Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

February 27, 2024 by

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 Picker. Release 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!!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

February 20, 2024 by

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!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Challenge Spotlight, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements 15+)

February 13, 2024 by

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??

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

February 6, 2024 by

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]

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight February 2024

February 3, 2024 by

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.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies, Product/Designer Spotlight Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 30, 2024 by

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!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

January 23, 2024 by

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…

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

January 16, 2024 by

Challenge Spotlight: Brush

It still feels funny to say, “2024”. But time waits for no (wo)man! There are LOTS of Challenge layouts in the Gallery for a month only 16 days gone. I think that speaks to the weather everywhere – we’re about to get another big dump of snow, hard on the heels of a deep cold snap and I know I get more scrapping done when I’m housebound, to keep myself from going shack-wacky. It was hard to choose a Challenge to feature. Recalling my original plan for this Spotlight, analyzing layouts that are all required to follow the same set of criteria, I chose the Brush Challenge. It’s hosted by Ivonne, the designer known as Craft-astrophic and the supplied brush is a required element.

There were a dozen layouts uploaded to the Challenge Gallery and will be revealed in the order they arrived. As usual, each layout is linked to its spot in the Gallery so you can get a closer look, and maybe leave a comment. Just click on the GingerScrapper‘s user name. Now let’s get to it… I have shelves to hang.

First Scrapper out of the gate was lisar. She took the multi-layer approach to select the parts of the brush she wanted to use and then hit the fireworks layers with gold glitter. Her title and subtitle were recoloured black, with a gold stroke outline. Stunning!

For her layout, belis2mi chose to highlight her very tidy office and celebrate the achievement with fireworks. The brush colour matches the lavender of her plaid paper and blend nicely into the background. No mention of the New Year.

Alasandra chose to go with the blues and grays we usually associate with winter to reflect the subject of her photos, and she’s layered the fireworks for a dramatic look. She also went with multiple brush layers so she could move the word art around.

I love that MarilynZ used a green gingham paper for her background to echo the green plaid pyjamas in her photos. Clever touch. The chrysanthemum blooms of the fireworks replicate the needles on the pine branches. Another clever touch!

Here, linweb has layered the fireworks and coloured them with the same colours in the 2024 Times Square crystal ball and she’s added some confetti as another nod to the ball-drop. (Here’s some trivia for you. The balls used for New Year’s celebrations at Times Square are crafted by the Waterford Crystal Works glassblowers. Each one is different.)

Celebration is the theme of kabrak1207‘s layout. She kept the overall look clean and uncluttered, pulling colours from her embellishments for her fireworks. She didn’t include the word art, making her celebration suitable for all occasions.

I like the paper-doll effect pepsibubbles has created here. The fireworks blend into the background but add to the elegance of the images.

I’m like pixygirl, praying that better days are ahead. She used the fireworks part of the brush as an accent, while the pearls look like the path her dove took to reach the journal card. The heart scatter speaks of hope.

It seems larkd was drawn to the word are more than the fireworks. They replicate the spray of the champagne as the cork pops.

NHSoxGirl went super-simple for her welcome to 2024. Her photo is the focus.

A celebration of a different sort was on fontaine‘s mind. She used the fireworks to show someone how fabulous they are.

And finally, dhariana has resized and blended the brush into her background to frame her photo and title. They’re a subtle touch.

I’m on the hunt for a topic for next week if anybody has any ideas. I’ve got a Quick Trick in mind for the 30th – five-Tuesday months are hard… but not as hard as hanging shelves on drywall. 🙁

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 9, 2024 by

Texture Overlays – Whut?

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/48LXfch

Just before Christmas I had a request from Hilary: “I didn’t know where to stick this so here goes. Can you do a tutorial on the .jpg textured-overlays please? Or an explanation of how to use them? When I try using them all I’m seeing is dark splodges, you can’t see the underneath photo/picture. TIA” Of course I can! But let me start by saying that texture overlays are better suited to applications on paper, and not photos, unless you’re doing a very arty layout. The following tutorial will work with photos, with the same caveats as for papers. The textured overlay I’m using in my samples is from Karen Schulz‘s  CU Textured Overlays V.01. (CU stands for Commercial Use, meaning the item can be used by designers and others without crediting the original designer. This is in contrast to Personal Use (PU), where crediting the original designer is part of the terms of use of both the designer and GingerScraps.)

These Overlays are intended to by adjusted using Blend Mode and Opacity tweaks to achieve the look you like best. As you’ll see, there are infinite combinations which provide very different looks. I can’t show you every possible permutation; you’ll have to experiment a little. Nothing is final until you say it is! In the example below I’ve simply dropped the Overlay onto a solid colour Fill Layer, which in its unadjusted state just looked like “dark splodges”. I changed the Blend Mode on the Overlay to Multiply. Opacity here is 100%. I like it, and might use it as is.

By decreasing the Opacity to 50% the texture is still visible, but much more subtle. For most of the subsequent versions, I’ll leave the Opacity at 50% for comparison.

Color Burn gives a bit brighter look with a slight increase in the Overlay’s visibility.

Linear Burn darkens everything somewhat, even without an Opacity change.

See how Lighten changes everything? The teal is softer, the Overlay is grayer.

Screen lightens and softens everything. I like this version a lot too.

Overlay brings a ton of detail into the Overlay that was less obvious in the previous versions. Note too how the centre of the paper looks lighter and brighter.

Soft Light is very subtle and reads as almost a solid. I would keep this one in my repertoire.

Hard Light brings the detail back, lightens and brightens everything, as you would expect.

Vivid Light is really dramatic! The teal is so much brighter and the detail sharper.

Linear Light maintains the tonal change of Vivid Light, but lightens and softens it all.

Luminosity has preserved the sharper details, while changing the colour only slightly.

Now, let’s look at what happens with a patterned paper. This one is from Ooh La La Scraps‘ Freezing collection. It’s got a similar shade of teal in the plaid for consistency. Right here, it just looks like it’s been dragged through the mud. It could work for an arty layout just the way it is.

With a 50% drop in Opacity, now it looks more distressed and less depressed.

Switching to Multiply dampens the texture but doesn’t hide it completely.

With Color Burn, the texture all but disappears. The patterned paper does look brighter, though.

To my eye, Linear Burn gives a sort of grungy grease-stained look. Could work!

Lighten gives the appearance of worn paper in the more transparent areas of the Overlay.

Screen completely obliterates the texture and blows out the pattern too much. But… maybe it could be salvageable with an Opacity increase. Remember, I’m just showing you samples. You’re in control of your work.

Overlay isn’t dramatically different from Screen at 50%. Maybe at 25% it might look good. Here’s a tip: use the SLIDER. Watch what changes as you move it. Stop when it looks right.

Soft Light just basically makes the whole image soft and light. Boring…..

Hard Light gives some slight variation in depth, but not really a visible texture.

Vivid Light. Just no.

Pin Light shows more variation in depth than Hard Light. Think of a tiny flashlight shining on it.

Luminosity brings back the grunge.

If we go a step farther and add that solid colour teal Fill Layer between the Overlay – Opacity at 50% – and the patterned paper, a whole other world of possibilities opens up. Color Burn on the FILL LAYER at 100% changes the entire look!

Drop the Fill Layer Opacity to 50% and the texture pops back into view. With the three layers, you can tweak both the Overlay and the Fill Layer Blend Modes for an incredible variety of looks.

As I said many times before, don’t be afraid to play around with your options. It hurts nothing and isn’t permanent unless you want it to be. CTRL/CMD>Z (Undo) is your friend! If you don’t like it, make it go away. When you find something you really like and think you might use it again sometime, don’t forget to Save it. For papers the format is JPG, for elements the format is PNG. Put it somewhere that you’ll be able to find it again. 😉

The new dishwasher was installed on Friday and it’s FABULOUS! Whisper-quiet, gets everything spotless and even gets the plastic stuff dry. Now I just have to pay the credit card bill… Next week is Challenge Spotlight Tuesday. Which Challenge will I choose this time?

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight (January 2024)

January 6, 2024 by

Heather Z Scraps and Scrapbookcrazy

Better late than never, right? I had good intentions to have this post out to you before now. Heather has been very patient!

Our first Designer Spotlight of 2024 is a pairing of Heather Z Scraps and Scrapbookcrazy Creations. (Robyn has so far declined being put under the microscope.) Read on for a glimpse into Heather‘s and my visit.

J: Heather, thank you for popping by to chat with me. The ladies at GingerScraps will love getting to know you better. Now that Christmas and New Year’s are in the rear view mirror, it’s time to get to work! How long have you been designing?

H: I’ve been digi-scrapping for 10 years (almost 11), and designing for 8.5 years.

J: Ah! You started digiscrapping right around the time I made GS my digi-home, 11 years ago in March. What was the trigger for you to start designing your own creations?

H: I started digi-scrapping as a form of therapy after my sister passed away suddenly in 2012, and then I moved on to designing about a year or so later because I just love to be creative and wanted another outlet for my grief. It helped to keep me busy and to make it through some very sad/dark years!

J: I think you’re in good company here. I’m so sorry to hear you lost a sister so young. You’re a strong person for channeling your grief into creativity. Distraction can be very effective, allowing us to heal. Do you have a special place where you do your designing?

H: I design right from my couch! I have a laptop, so I sit on the couch and design while watching TV and hanging out with my family.

J: Again, you’re in good company! I sit in my comfy IKEA wingback chair with my feet on the coffee table. Do you have a favourite colour? Colours you really can’t use?

H: Favorite color(s) is teal/turquoise, and my least favorite would be brown or gray, probably.

J: Aha! I created a custom colour for you on WordPress! I like teal a lot, so much that it’s the main colour in my bathroom. What did you want to be when you grew up? [It’s a theme at our house right now.]

H: I wanted to be a veterinarian for a long time as a kid … until I realized you also had to put them to sleep. That’s when I changed my
mind! Then I went to wanting to be a teacher and now I’m finally living that dream … I’m working as an Instructional Assistant in a Multiple Disability Classroom (mainly autism, though). I love my job!

J: Mmm. Yeah, the euthanizing part would be really hard. I LOVE that you work with kids like my son, who is a pediatric stroke survivor. He’s 40 now; he was in kindergarten when it happened and when he went back to school after his stroke, the principal had worked miracles setting up a comprehensive program for him. She took advantage of a new division guideline for physical classroom size and carved out a wheelchair-accessible washroom and therapy space from the renovations. She also saw to it that every entrance was ramped and an elevator was installed so ALL students could get to the library on the second floor. The six years he attended her school saw innovation after flash of genius after brilliant idea and the school became a model for the rest of the division. [Bless you, Cathi Hill!] Are you the sporty type, or more of a spectator?

H: I love watching football, basketball and baseball. I don’t play any sports, but I love to watch my boys play these sports!

J: I’m a true Canadian cliché, I was a varsity curler in high school… you know, with the brushes and the big granite boulders. I prefer baseball to the other “balls”; one daughter played rugby and ultimate, the other ladies’ fastball. Makes for busy days! Describe for me your perfect vacation.

H: Anywhere with my family, really! But I love a trip to the Caribbean, staying at a really nice resort, all-inclusive, with fun excursions! I’m planning something like this for my family and I next year or a cruise. Not sure which yet.

J: Daughter #2 was married (the first time) in Jamaica. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us. I’m not interested in cruising – my big boating adventure was a glass-bottom boat tour of Negril. What would you do if you won the lottery?

H: First, I would buy a house. Nothing fancy, but big enough for the four of us and my parents. Then I’d make sure both kids had college paid for in advance, and last I’d take us all on a fun family vacation! [See above!]

J: We’ve been in our dream house for almost 4 years now. Our 2024 tax assessment was a shock… $1,048,000. GASP!! We paid about half that when we bought it! So I suppose you could say we did win the lottery. If time travel was a thing, would you want to? Would you go backward or forward?

H: I’d probably go back in time. Although I’d love to go in to the future as well. I’d love to go back to the 50s/60s and early 1900s to see what life was like and perhaps change the future for the better.

J: I was a kid during the 60s. Life was so much simpler then. If I could go back to the early 1900s I’d want to spend some time with my Swedish great-grandmother. I have a million questions for her. I feel like I should come with a label: Will drive you crazy with her chatter! What would yours say?

H: WARNING!!! SAYS WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS THINKING!!!

J: Hey, somebody’s gotta do it! On that fine note, I want to thank you again for the visit. I hope your Spotlight month is very good to you.

Now, before I let Heather completely off the hook, I want to take a moment to remind y’all that she and Robyn are providing the January Daily Download, found here on the Blog. Every day a link to a new chunk of the (FREE) kit is posted and the link is valid for 5 full days. If you miss enough of the links you can still grab the kit from the Shop a few weeks after the new month starts.

As well, both ladies have coupons to their Shops!

Robyn‘s is here:

Heather’s:

Make sure you check them out! But that’s not even all… they’re both hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge this month. That’s on TOP of Robyn‘s monthly Template Challenge and Heather‘s Signature Challenge. They’re so busy!! I hope you’ll make them even busier… you know what I mean. 🙂

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:
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