Archives for February 2022

Two Mini-Tuts! Parallelograms and Hanging Chads

Reader beware: This tutorial will be strong on bad puns and corny jokes… ICYMI in the header.

After last week’s tutorial covering the February Inspiration Challenge and shapes, Karen left a comment asking where she could get the template mdusell used for her Bodega Sunsets layout because she really liked the parallelogram. I took a look at the credits for the layout where the template was listed, then went through (all 38 pages) the designer’s store to see if I could find it. [She used a Connie Prince template, if you’re curious.] Alas, the template set has been retired. So the next best thing I could think of is to show her, and all of you too, how to create a parallelogram photo spot complete with white border, like the one from Connie‘s template, that can be saved and used ad infinitum. Then to finish off this week’s post, I’m responding to granny5pics [Kathi] who sent me this message: “I thought I saw some place how to trim/crop a layout so any overhanging picture areas get cropped off and the layout fits in the given size. I thought I had done so successfully myself recently, but I can’t get my current layout to cooperate!” Let’s get started.

Karen‘s parallelogram starts life as a rectangle that is led astray. I’ve activated the Rectangle Custom Shape Tool as you can see below. I’ll start with a square. Then we’ll see how it looks and make any adjustments it may demand. You can see that there are two rectangular options in this toolkit; don’t pick the rounded one!

Here’s my one-step square. I just clicked at the centre of my workspace and it appeared. Remember, all Custom Shapes start out as Smart Objects and can’t be manipulated as is.

Newer versions of Photoshop Elements have a Simplify button right there in the Tool Options. If you don’t see one, you’ll need to Right-Click on the layer in the Layers Panel and choose Simplify from the pop-up menu.

Here’s a Work Smart Not Hard tip. Use your tools! I’m going to turn on the Grid to help me with my shape-shifting. If you don’t regularly use the Grid, I hope I can change your mind about it. But it’s only useful if it’s set up to be useful. Although I live in Canada and the metric system has been our method of measurement since 1979, I still think in inches so my Preferences for the Grid are set so I have a Gridline (heavier) every inch and 4 Division (lighter) lines per inch… i/e I have reference lines every 1/4 inch. Now, to turn the Grid on, View>Grid, or CTRL/CMD>’ will get you there.

Once I had that Grid for reference, I moved the square over to the right an inch to give me lots of room to manoeuver.

Going from square (which is a parallelogram already, but…) to a more diamond-shaped parallelogram requires the use of the Image>Transform>Skew command.

Grab one of the upper corner handles and pull it out to the side. I went left. You do you! Then grab the other upper handle and move it the same amount.

My finished shape didn’t look enough like the one from the template, so I pushed the top edge down a couple inches and like it much better.

The grid isn’t necessary any more so it can go away.

On mdusell‘s layout the parallelogram shape had a white border. The easiest way to do that and have a save-able, reusable clipping mask is to use a Layer Style. There are some basic Strokes in the Layer Style palette, and although there isn’t a white option, that’s a simple fix. Why not just add a Stroke through the Edit menu, you wonder. Well, it’ll be part of the shape, not sitting on top of the shape; it won’t be visible when something is clipped to the shape, and that defeats the purpose.

So I’ve added a Stroke Style. It’s 20 pixels according to the menu, but shows as 26 pixels later. Regardless, it’s all completely adjustable! And that’s a good thing, because I don’t like the rounded corners much.

By double-clicking on the fx icon on the layer, I can fix all the things I don’t like about the stroke. I can make the stroke wider or narrower, I can change the colour and I can move the Position from Outside to Inside and get those sharp corners.

Here’s the easiest way to turn black to white. Just click on the colour swatch then type ffffff into the # box! If you think you’ll want to reuse this photo clipping mask again Save As a PNG and call it something you’ll remember.

Meet my new neighbour.

Now, for Kathi‘s question… I figured the easiest way to help her with her problem is to show her.

I have a lot of paper outside the boundaries of my signature canvas.

Enter the Crop tool. You can use this to remove the overhang at any point while you’re creating. Here, I’ve waited until the whole thing is done and Cropped all the overhanging stuff away at one time. I hope this is what Kathi needs for her issue…

I’ve been helping my daughter with a top-secret project that I hope we can share with the world soon. It’s eaten up quite a bit of time over the last week, so I’m behind………………… and next Tuesday it’ll be March. Gah.

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3vvZXm3

Perfectly Paired, with Diamond Dust Designs

After last week’s marathon tutorial I needed some downtime, so I took a look at the February Challenges. (I know, it sounds like the opposite of relaxing, right?) But to me, Challenges are a way of turning off and tuning out a bit. I mean, come on… they tell you what to do, all you have to do is do it! Lots of room for creativity, but less thought required. Ha!! Did you look at the Perfectly Paired Challenge?

“…you must use two different kits from two different GS Designers and select an equal number of papers and an equal number of elements from each kit that go well together. Then pick a favorite template from a GS Designer and create your LO, showing how you perfectly paired the two kits together. List both kits and their designer and the template designer in your credits.”

Sure, Ginger laid it all out about how to meet the requirements of the Challenge, but many of us are single-kit scrappers. So that got me thinking about a tutorial I wrote quite some time back about how to use multiple kits without losing our minds, and it seemed a good idea to replay it this week so more of you might be tempted to give it a try. The original tutorial is Windows-based, so if you’re using a different operating system there will be some adjustments to the search piece needed. Let’s have a look.

Caveat: This is my workflow and you might have a method that will work better for you.

I like to use templates, not gonna lie. They make scrapping so much easier. And I like to use folders. For me, they too make scrapping easier. For mixing kits, folders are a HUGE help. I have folders for each store I frequent, each of the kits I’ve added to my stash and I have folders for every layout I’ve created. It helps keep me organized. I’ve read posts from people who go through all of their kits and individually tag EVERYTHING. That’s a ton of work, and for the most part, it’s unnecessary. Designers usually label everything in a kit in some way, so why duplicate their efforts? Work Smart, Not Hard!

So let’s talk about folders. At the beginning of every month, I create a Challenges folder. And in this folder I add subfolders for all my favourite challenges. Into those folders, I copy my photo(s), template, papers and elements. After I’m happy with the layout, have ensured I have no bloopers and the layout is posted, I empty the folder of everything but the PSD of the layout and 2 JPEGs. That keeps the space taken up by the layout to a minimum but lets me find them later. The image below shows some of my folders in the list to the left. My first step is to select a template to use. In the tutorial on organizing your stash, I talked about labeling template previews in some fashion so it’s easier to find what you’re looking for later. My system, borrowed from someone else but modified to suit my workflow, is to label with whether the template is for a single or double spread, the number of photo spots and sometimes the shape/mask/blend the photo spots assume. The screenshot below shows a Windows File Explorer search for a single spread with 1 photo. (The icon for this utility is the file folder… super simple!) I had chosen a cute photo to build my layout around, so I opened my GingerScraps digikit folder then in the search box shown on the upper right, I typed in “single1“. After a few minutes, Windows had found all the template previews so labeled and showed them to me. (The actual search time will depend on the size of the folder you’re searching and the number of like objects to be found. It may only take seconds.) Now I could look at them and pick a template that would work for my layout.

Now, how did I find the actual template, you ask, since all that’s displayed are the preview thumbnails? I right-clicked on the preview and selected Open file location from the menu window. That takes me right to the folder that holds the template. Then I copied the template file into my challenge folder. For other searches this step won’t be necessary, because you can just copy the objects right from the search pane.

Next, I opened the template preview thumbnail in a photo viewer so I could see what supplies I needed to find next. I counted up the different papers the template employs and went on to my next search.

For this search, I put “paper blue” in the search box, as I’ve shown below. And Windows found all the papers labeled with those two words. Results will show both folders and individual images, which makes it easy to see just what you’re looking for.

I copied each of the blue papers I might want to use into my GingerScraps Challenges> September 2017>Colour SHADES OF BLUE folder so I could see them all in one place. That helped me determine if they’d work together or not. They look pretty good!

I worked my way through the different items used for the template one at a time to find things I wanted to include. There was a circular element I decided must be a flair, so I did a “flair” search.

Remembering that templates don’t necessarily have to be duplicated exactly, I chose to add some string to it. The search showed me a blue string right near the top that would work beautifully!

Once I had chosen all the things I thought I might use (substituting flowers for the stars) I could see everything in one place and knew they’d all work well together. I had pieces from FOURTEEN kits!

Once I was ready to build my layout, I opened Photoshop Elements and went to the Colour SHADES OF BLUE folder and opened all the items onto my workspace. From there it was zip, zip, zip!

And this is where I ended up. (Once I post my challenge layout, I add a hyphen to the beginning of the folder name so I know it’s done.)

Another way this method is useful is for speed scraps. You can have Windows searching for things while you work on the previous steps. That’s sort of where I came up with my system. I used to partake of monthly speed scraps at another site that is no longer around and I wanted to be sure I was finished my layout with time to spare in order to win the prize.

This screenshot shows how CathyK has labelled the items in her kit Aviator. This is for GingerScrapper Karen who had some questions about metadata.

Please feel free to adapt this however it will work for you! Now I’m going to collect my papers and elements to take on this Challenge. See you next wee, when we’ll be looking at Individual Style – Challenge Spotlight time! (It might even be this one…)

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3t0uMfT