Archives for April 2021

Selectively Colouring Your Brushes

I apologize for the slightly-late breaking tutorial. Technical difficulties with my laptop yesterday had me at the absolute limit of my tolerance for frustration (and the limits of my attention span!). By the time I got it sorted out it was time for bed… and I’m sleeping a lot, still. Anyway, let’s see what I’ve been playing with. I hope you like it!

I have quite a collection of brushes in my stash; the brushes created by the designers at GS are fantastic and there’s always a free one in the Challenge forum each month. I chose one of those monthly challenge brushes from ADB Designs for this technique (and then asked myself why I picked such a complex one…) and recoloured EVERYTHING. I chose a neutral paper from the GingerBread Ladies‘ collab Christmas of Long Ago. It has s bit of glitter, and I love it. I put my brush on its own layer – it’s a really good habit to get into – so I can play with it without messing up anything else. This is the time to adjust the size of your brush image, because it’s not easy once all the colours have been added.

I added an Adjustment layer to the top of my layer stack by clicking on the two-tone circle icon at the top of the layers panel and then choosing Solid Color… from the drop-down menu.

This is where you get to be creative. The fun part. I’ve got flowers so my colour choices are flowery colours. I used the Color Picker, but the Eye Dropper tool and the colours in your photos or paper choices are also possibilities.

My brush is still there, behind the solid colour Adjustment layer. To apply the colour to the brush, I right-clicked on the Adjustment layer and chose Create Clipping Mask from the drop-down menu.

Depending on the brush you’ve chosen, this might be all you need to do to it! But if you want to add more colours, there are a few more steps.

Next I converted my Adjustment layer/clipping mask to a LAYER MASK by Inverting it. CTRL/CMD>I and the mask turns black. It’s supposed to do that.

I made sure my foreground colour was white. When working with Layer Masks, white reveals and black conceals. Then I selected the Brush tool for a Basic round brush. You can use hard or soft for this part, but a hard brush will give you sharper edges and will be easier to control. You’ll need to adjust the size of the brush as needed to get you into the nooks and crannies of your brush, but use the largest size you can wherever possible to make the job go faster.

Then I decided which of my flowers would be that lilac colour and “painted” them pale purple with my brush. If you look at the layer in the layers panel you can see on the mask where I’ve recovered the colour.

Let’s do another colour. I clicked on the brush layer and then the two-tone circle icon and chose Solid Color… from the drop-down. Doing it this way eliminates the Create Clipping Mask step!

Here I chose a hot pink from the Color Picker. See how the parts of the brush I’ve already masked show up as pale purple and everything else is pink? This shows where the colour will go and where it won’t on this Adjustment layer.

Then I again Inverted the layer mask by clicking CTRL/CMD>I. Now I can choose the flowers that should be pink.

As I worked, I discovered that all the areas I’d already masked on the lilac layer stay masked on the other layers. That meant that where my pink flowers butted up to my purple flowers, I didn’t have to be as cautious and precise as I painted in my pinks. If my brush rode over into the purple it didn’t matter. But I DID still have to be careful around the black and gray areas.

Time for a new colour! To recap: Click on the brush layer, then the two-tone circle icon and choose Solid Color… from the drop-down menu.

This time I decided on a golden-brown for some of the foliage.

With the mask layer Inverted (CTRL/CMD>I) I painted back in the frondy-looking foliage.

Then I added some blue… Look at the layer masks and see all the areas I’ve already masked. Each layer is a little less fiddly because more and more of the brush is masked.

I found parts of the brush that I’d overlooked that should have been one or another of the colours I’d already used, so I clicked on the LAYER MASK of the layer with the colour I should have used and added those bits to the existing mask.

The result wasn’t as awesome as I’d hoped it would be, but I learned a bunch about this technique. So I found a different brush I could play with and when it was time to paint in the colours I chose, I used a misty water-colour brush. I adjusted the size and angle of the brush as I randomly painted in the colour areas. Now THIS I love!

Can you see yourself giving this one a try? I’m going to make it part of my automatic activities, I think!

The PDF version of today’s tutorial is HERE.

3D Photos – Yes, You CAN!

Thank you all so much for your kind messages of support! I feel a lot better, although I really poop out quickly if I’m doing something strenuous. And brain fog is a real thing. I’m thankful that my husband and son didn’t catch COVID from me and that we’ll all be vaccinated soon.

So, given I’m still having some issues with concentration and attention, I’ve whipped up a little trick I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’m going to show you how to give a photo a 3D look. It’s not exactly what I was trying for, and I may play with it some more, but it’s still a neat look. The inspiration for this goes back a long way, to a Canadian TV show called Ancestors in the Attic (2001-2006), where the images on the screen had an obvious 3D look to them. I didn’t quite get it right, but I like it anyway.

If you decide to try this, I recommend looking for a photo with sharp contrast between the subject you want to bring forward and its background. I chose this photo I took in Las Vegas quite a few years ago. The flamingo wasn’t too difficult to extract. I’m not going to do a step-by-step review of extracting, but you can try any of the methods I’ve shown you here and here. I went with a Layer Mask so I wouldn’t have to think too much!

To be able to have the control needed to go forward, I Simplified the extraction layer. Right-click on the layer in the Layers panel, then choose Simplify Layer.

Next I added a drop shadow, using a shadow styles set from Karen Schulz. (It’s named for Snickerdoodles Designs, her former moniker.) In this set there are actually two 3D shadow styles, right at the top of the list. I chose the second one. It’s not quite right, but easily fixed.

To adjust Layer Styles, double-click on the fx symbol on the layer you’re adjusting. This menu opens up with the defaults for the style you used. First, I made sure the shadow on my flamingo was falling in the same direction as the shadows already in the photo. Don’t overlook this step! Otherwise it’ll look really faked. I increased the Size (which softens the edge), the Distance (which makes the shadow wider/larger) and the Opacity. I went all the way to 100%. The 3D effect shows now.

Here’s the original for comparison purposes.

And with the extraction and shadow…

Then, just for fun, I Copied the extraction layer and changed its Blend Mode to Luminosity. What do you think?

I might try this with a photo of the mountains we see from our deck, and maybe I’ll be able to fine-tune it. Who knows? It’ll be fun trying it.

Here is the PDF version of this tutorial: https://bit.ly/3h2BEFb

Gradient Border Masks – So Many Options!

The other day, I got a message from Ginger that a customer was looking for information on how to use Lindsay Jane‘s border masks, and wanted to know if I had a tut for that. Well, I didn’t. The customer specified she had Border It 28, so I popped over to the shop and bought them. And then I played with them.

A close-up look at one of the border masks reveals a gradient effect. What this means is that whatever is Clipped to it will also have a gradient. Where the mask is solid black, the paper or photo clipped to it will be 100% visible. As the mask becomes more transparent, more of the paper behind it will show through. This can be a really interesting look, but it’s going to require some experimentation to find a look that appeals to the beholder.

I’m using papers from a retired kit from Lindsay Jane‘s store, called Denim and Flowers. I’ve pulled a couple of solids and a couple of patterns to play with. Let’s give it a shot!

I love the retro look of these patterned papers. This lavender one is so pretty.

There are actually 3 ways to achieve the same result of Clipping papers to masks. Clicking on Layer>Create Clipping Mask is one. Right-clicking on the paper layer then choosing Create Clipping Mask is the second. The keyboard shortcut method was changed in Version 14. Prior to V14, CTRL/CMD>G works. Version 14 and later the keyboard shortcut is CTRL/CMD>ALT>G.

Well, guess what?!! I don’t have the bottom of the mask right at the bottom of the background paper. Easy to fix.

Because this mask has what looks like rows of stitches, I decided to see what it looks like with a shadow style applied to it.

More experimentation. It’s the only way to know what will work and what won’t for this kind of mask.

Yeah… not loving this look! This is why I believe Undo (CTRL/CMD>Z) is a digi-scrapper’s best friend.

This look reminds me of a t-shirt I had when I was 19! I made 2 Copies of the striped mask and spread them out evenly then Merged the mask layers. (Right-click and choose Merge Layers or CTRL/CMD>E) Then I Clipped the flowery paper to the solid. That combo could be a nice background for a spring layout.

Ewwww. Nope!! Don’t like this look at all!

This one is okay. It’s not my favourite, but it looks okay.

Don’t forget that you have lots of other tools at your disposal. Blend Modes and Opacity changes are two of those, Here I’ve taken the blue-floral-on-green-solid and changed the Blend Mode of the floral PAPER layer to Luminosity.

If I change the Blend Mode on the MASK layer to Luminosity, this is what it looks like.

Here I’ve just decreased the Opacity of the MASK layer to 75%. (Decreasing the Opacity of the PAPER would only allow more of the black/gray of mask to show through.)

The solid navy blue paper is actually a denim, so this look is going to be a fun one, I just know it!

YES! Again, I’m thrown back to the 70s!! My very first pair of bell bottoms was navy with tiny flowers. This look though reminds me of the time I opened up the outside seam at the bottom of my straight jeans and sewed in a wedge of floral fabric, turning them into bell bottoms.

This might be fun… I’m going to Merge these mask layers into a single one.

Now that I’ve played with these masks and papers a bit, I’m getting a sense of what will work and what won’t.

That’s pretty close to what I expected. I like it.

But the navy blue is a tad harsh, so I dropped the Opacity of the MASK layer to 50%. I like this look a bit better.

But papers aren’t the only option for Clipping to these masks. What does a photo look like? I chose this stock photo because of the pinecones.

Repeating shapes!

I really do think this stripped mask is my favourite. Again, I lined up 3 Copies of it and Merged them together. Then I Copied the mask layer and Rotated it 90°. Plaid! This is just the masks with their Opacity decreased to 50% at this point and might be what you like.

Here I’ve clipped the floral paper to each of the mask layers. I love this look!

Can you think of other ways to make use of these masks? Please feel free to share in the Comments!!

I hope this tutorial makes sense. I’ve been under the weather and I’m not at the top of my game. Thanks for bearing with me!

Here is the PDF version of this tutorial : https://bit.ly/3cSdBGm