Create a Word Art Photo Frame

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Have you ever seen a set of word art frames in a digi-scrapping store and like the idea of them, but not the words the designer has used? Well, that’s an easy fix!

Open up a shiny, new blank canvas with a transparent background. Make it big so you have lots of room to manoever. Mine is 12×12. It can be big while under construction because we can always resize it to fit the layout when the time comes, right? Activate the Custom Shape Tool and pick a shape. I’ll use a square with rounded corners. By utilizing the Tool Options, I can set predetermined dimensions for the shape. In the Rounded Rectangle toolkit, I like a Radius of 150 pixels to give an obvious round edge to the corners but still maintain the “square” of it. As for colours, whatever you like will be totally fine, as long as there’s sufficient contrast for the next step. I’m going basic black and white.

With my predetermined settings all I had to do was click on the centre of my canvas and I had a perfect, 6×6 square with rounded corners in the middle of my canvas. Easy peasy! As I may have mentioned once or twice, the Custom Shape Tool output is ALWAYS a Smart Object – meaning it can’t be manipulated in any way but resizing. (I prefer to think of them as Stupid Objects.) To have the ability to make other adjustments to a Custom Shape, the layer has to be Simplified. But wait!! For this technique, Simplifying isn’t needed! Yes, you read that right… only Simplify if you want to. (But it IS another step.)

Next, pop a new blank layer on top of the Shape layer. The quickest and easiest way to do that is to just click on the sheet of paper icon as shown.

To Select the outer edge of the Shape layer, CTRL/CMD>click on the layer thumbnail – the picture of what’s on the layer. The marching ants will appear, and then the layer’s visibility can be turned off. Close that eye!

Activate the blank layer, where you still can see the marching ants. Change the foreground colour to your other colour. [The X key will let you toggle between foreground and background.] <whispers> you could use the same colour… Jan just likes everything to be easily seen. Then Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection…

The control box for the Stroke process has multiple settings you can customise. It’ll show you what colour you have in the foreground. You decide the Width of the outline, where the outline will be Located, Blending Mode and Opacity. I opted for 80 pixels, which will give me a substantial but not overbearing outline. I’ve Located it Outside the Selection. If you’re using a shape with sharp corners, put your Stroke Inside to maintain their sharpness.

To get rid of the marching ants, Select>Deselect or CTRL/CMD>D.

Now for the word(s).The font you choose will be dictated by the subject matter of your photo/layout. I went with BrideChalk Sans Regular, a simple all-caps handwritten font and my word is ADVENTURE. I’m using Photoshop Elements 2021, so my font settings may not look like yours. Tracking ( aka kerning) was a new addition with Elements 2019. Basically, it allows for more or less space between characters; this can be a valuable adjustment, especially with script fonts that may not connect the characters together cleanly. In this situation I want space between my characters because I’m going to make my letters heavier. If you find your characters are too close together and don’t have Tracking, you can put them on individual layers and shift them around so you’ve got that room for adding some presence.

I want to make adjustments to this text layer other than resizing it, so BOOM! there it is… Time to Simplify. Right-click on the layer and choose Simplify Layer.

Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection… is such a useful tool!

This time my Stroke will be 20 pixels and Centered on the Selection. That will put an equal amount of outline on either side of the line and it will be more balanced.

I resized the text to extend side to side and have the lower corners just overlapping the border a smidge. I’m putting it at the bottom, but it could just as easily be vertical and to one side, run across or down the middle, sit at the top… whatever looks right to you. This part is completely personal taste – if you want the word to float, let it float!

I want to add a divider above the word so that it’s framed. To make this step easy and give you control over the results, turn on the Grid by clicking View>Grid or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>’. This will help with placement so much! In my Edit>Preferences I set the main grid lines 1 inch apart and the divisions at 4, so there’s a visible line every 1/4 inch.

Add a new blank layer to your layers stack. This will allow you more flexibility once you’ve created your divider – meaning that if it needs to be moved, you’ll be able to move it. Activate the Pencil Tool and set the Size to 80 pixels, the same dimension we used for the border. (Or to whatever you want… this is a guide!) Then choose a spot on one side of the border that sits at an intersection of Grid lines and click there. Hold down the SHIFT key and move your cursor to the other side of the border along the same horizontal line, then click there. Voilà, a straight divider line! To turn the Grid off, go back to View>Grid or CTRL/CMD>’ and it’ll go away

If you’re not happy with where the divider is, nudge it into place. Then CTRL/CMD>click on the border’s layer so the two layers can be Merged into a single divided frame. If you want the word to be connected to the frame as well, CTRL/CMD>click on that layer too before right-clicking and choosing Merge Layers. Keyboard shortcut for Merge is CTRL/CMD>E.

Now to add the photo. I like this Pixabay photo of a man walking on a pipeline so I dragged it onto the canvas between the original Shape layer and the frame, resized it and positioned it.

Once I turned the Visibility for the original Shape layer back on, I could use it as a Clipping Mask.

Now for the fun part! The frame and word art can be transformed in a number of ways, such as clipping a paper or cardstock to it and adding a drop shadow. Or… Layer Styles!! I like the Chipboard Styles from Just So Scrappy‘s Lucky Me with this photo/frame combo.

I really like the Kraft paper edge on this style and think it works really well with my photo.

With the word art separate from the frame, I played with some other Layer Styles and settled on this golden-yellow woodgrain Style from Ooh La La Scraps Nearly Fall. It adds a bevel to the letters.

I played a bit more with it, stretching the text so it touches top and bottom, then Merged all three layers. With the Chipboard Style applied, it looks like this.

I made another sample, this time using Levina Script Regular for my word. The Layer Style is Just So Scrappy‘s Lucky Me Chrome in white. The possibilities are endless with this technique!

I hope you try this one. It’s so simple, but so versatile.

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Template Mash-Ups Revisited

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I was wandering through the May Challenges on Sunday, as I always do on the first or second day of each month, to decide which ones I’d participate in, and noted that Ginger (Dandelion Dust Designs) has asked us to combine two templates into a single layout for her Perfectly Paired Challenge. It’s not the first time she’s gone that route, and I’m sure there are newish scrappers who aren’t sure how to do that. After all, it’s been nearly 5 years since I ran a lesson on combining templates and we’ve embraced a LOT of new GingerScrappers in that time. So let’s have another look.

Templates are amazingly versatile tools. You don’t have to slavishly follow the design for them to help you create fabulous layouts. They’re intended as inspirational guides, with symbols as placeholders. With templates, your creativity is only limited by your imagination. I’m going to show you how to do a template mash-up right here, right now. To have the best results with your template mash-up, you should choose two templates with clusters, photo spots, masks or combinations of those that you really like, with a good amount of white space, so you’ll have lots of options. I apologize in advance for the relative illegibility of the text on the screenshots. They’re from the early days of my tutorial-writing career and I don’t have them saved so I can’t fix them. The text between screenshots is fairly explicit, so I think you’ll be okay.

I decided to use the JB Studios template shown below as my base template. (This template set has been retired.) I like the row of circles with the small cluster, and I really like the little wordstrip cluster in the corner. I made a mental note of what the file was named so I could find it later…

Then I chose this Tinci Designs template for my second one. I had 2 photos I wanted to use. Now, I could have resized the centre cluster, which would have actually worked beautifully, but I wanted my photos to be really visible.

I had to make room for the section of Tinci’s template that I was going to move onto the JBS template so I selected all the layers but the background and the little wordstrip cluster then moved them up almost to the top of the canvas.

See how that gave me a lot of room?

The next step is to go to my second template and select all the layers I want to add to the first one. If you don’t have the Bounding Box turned on, you might want to do that. It will help you move only the layers you want by including the shapes you’ve selected inside it. You can see my Bounding Box in the screenshot below.

Once you’ve selected only the layers you want to copy onto your other template, right click on the Layers panel to open the Layers menu. Then click on Duplicate Layers…

A new menu opens with everything you have in your Photo Bin included. Look down the list until you find your first template. If you can’t remember the file name, look for the .psd suffix. When you’ve found it, click on it.

Your dialog box will look like this. You can rename the group of layers if you want, but you don’t have to. When you’ve got the correct file selected, click OK.

PSE automatically centres everything on the canvas, so this is what the new mashed-up template looked like right after I added the Tinci pieces to the JBS base template. Time to fine-tune!

I moved all the Tinci pieces down so the JBS pieces peeked out above them.  Then I had to figure out what to do with that little wordstrip cluster that HAD to be in there.

Once I was happy with how it all looked, I could get my layout rolling. There were some layers from the original template that were completely concealed, so when I came to them in the Layers panel, I just deleted them. (I always work with copies of everything, never the original. That way I don’t have to worry about losing something I might want again later!)

If you decide to try this out, remember that you don’t HAVE to copy everything from one template onto the other. Choose the parts you LOVE. Forget about the rest. I could have copied just one of the photo clusters. I could have only copied the wordstrip cluster. It’s all about what you like most! Have fun!

If there are enough layouts in the Perfectly Paired Gallery by the third Tuesday of May, I’ll come back and talk about how each layout has mashed up the templates. Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

Don’t forget, National Scrapbooking Day is coming up fast… it’s technically on Saturday, but the festivities have already started. Make a budget and have some hard drive space. You’ll need both!!

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QuickTrick: Improving the Work Flow with Templates

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Hey ladies! I was led to an absolutely amazing resource for “secret” tips on using Photoshop Elements (thank you Kathi, aka granny5pics) and it gave me an idea. The fourth Tuesday of each month, I’m going to show you something I learned from it, complete with screenshots, and I’m calling it QuickTricks. Most of the things I’ll show you will be really streamlined but detailed enough for beginners to get the hang of right away. Today, our topic is an Elements workaround for something easily done in Creative Studio Photoshop versions. I’m still deciding whether I’ll be making it a habit, but I do think it’s Working Smart, Not Hard.

I love using templates as a springboard for creativity. They make a lot of the decision-making less complicated and produce predictable results. And I do find I work quickly when I’m using a template. So you’ll understand when I tell you learning there’s a way to make templates do even more of the work shook me right up! It represents a shift in thinking for me, which is why I’m not sure it’ll be a permanent change for me… but I said that about custom shadows too. So who knows? But enough gabbing. Let’s get to work!

I chose this template from Tinci Designs for this tut because it’s got a few paper shape layers and a couple of photo spots, but not too many. (It’s a freebie from several years ago so I can’t link you up to it. Sorry.)

I work from the background up, just as I would if I was using paper and glue. If that’s not how you work, you’ll see it’s easy enough to adapt the process to your preferred method. The active layer on the template is the very first paper shape layer. Click on the sheet-of-paper icon at the top left corner of the Layers Panel to add a new blank layer above the paper shape.

Now, right-click on the blank layer and choose Create Clipping Mask – yes, with the blank layer! Seems a bit unusual, but trust me. If you’re a keyboard shortcutter like I am, you can click CTRL/CMD>G if you’re using versions 14 and lower, or CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for PSE 15 and more recent.

The blank layer is now indented, and that’s how you know a layer has been Clipped to another layer.

Here’s where the work flow changes. Rather than dragging and dropping a paper onto the canvas then Clipping it to the layer below, we’ll use the File>Place… command. When using this method, it’s not necessary to open all the papers and photos into the Photo Bin. But it does pay to have all the papers, photos and elements in a dedicated-to-that-layout folder.

Elements will go to the last folder you opened anything from; in this example it’s my Perfectly Paired challenge folder. I make a new folder for every layout, adding into it copies of the template, photos, papers and elements I want to use. Everything is in one place. When the layout is finished, I delete all but the layout’s PSD and 2 sizes of JPG to save space. That’s worked well for me and it’s second nature now. Plus, it makes this trick a lot easier to manage that if I had to search through a bunch of folders. Let’s use this gray and white patterned paper from Just So Scrappy‘s Puppy Love for the first paper shape, then click Place.

Like magic, Elements has automatically clipped the paper to the shape; see the paper where there was a blank layer before? It’s so simple!! The paper has a bounding box and crosshairs, as shown in the screenshot. It can be resized, rotated and repositioned however you need it to. Then click the checkmark to Commit the Operation.

Now, this next step is 100% optional. I’m just showing you how to do it in case it might help you with organizing work flow in your mind. Color-coding layers can provide a visual reminder of the task at hand. Right-click on the pertinent layer just under the eyeball icon. That activates the label area and opens this pop-up menu. (Notice what all is in there. We’ll revisit that on another day.) Choose a color you like. Let’s do blue.

The next couple of screenshots are a review. Activate the paper shape/photo spot layer, add a blank layer above it then clip that blank layer to the paper shape below. File>Place… to add the actual paper.

Choose your paper/photo from your folder and click Place.

Make any adjustments you might want to the paper/photo. Then Commit the Operation.

Optional step: Add a label to the layer. To provide yourself with another reminder of the process, you can also change the name of the blank layer to “PLACE paper here” by double-clicking on the name in the layer box and typing it in.

I labeled the photo layers green to distinguish them from the paper shape layers. You can see I’ve renamed those layers too.

Now, to really make this shortcut work for me, I’m going to Save the template. This step would come BEFORE I’ve Placed anything onto the layout but AFTER each of the clipping layers have been added. File>Save As… (CTRL/CMD>ALT>S)

I changed the template’s name, leaving in the designer info but indicating I’ve set it up for auto-clipping. Then I chose PSD as my format, although you could choose TIFF if that’s your method. And there! You’ve got a template ready for action the next time you want to use it. It takes a few minutes up front to get the clipping layers in there, but I think in the long run it’ll save time later. Thoughts?

It’s been a rough week for us here. One of our dogs had a partial bowel obstruction requiring treatment, antibiotics and hand-feeding to prevent vomiting. That was fun… 🙁 She’s all back to normal now, so it was worth it. Then our disabled adult son developed an infection in his foot and isn’t standing on it. He’s heavy and we don’t have lift equipment; moving him around while not injuring anyone is a challenge. More antibiotics, analgesics and frequent position changes for him have kept me on the go. I’m tired… but not too tired to be excited about National Scrapbooking Day coming up on May 7th!! See you in a week.

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A Simple Photo Border with Label

Whew. The last few tutorials have been challenging, haven’t they? Today I think we need a nice, easy, basic technique that even the least experienced scrapper can succeed in doing. (Or, you could say I lacked inspiration this week, and you wouldn’t be wrong.)

The first step, as always, is to open a new. blank canvas on the workspace. As you can see, I’m predictably going 12 x 12, with lots of room to work. If you’d rather use a smaller canvas, it’s still going to work perfectly fine. I’ve chosen the Rounded Rectangle Custom Shape tool, with a 150 pixel Radius for the rounded corners. I’ve also set a Fixed Size of 6 inches wide, 4 inches high – standard landscape print dimensions. I’ve ticked the From Center and Snap boxes as well. Some tools have a lot of options that make for fewer steps, so why not make use of them?

With a single click in the middle of my canvas, I’ve created a 4 x 6 rounded rectangle shape. Custom Shapes are always Smart Objects when they’re first created. That means the only alteration they’ll permit is to resize.

If you want to do anything else to a Custom Shape, the Smart Object needs to be rendered dumb, or Simplified. If you’ve got a newer version of Elements, you’ll have a Simplify button right there in the Tool Options.

If you’re working with an older version you’ll have to do it the old-school way. Right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose Simplify Layer from the drop-down menu.

To create a border/frame that follows the contours of your rounded rectangle CTRL/CMD>click on the shape’s layer thumbnail in the Layers panel. That will Select the edge of the rectangle. Then click Select>Modify>Contract… to shift the marching ants inside the rectangle.

You might want to experiment a bit with this step. I tried a few possibilities for how far over I wanted the edge to move. I want a gap between the Selection and the edge of the rectangle deep enough to add some text in a large enough font that it’s easily read. I settled on 65 pixels.

The marching ants can be hard to see on these screenshots. Trust me when I say they round the corners cleanly.

Now to create the border. It needs to go on its own layer, so add a blank layer to the top of the stack in the Layers panel by clicking on the sheet-of-paper icon at the upper left corner of the panel. Then click Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection…

Again, this step might take some trial-and-error. I opted to go with a 25 pixel Stroke applied on Center of the Selection.

Here’s a close-up of my 25 pixel Stroke inside my 65 pixel gap. To eliminate the marching ants that outline the Selection, click Select>Deselect, or CTRL/CMD>D.

Now to add the label. I chose a clean, sans-serif (no ‘extra’ extending features) font, but you can choose any font you like. I wanted simple but eye-catching so I went with Caneletter Sans for my label.

It was a bit insipid, so I highlighted the text and clicked the B for faux bold and made it a bit more meaty.

Then I moved the text to a spot on the border/frame. Where your label goes will depend on the photo you’re using. You’ll want it to go somewhere that won’t obscure any focal point, and where it won’t get lost in the photo itself.

I’m going to cut an opening in the border to sandwich the label, so I used the Rectangle Marquee tool to drag out a box around the text as shown. The active layer is the one with the border on it.

Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X will take that chunk out of the border.

Because the label is on a separate layer, if it doesn’t look centered in the opening, it’s easy enough to nudge it so it does look right.

Once I was happy with the border and label, I activated both layers by click>SHIFT>clicking on them, then right-clicked and chose Merge Layers. Shortcut: CTRL/CMD>E.

Now to fine-tune. I dragged my photo onto the workspace, positioning it between the rounded rectangle shape and the border/label layers.

But first, I’m going to Clip the photo to the shape, by right-clicking and choosing Create Clipping Mask. Shortcut: for versions 15 and up, CTRL>ALT>G. For earlier versions, CTRL/CMD>G.

Elements indents the layer once it has been Clipped to the layer below it, as shown.

The black border/label gets lost a bit against the photo. So I’m going to change the color to something more visible. The cleanest way to do that is to add a Solid Color Fill Layer. Click Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color…

Make sure the box is ticked to Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask to save yourself some steps.

For the most flexibility I Merge the two layers together.

Elements will use the foreground color in the Color Picker, but you can always choose to pull a color from your photo. Activate the Eye Dropper tool and click it on any color you like. You can see the changes happening in real time, and that guarantees you’ll find the look you like best.

What color would you go with?

I can’t believe I managed to create 20 new layouts this month. I’m greedy… I want both the Challenge Reward kit AND the Shine Your Light mega-collab. (That might mean our next tutorial is about moving kits and layouts onto an external hard drive and changing some workflow but it’ll be worth it…) March is almost gone, it’s 61°F outside and the orchards are greening up. Makes me feel like I can do anything!

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