Digitize your Handwriting!

Last week’s digital colouring tutorial had me thinking about how I could make better use of some of my digital stamps. If you recall, I talked about the ones with white backgrounds and how that would make the technique I showed you very difficult. So I did a little snooping and found a terrific tutorial on digitizing handwriting that would work perfectly for those stamps of mine. It’s from the blog of Kelly Leigh (herecomesthesunblog.net) and it’s easy to follow, although I’ve expanded on a few steps for the beginners in our midst. Let’s proceed!

How many of you have really wanted to have journaling in your own handwriting on your digital layouts but not had a clue how to do it? This is for you! But it’s not only good for journaling… if you’ve got some mad calligraphy skills you can create your own inspirational word art, titles and whatever your imagination comes up with. All you need are a piece of white paper and a (new) black marker. And Photoshop Elements, of course. I chose a message that resonated with me for my demo. I wrote it out on my paper; my marker had seen better days and I was writing much larger than I usually do, so it’s a little ragged looking, but as a demo, it’ll work just fine. Then I took a photo of my finished writing with my cellphone. It might have looked better and been a bit less work if I’d scanned it, but that would have meant a trip downstairs and after I’d moved my (not inconsiderable) weight in potting soil yesterday, I just didn’t want to do that.

I Cropped away as much of the paper and my countertop as I could. I wanted the demo image to be large and easy to work with so I filled the entire 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. But that wouldn’t be necessary for most applications.

Here I’ve Zoomed in on my marker so you can see how less-than-awesome it looks up close. I’ll fix it with a black brush later; I could have saved myself a lot of work by using a new marker, but I didn’t have one at hand…

But first, I want to make what black there is as black as I can, and the white as white as I can. The better the contrast, the easier the technique is. I used Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels for this step.

I only adjusted the Input Levels. The left-most slider adjusts the black areas; by moving it to the right, the black gets darker. The middle slider controls the midtones, and by moving it to the right as well, it helped blacken the text too. The slider on the far right brightens the white areas so it was shifted to the left.

There are still gappy areas in the text, but that’s okay.

I just used a solid round black Brush at 100% Opacity to eliminate the gaps.

Now to the good part! To eliminate the paper, I’m going to want a transparent layer UNDER my text layer. Elements won’t allow a layer to be placed under a Background. (The italics are actually displayed for all layers Elements has determined are background layers.) So to get past that, right-click on the layer and choose Layer from Background…

The dialog box that opens allows for the layer’s name to be changed, if desired. I’m not going to bother. Make sure the tick box for Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is NOT ticked and Color is NONE.

Once that’s done, it’s possible to drop a blank layer underneath the text layer. It’s quickest and easiest to hold down the CTRL/CMD key and click on the New Layer icon at the top of the Layers Panel to create a blank layer under any other active layer. Then I don’t have to move the new layer down the stack.

Now I’m going to use the Magic Wand tool, as shown in the Tool Panel and Tool Options menu, to remove the paper. Click in the white area and it Selects a chunk of the paper. If my paper was perfectly clean and my image too was perfectly clean, this step would probably Select ALL of the paper, But my paper and image aren’t so this will take a few clicks.

Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X removes all the paper that the Magic Wand Selected!

I went over the rest of the image and removed the paper. Where there are loops in my letters, the paper was a bit clingy, but after a few minutes I had all the paper removed. The edges of the text looked a little raggedy up close, so I CTRL/CMD>Clicked on the text layer’s thumbnail to Select the edges of the text then clicked Select>Refine Edge…

This menu looks intimidating but it really isn’t. Experiment a bit by pulling the sliders and watch what happens in the Preview pane. Don’t worry, the white you see here isn’t actually there, it’s only part of the Preview so you can see what the adjustments are doing.

However… this method of adjustment DOES produce a new layer with a Layer Mask attached. Also notice that the original text layer’s visibility is turned off. To make things easier, right-click on the new layer and choose Simplify Layer. That adds the layer mask to the layer.

What about the original layer? It’s not visible, and its invisibility doesn’t affect the text at all, so it can just be Deleted, either by right-clicking on the invisible layer then Delete Layer, or just by hitting the Delete key.

Again, that layer we added underneath the text layer isn’t necessary any more (although it was VITAL when we were removing the paper) so it can either be Merged (CTRL/CMD>E) with the text layer or just Deleted.

There! That’s all you need to know to digitize your handwriting, or to remove the background of a digital stamp. I spent some time cleaning up the text using the Brush tool and the Eraser tool but you might not need to do any of that.

If you want to change the text’s colour, that’s easy to do by filling the layer with your new colour. Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color 

This time check the tick box for Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask so that your new colour is applied to the text without any extra steps.

When the Color Picker opens up, go nuts! I like purple. The colour is applied to the text via Clipping Mask as you can see in the Layers Panel. 

The digitized text can also be Resized, Rotated, Warped, Skewed … whatever you want!

If you want to Save your new image, it should be Saved As a PNG so the background stays transparent. Save it to a folder where you can find it again, and give it a good name.

Compression should be Smallest/Slow so the details are preserved. And it doesn’t need Interlacing.

That’s all there is to it! I think I should digitize my signature so I can add it to documents. Give it a try!

PDF Link: https://bit.ly/2Ug19cH

Updating the Custom Cluster

Regular readers might recall a tutorial from a long while back on interweaving elements into a more complex and natural looking cluster. They may also recall another tutorial about “shaving” drop shadow styles. Somehow it never occurred to me that the two could work together to make the task of customizing clusters much quicker and easier. But here we are! I know this is going to up my game a lot, especially when I’m weaving ribbon into the alphas I use in my signatures. Let’s see what I’m talking about.

Here’s a cluster I tossed together using Aimee Harrison‘s Secret Garden kit. It’s okay, but it could be better.

After I took a good look at the various components of my cluster I identified a few spots where I could add some interest. First, I’m going to tuck the burlap ribbon in behind the petal I’ve indicated. The blue flower layer is the active layer. I CTRL/CMD>clicked on the layer thumbnail for the burlap ribbon to Select the edges of the ribbon. Then I double-checked that I’m working with the correct layer, the blue flower layer.

Rather than having to be super-careful about what parts of the blue flower I remove with the Eraser tool, as I would with my previous method, I only have to Zoom in and move cautiously on the area where the blue flower’s petals overlap. With the edges of the ribbon Selected, only those parts of the active layer inside the marching ants will be Erased!

Let’s bring the ribbon in front of these petals. The only sticky spot is right at the intersection of all those petals.

One swipe with the Eraser tool completely revealed the ribbon, putting it on top of the petals.

I’m also going to tuck the ribbon behind the edge of this leaf.

Did you notice that I also put the small white flower’s petal behind the leaf? I just had to change the active layer to the white flower and Erase where the leaf is. There are a few other spots where I’ve made some tucks or lifts. Can you see them?

**So what happens when it’s time to add some shadows? Well… parts of the layers may have been removed and the shadow will look funky, like this one. I’ve used a custom shadow on its own layer here, but this also will happen with drop shadow styles so be aware of it when you’re working.**

After I’ve Smudged and Blurred the shadow layer, I CTRL/CMD>Clicked on the large white flower layer to Select the edges. Then I Erased the shadow that shouldn’t be overlaying the petals.

With all the elements in the cluster Shadowed, I felt the (very OCD) urge to add a suggestion of a shadow where the leaf overlays the small white flower at the lower left. But it’s probably something no one will notice so feel free to omit this step! What I did was activate the shadow layer for the leaf then used the Marquee tool to enclose the part of the shadow I wanted to move into place. I made a Copy of that part of the shadow (CTRL/CMD>C) then I Pasted it (CTRL/CMD>V) onto the layout, which created a new layer. I moved that layer up the stack of layers until it was on top of the flower layer. Some additional Erasing was needed so I CTRL/CMD>Clicked on the leaf’s layer thumbnail, activated my little new shadow layer and Erased the part that wasn’t in the right place. Easy peasy!!

There are so many ways this will elevate your layouts! Give it a try and let me know how it works for you. And of course, if you have tips for making it easier or better, our readers will be thrilled!

Here is the PDF version of this tutorial: https://bit.ly/3oyB8QR

 
Link to PDF: https://bit.ly/3gL52On

Let’s Talk Some More About Siggies

It sounds like there were a lot of people who learned something new from last week’s tutorial about using the GingerScraps Gallery. Music to my ears!! And, as sometimes happens, that tutorial led to a request for some help with another feature at GingerScraps. Corinne said, “Since Jan did a really nice job of explaining how to upload photos to the gallery, I am wondering if she could tackle the unknown world of signatures? How does one go about designing and uploading? Thank you! Corinne” Ginger and I discussed it and we decided it would be a good idea to do some review. I first discussed signatures in the Sizzling Signatures! post. Then last December we talked about adding links to your signatures in THIS tutorial. So some of today’s tutorial will be review, and who knows, I may have something in here that you didn’t know!

What’s a signature? What’s all the fuss about? Signatures are those beautiful little images seen at the end of posts in the GingerScraps Forum. They’re a big deal! They have their own monthly Challenge, after all. Each month the GingerBread Lady facilitating the challenge will provide a theme or some other required element for the month that form the basis to all the new siggies for that month. For May, ChristieDawn wanted to see flowers. Signatures can be as detailed or as simple as the user likes. You’ve probably seen some really fancy ones, and some really unfussy ones. They’re pretty good at showing the user’s personality and scrapping style. Some users make theirs with alphas from their stashes, like I usually do, while others make theirs with fonts. It’s completely up to the user! Now let’s get into the tutorial…

Let’s talk about the rules for using signatures at GingerScraps first though. Perhaps the most important rule is that your signature cannot link to or advertise any other shop/site. It’s fine if you want to link to your personal blog, newsletter, Facebook or the like. Also make sure your signature is suitable for all ages and audiences. If it would offend your grandmother, don’t do it. Let’s stay classy, y’all! The other important rule is the maximum size for your siggie. The guidelines say 700×150 pixels, but the Gallery has a maximum 600 pixel limit, so it’s easier and a lot less work if you just keep your signature at or under 600 pixels wide. I like to make my siggie a little smaller than the max, coming in at around 500×107. That makes it a little less in-your-face. More about that down the post. As to the shape of your signature, it doesn’t have to be a rectangle. I like to use Custom Shapes as the basis for mine. As long as the shape you choose fits into the max dimensions, you’re golden.

This bit is a little refresher. Did you know you can create and save preset file sizes? I’m going to show you how to do that. I have a 12×12″ preset for my layouts, and a 3500×750 pixel preset for my signature files. Why did I choose those numbers? Simple math. It’s 5 times the maximum size of the signature file; I work on a BIG canvas so I can see what I’m doing and make sure I actually like my results before I Resize and prepare to upload. Now, here’s how to create your own preset: File>New>Blank File

There’s what my New File menu looks like. You can see my siggie preset on there.

Starting from scratch, type in the dimensions as shown when the New File menu opens. You want Resolution at 300 pixels/inch for sharp images, RGB Color set, and the Background Contents Transparent. (Why? So that your signature file can have a clean background when you use it as your Forum siggie!)

Constructing your signature is just like creating a layout, only with different dimensions. If you need help visualizing how to create them take a look at the ones in the Signature Challenge Gallery. So what to do with your finished creation? I always save my layouts and siggies as PSD files initially in case I have to fix something. That doesn’t happen much with the siggies, but I often find typos in my journaling! Make sure you give your file a name.

Then I Resize my file to fit the desired parameters. There are two ways to get there. Image>Resize>Image Size will get you to the menu, or CTRL/CMD>ALT>I works for those who like keyboard shortcuts. When the menu opens up, type in your desired width in pixels and Elements will automatically set the height. In the middle of the menu you can see the actual size of the final product. Scale Styles, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image should be checked to get the very sharpest and best final image. As well, choose Bicubic in that box at the very bottom. Then click OK.

Then I Save the RESIZED image as a PNG. This is where having the transparent background comes in. Let’s say you have a flower or a bow that extends outside the main body of your siggie. If you Save As a JPG, the background will be stark white and when your signature shows up in your Forum posts, it’ll be visible. But by having a transparent background and a PNG file, it’ll look like it’s actually part of the page. For my siggie I used a paint smear with alligatored edges then clipped a paper to it. You’ll see what I mean a few screenshots down the road.

To preserve as much detail as possible in a tiny file like this (see the edge of it peeking out from behind the dialog box?) go with Smallest/Slow Compression and no Interlace.

Now for the fun part!! Let’s upload and add it into your Profile. If you need a review of uploading, see last week’s Tutorial. I work with two GingerScraps tabs open, one to the Gallery and one to the Forum for this part. You can click on the Settings button in either tab, but you’ll need to access your signature image in the Gallery, so I do this step in the Forum tab.

Along the left side of the GS interface you’ll see My Settings and almost at the bottom of that section Edit Signature. Click that.

This looks a little busy. It is. This is where the Edit Signature control panel lives. If this is your very first time adding a signature, you’ll still be following most of these steps, you just won’t be deleting the old one. If you’ve already got one up, you’ll see the existing signature above the Edit box, and again inside the Edit box. Right-click on the one INSIDE the Edit box and either select Cut from the dropdown menu or CTRL/CMD>X (or even just hit Delete) to remove the old one.

Pop over to the Gallery tab and right-click on the image of your signature. Choose Copy image link from the dropdown.

I like my siggie centered under my Forum posts, so I click on the Center format button (circled on the left) and then I click on the icon that looks like a photo being stretched at the corners (circled on the right).

When the Insert Image dialog box opens, right-click on the blank bar in the middle and select Paste (or just CTRL/CMD>V) to tell the site where to find your image.

Now I have my new signature in the right place, but before I click on the Save Signature button, let’s look at what’s actually there.

Click on the button I’ve outlined, which switches the editor to source mode. I wasn’t aware of this until Ginger mentioned it, so I had to check out what it does.

Holy cow!! I had no idea all those previous links were still in there!! That explains some of the gobbledygook I’ve had showing up with my siggies. The only thing that should actually be there is the very bottom one.

I highlighted all the junk and Deleted it.

Yes, that’s more like it… just the May 2021 signature is there. NOW I can click Save Signature. If you’re new to all this, maybe try Preview first to see what it’ll actually look like.

There. All good!

If you’re entering the Signature Challenge, the next images are for you. I don’t bother to put my signature file into my Challenge post in the Forum because it’s going to show up anyway. Whey have two of them in the same place? Of course, you do you. Here you can see that the lace extends past the bottom of the clipped paper and some of the flower petals and beads spill off the base. The messy edge of the clipped paper isn’t really visible unless you really squint.

Here’s a quick tip for adding your layouts to the Cookie Jar thread. I type out the name of my layout as shown. Then I highlight the text as shown by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the cursor over it. Then I click on that globe/chain icon.

I pop back to the Gallery tab, which should still be set to my siggie, and Copy the text found in the destination bar at the top of the screen where the Universal Resource Locator is. (Hold down the left mouse button, drag the cursor over the URL, right-click and choose Copy, of CTRL/CMD>C.) Return to the Forum tab and Paste the URL into the bar as shown. Click OK.

Now the name of my siggie is linked to the file in my Gallery and a simple click on it will take the viewer right to it!

I hope this was easy to follow. If not, please don’t hesitate to ask questions!!

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

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