Yes! You CAN Create Curved Lines in Elements!

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

As we’re all well aware, there are lots of things Photoshop does that Photoshop Elements doesn’t. Sometimes there are work-arounds, sometimes there aren’t. I had given up hope on smoothly curved lines after trying a lot of things I felt should work – but failed spectacularly, and then I found George Peirson, the HowToGuru. He’s got some really interesting techniques that I had to try for myself. THEY WORK! Today I’ll show you the easiest one to master, and create a curved paper multi-layer border with it.

I chose to work on a transparent 12×12 canvas, since it’s my preferred layout size. There’s no reason this can’t be accomplished on a smaller or larger scale, so do what suits you best.

This is the shockingly easy way to curve lines, and it uses the TEXT TOOL!!! Any font will work, and choosing a big character size will make it quicker. Center your Text cursor on your canvas and type out a line of “underscores” – SHIFT>- to extend across the page. Using the underscore gives a longer dash than the hyphen does, and the ends join seamlessly.

For once, we’re not going to Simplify a Text layer before we manipulate it. Instead, click the Text Warp button shown and a new menu will open up. Make sure Anti-Aliasing is also checked.

The Text Warp menu has a drop-down option bar labeled Style. Click on the bar and choose Flag. The only parameter we’ll change is the Horizontal Bend. Push the slider all the way to one side or the other. I’m right-handed, so I went to the right. For this example I’ve only gone to 94%, but 100% is also going to be perfect. If you want to see what the other adjustments do, play with them. They’re not permanent until you make them permanent.

So now we have a very gentle sine wave. If you want something more um… dramatic, we’ll need to Simplify the layer.

This Image>Transform Tool is so useful! For my sample, I chose Image>Transform>Distort. This command tells the Bounding Box that each of the “handles” is moveable in any direction.

So just grab a handle and pull it or push it around until you see a shape you like. Then click the green checkmark.

The usual Resize and Reposition functions are still operational, so you have lots of room to make adjustments. I Rotated it so it’s vertical, then stretched it top to bottom and positioned it where I liked it best.

My goal is to create some Clipping Masks for a curvy border, so I used the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the space between the edge of my canvas and the curvy line.

You can see there’s a faint blank area. That happens sometimes with the Paint Bucket. It’s easy to remedy. Just click the Paint Bucket in the space again and that blank area will fill.

Okay. I have one layer. Let’s make another one. I’ll use a different colour so it’s easier to see what’s what. I’m also going for a shorter baseline.

This screenshot shows how the length of the line and the percentage of Bend influence the curves when I used the same Style through the Warp Text Tool.

Here I’ve Rotated the line already, and I’m ready to Simplify it.

This time when I chose the Image>Transform Tool, I chose Skew.

With Skew, the handles can move in two directions, horizontally or vertically. You can see my Bounding Box in the screenshot.

I’d like to make the curved line longer, and have more curves, so I’ll make a Copy layer.

Then I moved them around so the spot where they intersect provides a smooth curve. I did some Zooming while I was lining them up.

It looks pretty good to me. I won’t worry about the tail on the left side of the line.

Then I Merged the two lines into one long one.

Once I had just one long line, I moved it over so it sat on top of the black shape, which is visible again.

And I dumped the Paint Bucket into the space. Clipping mask #2 is done.

I wanted to try one more thing, using a tilde ~ instead of an underscore. The main difference is that the line of tildes won’t connect up the way the underscores do. Elements 2019 finally included kerning: the ability to adjust the space between characters, only they call it Tracking. Earlier versions don’t have that function, so I’ll show you the “non-kerning” method of creating a wavy line with a tilde. It’ll take a few extra steps.

But before we do that, I decided I wanted to stretch the tilde widthwise by 50%.

The Warp Text Tool isn’t going to work for this curvy line so the tilde layer needs Simplifying.

I made a Copy of the tilde layer.

Using the arrow keys I nudged the two tilde layers so they created a smooth wavy line.

I Merged the two layers and made a Copy of the now-double-tilde layer.

Nudge the two layers to create a smooth wavy line, Merge the two layers and make another Copy, this time with double the bumps. Keep repeating these steps until the line stretches across the whole page.

I think it needs something…

This time, after much trial and error, I chose Image>Transform>Perspective.

Woohoo! It looks like rickrack! I could use it just like that and be quite happy.

Instead, I moved it into position and Filled the space.

I liked what I had, but thought maybe one more layer. Rather than make a whole new one, I instead played with the original shape. I made a Copy of it then hit it with Image>Transform>Distort.

It’s just different enough that it’ll add something to the stacked border. Whenever I have something on my canvas that extends outside the edges, I use the Crop Tool to get rid of those parts so they don’t mess with the final product.

I changed the colour of that last layer to a grayish-green then flipped it horizontally and Rotated it 180° so the widest part was at the top. I think it’s good now.

Here’s a view of the four Clipping Mask layers with papers Clipped, and with a small drop shadow. You could position the layers horizontally, which could give you a nice wave effect, too. Now I can tuck the corners of photos in between the layers, add some elements and have a really unique border when I’m done.

In a coming tutorial I’ll show you a couple of other ways of creating curved lines so you can choose the one you like best.

Whew. It’s still Tuesday where I am. I made it!

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

Quick Trick: Transform a Selection

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

August 2022 is one of those rare months with five Tuesdays. That means there’s still one more Tutorial Tuesday before we move into September. (I can hear the shrieking… yes, this year is flying by!) It still feels very much like summer here, with temps in the 80s or 90s and thunderstorms – which aren’t typical here even in high summer. Last night’s storm was intense! Hopefully there weren’t a bunch of new wildfires created. But enough chit-chat. Let’s look at today’s Quick Trick.

One of the most common reasons I have for Selecting something is for recolouring word art. I do it a lot and the method I like most, which gives the best results, is to add a Solid Color Fill Layer.

I can’t be the only one who has this issue – sometimes my mouse/trackpad just stops responding (or let’s be honest, my finger slips) while I’m using the Marquee Tool to Select something, causing the area I’ve Selected to be not what I wanted. And until I learned this trick it meant I’d Select>Deselect (CTRL/CMD>D) or Undo (CTRL/CMD>Z) and start over.

Then one day I learned it’s possible to make the bad Selection box into a good Selection box! (This has streamlined editing my screenshots dramatically.) Rather than abandon the too-small/too-big/just-not-right box, right-click somewhere on the canvas. This magical menu will appear. Click on Transform Selection.

Now the marching ants are a Bounding Box. When you Commit current operation, it morphs back into marching ants. Crazy! Now you can Cut/Paste, apply a Stroke, rotate or whatever you had planned to do when you chose the Marquee Tool.

But will it work with an Elliptical Selection?

Seems like that’s a YES!

Here we see one of the limitations of Elliptical Selections when you’re playing with word art. If I make the ellipse big enough to get everything I want inside it, I also get stuff in there I don’t want. Because I can’t help myself, I tried Image>Transform>Skew. If it wasn’t going to be an option, those choices would have been grayed out. They weren’t! But the question still remained. Would the Skew only apply to the marching ants Selection?

Answer? Affirmative! But… the dots from the two “i”s in the line below are also being bitten.

I was so pleased, but shocked, to see that the Selection was still a Bounding Box and I could still tweak the contours of the ellipse. I tested the result by Cutting DOG out of the image to see if the whole word was inside and the dots on the two “i”s weren’t. It was perfect, but I didn’t think you’d need to see a screenshot of that.

Feeling quite accomplished now, I took it all one step further. Could this trick work with the old CTRL/CMD>click-inside-the-thumbnail-to-Select thing?

So I gave it a whirl.

Well, darn. Right-clicking only brought up options that would apply to the LAYER the tag is on, not the Selection. Is there another way? I clicked the Select tab and there it was! Transform Selection is right there!

The Selection turned into a Bounding Box and I could Resize it without a problem. Pro tip: If you want the original shape to remain centered in the Selection, don’t grab a Bounding Box handle and pull. Instead, change the size in the Tool Options dialog box.

You may never decide to use this trick, but I’ll tell you, I’m using it a LOT now that I know how it works. See you next week!

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

Going Creative with the Stitch Technique

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3zUIB2y

Today I’m going to build on the stitch tutorial from a few weeks ago. I have three more ways to add stitching to your layouts that go beyond vanilla. I’ve played around quite a bit to be sure the instructions are accurate, and you’ll be surprised how easy these new options are. Let’s start out by making sure we have room to work. I opened up a new 12×12 workspace and dropped a paper on it so the stitches – I’ll use white – will be easy to see.

Again we’ll use the Text Tool because it has so many options. I’m using Elements 2021; if your version is much older you may not have all of these Tool Options. The option we’re starting with is Text on Shape and we’ll be using the Ellipse to create a circle. My screenshot font is Lumberjack Regular and I’ve used it for two of my samples today. If you have a font with a dash symbol that has a rounded look to it, it’ll work beautifully. Set the font size to at least 40 points.

Drag out a circle on your paper. You can make it as big as you want. It can always be resized later to fit your layout. This outline will tell Elements where to put the dashes and how to position them.

Move your mouse until you see the Text Tool cursor. It’ll become visible when you intersect with the edge of the circle and it looks like a swoosh with an I-beam crossing it. Click to set it in play then using the dash and the space bar, type out a long string of stitches. They will move and bend to the shape you’ve created; the dash sits above the baseline, but that won’t really matter.

Here you can see what I mean. You can stop when you’ve only gone part way around if you like, or keep going to enclose the circle.

Your spaces may or may not uniformly proceed around your circle when you reach the finish line. If this is a concern for you there are a couple of options – start over, adjusting the size of the circle or the font until it’s perfect, or you can accept it and just cover it with a flower or a brad on your layout. If you resize the stitched circle to a smaller version, it’ll be less noticeable.

Now to give the stitches some dimension. By using a Bevel Style, you won’t have to add a shadow later! Click the Styles button at the bottom right of the Layers Panel, choose Bevels from the dropdown menu and then choose Simple Emboss.

These are the default settings for Simple Emboss. You may find them to be too strong. Styles can be adjusted by double-clicking on the fx icon on the layer.

You can see how just shifting the Size slider to the left makes each stitch a bit flatter.

You could stop at this step and have some very nice stitches. But if you’re interested in a bit more realism, that’s pretty easy. First Simplify the text layer by right-clicking on the layer then choosing Simplify Layer.

To make the stitches look a bit more like they’re made of thread and not paint, we can apply a Filter. It needs to go on its own layer though, so click on the sheet-of-paper icon at the top left of the Layers Panel. Then click Filter>Render>Fibers…

Make sure your foreground colour on the Color Picker is set to a light gray – the filter will be whatever colour you have in the foreground, and red isn’t pleasing! The Filter Options look like this. For the most thready look possible, push those sliders all the way to the right and click Randomize.

This is what is supposed to happen! Don’t worry. It’ll be fine!! Right-click on that Filter Layer and choose Create Clipping Mask from the menu.

Then all that’s left is to adjust the Opacity so that you have the thread effect but not so strongly that it’s distracting.

To be sure the stitches and the thready filter stay together, click>SHIFT>click on the layers then right-click and choose Merge Layers. Or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>E.

If you look closely now that I’ve shrunk my circle, you might be able to see the slightly bigger gap between my first and last stitches. Maybe.

Okay, now let’s try something a bit more out there. This time, I chose Text on Path from the Text Tool Options. See the Draw icon? It turns the cursor into a pen, a fountain pen… and you’re only limited by your wrist’s flexibility and the size of your mousepad!

I clicked on my paper to tell the cursor to get to work, then drew a simple swirl. It looks pretty smooth, so I don’t need to Modify it. But if I did, the Modify icon will give me the necessary tools.

To get the stitches to conform to the swirl and extend from one end of the line to the other, I discovered I needed to click my cursor as close to the center of the line as possible.

This time I went ahead and Simplified before adding the Bevel.

You may not have ever explored the More button down there at the bottom of the Layers Panel. I just happen to know there’s a Simple Emboss under the Favorites tab.

This time I changed the Lighting Angle as well as the Size. Always make sure your Lighting Angle matches your shadows; there might be a visible incongruence that will bother you otherwise.

On to the thready Filter… but only if you want to!

This time I left the Filter a little darker.

The last sample looks like it’s the most complicated, but it’s not. Let’s use the Custom Shape Tool and drag out a nice 5 pointed star. Don’t forget to Simplify, because you won’t be able to manipulate it otherwise.

Next, I chose Text on Selection. I made sure it was set to Add – meaning wherever the cursor was dragged would be part of the Selection. It doesn’t have to be precise, just click inside the shape and drag the cursor to the edges. The marching ants will snap to the edges automatically.

Once you’ve got the edges Selected, Commit the Action.

Choose a logical starting point, like the inner angle of one of the points. Click to activate the Type Tool and start typing. I switched the font to Impact Regular and used the period instead of the dash. As I typed, the stitches moved along both sides of the star until they met at the top.

Don’t forget to Simplify the text layer!

I tried all the Bevel Styles to see which one worked best with the period-style stitches. It turned out to be Simple Scallop.

If you squint, these look almost like cross stitch!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3zUIB2y

I hope you’ll give one or more of these a try. If there’s something you’d like me to build a tutorial for, you can leave me a comment here on the Blog, or send me a Private Message through the Forum – user name is ObiJanKenobi. Next Tuesday I’ll be doing a Challenge Spotlight. Stay tuned!

Creased Paper Cut-Out Word Art

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

I had a request in my PMs from glee, who thought I could magick up an Elements version of the Photoshop technique shown on this fabulous layout by physioscrapper. (Hey Nancy!!) So with some trepidation, I embarked on turning a 7 1/2 minute YouTube video into a 46-screenshot tutorial. [I know, only I could do that!] There are quite a few steps, but many of them are repeated a few times so it’s really not that horrible. And, as with some other things that I’ve made up as I was going along, I took a couple of missteps that resulted in more work for myself that I only figured out AFTER I’d gotten there. So I’ll let you know when we get to those!

This is where I began. I used a big, bold sans serif font and only upper case letters. Font selection is super-important for this – it just wouldn’t work as well with an embellished font. You can use more than one word if you like. The inspiration layout only has a single word so I emulated that.

Next I made a Copy layer of the word. As you might recall, I like to use keyboard shortcuts, but there’s a learning curve with that. I’ll always show you an alternate method of doing something then give you the keyboard shortcut for that action where one exists. CTRL is a Windows key, CMD is for Mac. To create a Copy layer, right-click on the layer then choose Duplicate Layer… and OK. Shortcut: CTRL/CMD>J.

In order to take the next number of steps, this Copy layer must be Simplified. Right-click and choose Simplify.

To make keeping the two word layers straight in my mind, I changed the colour of the Copy layer to coral. Using the Paint Bucket would work, but I’d have to pour paint into each letter and the edges might not be sharp with that method. So instead I clicked Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color.

To put the Fill Layer right over the letters, tick that Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask box.

If you’ve never used the Color Picker you may not know how to choose a colour you like. Start by clicking on the colour family you like over there in the rainbow strip. Then fine-tune your choice by clicking inside the big swatch. The Preview box between the swatch and the OK button will show you how the spot you’ve selected in the swatch compares to the previously selected colour.

To keep things manageable, click>SHIFT>click on the Fill layer and the text layer then right-click, choosing Merge Layers. Shortcut: CTRL/CMD>E.

Now, go back and activate the original text layer, the one we didn’t Simplify. It’ll be the cut-out part of the word art. There are some techniques in Photoshop that don’t have an Elements equivalent. This is one of those. We want a shadow under the cut-out, but using an Inner Shadow layer Style only applies it to two edges, while in Photoshop, it’s possible to have all four edges shadowed and adjustable. So here’s a work-around. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s good in a pinch! Click the Styles button at the bottom of the Layers Panel then choose Glass Buttons. From the Glass Buttons menu, choose Translucent Glass as shown.

It looks like garbage, but don’t worry! We’ll fix it!!

Double-click on that fx icon on the text layer to access the Styles adjustment menu. These are the default settings for the Style we chose.

Untick the Bevel setting. Then play with the Inner Glow sliders to find a look that you like. These are my choices: Lighting Angle 90° Size 20 Pixels Opacity 60%. It’s possible to change the colour of the Inner Glow here too, but for now we’ll leave it until we see how it all looks later.

Now go back and activate the coloured version of the word. To create the fold, we’ll need to divide the word into two halves. Using the Rectangle Marquee tool, drag out a box around the top half of the letters. Having a capital R there helped. But if your word doesn’t have an obvious halfway part to it, you can turn on the Grid and use it to line things up. View>Grid or CTRL/CMD>’ will turn it on and off.

Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X will Cut the top half off and make it disappear. It’s not really gone, just hiding.

To bring it back into view, Edit>Paste or CTRL/CMD>V. Now you’ll have two separate layers, each with half the word on it.

You may need to use the arrow keys to nudge the two halves back into alignment.

Moving to the layer that has the bottom half of the word on it, activate the Move tool then push the bottom edge upward toward the centre of the word, just a bit.

Still on the bottom, click Image>Transform>Perspective.

Grab that centre “handle” and move it horizontally to the right. A dialogue box will appear telling you how much you’ve shifted it in degrees. Aim for about 11°.

Move back to the top half of the word and activate the Move tool again, only this time stretch it upward about the same amount you shrunk the bottom. You can toggle the layers’ visibility on and off if it helps you keep track of where you are.

Repeat the Image>Transform>Perspective step.

Moving to the right the same amount as for the bottom, about 11° will keep it symmetrical.

Here we go… it looks like the letters are creased away from the background. There are still some things we need to do to get a realistic look though.

A drop shadow Style isn’t gonna cut it for this so we’ll create a custom shadow. First, select the layers for both halves of the word by click>SHIFT>clicking on them, then right-click and choose Duplicate Layers>OK or CTRL/CMD>J.

This is an optional step: Rename the layers to help remember what they’re doing for you. Double-click on the name Elements gives the layer and change it. Here I’ve labeled the new copies as Top SHADOW and Bottom SHADOW.

Now we’ll add Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color to each of those shadow layers. Make sure you tick the Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask box. For simplicity’s sake we’ll use black for the shadows.

I sometimes just type in a value in the Color Picker‘s # box. Pure black is 000000. White is ffffff… easy enough to remember. Some designers like to use an umber colour, like 2c1902.

With both halves of the shadow layers filled with black, we’re on the way to a nice custom shadow!

Move the two shadow layers so they’re underneath the folded letters. Click>SHIFT>click on the two layers and drag them down the Layers Panel, or use CTRL/CMD>[ to get them into their proper spots.

Yep, you guessed it… we’re going to pull them off kilter too, one at a time. In the screenshot I’m working with the top half of the shadow. Image>Transform>Perspective.

Don’t go too far! 4 to 4.5° is plenty. You just want it to peek out from under the letter above it.

When you’ve got both top and bottom shadows peeking out a little, it should look like this.

Next, Merge the two shadow layers together. Click>SHIFT>click, right-click>Merge Layers / CTRL/CMD>E.

Now to soften that shadow up a bit so it doesn’t look like it could cut glass… Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

The Filter menu opens up. Move the Radius slider until you think the shadow looks realistic. I went to 13.9 Pixels.

But it’s still too harsh, so adjust the Opacity. 70% looks good.

Here’s one of those missteps I referred to at the beginning. **If you’re going to Clip papers to your letters do it now!** That way, the next couple of steps will be visible on your paper rather than the letters you’re using as a template. Merge the papers with the word halves so you don’t get mixed up. Then you can move on to this next step. Activate the layer with the TOP half of the word.

Add a new blank layer above the top half of the word by clicking on the sheet-of-paper icon at the upper left of the Layers Panel and make it your active layer. Then CTRL/CMD>click inside the Layer Thumbnail for the TOP half of the word to Select the edges.

OMG… we’re trying something NEW!! Layer>New Fill Layer>Gradient…

Make sure that Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask box is ticked. We want the effect to apply to just the top half of the word. The marching ants will tell it where to stop.

Choose the black-to-transparent gradient option. Of course it looks horrible. Tick the Reverse box, then we’ll make it pretty.

Now the effect is at the top of the letters and by decreasing the Opacity to 15%, it just adds a hint of shadowing where the light couldn’t quite reach the paper.

This step is another optional one, but I think it’s actually essential. Using the Burn tool let’s add some deeper shadowing where the paper creases. (You want to take this step AFTER you’ve clipped your paper to your letters.) The Burn tool icon looks like an “OK” hand signal. Use a small diameter, 15-20 Pixels, and don’t go too heavy, maybe 10-15% on the Opacity. To create a straight crease, click your cursor where the two halves of the word intersect then hold down the SHIFT key and move over to the other end of the word. Click the cursor at that intersection point and voilà, you have a straight crease.

So you can see how it looks with some papers in place, here you go.

If you think your cut-out shadows aren’t quite dark enough, this is how to fix it. Go back to the original text layer, double-click on the fx icon and use the swatch to change the Inner Glow to black.

Because I wasn’t thinking and waited to Clip my papers until after I’d Burned the crease and added the Gradient, I went back and fixed that.

There… a reasonable facsimile of Nancy‘s word art!

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

I’ll be back in a day or two with the August 2022 Designer Spotlight. See you then!