Tutorial Tuesday (GingerScraps)

March 18, 2025 by Jan 2 Comments

Users’ Guide to the New Forum and Gallery

[Link to PDF version will go here when Ginger has time to convert.]

Have you had a chance to take the new Forum and Gallery for a spin yet? The Store and the Blog are unchanged, so they should feel pretty comfortable. But the new Forum and Gallery are REALLY awesome! The look is so clean and shiny! But some things have different names and some processes are a little different, so here’s a quick User’s Guide.

Let’s start with the Forum‘s home page. This screenshot is pretty busy, but it needed to be. Across the upper right side of the screen there are 7 icons that are direct links; I’ve labeled them in case they’re not familiar to you. From left to right, the link to the GingerScraps Store, the GingerScraps Blog, GingerScraps on Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube, a Contact Us button and a link to the GingerScraps Newsletter.

Right below them at #1, there’s a box where your Forum user name will appear (so you’ll know you’re logged in), with a Direct Messages (renamed from Private Messages) button and a Notifications button so you can quickly check what’s specifically yours. Direct Messages are only viewable by you and the sender, and Notifications lets you know when someone has Liked, Thanked or replied/commented to something you posted.

At #2, you’ll find the Forum access buttons. The New Posts button takes you to all the most recent posts to any Thread; you can click on the thread to see the comments and to make your own. If you’re a self-starter, you can start a new Thread by clicking the red New Thread button and you’ll see a list of all the topic SubForums, which are unchanged from our old Forum.

Featured Content #3 shows the top 3 pinned posts – those our Admins want to make readily visible and available; click on the coloured text and you’ll zip into the Thread without having to look for it. This is where you’d look for info on special events, like the St Patrick’s Day contest.

#4 is where you’ll find all the SubForums. For example the Welcome Wagon Forum contains multiple threads started by our GingerBread Ladies where they share links to little freebies they’ve created for us. As you scroll down the home page, you’ll see all of the SubForums listed.

Just below the Featured Content you’ll find #5, Trending Content. Here’s where you can see at a glance what’s catching other GingerScrappers‘ eyes.

Right at the bottom of the screen you’ll see #6, a list of all members currently online. This might be helpful if you’re wanting to message somebody with a time-sensitive message, or if you just want to know who’s up as late as you are. 😀

I dipped into the Home>Forums>GingerScraps Cookbook>Tutorials just to see what’s been happening there and discovered Grace has whipped up a couple of tutorials: How to LINK products from the Gallery to the Store and…

How to LINK images from the Gallery to threads. These two quick tutorials are important, especially to Creative Team members, so if you need to know how to handle these tasks, they’re right there for you.

I scrolled down to the Challenge Yourself SubForum and opened up the Cookie Jar. It’s laid out really nicely!

Go into the March 2025 Cookie Jar and read Missi‘s post about how the February Challenges will be managed. Right below it is information about Gallery posting to multiple albums, which isn’t currently possible.

While I was there, I figured I’d start my own Cookie Jar post so I could later add the layouts I (might) complete this month. I always Copy Missi‘s text and Paste it into my post. In the old Forum, the colours also Copied, but here they don’t so I changed the number in brackets to my usual red. Oh, and before I forget, look at all the places we can share our posts!! Facebook, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Reddit, Tumblr, WhatsApp, email and a direct link are all there.

These icons in the top centre of the post box are going to be crazy helpful! To add a LINK to your post, click the little side-lying figure 8. Ooh, and there’s a keyboard shortcut, as if they knew I was coming. [Another thing to note: This new laptop of mine doesn’t disappear the descriptors seen when the cursor is hovered over an icon when I make a screenshot! I did a Snoopy happy dance when I saw that!]

Add an IMAGE, click the photo icon.

There’s even a SMILIES button.

I didn’t expect to see this! Sometimes a GIF speaks far more eloquently than words do.

This is a formatting icon that sets your Quoted text apart from the rest of the text. It’s very handy.

Let’s take a quick peek at the What’s New tab. Clicking on the little upside down tent symbol opens a drop-down menu. This Forum server has multiple ways to do almost anything.

The Media tab is where you’ll find what we used to call the Gallery. The drop-down lets you access a variety of Media related options. We have our own ALBUMS now!!

Have you ever wondered who posts the most? Or who has the most layouts in the Gallery? Or just how active you are here? Members has got you!

So, back to the Media tab. If you click on the tab itself, rather than the upside-down tent, the left side of the screen will have a list of all the Albums there are in the Gallery. I clicked on Member Galleries, but could have chosen any of the Designers or Challenges just by clicking on the inverted triangle to the left of the album title. That makes navigation really easy.

I opened up the Challenge Layouts Album and you can see the list is right there. Clickclickclick!

If you click on the Add Media subtab on the blue strip at the top of the Media screen, this menu opens. You can scroll down through the Albums list until you find the one you’re looking for. Remember, for now, add your Challenge layouts ONLY in the Challenge Album. Don’t upload your layout more than once. Wait for the add-on extension that Ginger and the tech team are working on.

I’m going to add a layout to the Template #3 J Conlon and Sons Challenge Album for February.

This is the upload screen. I totally missed the change in allowable image size when I was doing this. I only saw it when I was editing my screenshots. We can go up to 1000×1000 pixels and 1MB now!!

Clicking on the Upload File box took me to the last folder of mine that I used. I found the correct folder and the version I saved for the Gallery. I could click on it then the Open button, or just double-click on the image. Notice all the ways I can verify I’m putting my layout where I want it to go.

When the Upload screen reappears, there’s a thumbnail of the layout but it shows the file name I gave it, which is a version of my title. I’ll change the entry so it’s exactly the title. Then I typed all my credits into the Description box. [Please don’t forget to include your credits. Our Designers deserve to be given credit for their work.] When everything I needed to include was there, I clicked Save.

And that’s it! My layout is posted. The title is correct, the credits are there. Fabulous!

There are still tasks I need to do before I’m finished. SO let’s update my Cookie Jar. I always have at least 2 GingerScraps tabs open on my desktop so I can move back and forth between them quickly and easily. I added the Challenge to my list on the Forum tab, then highlighted the name of my layout by click-dragging the cursor over it. I flipped back to the Media tab, Copied the Universal Resource Locator for my layout then back on the Forum tab, clicked on the Link icon as shown. Next, I Pasted the URL into the appropriately labeled box. Then I clicked Insert, and Save.

To add a Copy of my layout to the Challenge thread, I navigated my way to it in the Forum; the Media tab is still open to my layout. I right-clicked my mouse INSIDE the image in the Media tab and chose Copy Image Link from the pop-up menu. Next, I flipped back to the Forum tab, where I’ve got the correct Challenge thread open and waiting. This time I clicked on the photo icon as shown.

I usually don’t Drag and Drop, so I used the Link icon to add my Image Link URL. Feel free to do you, 😉

Once the URL appeared in the box, I clicked Insert then Post Reply.

And that’s how you add your Layouts to the new Gallery, top up your Cookie Jar and make sure your layout joins the proper thread.

I actually haven’t done any scrapping since I finished this layout back in February. I sprained the ring finger on my left hand… buddy-taped fingers really get in the way! Finger’s almost back to normal; although the knuckle is still swollen the pain is pretty much gone. As for the laptop setup, I still have a lot of MIA fonts, and I may end up not worrying about them. I’m finding out all the good things the machine does and getting comfortable with the keyboard. Those kinds of things I can do with just one hand! We have company coming for the weekend and I’m hoping to have a TON of great photos to work with afterward.

Next week, now that I know how the Media tab is laid out, I’ll bring you a Challenge Spotlight. Get ready to shine!!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Digital Scrapbooking, Theres An App For That, Tutorials Tagged With: Tutorial Tuesday

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

March 11, 2025 by Jan 4 Comments

Greatest Hits: Faking it – Those Incredible Full Moon Photos…

How’s everybody doing on this first Tuesday of Daylight Savings Time? I’m not gonna lie, I’m riding the struggle bus right now. Between inadequate sleep, the gray, chilly weather and all the political nonsense going on, I’m exhausted. Oh, and I finally was forced to switch laptops, which ate up a ton of time and I still haven’t found all the 2500 fonts I have on my old one. Maybe that’s a good thing… remains to be seen. Anyway, we have an astronomical event this week, a lunar eclipse of a full moon – a Blood Moon. Thursday’s eclipse will replicate a sight not seen since 1504! It’s going to be visible across North America from 11:57 pm EDT on Wednesday until 6 am EDT on Thursday, with totality – the best part! – between 2:26 am EDT and 3:31 am EDT. Since I’m in the Pacific time zone, if the sky is clear I won’t even need to stay up late to see the beginning. So what has this to do with a tutorial? Well, let’s have a look!

Have you ever looked at those totally amazing full moon photos where it looks like the moon is rising out of the ocean, or it’s rising behind a silhouetted city skyline and it’s huge and bright? And have you ever wondered how the photographer was able to capture that image? I know how they do it, and after this tutorial you will too. Because it’s all faked!

I have a crystal-clear photo I took of the June 2013 Super Moon and that’s what I’m going to use to show you how I can make it look like the moon was over the mountain when it was quite far away in reality. This photo of the mountain that our subdivision snugs up to has been edited a bit to make the sky a bit brighter and the details a bit sharper. If I’m lucky enough to get Blood Moon photos, I’ll give this another shot.

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Oct

2020

Edit

Faking It – Those Incredible Full Moon Photos…

I wasn’t planning to take photos of last weekend’s full moon so I didn’t prepare for it. But then I took the dog out for a potty break and saw it hanging so brightly in the sky with Mars at its shoulder. So I grabbed my pretty decent DSLR, my telephoto lens and my very sturdy tripod and set up on the driveway. Rushing never makes for good results though and every one of the 70 photos I took was out-of-focus. The shots I took of the mountain were better, but pretty grainy. Thankfully I have a crystal-clear photo I took of the June 2013 Super Moon and that’s what I’m going to use to show you how I can make it look like the moon was over the mountain when it was quite far away in reality. This photo of the mountain that our subdivision snugs up to has been edited a bit to make the sky a bit brighter and the details a bit sharper.

Here’s my 2013 moon shot. I used a long shutter, a tiny aperture and manual focus to get it this bright and clear.

To hang the moon over the mountain, I’m going to use a Guided Edit that first appeared in Elements 13. Guided>Photomerge>Photomerge Compose.

Once you’ve activated the Edit, this screen opens. The instructions are fairly clear, even for the uninitiated. It says to drag the photo I want to extract FROM onto the space, so the Moon is going here.

Okay, there it is. All I want from the photo is the Moon, which has a nice, clear, sharp edge, so selecting it from my photo will be easy. I can use the Quick Selection tool for this step. If my desired extraction had more detail, I could choose one of the other options. AND… there are further adjustments that can be made in later steps.

Once I clicked on the Quick button, this tool tip opened to Guide me through the next part. It says, “Create new selection by dragging over the area you need to include.”

It’s hard to see the marching ants in the screenshot but they are there. There’s even a little jaggy part that I’m going to adjust by switching from Add to Subtract and scrape it off.

Done! As I mentioned, there are more refinements you can make to extract your desired image using the Advanced Edge Refinement menu. It’s found just below the red circle.

But since I just basically have a circle, I can move on to the next step by clicking the Next arrow at the bottom of the screen. Elements always drops things right in the middle of the canvas, so it’s great that I can move my moon off the mountain and into the sky.

I decided to make it a bit bigger too, for dramatic effect. But I didn’t go too much bigger because I don’t want it to look completely phony.

Then I had second thoughts and decided to anchor it a bit by tucking it behind the mountain a smidge… after seeing that I had some Hide and Reveal options.

I started that process by Hiding the lower part of the Moon just roughly. I used a hard round brush at 100% Opacity to brush over the area that will end up being hidden by the mountain and trees. It takes several passes to completely hide the parts that I want hidden. Once I had an idea where the trees actually are, I could go back and Reveal the Moon where the trees don’t obstruct the sky. You can see in the screenshot that some of the moon looks more blue than gray – that’s where the sky hasn’t been completely Hidden. I also adjusted the size of my brush tip as needed to make the trees appear “normal”.

I switched back and forth between Hide and Reveal, adjusting the size of my brush tip until I had some natural-looking trees on my mountain. then I clicked on the Next arrow.

If your photos were taken at different times and in different lighting conditions, your composite might look pretty weird right now. Mine’s okay because night is night… But if you find your results aren’t making you happy, there’s still more in this Edit to help you get it right. The instructions say, “Click ‘Auto Match Color Tone’ to blend your extracted object with the background. You can fine tune the results with the sliders.” I highly recommend experimenting with this, because as you know, nothing is final in Elements until you say it is. If you click on the button and it does its thing but you hate the outcome, you can Undo it!! CTRL/CMD>Z should be an automatic movement. It sure is for me!

I didn’t like the results of the automatic process, so I made adjustments with the sliders. The image didn’t need a lot of adjusting to make it look more real. Then I clicked Next.

That’s the end of the Guided Edit. Now I can choose to Save, Continue Editing or Share my finished image. I want to clean up some of the noise by running the Haze Removal tool, so I’m going to click on In Expert and go there.

If you’re not familiar with the Haze Removal tool, I think you should give it a try! It sharpens your images and removes a lot of the graininess. You can get to it by Enhance>Haze Removal, or CTRL/CMD>ALT>Z works too.

It’s still an interactive process. This screen opens up and you can make adjustments to the amount of Haze Reduction it does, as well as the Sensitivity of the action. And if you’re not convinced it’s actually making a difference, you can flip between the Before and After images and see how it’s changed.

There! I think it looks pretty good, all things considered.

What do you think? Are you going to try this one? I think it would be good for adding a person who should have been in the photo but somehow wasn’t or to add someone who you only wished was there. Ooh, or maybe go right into fantasy and add a unicorn or a fairy to a photo of a baby. The sky’s the limit!

Next week, I’ll bring up a Guided Tour of all the changes here at GingerScraps, to help you navigate the new Forum and find the Gallery. See you then!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

February 25, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Quick Trick: Dupe a Graphic Novel Look

On Sunday I was with my son while he watched an adventure/comedy movie on Netflix. When the movie ended and the credits started rolling, I noticed the producers had turned some stills into graphic novel images, and the idea for this tutorial was born. Turning a photo into a graphic novel cartoon is really easy! This is the photo I chose to play with.

First thing I did was make two Copies of the photo. You can right-click on the photo layer then choose Duplicate Layer>OK twice of you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>J twice. Your call. [I make these Copies so each manipulation is on a separate layer and can be further tweaked to obtain my desired results.] Then I turned the visibility for the top two layers off so I could concentrate on the bottom, original layer. “Close the eye”. You don’t HAVE to do that if you choose not to.

With the BOTTOM LAYER active, click on Filter>Sketch>Comic…

This is the Filter interface, and the default settings. Comic >> Soften = 4 >> Shades = 5.14 >> Steepness = 1.4 >> Vibrance = 0.5 and Thickness = 1.4. You can move the sliders around to see what each does and choose the look you like best. I kept the defaults.

Next, activate the MIDDLE LAYER and again click Filter>Sketch>Graphic Novel…

The defaults for this one are as shown: Painted Gray >> Darkness = 4.64 >> Clean Look = 4.4 >> Contrast = 0.52 and Thickness = 1.43.

I did some adjusting here. Painted Gray >> Darkness = 3.87 >> Clean Look = 4.4 >> Contrast = 0.82 >> Thickness = 1.21 and Smoothness (1/2).

Then I changed the Blend Mode to Overlay. Click on the bar at the top left of the Layers Panel and choose Overlay from the dropdown menu.

There’s one more Filter to add.

I moved to the TOP LAYER, and made sure my Color Picker was set to Black in the Foreground, White in the Background. [This is important so don’t forget to check! I learned it the hard way.] Then I clicked Filter>Sketch>Halftone Pattern…

The result isn’t super-visible here but if you could zoom, you’d see it easily. The defaults are Size = 4 >> Contrast = 50 >> Pattern Type = Dots.

Ah, there it is! I adjusted the Size to 6 and the Contrast to 40.

Again, I changed the Blend Mode to Overlay. Then I turned the other layers back on.

If I want to, I can adjust the Opacity of each layer, change the order of the layers and make other adjustments as I wish. I think I might go a bit farther with the original Comic layer, and maybe with the Graphic Novel layer too, and make it even more cartoon-y. I can do that by adding another Filter to each layer. But for a 5 minute exercise, it looks pretty good!

See you all in March!!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With: Tutorial Tuesday

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

February 18, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Wild About Styles

It’s already the third Tuesday in February – which is almost over! – and time for YOUR chance to shine! Today we’re looking at one of our new Challenges, Wild About Styles, which is hosted by Wetfish Designs. It’s an intriguing Challenge where Wetfish provides a free-for-the-month set of Styles for use in the Challenge; this month the set contains 12 different maps. Yes… Maps. And the goal is to use more than one for your layout. She’s even provided us with a sample layout!

Let’s see how our GingerScrappers used the Styles for their layouts… Remember, each layout is linked to the Gallery so you can take a closer look and perhaps leave a comment. Just click on the Scrapper‘s user name (it’s bold, underlined and in living colour) to jump right to the layout. They’re posted in the order they were uploaded to the Challenge Gallery; there may be others in the Forum thread that aren’t in the Challenge Gallery, as I discovered last month.

Our first participant is nimble4u. She’s used at least 6 – no, make that 7 – of the Styles, applying them to each of the papers from the Tinci Designs template she chose. How’s that for following the rules? 😉 I don’t read Dutch, but she’s obviously travelling.

Alasandra has used so many I can’t keep track. She has applied them to her frames and some of her embellishments; that really customizes her layout. She, too, used a Tinci template (I have hundreds of them, so I recognize them right away) and the theme of her layout is travel, but in a more generic sense.

I’m sensing a pattern… lm44west also applied the Styles to the papers here. Her paper layers don’t have distinct shadows so it’s a bit difficult to separate them. I *think* she’s applied a different Style to each of the characters in her title.

Pixel Palette‘s used a subtle hand for her layout; by blending a large map with a floral paper she’s created movement in a layout about the single most impactful moment in travel history. She also applied Styles to her title and behind her smaller photo.

I could totally see this layout by greenfiend27 on a classroom wall somewhere. It’s literally an “animals of Australia” poster, complete with a map-Styled frame.

KatL has used two map Styles for sure. Her aerial photos are well-showcased with map mats.

With another variation on a theme, pbhill has used several Styles applied to her paper mats… and that great banner! The Styles she chose draw from the colours in her photo.

Katherine Woodin is most of us right now, am I right? So much of the continent is snowed in and freezing. She applied a Style to her background and title, and when I zoomed in I think she’s even blended map Styles into her photos. Very interesting effect.

Anybody who knows msbrad (Michi) knows she LOVES to travel and takes hordes of photos. She was a teacher in another life, so she also follows rules. 😉 Lots of different maps are visible here, even if you don’t zoom in! I love how she’s got a bike with tulips sticker to echo her bike with tulips photo. Made me smile.

Jill went simple, applying a Style to her background then blending a photo into it. She Styled her title, and perhaps the word strip in her cluster. The hiking/camping elements she’s clustered look so real!

At first I thought trinanne had only used a single map Style here – which is PERFECTLY oriented to her subject, but then I took a closer look and she’s applied a semi-transparent map Style to the frames around her photos. That bread bowl… now I’m hungry!

I’ve downloaded the Styles, and now I’m inspired to create a layout. Are you?

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

Tutorial Tuesday (GingerScraps Forum)

February 11, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Greatest Hits! A Forum Roadmap for Newbies

This post originally appeared on May 15, 2018. We have a LOT of new GingerScrappers and new-to-digital Scrappers who might find this information useful. I’ve made sure it’s up-to-date… well, except for the photos. I wish I still looked like that. 😉

Before I get rolling, I should add this explainer for those self-same newbies. When I write a tutorial, I want it to be accessible for everyone, no matter their digital experience or skill level. So I use both images and text, lots of repetition and way TMI sometimes. I also include both Windows (my system) and Mac keyboard shortcuts wherever possible. So when you see “[CTRL/CMD>…]” or “[CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT…]“, CTRL is for Windows keyboards, CMD is for Mac; ALT is for Windows, OPT is for Mac.

You’ll want to have at least two browser tabs open to GingerScraps so you can move between them as we work through the lesson.

My Profile has a series of options for telling others who you are, and it’s pretty straight-forward so I’m going to skip that part. First I’d like to show you the quickest, easiest and least taxing method of adding a photo to your profile. Since I already have a profile photo, the steps show how to change the photo, but they’re exactly the same for getting one out there for the first time, there just won’t be an image there for you to change. Make sure you’re on the Forum page and click on the Settings button.

On the left side of the Settings page is the menu that allows you to customize to your heart’s content.

Under the My Profile heading, click on the Edit Profile Picture button.

I’m going to pretend that the photos you’re seeing are recent. (They’re not. 🙁 ) As I said, I already had a profile photo so I changed it to allow you to see how easy it is. You can use photos from a website by using the first box, labeled Option 1. So if you have a photo you like posted to Flickr, (or Facebook, Instagram etc) for example, you could copy the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) where the photo is and paste it into that first box. To do that you would open a browser tab to the place where your photo is, highlight the text in the address box at the top of your browser screen then right-click and select Copy (CTRL/CMD>C); then go back to the tab with your Settings menu open, put the cursor in the first box (If you have a photo online…), right-click and select Paste (CTRL/CMD>V). Alternatively, if you have a photo on your computer that you’d like to use, then you’d use Option 2. Click on Choose File next to that second box (If you’re uploading a photo…), then find the photo on your computer.

I’m giving you a peek into my cluttered mind and messy desktop here. Yep, I have LOTS of browser tabs open, all the time, and I have a long list of links on my Toolbar. [2025 update: Nothing has changed.] I’ve found the folder with my photo in it, then chose the photo I want to use. As the screenshot says, SIZE MATTERS. For profile photos, which are the ones people will see when they look at your PROFILE, not your Forum posts, your photo must be no larger than 300 x 300 pixels or 976.6 kilobytes, whichever is smaller. You can hover your cursor over the image in your folder to see the dimensions of your photo so you won’t make the mistake of choosing a photo that will be rejected.

After you’ve clicked on the thumbnail image of your photo, click on Open.

Once you’ve opened your photo you can see how it’ll appear on your profile. I decided I didn’t like this one after all. But if I had liked it, I would have clicked on Save Changes and carried on.

I just followed that first step again to choose a different photo, Opened it and Saved the Changes.

Yes, that’s what I like!

Now we can work on the photo people see in the Forum when you post questions, comments or layouts. This photo is called an Avatar. It doesn’t have to be a photo of you, it can be anything you want it to be. I’m rather partial to Bitmojis myself.

In the same Settings menu, click on Edit Avatar. Here again, you can use an online image, say from Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. The steps to do this are exactly the same as for the Profile Picture… with one significant difference.

As you can see in the screenshot, I have photos of me, flowers from my garden and memes I found online and saved for later. The photo I chose to use for my Avatar for this lesson is one that was taken at a wedding in Jamaica 10 years ago. I checked to make sure it would work as an avatar by hovering my cursor over it. [I recently updated my avatar to a much more recent, less flattering photo.]

Here’s where that significant difference comes in. The MAXIMUM size for avatars is 150 x 150 pixels, or 1.91 megabytes, whichever is smaller. Since I’d already checked that out, I knew this photo would be fine and I clicked Save Changes.

Let’s do a Signature now. A while back I wrote a tut about creating original signatures for the Forum; you can find it here. I always save my signature files as .pngs so if I have rounded corners, elements extending out from the main part of the siggie or I want a transparent background, it’ll look the way I want it to when I use it. I also save them slightly smaller than the maximum size allowed because I want it to be a footnote, not the focus! For this feature, you will need to post your signature image to the Gallery, where you’ll get the image location data to put it into your profile. Have that Gallery tab open to your siggie. The screenshot below shows the existing signature and the Editor.

I like my signature to be centered at the bottom of my posts, so I click on the icon shown below. To remove my old siggie from March’s Signature Challenge, I clicked on the image that is now blue in the screenshot. Then I hit the Delete button on my keyboard and it went away.

Then I went to my Gallery tab and right-clicked on my May Signature Challenge signature itself. This option box opened up, where I chose Copy Image Address.

Moving back to the Settings menu browser tab, I clicked on the Insert Image link as I’m showing you below.

Then I pasted the data I copied from my Gallery image into the box and clicked OK.

In the screenshot, you can see both the old siggie and the new one. You have the choice of Previewing it or just Saving it.

Here’s a Forum post with both my new Avatar and my new Signature on it.

These methods work identically when you want to post a layout to a Challenge thread in the Forum. I highly recommend having two GingerScraps tabs open in your browser and simply moving back and forth between them, Working Smart, Not Hard. Go to your layout in the Gallery, right-click the image, Copy Image Address then navigate back to the Challenge thread. Select that Insert Image icon, paste the Image Address into the box and click OK. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the first page of a thread or the last, you can compose your post at the bottom of the screen and the site will automatically move it to the end of the thread.

Personally, [you’ve seen my messy desktop!] I use two separate windows when I’m doing these tasks to reduce my post-COVID confusion. [After almost four years, I’ve learned a lot of ways to compensate for the “gift that keeps on giving”. Sadly, my vision changes aren’t that easily overcome.]

I hope the weather where you are isn’t trying to kill you! We’ve had a longer-than-usual cold spell that hopefully is going to moderate by the weekend.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Fonts)

February 4, 2025 by Jan 5 Comments

New Valentine’s Day Fonts!

I’ve been under the weather since Sunday and have been supporting a friend whose had her fourth surgery in 3 years just recently, so I opted for a font post for this week. But it won’t disappoint! I did a meander through the Challenge Forum the other day and noticed that the theme for many of this month’s Challenges is “love”. I found some completely free fonts and a few dingbats for you at Dafont.com that dovetail with that theme that will give your layouts a real boost. Each font is hyperlinked for you, just click on the font name (bold, coloured and underlined) to grab them. Let’s check ’em out.

Darling Girl is my favourite of these, I think. It’s elegant, modern and completely legible. The free version is a demo version, so not all of the glyphs are in the zip file. But there are enough to make it worth the download. It’s versatile enough too that it could work for both titles and journaling.

Valentia has ALL the glyphs a girl could want. Its scripty look would be perfect for word art, subtitles or journaling.

Marithe is another really flourish-heavy font. The swashes are very ornamental, and there are lots of them!

I like First Love for titles. It would look great with a slightly beveled, glossy Style, or even with a metallic Style. Of course, the hearts could be Filled with pink or red to add a ton of character to it.

When I saw Enamor, I instantly knew what I’d do with it. I’d fill all those doodles with a chalk style so it looks like a blackboard. It’s an all-caps font, and would be fabulous for titles and word art.

Hello Besty Sans is a bit more of a simple bubble font. It has a folk-art look and is pretty versatile.

Better Spring Script is another variation with lots of swoopy, swashy flourishy upper case characters. There aren’t any lower-case embellies, but it wouldn’t be hard to create them.

I really appreciate multi-purpose fonts like Beauty. All the curly heart glyphs you see here are in the file!

The very imaginatively-named Be My Valentine is another script font with lots of potential. It would make gorgeous sticker-type titles – and you KNOW how much I love that! But it also is suitable for journaling. All the glyphs a girl could want are in the file too.

Now for some dingbats. This one is called Blustina Extras (which implies there’s a Blustina font… I’ll see if that’s true.) There are hearts, swooshes, banners, sparkles and even a butterfly in this collection.

So, the Blustina font is just… meh. You can check it out for yourself and decide if it’s worth the download.

Beloved is a collection of bold, hand-drawn hearts. They can be jazzed up with glitter or a glossy Style or even a wire Style for some very cool elements.

And our last dings are these, called Heart Salad. I don’t know if I’d use the Grey’s Anatomy heart, but the others I definitely would.

If you use any of these on a layout, I’d love to know, so drop a comment so I can get a look!

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

February 2025 Designer Spotlight

February 2, 2025 by Jan 2 Comments

Cindy Ritter

Welcome to Part One of this month’s Designer Spotlight! [Excuse my pyjamas, I had a lousy sleep last night and haven’t yet ruled out a nap…] Cindy Ritter and I recently had a nice chat over slushy margaritas where she shared some insights into her creative process and maybe one or two personal details, too. Let’s get into it!

J: Cindy! Nice to chat with you again!! It’s been a minute. I’ve noticed lately that you’ve brought us some absolutely fabulous new collections. Tell me, where does your inspiration come from?

C: Usually music, I am very in tune with music emotionally and that often fuels my creative process. My recent “Reflections” collection is a great example. Inspired by the song My Distorted Reflection which is a song about self-acceptance. I’m also really inspired by colors, emotions and occasionally by random cool words.

J: Music has the ability to cut through all the distractions in life, doesn’t it? I hadn’t heard that song until you mentioned it. Tracked it down on YouTube and WOW! You really nailed it with this collection. [Insert enthusiastic applause here.] I feel like this collection is a bit different from many of your previous kits. Has your style evolved?

C: My style has gotten quite a bit more artsy. If I had to describe it in three words, they would be artsy, grungy and emotional. Since learning to use AI I find I am doing a lot more unique papers and elements and using less purchased CU. I’m also creating more hand-painted and hand drawn art than I used to. I prefer to create something unique that isn’t available anywhere else.

J: You’re certainly doing that! It must be so satisfying. Now, there’s no mystery as to your design “brand”. But IS there a story there?

C: There is no secret in the name, but there is a zebra hidden in my logo. A zebra is the mascot for people with rare diseases and health issues. I have several. In spite of them I have a very good life full of joy and people who love me.

J: AH! I wondered what the zebra meant. Over the 24 years of my pediatric nursing career, I cared for quite a few kids with rare conditions, and my son is a zebra too. Maybe you should create a “resilience” kit. That’s something ALL of the zebra folks have in spades. Your designs are already inspiring, but is there something specific that excites you about how others use your work?

C: I love how creative they are! It’s also really cool to see my creations used in ways I wouldn’t have thought of, often the layouts are so much more beautiful than I even imagined!

J: There’s no limit to the creativity of our GingerScrapping community; the ingenuity of some of them is quite intimidating… but also aspirational! While we’re talking about aspirations, if you could live in any of the fictional universes, which one would you choose?

C: The Forgotten Realms, yep, I’m a D&D nerd!

J: Ha! My husband has always lived in a fantasy world, but I’m never sure which one he’s inhabiting this week. Lately he’s been talking about Tolkien a lot, so I guess he’s a Hobbit… What’s a movie you can watch over and over and never tire of?

C: Burlesque, I love the soundtrack!

J: And we’re back to music… What’s your theme song?

C: Beauty in the Struggle by Bryan Martin.

J: I haven’t heard that one, but I relate to the title. What’s your favourite way of unwinding after a day on the struggle bus?

C: Snuggling up with my cats, a cold beverage and a good book.

J: I’m not a cat person, and my dog Maeve isn’t a cuddler, although she’s good company. My mother has been terrified of cats since she was a small child, and so cats weren’t part of our world growing up. I always saw my mom as incredibly strong and fearless until I brought a kitten in the house and she broke a toe trying to get away from it. That’s also when I knew she didn’t really have eyes in the back of her head…

C: I believed my mom had special “mommy magic” that allowed her to always know what I did wrong. As a result, I was a pretty good kid, lol.

J: I relate to that too! Whenever I asked her how she knew I’d misbehaved, she’d say, “My spies are everywhere.” And I had no reason to doubt her! This has been fun! Before our audience departs though, I want to make sure they’re completely filled in…

Cindy is hosting a Designer Spotlight Challenge in addition to her regular monthly Word Art Challenge. You can find details in the Forum – just click on the hyperlink (bold, coloured, underlined) text! Don’t forget to check out her Store!!

And of course, Cindy has a special and entirely free Daily Download kit for us for the month. If you’re new to all this, the Daily Download is just what it says… the kit is broken up into smaller chunks and the bits are available for download for a limited time and the links are found here on the Blog.

As I mentioned awhile back, we now have TWO Designer Spotlights per month (most months… more about that in a minute), and this month our second Designer is Dani of JB Studios. I haven’t heard from her yet, so perhaps she doesn’t have time for a chat… which is A-OK! It’s always voluntary. As of now, we only have one Designer scheduled for May and for November. If you’re on a Creative Team for a Designer who ISN’T on the list, maybe nudge them. I’ll make it worth their while. 😉

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: Designer Spotlight

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 28, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Quick Trick: Smart Brush Tool

The Smart Brush Tool was introduced in Elements 9 – a long time ago. But I only just played with it for the first time and was suitably impressed. So let’s talk about it. The Tool combines the Quick Selection (Magic Wand) feature with LOTS of options and allows you to apply special effects easily and precisely. My example took me about 2 minutes, so it can also be really quick. Some of the All-Purpose menu options are Blue Skies (turns gray skies blue!), Brighten, Increase Contrast, Darken, Make Lips Red and Whiten Teeth. There are several other menus, including Artistic, Black and White, Color, Lighting, Nature, Photography, Portrait, Reverse Effects, Special Effects, Texture and Tint. Each has multiple options in the submenu and I plan to try some of those out ASAP. So how does it work?

This photo is cute, but the puppy is underexposed, thanks to the bright snowy background. Adjusting the photo’s lighting as a whole would require several steps and multiple tweaks to achieve a good result. Let’s try out the Smart Brush All Purpose Brighten and see what it does.

The first thing I noticed is that the adjustments are made in real time – right on the screen. The change is visible in the screenshot! This is the whole workspace; I’ll add some close-ups below. I rolled the Brush over the puppy, not taking any great care. The red outline is simply to remind me that there are marching ants in the screenshot you can’t actually see. If I wanted to make the Selection more accurate, I could, using the options shown in the second close-up below. The effect is applied to a Layer Mask, not the actual photo. That means you can make even more adjustments by adjusting the Opacity or changing the Blend Mode.

Here’s a better look at the details. That coloured illustration is your Menu Picker; the little inverted triangle activates it. The Brush Size slider can be moved at any time during the Selection process, so you can save tweaking later.

You can also flip between the BIG Brush and the Detail Brush while you’re making your Selection. The stack of Brush icons on the right tell you what the Brush will do. The top one is for basic Selection. The one with the + sign ADDS to the Selection and the bottom one SUBTRACTS from the Selection – like an eraser.

If you want even more brightening it’s as simple as making a Copy of the Layer Mask [CTRL/CMD>J] then tinkering with the Opacity.

Here are the three versions: the original, after one Smart Brush Brightening and after I Copied the Layer Mask. For the final version, I decreased the Layer Mask Opacity to 29%. And it literally took less than 2 minutes! I didn’t fiddle with the Selection by outlining all the tufts of hair or Refining the Edge, and the outcome is acceptable for casual use. I could redo it with more attention to detail if I wanted it to be zoomable, but for this tut, I think it’s just fine.

Should I show you some of the other possibilities in future tutorials?

I hope this has provided some distraction from the goings-on in the news these days. Keep your chins up!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

January 21, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Photography

Today I’m shining the Spotlight on Cindy Ritter‘s Photography Challenge, and it’s serving two purposes. Her Challenge was to use a selfie on a layout, so now we’ll be able to put faces to user names! Cindy even obliged by posting her own selfie. Isn’t she beautiful?

As usual with the Challenge Spotlight, each layout you’ll see here will be linked to the GingerScraps Gallery for closer inspection and the leaving of praise. Simply click on the Scrapper‘s user name. [Editor’s note: whenever you see text that’s in bold, coloured text and is underlined, it’s a hyperlink. The work’s all done for you!] The layouts appear in the order they were uploaded to the Challenge Gallery.

Our first selfie is this very warmly yellow layout from pjm117 (aka Karen). Her choice of a spring-like yellow and green palette makes her selfie really pop.

This one is from zippyoh, and I love the way she’s used ombre paper and pulled the palette from her puffy vest. Lovely contrast is provided by pinks and peaches. So pretty!

Ah!! The many faces of Katherine Woodin! She has such a lovely smile, don’t you think? Going with black-and-white for all those “selfies” was a brilliant choice.

Stellar palette and paper choice, mdusell – Marge! The shadows for her seagulls are perfect to give the illusion of flight.

Have you met lawyerlyn? She includes photos of herself on many of her layouts. This simple grid-style layout lets the photos tell the story.

Glee! What a morbid word strip… I think she’s aging gracefully. I like the spill of elements across the page, with her photos the focal point.

This is Alyssa, aka photocrazy. By keeping her layout clean and simple, that gorgeous sunset and those two beautiful smiles are where the eye goes first.

Who doesn’t love a grungy white space layout? It really makes the sky behind pbhill (otherwise known as Babette) pop… which leads the eye directly to her face. And the background emulates the colours of the desert.

Dorann (dorannmwin) is the one in the centre, in case you don’t know her. Those punches of orange echo the lights in the photo.

Tbear used a very similar palette here. That postage stamp frame highlights her photo and what I see first every time I look at it? Her twinkly eyes! I bet she’s a sweet, funny person everybody loves.

The next two layouts weren’t in the Challenge Gallery, but had been posted to the Forum thread. Ladies, don’t forget to post your layouts to the appropriate Challenge Gallery if you want them to count toward the Reward Collab. It’s easier for Missi to verify your participation there; she has thousands of layouts to vet every month, so let’s make her job a little easier, okay?

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t removed the SnapChat app from my phone; seeing photos like Sams Scraps‘ is one of those times. I have a bunch of photos of my son and me with these fun filters. Might have to reinstall it. Her palette works so well with those photos!

Here, princess-scraps has used some low-light New Year fireworks-related photos. Looks like it was a great party! The fragmented arrangement of her photos and papers give excitement and a tiny touch of chaos to the layout.

If I decide to take part in this Challenge, should I follow Glee‘s and Katherine‘s lead and go with a then-and-now retrospective, or should I use SnapChat photos of me with (or without my son)? Decisions, decisions!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

January 14, 2025 by Jan 1 Comment

Layering Patterned Papers and Loving It

Over the weekend I managed to finish a couple of Challenge layouts – hooray for instant inspiration! – and one of them received a comment I’ve heard before. Jill worte: “Lovely choice of papers, I am always impressed by those who can layer multiple patterned papers successfully.” That started me thinking about my process, how I choose and use those same patterned papers and maybe I could share some tips. This is the layout in question. So let’s talk about it.

There are NO solid papers on there and the papers haven’t been resized. (I can’t say that about many of the patterns I use, but more about that in a minute.)

1. First things first: While you’re getting comfortable with using multiple patterned papers, work with just one kit. Everything has been designed to work together. That makes colour coordination easier and gives more satisfying results. I used a new-to-me kit, ADB Designs’ Emerald Isle for my layout. Once you’ve gotten some practice, you can branch out and use more than one kit; GingerScraps’ Buffet kits all use the same palette, so that’s one way to find good matches. Differing styles of kit can make for really beautiful layouts.

2. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer a neutral background. But that doesn’t always mean solid. The background paper here is one with a very small repeating pattern in neutral colours. The way I describe it to myself is that it “reads as a solid”. Applying some paint splatters doesn’t war with or get lost in the pattern. Using a more obvious pattern for your background means you should have at least one paper selection that “reads as a solid” to layer between patterns. Tone-on-tone can be quite effective as well; the dark green paper I used almost “reads as a solid”, don’t you think?

3. Scale is important. Layering small-scale patterns with more grand ones is a strong strategy. The small-scale print gives the eye a spot to rest. I layered the small green diamond repeating print over the brown paper with gold floral pattern to break up the chaos.

4. On the topic of scale, you don’t have to use the paper in its original size if the look is too aggressive. I will often resize the paper until I get the overall look I want. Constraints to resizing come from the specific paper layer place-holder shape if I’m using a template. Tinci Designs uses a LOT of paper layers for her templates; it’s one of the things I really like about them. (They’re a gift to creative teams – show off ALL the goodies!) I’ve also been known to shrink a paper to 1/4 its original size and create my own version of it by duplicating the paper 3 times then arranging them to fill a 12×12 square. It’s not really cheating…

5. You also don’t have to use the part of the paper that covers your place-holder shape either. Move the paper around – up, down sideways, rotated – until it looks good. Trust your eye!

6. Remember, nothing is final until YOU decide it’s final. If you look at your paper layers and think, “Ugh!”, rearrange them! Go back to the kit and get a couple more options. Turn off visibility to some or all of your other layers to see what it is you’re bothered by. If you were ever a fly on my wall, you’d get used to hearing, “Nope, don’t like that!” That’s one reason I always have the folder(s) for the kit(s) I’m using open on my toolbar until I’m positive my layout is finished.

I’ve been thinking about the wildfires in southern California a lot. The Grouse Complex fire here in 2023 followed a very similar script, and I know the terror and confusion the people affected are experiencing. It’ll be months before they can feel confident the worst is over. If you are (or know someone) affected, just know you have lots of people praying for you.

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