, string, ribbon, the sky’s the limit! Give it a shot and let me know how you like it!

Journaling INside the Box!

Greetings GingerScrappers! I’m hoping against hope the big server swap-out goes smoothly and quickly so nobody misses out on anything around here. I’m actually at work today – but you know nurses are capable of being in two places at one time (or at least the hospital thinks we are…) so you’re still going to get your dose of PSE instruction. Today we’re going with something really simple and straight-forward. Carol (user name gnana) requested a lesson on putting text inside a shape. Sadly with PSE, we’re limited to the custom shapes available within the software, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be creative! So let’s have a look…

I was putting together a Chanukah layout for the January Recipe Challenge the other day, using Tracey Monette‘s (aka Clever Monkey Graphics) Hanukkah Oy kit and wanted to put my journaling inside a Star of David. (I made this tag out of an element and some paper.) See how I’ve selected the Custom Shape Tool below? The pop-up menu will automatically give you the Default Shapes so go ahead and select Show All then pick a shape that’s close to the one you want to journal within.

The best the software could do for me was a sheriff’s badge. So I went with that. I put my cursor on the tag then left-click>dragged out the shape to the size I wanted. (Make the shape as large as you can without extending past the edges of your item. You can always reposition it once you’ve got the shape and size you want.) The shape will then appear in your Layers Panel.

I don’t know about you, but I have a gazillion fonts and choosing the one I want to use is painfully difficult. So when I heard about wordmark.it I knew I’d use it a LOT! All you do is go to the website and pop some of your text into the box at the centre of the black band at the top. The site will then show you what it looks like in every font on your hard drive. How awesome is that?

Once I decided on the font I wanted to use (which isn’t the one shown in the screenshot… I actually used one called Worship Display, which seemed to be an appropriate choice) I made sure Horizontal Type Tool was selected. Then when I moved my cursor over to the shape layer, I got a slightly modified text cursor that looks a little like I’ve shown you below. That’s how you know it’s going to do what you want.

Sizing your text will determine how well your text fills the space. I could have gone smaller with the font, used more words and extended my text a little closer to the edges but the shape wasn’t huge and I wanted to be able to read it. You may well have to adjust what you want to say to make sure it all fits inside your shape. See how my text fits neatly and has a nice border around it?

I zoomed out a bit so you can see the entire text and how it fits.

Of course, I don’t want that white sheriff’s badge to stay there. When I turn the visibility of the shape layer off, my text remains and is still exactly where I put it. So guess what! That layer can just be deleted altogether. Cool, right?

So now you can go ahead and make your own tag shapes for journaling and have a polished look to your finished layout. The easiest way to do that is to create a shape. Then make a copy of that shape (CTRL/CMD+J) and simplify them (right-click on the layer>Simplify Layer) so you can play with them. Make the bottom one a little larger than the one on top so you have a nice border. Then clip papers to each layer. Bingo!

I hope you’re having fun learning new tricks! See you all next week.