Creative Style — Page 13

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 10, 2023 by Jan

It’s the Snowy Season! (Fancifying a Font)

If you’ve thought about taking part in the Font Challenge this month, you probably live in North America and have lots of snowy photos you can work with. Snowy Season is a showy font with lots of visual interest. It’s an all-caps font with scaled lower-case characters, a full set of numerics and the most commonly-used punctuation, which makes it a great title option. I think it would make for difficult reading as a journaling font though. Today’s tutorial will show you how to make the snowy parts of the font look like actual snow! Read on…

Before we get into the meat of the tutorial I want to welcome all the new GingerScrappers who have joined us in the last while and give an overview of Tutorial Tuesday. The first two Tuesdays of the month will focus on techniques that elevate our 2 dimensional layouts into 3D masterpieces. The third Tuesday is Challenge Spotlight day, when I share YOUR layouts and discuss what makes them special and interesting. On the fourth Tuesday, I provide a Quick Trick that will speed up your workflow. When I create these tutorials I want them to be achievable by anyone, with any amount of experience with digital scrapping. To that end, I typically provide both written and visual instructions of every step in the process I’m demonstrating. If you already are proficient you have my blessing to skip over all the extra instruction. I try to use free or software default fonts and styles wherever possible so you’re not having to shop before you can play. Most tutorials are for Photoshop Elements, which is the most commonly used software and what I work with. There are usually multiple ways to accomplish a task. I like to Work Smart, Not Hard, so I’ll show you the easiest/fewest keystroke ways, and include keyboard shortcuts where they exist. I work in Windows but recognize that there are a lot of Mac people out there. So any keyboard shortcut will include the appropriate function keys for both PC and Mac. For example, the keyboard shortcut for Merge Layers is CTRL>E for PC users and CMD>E for Mac users. So when I include Merge Layers in a tutorial it will look like this: CTRL/CMD>E. The other function keys that are part of keyboard shortcuts are the ALT (PC) and OPT (Mac) keys. Make sense? Now for today’s tut!

Our winter began a full 6 weeks early than usual and brought us a LOT of snow. I like to think outside the box when it comes to titles for my layouts and sometimes will do a Google search for related words, phrases or synonyms. That’s how I came up with this one. Notice the transparency inside the snowy bits. If I just used the font as is, whatever is behind my title will show in the snowy areas. Not what I want!

Before I can manipulate this title, the text needs to be Simplified. The actual text itself will no longer be editable so make sure it’s spelled properly and it says what you want it to say before you Simplify. One way to do this is to click Layer tab on the taskbar that sits at the top of your workspace then choose Simplify Layer. Or right-click on the text layer and choose Simplify Layer from the drop-down menu.

I made a Copy Layer of the title so I could work on a Copy and not the original. There are several ways of doing this. Click Layer>Duplicate Layer… on the taskbar. Or right-click on the layer then choose Duplicate Layer… from the drop-down menu. Both these will open another menu where you’re asked where the duplicate layer will go. In this instance, it’ll go into this project, so all you’d need to do is click OK on that pop-up. Or easiest for copying layers within the same project, CTRL/CMD>J will just do it all.

Here’s the pop-up I mentioned above.

Now I’ve made the original title layer invisible so I can see what I’m doing to the Copy Layer. Just click on the eyeball to close it.

I’m going to remove everything but the snowy areas from the title. I added a Layer Mask to it by clicking on the icon at the top of the Layers Panel that looks like a gray circle in a blue square. Why a Layer Mask? It lets you hide parts of a layer but not make them actually disappear. It gives you the most control you can have over what happens to your image. More later.

This is where Elements puts the Layer Mask. You want to be sure you’re working on the MASK and not the LAYER itself. When you look at the Layers Panel you’ll see a blue line box around the active part of the layer. Be careful to make sure you’re on the MASK.

Next, activate the Eraser Tool. You’ll have another reminder that you’re working on a MASK because the Color Picker will show black and white. It there are any other colours there, you’re NOT on the mask. If you remember “White REVEALS and Black CONCEALS” it’ll help with your task… but this mnemonic is referring to what’s BEHIND the object you’re masking. The magic of Layer Masks is that it lets you erase things, but if you accidentally remove a part you wanted to keep, it’s not really gone. For example, sometimes my track-pad sticks and my cursor goes haywire, erasing EVERYTHING it touches. To recover that stuff, I just toggle my colour from white to black and reveal it again by rolling my cursor over the oops. Toggling between foreground and background colours is easy, just click the X key.

Make sure your snowy areas are completely enclosed with a thin border of your font colour. It’ll save you a lot of grief later.

This is what you’ll be left with on the Copy Layer once you’ve concealed all the non-snow areas. Zoom in and go over all of it while you still have the ability to correct any little issues. Once you’ve moved on to the next step it’ll be too late…

Now, to be able to play with this layer, the Layer Mask has to be integrated into the layer by Simplifying it. Same steps as for the initial title.

As soon as your Layer Mask was integrated, your Color Picker will have returned to whatever colours you’d had there before. Set your foreground colour to white: you can either click your cursor on the upper left corner of the palette or you can type “ffffff” into the hex code # box.

Now to fill the snowy areas with white. I tried my preferred method of New Fill Layer>Solid Color>Use Previous Layer as Clipping Mask but all it Filled was the outline. In retrospect, that might have worked just as well as what I ended up doing. Keep that in mind as we proceed. I used the Paint Bucket to click-and-fill the snowy areas. This method is imperfect, sometimes leaving areas unfilled around the edges. That can be overcome by Filling again. As you can see from the screenshot, there’s still a navy blue outline that detracts from the look I want. Here’s where it might have been better to use the Fill Layer process, THEN the Paint Bucket. Live and learn!! Instead, I worked unsmart…

I essentially did the same thing that using the Fill Layer>Paint Bucket method would have done but with WAY more steps. I covered up the blue outline with a Stroke. Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection…

To expand on the EXTRA steps I took, I had to experiment to find the right size and location for the Stroke. I settled on 6 pixels and Inside to conform to the contours of each snowy shape.

Okay, that looks a lot better. Still a few areas where the Stroke didn’t quite cover the outline – another reason to advocate for using the Fill Layer>Paint Bucket route.

Now to add some dimension! I experimented to find the right combo for this step. Click the Styles button at the bottom of the Layers Panel then go up to the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers Panel and choose Bevels. These are stock Styles that came with the software.

I got the best results with the Simple Inner Bevel as shown. I know it makes the snow look like toothpaste, but Styles are adjustable! Double-click on the fx icon on the layer to open the adjustments menu then push the Size slider to the left until it stops looking like it’s sitting in your bathroom sink. To reduce the glaring shadows, decrease the Opacity of the beveled layer to 66% or so.

Now make another Copy Layer of the snow. We’ll add some glitter to it so it glistens like real snow. CTRL/CMD>J. (Learn the keyboard shortcuts! They’re amazing!!)

Ugh. Let’s get rid of the glop. Right-click on the layer then choose Clear Layer Style. That’ll remove the bevel from the Copy Layer.

You may already have some fine white glitter loaded into your Styles collection. I didn’t have the one I wanted so I went to my Styles folder by clicking on the stack of lines to the top left of the Styles Panel and chose Load Styles. This is where your software stores Styles; if you’ve purchased some to coordinate with your kits this is where Elements will look for them. I’ll put together a tutorial on managing Styles later. For right now I’ll just give you the bare bones.

Here’s the result of applying fine white glitter, then decreasing the Opacity of that layer to 60% so the contours of the layer below are visible.

The finished title! I’m really happy with how it looks. Next time I’ll learn from my errors and skip a few steps!

See you next week. Which Challenge will be in the Spotlight?

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

January 3, 2023 by Jan

I Do Hereby Firmly Resolve…

Are you a New Year’s resolution-making person? Do you choose “One Little Word” to set the tone for the coming year? Do you set intentions as part of your New Year’s Eve routine? Are you someone who begins the year with a ton of resolve to make your life perfect… only to quickly forget all about those dreams because they’re too much work before February arrives? And then you feel crushing guilt? This post is for you. And me.

“New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours.” Alex Morritt

Why do we put ourselves through this torture year after year? What makes us feel like we need to make huge changes in the way we live our lives? Especially when we know in our hearts of hearts that we’re not going to get there; lather, rinse, repeat. How many of us has resolved to lose 10 pounds by Easter… every year since we were 12? Part of the problem is that we internalize what OTHER PEOPLE think we should be or do.

“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives, not looking for flaws, but for potential.” Ellen Goodman

The thing about goals is that there are specific imperatives when setting them. They must be specific. They must be achievable. They must be measurable. And they must include a plan for getting there. If any of those imperatives isn’t there, it’s not a goal, it’s a wish. Let’s look at these in a bit more detail, using the 10 pounds as our goal. That’s specific. Is it achievable? It might be. It’s definitely measurable! So the plan… how will we get there? Will we cut out all the foods that bring us pleasure? Or will we work out for an hour 4 times a week but continue to eat what we like? It won’t be long before the first slip happens. The apple pie your mom made for Sunday dinner. The pizza that appears in the staff room. The day you have a long list of errands and are too tired to work out when you’re done. One slip leads to another and soon, the goal is no longer a goal. For change to become enduring, it needs to become habit. So maybe instead of setting a goal to lose 10 pounds, it might be more achievable to decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator if going up one or down two floors. That goal has all of the imperatives covered, and a side effect may be that you lose 10 pounds!

“Plant seeds every single day that you know who you are, you know what you’re about and you know what goals you’ve set for yourself.” Stephen Curry

When we don’t keep our resolutions, immediately the negative self-talk starts. “See, you never follow through. You’re doomed to fail! It might be better if you just didn’t even try.” Sound familiar? So the resolution goes in the waste basket and we’ve once again proven we’re not good enough. But is that true? Maybe a little. But at the heart of it, it isn’t. We can’t possibly be perfect, and striving for that is a huge waste of time and emotion. Look at the people you admire. Are they perfect? Nope. Do they have traits you’re not really a fan of? Probably. But there’s still much to admire, right? If we choose one small thing we’d like to change about ourselves and create a plan for that, we’re halfway to success! It’s when we stop trying that we fail; so today I ate the pie. Tomorrow I’ll try to do better.

“It is your right to choose what you do and don’t do, to choose what you believe in and don’t believe in. It is your right to curate your life and your own perspective.” Lady Gaga

I think we all spend too much time comparing our lives to those of others, while there really isn’t a level playing field for life. Most of us are just doing the best we can with what we have, and we’re often blind to the successes we’ve experienced. We let the great be the destroyer of the good. It’s human nature to look over the fence and wonder what life would be like if we were over there. Erma Bombeck wrote a book she called The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank. She was right. It’s all an illusion.

“I’m deciding to be my own individual self, and it looks nothing like what anyone else is doing. There’s something so powerful about being unique.” Alicia Keys

Yes, we’re all unique individuals. But the human species is interconnected; we’re social animals but with intellect. Each of us has something to contribute, even when we don’t think we can. Even when we think we have nothing, we have ourselves! What they say about random acts of kindness is 100% true. Little gestures mean a lot. A friend of mine clears the snow off the sidewalk of his entire block every time it snows. His neighbours don’t know it’s him; he doesn’t do it for the recognition, he does it because he’s a nice person who has the time and the inclination. I started buying an extra bottle of dishwashing liquid when I’m getting groceries and putting it in the bin for the food bank – that’s one of the things not many people donate so I chose it as my contribution. Little things add up.

“We’re at our best when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for our past mistakes but when we help each other to grow.” Joaquin Phoenix

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you deserve to be happy, exactly as you are. If making resolutions makes you feel guilty or like a failure, don’t make resolutions! Pick one little thing you can work on. Work on it. Don’t expect it to be magic, because it won’t be. It’ll be work. When that thing is habit, pick another. The date on the calendar isn’t magic either. Don’t be buttonholed by the expectations of other people. You do you! Period.

“Happiness was always important to me, even at a young age. People would ask, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I’d tell them, ‘I just want to be happy.’” Goldie Hawn

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

December 20, 2022 by Jan

Challenge Spotlight: Scraplift

I’ll admit that I’m a purist when it comes to scraplifting another scrapper’s layout. I think that if I like a layout enough to want to lift it, I should try to stay as faithful to the original as I can while still making it my own. I also know that scrapping is an intensely personal craft and we all approach it from our own points of view; this is very true when it comes to scraplifting. There are so many options! Let’s take a look at this month’s layouts and analyze them a bit to see if we can figure out what the scrapper chose to emulate. But first, the Scraplift Challenge is hosted by Dagi; she chooses the layout inspiration and this month she chose this layout by Effie3047. Each of the Challenge layouts is linked to the Gallery so you can pop in and offer the scrapper some praise. Just click on the scrapper’s “handle”. This is the inspiration layout for reference.

These layouts are in the order they were posted to the Gallery. First is this blue confection from dhariana. She chose to follow the blueprint of the layout fairly closely, with the photo, journal card and elements in the same arrangement. The doodle circles are her own touch.

kristal has also stayed close to the blueprint, but kept her layout crisp by increasing white space. She also has used a wooden background like the original has.

For her layout, lulutoo chose a much brighter palette, but stayed true to the basic layout and the wood background. I like that she went with a narrower paper strip behind her elements and tilted her photo a smidge… an original touch.

Tbear‘s layout is quite different, but you can see the basic shape of the Challenge layout. A single photo, a journal card, a Christmas theme with carefully-constructed clusters and a similar palette are what ties her layout to Effie‘s.

I can see the bones of the Challenge layout here in robinoes66‘ entry. She’s gone with a dark palette, positioned her photo in the same place but omitted the journal card. She used a good amount of paint and her primary colours are beautifully supported by her black background.

To me, ayla63‘s layout looks more like a scraplift of robinoes66‘s layout than it does Effie‘s! And that’s alright. Their visions are very similar. I like that she chose to turn her photo into a sketch, which makes her layout unique.

I love what Jill has done; she went with a portrait-oriented photo rather than a landscape and used gears instead of paper circles, while adding a couple of extra paper pennants. Her layout looks quite different than the original, but still has the important components.

Pippin has stayed true to the original layout in most ways. Her blended background is beautiful, but can we talk about that photo? So cute!!

For her layout, pinklily went bigger with her photo and paper strip base, supersized her title, flipped the script horizontally and kept her clusters small.

AJsRandom chose to increase the size of her photo but has kept most other aspects faithful to Effie‘s layout. The twined strings that anchor her journal card are a great substitute for the strings of lights Effie used.

I like that breoni chose to place a row of circular photos across the lower third of her layout rather than clusters. That krafty background really makes her photos pop off the page.

The choices Kristi Martin made of a large photo and minimal embellishments against a black canvas really gives her layout presence in the Gallery.

Our second Hanukkah layout by zanthia is another faithful lift. She made her title really do the heavy lifting here! The word-cloud journal card is a clever twist too.

Treemoon took a really different approach by enlarging EVERYTHING. She kept the horizontal aspect and the basics of the design. Her palette compliments her photo so nicely and I love the clusters she’s anchored her banner with.

We’ve had some really miserable weather here in the BC Interior. We have a ridiculous amount of snow and it’s bitterly cold. I was planning a road trip to see my parents and bring them a box full of treats for the holidays but we were snowed in! I hope wherever you are and whatever you’re celebrating, you’re warm and safe!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

December 13, 2022 by Jan

Coloured and Patterned Shadows

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

When I saw this technique on another site, I was intriqued. The scrapper was using Photoshop, but I knew I could make it work just as well in Elements so I had to prove it to myself. This is the result!

This tutorial will be a review of how I create custom shadows, but with a twist. It will work best with a white/light coloured alpha or meaty font against a white or light-coloured solid background. The alpha I used is from the GingerBread Ladies‘ Dream Big collab and will be part of a layout created with JB Studio’s Farmhouse Winter. My layout was also created with this month’s Challenge template from Scrabookcrazy Creations by Robyn.

When I create a title with alphas, I usually put it together on its own canvas so I can easily tweak whatever needs tweaking without the distraction of all the rest of the layout. I usually go with a straight line +/- some individual height or angle changes for interest. But because this technique is a shadow trick, this time my working title is on an angle. The shadows on the title must lie in the same direction as the rest of the layout and the title will be on an angle on the finished layout. So…

Typically, once I’ve got the title the way I want it I shadow any overlapping areas and Merge the characters. But you’ll see that I’ve kept each character on its own layer and will keep them separate. This is important for later.* (If you’re using a font, you may want to put each letter on its own layer. Skip ahead to the * to see if that’s what you need to do.) The first step to a custom shadow is to Select the outline of the object. CTRL/CMD>click on the Layer Thumbnail – that little image of what you’ve put on a layer that shows at the left side of the layer in the Layers Panel.

Next, I add a new blank layer UNDER the working layer. The quickest way to do that is to hold down the CTRL/CMD key and click on the Create New Layer icon – the one that looks like a sheet of paper with one corner turned up.

Next, I set the foreground colour in the Color Picker to the colour I want for my shadows. If I’m using a template, I’ll match that to whatever the template designer has used. In this case, it’s just black. Using the Paint Bucket tool, I fill the outline of the letter on the blank layer. This is the Shadow layer.

Don’t be concerned that you can see a thin rim of black around your letter. It’s not going to make any difference to the final product.

Here is where this technique departs a bit from my usual custom shadow routine. I made a Copy layer of the SHADOW: right-click on the layer and choose Duplicate Layer… then click OK on the pop-up menu. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL/CMD>J.

I renamed the two shadow layers; the first, bottom one is Shadow, the top one just below the actual letter is Narrow Shadow. If you want to rename your layers, go to the Layers Panel and double-click on the name of the layer that you can see. Type in what you want it to be called and Enter. Then I turned the visibility of the NARROW SHADOW layer off.

I did this process for each of the letters in my title, creating two shadow layers and turning visibility for the one just underneath the letter itself off.

Now to give the Shadows an offset, which is a regular step in my custom shadow process: Activate each of the visible, bottom SHADOW layers by holding down the CTRL/CMD key and clicking on each layer all the way up the pile. This lets me move all the Shadows in one movement so they match.

For the most realistic look all the shadows on a layout lie in the same direction and give dimension to the objects above them. The shadow Styles on the template I used are at 60° (I flipped the template horizontally, and the shadows flipped too.) To know the exact angle of light on a template double-click on the fx symbol on one of the template’s layers and it’ll show up in the pop-up.

Now to soften the Shadows. So far I haven’t found a way to do this step in a batch, so I processed each layer individually. First step is to add a Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur…

Elements provides a Preview of the Filter effect. If you don’t see anything in the Preview pane, click your cursor on the edge of your Shadow. It’ll appear in the pane. Or you can just watch what’s happening on the canvas. Using the slider, adjust the amount of Blur the Filter adds. I want them to be quite soft, so I used a Radius of 6.5 pixels. Elements also “saves” the settings of the most recent Filter used, which makes it easy to add that Filter to multiple layers. Simply click Filter>Last Filter. The keyboard shortcut for that is CTRL/CMD>F. One step!

Next, I changed the Blend Mode to Linear Burn. This mode makes the shadow transparent so the layers below are visible – just like a real shadow!

Then to tone the harshness down a bit more, I decreased the Opacity of the Shadow layer to 70%. This step is also subject to personal preference. If you try this and 70% doesn’t look good to you, find what does! It can also be further adjusted later.

This is what the title looks like with each of the Shadow layers Blurred and lightened. I could stop here and be quite happy. But this tutorial is about coloured and patterned shadows, so onward ho!

Yes. You’re not seeing things. I’m going to Clip a patterned paper to the Shadow layer under my “O”.

Doesn’t that look neat?

I Clipped a different* patterned paper to each letter, using the same paper for the two “E”s and went with the green houndstooth for the ellipsis at the end. If you want to use the same patterned paper for all your letters, you could Merge all the alpha layers/not separate the characters if using a font then do all of the preceding steps on your title as a unit.

Okay, so once I had all the Shadows coloured, I decided they looked a little anemic. So I increased the Opacity of each Shadow layer to 80%. That looks better to me.

Now to add just a tiny bit more definition to that alpha. I’ve made all the Narrow Shadow layers visible again and activated them by CTRL/CMD>clicking on each layer. A little nudging in the same 60° direction as the coloured shadows – just a little! – gives each letter an actual shadow.

Again, they’re pretty sharp and harsh so Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur first.

But because these ones are a lot closer to the objects they’re shadowing, the Blur should be less pronounced. I went with a Radius of 3.0 pixels.

I didn’t need to decrease the Opacity of these shadows. They look just right to me!

Here’s my finished layout. The technique isn’t really obvious, so you might want to work on a larger scale, with a bit more space around your title if you choose to try this. I’m really pleased with my layout as is.

Five days until the first night of Hanukkah, twelve days until Christmas, thirteen until Kwanzaa and nineteen until next year… is everybody as behind on EVERYTHING as I am? Thinking about it exhausts me. But I have an amusing little anecdote I want to share. On Saturday one of my former coworkers (the very last one I saw before I moved away, to be exact) posted to Facebook that her maternal grandmother had passed away. She linked to her Baba’s obituary. Where’s the fun part, you ask? Well, it turns out we’re RELATED! Distantly and by marriage, but still!! Her maternal great-grandfather’s first wife was my great-grand-aunt’s sister-in-law. There are a couple of other spots where our roots intertwine too, that I’ll be untangling over the next while. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour and a half; she said finding out we’re “cousins” was the best thing to happen to her all month.

Before I forget… There was a comment on the cardmaking tut from a few weeks back from Lisa. She said she uses Royal Brites Matte Photo paper to print hers. I couldn’t find any locally, but was able to buy some Staples premium matte photo paper and printed my cards with it. OMG!!!! The difference00 is HUGE!! Thanks and a shout-out to Lisa!!

Next week we’ll be checking out the Challenge Spotlight and the final tutorial of the year is a Quick Trick you’re going to LOVE! See you soon!!

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

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

December 6, 2022 by Jan

Don’t Let Your Text “FLOAT”!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3ju3KfO

Have you ever wanted to run some text across an element, like a piece of washi tape, a paper ribbon, or even just over a crease in your digital paper, but then look at it and think, “Well that looks like garbage…”? Odds are you feel that way because the text isn’t grounded to the element and looks like it’s floating. Kathi (granny5pics) was in that situation and asked if I could help. This is it!

My example uses a piece of crumpled washi from Cheré Kaye‘s portion of the Beautiful Struggle collab she created with Aimee Harrison and Cindy Ritter, and a very creased label from Cindy Ritter‘s Autumn Treasures. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were.

After I typed out my text and positioned it where I wanted it, I Simplified the layer so that Elements will allow my changes. My method for Simplifying is to right-click on the layer then choose Simplify Layer. It can also be achieved by clicking Layer>Simplify Layer.

Next, I chose the Dodge Tool – the one that looks like the paddle the optometrist uses to close one of your eyes. This tool lightens the area it’s used upon; I like to start with less, then work my way up to more. My settings were Range: Highlights, Exposure: 30% (I adjusted that after I took the screenshot) and 45 pixels for my brush size. Note that I’m working on the text layer, not the tape layer, so the changes I make will only affect the text. I ran the Dodge brush over the parts of the text that are over top of areas where the light creates highlights, the creases on both the tape and the label. For straight lines like the creases in the label, click your Tool at one end of the area you’re working on, hold down the SHIFT key and click just past the other end. Don’t worry about going past the edges of the text; the Tool will only affect the layer you’re on. If you have text that crosses the same crease on multiple lines, you can do all of them in one pass.

Next I switched to the Burn Tool, the “OK” sign, and used similar settings. This tool darkens areas where it’s used. Again, I like to build the effect, because it’s easier to see when to stop. This time, I ran the brush over areas where the text crosses shadowed areas of the tape and the label. I adjusted the Size of the brush to suit the width of the shadowed areas by using the [ key to make it smaller, the ] key to make it larger. Zooming in and out let me see if I needed to go over any areas again.

Here’s a close-up. The arrows point out the areas where I’ve made my adjustments. I can see some dimension beginning to be visible.

I kept Dodging and Burning until I was satisfied. Then I planned how I was going to show the edge of the tape where the ink from my pen wouldn’t have reached the paper below.

The tear at the left edge of the tape is jagged so to help me out, I CTRL/CMD>clicked on the tape layer’s thumbnail to Select the edge, but kept the text layer as my active layer. Then I used a very small Eraser brush to erase a narrow bit of my text. I also shaved a thin strip along the bottom edge of the tape.

If I’d decided it still needed something, I could have used the Smudge Tool – the flying fickle finger of Fate – to gently push the top edge of the text toward the high crease on the tape, knowing that the Smudge Tool blurs the image a bit. But it looked right to me so this is what I’m happy with.

Here’s a Zoomed out look. Can you see the way the text seems to follow the contours of the tape and the creases in the label?

Here they are, side-by-side. I think you’ll all see it now!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3ju3KfO

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

November 22, 2022 by Jan

Quick Trick: Auto Colour Correction

PDF Version : http://bit.ly/3GTAA3e

With Thanksgiving looming over all our American members, it’s pretty convenient that today’s regularly-scheduled tutorial is a Quick Trick.

Today’s Quick Trick is another CS/CC-to-PSE workaround. Colour correction can be a bit of a time suck in Elements. But this little trick is brilliant! It uses an Adjustment Layer to accomplish in a couple of steps what can take MANY steps in any other method. The colours in this photo were so much more vivid in real life and just didn’t make it into the camera. So let’s give it a whirl.

Click Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels. All changes to the photo will happen on the new layer, so if you don’t like the change you can save the original as is.

I like to Clip the mask to the previous layer. It isn’t essential, but it does ensure that the two layers move as one. Click OK. The dialog box in the upper corner will come into play in the next step.

To access this hidden menu, hold down the ALT/OPT key then click the Auto button. As the screenshot says, the default setting is Enhance Per Channel Contrast. For this tutorial we’ll select Find Dark & Light Colors and Snap Neutral Midtones. You’ll see what’s happening to the image in real time behind the dialog box. If you think you might use this trick again, it can be set as a default so that when you click Auto in the Adjustment Layer menu, Elements will automatically do all these steps.

Here’s the result. It’s subtle, but definitely better. The artemesia in the background is whiter, the pink coneflower is pinker, the centaurea montana is bluer, there’s more definition in the leaves and the green cast is gone! No tinkering, just boom!

Since I’ve gotten some feedback about a side-by-side look, here it is!

That’s it. That’s all! Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating this week. And remember, football is just a game…

PDF Version : http://bit.ly/3GTAA3e

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

November 15, 2022 by Jan

Challenge Spotlight: Created With Rewards

Here we are, at the third Tuesday of the month again. Crazy how time flies!! This month our Challenge Spotlight falls on Created With Rewards. For those unfamiliar, each month our GingerBread Ladies – the GingerScraps Design Team – work together to produce two Rewards kits, one for completing 10 Challenge layouts and one as a Free-with-Purchase. The Created With Rewards Challenge requires participants to use only the previous month’s Rewards kits; templates are the exception – they can come from anywhere. For October 2022, the Free With Purchase kit is called Bootiful; the Challenger Reward is We Are Family. Let’s see how our intrepid GingerScrappers have risen to the occasion. The layouts are in the order they were posted; each is linked to the Gallery – click on the scrapper’s nom de plume and you’ll jump right to the Gallery, where I hope you’ll leave some words of praise.

Our first layout is from Dovedesign. Her layout has a good portion of white space. She used Bootiful and took it off-theme, which is awesome!

Next up is this CUTE little Hallowe’en layout by Jill. I really like the spiderweb base for her paper cluster. She too used Bootiful.

For this layout, becky_a has used a block style to anchor her photos and added some seasonal clusters. Bootiful is getting lots of airtime!

Ah! Finally We Are Family makes an appearance. I like how hiddenartist has stacked papers in several ways and positioned her clusters to frame her photo.

I love how fontaine has used blended masks to such good effect here. The green and orange contrast beautifully and the little Bootiful witch and warlock are cute additions.

See how kabrak1207 has turned a very theme-specific kit into an all-purpose one? Without the word strip and sticker, it’s hard to tell this started out as a Hallowe’en kit.

This looks like greenfiend27 went to a lot of trouble adding all those little bats! I think they’ve been cut from the background paper and individually shadowed. Impressive!!

I love how Katherine Woodin used the Hallowe’eenie kit for a fall layout that has no Hallowe’en flavour at all.

What a clever riff on the donuts mum23ms has in her photos!

Here’s another mainly purple layout using Bootiful. The pops of orange breoni has added, along with vignetting some photos, give the layout depth.

Look at all the spookiness angbrey has injected into her layout! I love how the elements move the eye around and right back to the photos.

Here’s another look at We Are Family. The way gadawg83 has echoed the bluebonnets in her photo with her tiny-flower borders is perfection.

Tbear has used some incredibly inventive techniques here to give the impression that the beaker has bats painted onto the glass. And maybe I’ve been watching too much paranormal investigation TV, but I think I see a ghost flying out of the test tube!

Tamsin McAtee went for complementary colours here, with her orange and blue palette. I like how she picked out the brown from the ceiling in her photo and included it in the elements she used from We Are Family.

Our last layout comes from mom2triplets04. She too has used We Are Family and kept her layout simple, focusing on the photos and her journaling.

I find it fascinating that more than 75% of these layouts were created with the Free With Purchase kit. It tells me there was a lot of traffic in the shop in October, and that’s fantastic! It’s also really interesting to see how different scrappers’ visions are when it comes to using a single kit. It’s inspiring!!

See you next week for Quick Trick Tuesday.

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

Designer Spotlight: November 2022

November 6, 2022 by Jan

Memory Mosaic and Polka Dot Chicks

Now that the first-of-the-month insanity dust has settled, let’s get to know this month’s Spotlight Designers, Joy aka Memory Mosaic, and Tammy aka Polka Dot Chicks. [Editor’s note: It’s Joy‘s birthday month!] These two ladies sat down with me (and Tammy‘s 18 month-old grandson) to do a little Q&A session. What follows is a transcript… to minimize confusion, I’m taking the “O”.

O: Thanks so much for chatting with me and letting me give our readers a peek into your lives. I like to get the meat-and-potatoes out of the way first, then get to the sweets after, so I’ll throw you a softball. How long have you been designing?

J: I started designing in 2015.

T: Since 2008

O: So a good, long time! Joy, what led you to designing?

J: I will admit, when I started digital scrapbooking, I didn’t think I had the ability to do design work. In 2013, I started as a CT member for a designer. She taught me a few basic things that started to give me more confidence, to try more. In 2015 I made my first kit. I will admit, when I look at it now, it wasn’t very good. But, it was the start, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

O: Boy can I relate! I came to digital scrapbooking in about 2010, and those first layouts were so… awful! When I found my first digi home and started working through their challenges, my skills grew and so did my confidence. I never dreamed that I’d be doing what I’m doing now. What does your design space look like? [Editor’s note: Tammy is wrangling her little person ATM.]

J: This past year, I have tried a couple different places. I now have a small office that I work in a lot. It has an old tall secretary, some books shelves and a dresser with some baskets and file organizers. I still take my laptop out to the living room and work and sit on the sofa while watching TV. I hardly ever can just sit, and watch TV, most of the time, I am always doing something else at the same time.

O: I’m the same! Multitasking is like breathing for me. Where do you find your inspiration?

J: A lot of my inspiration comes from my everyday life, childhood memories/experiences, and my family.

O: I think you’re speaking for most of us. Do you have a favourite kit in the GS Shop? I know, it’s like asking you which one of your kids is your favourite. It changes from day to day!

J: One of my favorite kits right now is “Artsy Bits #6“. I love making kits with a “vintage feel” and “grunge”. I was challenged last year to come up with some “Art Journaling” kits. And I started making my Artsy Bits collection. This last one is my favorite. I love the colors and just how it came together.

O: Art journaling is a difficult thing for me. I never feel like I’ve done it well. Strong work! Oh, Tammy‘s back. Hey Tammy, Are you more likely to dance or sing in the shower?

T: Sing – even though I can’t sing! What about you, Joy?

J: Sing. I am not the most coordinated, and I would probably fall if I tried to dance in the shower. LOL!

O: I’ve asked that question a few times. And I’ve done both. Immediately followed by a trip to the hardware store and some no-slip strips for the shower pan. 🙂 Here’s another softball. What colours do you like best, and which make you shudder?

T: My favorite colors are red, pink and black/gray – well technically my favorite color is plaid but I am quirky. My least favorite colors are orange and green.

J: I love blues. I like to mix it with red/burgundy. I also really like blue and yellow together. These colors feel calm and happy. My least favorite is mustard yellow.

O: I don’t love orange or yellow. Tammy, you know plaid’s technically not a colour, right? 😉 Do you have a green thumb, even though you don’t like green?

T: I can keep indoor plants alive. I have a philodendron that I received when my grandma passed away in 1992 and it’s still alive
and now has an offshoot. Big plant is named Papa Phil and the off shoot is Phil Jr.

O: I’ve gotten pretty good at gardening, indoors and out. I bought a foot-tall fiddle leaf fig at Costco a couple of years ago and now it’s four feet tall, with branches everywhere. But I waited to long to clean up my flowerbed and got caught by a snowstorm. Too late now. Pray for me? Crazy question alert: If you could only eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

T: Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans & creme’ brûlée for dessert.

O: Yum! If you could have a super power, what would you like it to be?

T: To clone myself to be able to help out my kids/grands when they all ask at same time…lol.

O: YES!! If I had a clone, one of us could be cleaning up the yard while the other grocery-shopped. Oh well. Can you play a musical instrument?

J: I play the piano… not very well, especially considering all the money my parents spent on lessons. I started taking lessons when I was 6 and pretty much took them off and on through college. I did play in church when we were missionaries in Ecuador.

T: The radio! Nope. Not musical at all unlike all my kids.

O: I took piano lessons for a couple of years but we didn’t have a piano so I practiced at the school. Didn’t work so well. What would your dream car be?

J: Honestly we have only had older used cars for a long time, so I would say, my “dream car” would be a “new car”. You know one with all the new “bells & whistles”. But, for now I am happy to have a car that runs. 🙂

O: Been there! My current vehicle is a seven-year-old SUV with room for both people and my son’s wheelchair. I think my next one – when the day comes – will be a hybrid. I travel too many backroads with no services to feel safe going all electric. What did you want to be when you were small?

T: A nurse or a teacher.

O: Did you know that nurses are also teachers? That was my favourite part of my job, teaching parents about what was making their child sick and what we were doing to fix it. Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without?

J: My laptop. I am on it every day. It is what I use to make my designs, and I use it for other work.

O: Me too! If you had a warning label, what would yours say?

T: Caution: Will start snort laughing when cracking up…. lol.

O: Last question, I promise! What celebrity would you like to meet at Starbucks for a cup of coffee?

T: Any of the actors who played James Bond but Pierce Brosnan would be at the top of the list.

O: <fans herself> I can see it! Well, thanks again for giving our GingerScraps community a little glimpse of yourselves. Before we go, I’d like to remind everybody that not only are the ladies providing this month’s Daily Download (found right here on the Blog!), they’re also hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge and have some coupons for all of us! Check ’em out.

See you all again next month for the December Designer Spotlight.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

November 1, 2022 by Jan

Redirecting Text on your Embellishments

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DRkm8M

I’m never sure how complex I should go with tutorials that land on the first of a new month. There’s already so much going on and it’s easy to become overwhelmed with it all. So this month I went simple, but still very useful. Have you ever had an embellishment – think pocket card or fancy word strip – that you really wanted to use but it faces the wrong way to really work with the rest of the layout? You know flipping it won’t help because then the text would be backwards. And others notice that kind of thing… Well, here’s a fix!

My example will use a pocket card from CathyK Designs‘ Back to Nature kit. I want to put the card on the left of my photo and I want the deer looking AT the photo.

First, I’ll make a Copy Layer of the card. There are several ways to do this. You can click on the Layer tab at the top of the work space and select Duplicate Layer>OK. You can right-click on the layer in the Layers Panel and choose Duplicate Layer>OK. Or you can use a keyboard shortcut: CTRL/CMD>J. [Editor’s note: Keyboard shortcuts work with both Windows and Mac; Windows uses CTRL and Mac CMD.]

Now to flip the card so the deer is facing to the right. When using Photoshop CC you can flip single layers. In Photoshop Elements you can’t. So the easiest way to do it is to use the Move Tool, grab one of the “handles” on the side of the Bounding Box and drag it either vertically or horizontally. I get the flip process started this way, then I go to the dimensions box in the Tool Options toolkit and type in -100. For this one, the -100 went in the W(idth) box as shown. I do the same when I want to change the direction a spray of leaves or a ribbon is curving too.

The cards need to be stacked precisely with the backwards one on top of the original. Let your software do the work! Select both card layers (Click>Shift>Click).

Then go to the Align section of the Move Tool Options toolkit. Click on Left (side) and bingo, the top and bottom layers will be perfectly stacked.

Just like this!

Now, with only the top, backwards text layer active, I’ll add a Layer Mask to it by clicking on the icon at the top of the Layers Panel that looks like a blue sheet of paper with a white circle in the middle, as shown.

The Layer Mask sits to the right of the thumbnail on the Layers Panel. It’s simply a white box at this stage. You’ll know you’re working on the Mask and not the actual object when there’s a blue box outlining the Mask. Now I’ll activate my Eraser Tool.

Layer Masks are really useful when you’re removing parts of an object because it only makes the parts you’re removing invisible – they’re still there, just hidden. If you make a mistake – or the touchpad on your laptop is possessed and does its own thing – you can easily “paint” the part removed in error back in by switching foreground colours. Keep this mnemonic in mind: Black conceals, white reveals. What it’s referring to though is the layer UNDERNEATH! Black will hide the layer underneath, white will let it show. You’ll notice that your Color Picker is now set to black and white. While you’re removing parts of your object, you can toggle between removing and replacing by clicking the X key. Okay, on to removing the top line of text. My foreground colour is white and the layer underneath is temporarily turned off. I’ll turn it on and off to check my work a couple of times while I’m removing.

Here you can see that the lower layer is on, and the backwards text on the top line is gone. In its place is a line of text going the right way.

Now I’ve removed both lines of backwards text.

With both card layers you can see I’ve successfully turned the deer and birds around. To incorporate the Layer Mask with the top layer, right-click on the layer and choose Simplify Layer. This step isn’t completely necessary in this instance because when I Merge the two cards in the next step, the Layer Mask will automatically be Simplified. But if I wasn’t Merging layers, I would definitely want to Simplify that object layer.

To make it easy to use the modified card, I’ll select the two card layers (Click>Shift>Click) then right-click and choose Merge Layers. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL/CMD>E. And that’s it! You can’t even see where I’ve made the changes. (If you look closely though, you can see there’s a little nibble taken out of the bottom line of text at the lower swirly part of the N in Nature.)

I think this will give us some more options with our kits. I have some great ideas for upcoming tutorials that will be more complex than this one. Stay tuned!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DRkm8M

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

October 25, 2022 by Jan

Quick Trick: Brighter Photos the Easy Way

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

I know this is true. We ALL have photos that we like but would like better if… they were more vivid. But making adjustments to lighting and colour can be time-consuming and takes some practice. I’m going to show you how to take a nice photo to a NICE photo with just a couple of clicks. I’ve tried this trick on a lot of photos and am really impressed, as well as disappointed I didn’t know about it sooner! The photo I’m going to use as my demo is one taken by my friend Sandy and I’m using it with her permission.

Fall is all about colour. These leaves are pretty, but they’re just a little insipid.

I haven’t really shown you too much under the Quick Edit tab, and that’s my bad. There are some pretty useful options in here and I strongly recommend playing with them when you have a few minutes. Today we’ll focus on the Color tab.

Click on that Vibrance option. This menu will open up. Notice the blue box around the “Free” space in the tic-tac-toe array. That’s the unaltered image. You can use the slider to adjust the colour vibrance or just click on one of the boxes. You can see the adjustments without actually committing to one by rolling the cursor over the array. Going up decreases the vibrance, going down increases it.

Each of the presets represents a 25% change in Vibrance. I’ll show you each of them.

With this laptop, I often struggle with getting the screenshots I want with the pop-up boxes open. Sometimes I luck out, sometimes I fail. Most times I fail – screenshots are captured by clicking CTRL>prt sc and as soon as I hit the CTRL key the pop-up disappears. SO frustrating!! Anyway, that’s what captions and text are for. This image is a 50% increase adjustment.

And on to 75%. Are you able to see the changes?

100% looks like this. Not only are the leaves brighter and more vivid, the fallen log under them has greater dimension and the whole image is just better. If you’ve gone to 100% and still think your image needs a boost, Save it with a new name then run the process again on the new version. When you’re happy with the way it looks, click on the Expert tab and you’re done, ready to use your bright, vivid photo on a layout! You can run through this process in the middle of a layout if you decide the photo needs some oomph. Moving between Expert and Quick won’t wreck anything, so give it a whirl!