Tutorial Tuesday

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 7, 2025 by Jan Leave a Comment

Greatest Hits: Elements Preferences and Settings

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

Well, now. Trying to Work Smart Not Hard ended up in chaos. Again. In an effort to make the transition to my new laptop as streamlined as possible, I went through all my Brushes and Styles to make sure I didn’t have a bunch of duplicates, and that they all followed the same naming convention before Copying them to the new machine. Great idea, right? It would have been if I’d realized I closed Elements last time with the Styles menu active, and the specific Style last selected was one I’d renamed. Elements didn’t know what to do! “I can’t find that Style!! Danger, Will Robinson!” I couldn’t clear the error message, change the active Tool or even shut down the software. I used the 3-finger salute (CTRL/ALT/DELETE) to end the task, then tried again. And again. I even restarted my laptop, hoping that would reset the software. Nope. In the end, I had to uninstall Elements and reinstall a clean copy. [Thank heaven for being a hoarder… I still had all the email stuff from when I last upgraded.] But that solution meant all my Preferences and Settings were gone. Hence today’s Greatest Hits revue. It might come in handy for some of our newer digi-scrapping cohort.

First, you can’t set Preferences if you don’t even know why you’d want to or if it’s possible. Customizing the way your software behaves is a big part of streamlining and improving workflow, making it easier to do the things you want. Under the Edit tab, Preferences is found at the bottom of the dropdown menu. Clicking on it opens another dropdown menu with a list of what can be changed. I’m going to go through each item on the list and expand on what they do.

There are lots of options in the General menu. You can choose what Elements uses for the Color Picker, between Adobe and Windows. I let Adobe’s Color Picker do it for me; selecting Windows for this setting doesn’t provide the palette you’ll see in my tutorials where it’s possible to make tiny adjustments to the colour chosen and the only options presented are Windows‘ basic colour sets.

Just below the Color Picker setting is Step Back/Fwd. This allows you to decide the keyboard shortcuts used to Undo or Redo. I like the most basic, CTRL>Z and CTRL>Y – fewer movements and fewer keys to remember!

The other preferences I use are shown above and below. The ones I choose are largely self-explanatory but I’m going to talk about some of them in greater depth. Show Tool Tips means there’s a visible icon for the tool on the workspace so you can see where you’re putting your cursor. I don’t know about you but I NEED that visual! Select Move Tool after committing text also speaks for itself. As soon as the checkmark is hit, the Move Tool activates and you can shift your text in all directions, as well as resize it. Disable Smart Objects is a bit more complicated and needs a bit more discussion. Essentially, Smart Objects are “locked” and can’t be edited without first being Simplified. Also, with Version 14 and later, everything was considered a Smart Object and when an item was dragged onto the workspace from the Photo Bin, it was automatically made to fill the canvas. Think about a 12×12 button… Nope! I’m going to show you what unticking this box does.

In the screenshot below, I want to Erase part of the bow. But when I try to do it, I get a pop-up as shown. And if you look at the layers in the Layers Panel, each of the embellishments I’ve got on my canvas has a little box in the lower right corner of the thumbnail. That tells me the layer CANNOT be modified other than to resize and rotate.

What does Allow Floating Documents in Expert Mode do? Well, instead of only having the images open up on the Photo Bin, they’re also opened in their own full-sized windows right on top of the workspace. These floating documents can be resized and moved around on the workspace by holding down the left mouse button and grabbing the document by the dark bar at the top. Lots of people like to work that way, because it allows you to drag things between these floating documents and it can be useful when photo editing. But for scrapbooking, I don’t think it’s all that practical. (“Preference”!) Here, I’ve resized some of the images I’ve opened.

Busy, isn’t it? Now let’s look at Enable Floating Document Window Docking.

This is another preference that lots of people love, but for me it only adds to the overstimulation! What it does is give each of the documents its own tab. You can see multiple Elements icons in the toolbar as shown. Moving the mouse over the toolbar will show each of these documents and let you move between them. For me, this isn’t workable, so I went back and unticked both Floating Document boxes.

Next on the menu is Saving Files. These options can be really helpful. I like to be asked before Elements does anything that might be hard to undo. Other people are okay with only being asked if the file is an original, and yet others are okay with Elements just writing over the file every time.

So you might wonder why I’ve selected Always Save when it comes to Image Previews. I’ve found it really doesn’t affect anything I do.

File Extension lets you decide how the saved file will be named when you save it. I prefer lower case. By ticking the Save As to Original Folder, I know anything I Save As (CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>S) will go into the folder where I opened it from originally. You may recall that I use folders to organize the things I plan to use for my layouts so this just makes sure the final versions of my layout will be easy to find later.

I’ve left the Ignore Camera Data (EXIF) profiles box unticked because although I use Elements for photo editing, that’s not my primary use and it makes no difference to my scrapbooking. Maximize PSD File Compatibility will allow me to use those PSD files in earlier and later versions of Elements without a lot of extra steps. Recent file list contains x files lets you choose how many files you’ve recently opened will show on the list when you select Open>Recently Edited from the File menu.

The Performance menu relates to how much of your operating system resources Elements uses when it’s running. The software will make a recommendation about how much RAM you have and how much you should allocate to Elements to keep things running smoothly. Just realize that when you allocate a lot of resources to Elements in this setting, while it’s running it will slow down other things you might use your computer for. There’s a good explanation of the other settings down at the bottom of the menu.

I like to have my Cache Level setting at the max to speed things up when I’m Undoing. With 100 History States and 8 Cache Levels, I can take a layout right back to almost any point from the start and make changes. Ticking Use Graphics Processor for Adjusting Facial Features lets the graphics processor in my computer be involved in any facial feature editing.

Scratch Disks relates to where Elements stores the History States and Cache Levels. If you have multiple drives, or work from an external drive, you can choose that storage area.

Display and Cursors is a really valuable menu. Here is where you can set things up to make working with Brushes, either as Brushes or within the Pen/cil, Dodge or Burn Tools, more streamlined and accurate. This shot shows my settings. I’ll show you what the rest of them look like in subsequent images.

The thing to look for in these screenshots is how the cursor looks, then decide which will work better for you. Show Crosshair in Brush Tip gives a higher degree of accuracy when you’re doing delicate work.

Crop Tool Shield lets you see exactly what part of your photo or image will be included when you crop it. I find that Black and 75% lets me see enough of the image to know if I’m keeping the parts I want. You do you!

The last setting on this menu is for High Density Displays. Automatic seems like a no-brainer.

Another really important menu is the Transparency menu. Here’s where you decide what you want to see when you’ve got something with a transparent background. I’ll show you some of the options for reference.

This combo might be useful for some activities but I really can’t think of one. 😉

Units and Rulers is where you tell Elements how you think. I still think in inches rather than centimeters, but when I set the country at the tail end of the Preferences menu, Elements wants to default to metric. I have to get tough with it! When thinking about Type, Points is the most commonly used measure and makes it a lot easier to have a clue about what will happen when you type in your text. Print Resolution is a vital setting if you’re planning to print out your layouts. 300 pixels per inch is the optimum setting for that, but when you’re just looking at it on the screen, 72 pixels per inch is good enough. (That’s why my screenshots aren’t as crystal clear as my layouts are.)

Guides and Grids are helpful tools. Guides are single straight lines that can be pulled from the top or the left of the workspace and allow for precise placement of objects and type on your layout. Grids give you graph paper, essentially. I use both regularly for my layouts. For them to be most useful, you need to be able to see them without them obscuring your work. These tools can be solid lines or dashed lines for Guides, solid, dashed or dotted lines for Grids. I have old eyes so my settings are what will work best for me. By all means, experiment until you get what you need.

Here’s an image with two perpendicular Guide lines on it.

How do you get them to be visible? Along the top of the workspace there’s a View tab. Click it and a new menu opens. Click on the tool you want to make visible. I leave the Rulers on all the time. I like having them there as reference points. Guide lines don’t require this step. Just put your cursor barely off the workspace, hold down the left mouse button and pull the mouse either down or to the right. You can add multiple Guides in either horizontal or vertical plane. Making them go away again, click View and click Guide again.

If you want to make it so your Guides and Grids don’t move when you accidentally mouse over them, you want to Snap To. To have them remain on your workspace regardless of what image you’re working on, Lock Guides.

The Grid, or graph paper tool is customizable in several ways. You get to choose the colour of the Grid, the measurements you want for your Grid lines and how that Grid is subdivided. Again you can choose between solid, dashed or dotted lines. I used this a ton when I was doing floor plans of the new house and trying out various furniture dimensions.

Here’s an image using a Grid. (This tool is so useful for speed-scrapping, when the facilitator says, “Place a large flower 2 inches from the left side and 1 1/2 inches up from the bottom.” Or, “Cut a rectangle from your paper measuring 4 inches long by 3 1/4 inches high.”)

Plug-ins aren’t something I have, so I’ve never had occasion to do anything with this setting.

Adobe Partner Services are for developers and people who are smarter than me.

Here you have the option to make Elements tell you when there’s an update to the software, or to give it permission to just update whenever.

Type… these settings are important for title work and journaling. Smart Quotes means all the quotation marks, apostrophes and commas in your text will be curvy, which is a high-quality typography feature. Show Asian Text Options allows the use of Asian fonts and dingbat style fonts. Missing Glyph Protection is a setting that gives Elements permission to substitute another character for one not present in a font family. Font Preview is something I insist on having as large as possible for my old eyes.

Country/Region Selection is self-explanatory.

When you look at the Layers Panel, in the upper right corner of the screen there is an icon that looks like 4 horizontal lines with a tiny blue triangle just to the left of it. When you click on that, the dropdown menu has an item at the very bottom called Panel Options. Click on that and you can set the size of your Layer Thumbnails.

You’ll notice I’ve selected Layer Bounds in the Thumbnail Contents section. That means that ONLY what’s on THAT layer is shown in the thumbnail. If Entire Document is selected… well… the thumbnail will basically be a microscopic version of your entire layout. By selecting Use Default Masks on Fill Layers, I can see what part of the contents of the layer has been filled.

The last thing I want to talk about is Move tool options. You’ll notice I’ve ticked Show Bounding Box but haven’t ticked the box for Auto Select Layer. I want to show you why.

When Auto Select Layer is ticked, Show Highlight on Rollover is automatically selected too.

When there are just a bunch of random items sitting on a transparent background, this option isn’t a big problem. When the mouse rolls over any of the flowers or the bow on my workspace, a blue box appears around the outside of the object.

But when there are things positioned on top of other things, it’s very possible to move things you didn’t intend to move just because you had too much pressure on the mouse when it rolled over them. You might not even realize it’s happening until all of a sudden that flower is hanging off the page, or the paper you thought you put under your photo is now halfway across the page. And when you look at the Layers Panel the object’s layer isn’t even active! So I turn that off and just have the Bounding Box on so I can see the outer limits of the object as I move it around.

I hope you’ve learned some useful things today. I did, even though all I did was show you how I’ve selected my preferences. (I had to be able to explain them, right?)

See you next Tuesday.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

December 31, 2024 by Jan 5 Comments

Quick Trick: Styling Strokes

What a way to close out the year! Today is my husband’s and my 47th anniversary – yes, we got married on New Year’s Eve… so he wouldn’t be able to forget the date. 😉 And it’s Tuesday, so tutorial time. Today’s Quick Trick tut evolved out of a private message I received from Jennifer: “I use Photoshop Elements. I know how to add a stroke to a photo or title with a solid color from the color picker. Is there a way to use a style (like a glitter style) for the stroke outline? I can’t figure it out.” Well, of course there’s a way, it’s very quick and easy, and I think I know why she’s struggling. Let’s play!

I just whipped up a simple title using one of the alphas in Just So Scrappy‘s collection She Can. I Merged the letters in the title, and they’re on the top layer in the Layers Panel. The background layer is my working layer now.

The next step is to Select the edges of the title by CTRL/CMD>clicking on the Layer Thumbnail for the title layer. (Make sure you still have the background layer active!!)

To create the Stroke, click Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection…

The colour of Stroke here doesn’t matter because the Style will change it. I went with white, a width of 20 pixels and set the location to Outside.

The Stroke will pop up on the background layer, all by itself. So when I do something to it, nothing else is touched. I think this is where Jennifer was having trouble. If the Stroke is on the same layer as the title, the Style‘s going to hit EVERYTHING.

The following screenshots will show you some options. All the Styles I’ve used in these samples are available at GingerScraps. They’re either Just So Scrappy or Karen Schulz products. Here I’ve used a chrome Style from JSS. It’s shiny and rounded.

Remember when using glitter Styles that scale really matters here. If you use a really chunky glitter Style on a smaller object, like this title, it’s not really going to look like glitter. I’ve used the finest glitter in this JSS batch.

The best way to choose a Style from these batches is to try them on! When you find the look you like, you’ll know. This silver Style from KS has the look of wire.

JSS‘s Styles bundles usually include chipboard! There’s a coloured version and a painted, kraft-edged version.

This corrugated cardboard Style is from the same JSS Styles bundle. It gives an interesting look to the Stroke.

Now, here’s a little bonus for you. Let’s see what a TEXTURE does! Make sure you’re still on the background Stroke layer… Click Filter>Texture>Texturizer.

Don’t be intimidated by this Tool interface. Anything you do is Undoable! One thing I don’t love about this Tool is that the Preview is really hard to see (even with perfect vision, and Lord knows I don’t have that!) so I often have to CTRL/CMD>Z my way out of something ugly. Anyway, here’s where you choose what Texture you want, and how visible it is. There are four options: Brick, Burlap, Canvas and Sandstone. I went with Canvas. Scaling determines the size of the texture’s visible effect – for Canvas, think the width of each thread. Relief determines how high off the paper the Texture appears to rise. It’s almost like a Bevel effect. Play with your sliders. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Nothing is final until you’re satisfied! And Light source MUST match the light source for the rest of your layout, otherwise it’s going to look wonky.

I Zoomed in a lot so you could see the effect. Barely-there, but pretty. To my eyes, this looks a lot like satin stitch embroidery on canvas. Maybe it’s just me…

For 2025, there will be some new and exciting changes here at GingerScraps, and here on the Blog. We have some new Designers coming aboard, and each month, we’ll be offering TWO Designer Spotlights! (Designers are not expected to chat with me so I can Blog about them. 100% voluntary.) What does that mean for you? Double the Daily Downloads, for one! Plus some great coupon codes, maybe more Challenges… I guess we’ll see. Tutorial Tuesday will be changing somewhat too. There will be a Greatest Hits tutorial, a new content tutorial (as long as I can come up with something 😉 so keep the suggestions coming!) and a Challenge Spotlight each month. I’m slowly moving files onto my new laptop, and hope to have it finally set up soon. Then I’m going to strip this one down and only use it for Cricut Design Space… where the naked keys don’t matter so much. 🙂

Happy New Year to all of you!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

December 17, 2024 by Jan Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Daily Download

The Challenge Galleries are just a-hoppin’! I thought everybody would be too busy to get much scrapping done (like me 😉 ) but I was wrong! I have a layout for the Daily Download Challenge, hosted by the lovely CarolW and featuring Twin Mom Scraps‘ Feel Better Soon, so I had a peep at the other layouts, and I’m going to share them with you. But first, let’s preview the DD kit. It’s bright and cheerful, with a smattering of themed elements.

The upcoming layouts are all linked to their spots in the Gallery, so if you choose to take a closer look and leave a comment, you just have to click on the Scrapper’s Forum handle. They’ll appear below in the order they appear in the Gallery, earliest first. Let’s have a look…

First up is trinanne. She has two layouts in the Gallery, so for her entries, they’ll be linked separately HERE and HERE. As you can see, she’s created a double-layout spread, recording the events surrounding her Achilles tendon injury (which is exquisitely painful). I like that she used the solid yellow paper for her backgrounds, which keeps the layouts bright. One page is dedicated to the injury and includes a number of themed elements, the other to how she filled her time while she healed.

It’s clear that people aren’t the only ones who need medical attention. Poor kitty… Alasandra added some text to the ID band and incorporated some themed elements into her cluster. I like how the banner ties the whole layout together.

Windswept‘s layout reminds me of the time my #2 daughter broke her wrist for the first time. It was also in 1992, oddly enough! I like how she’s anchored the photos with bandaids and made mirror images of the clusters.

For her layout, greenfiend27 managed a masculine look by using the plaid paper as a border and keeping the palette to blues with accents of the other colours. The placement of the fluid bag makes it look like it’s actually infusing into her subject. [Editor’s note: those thermal mugs are HORRIBLE!!]

Did your internal monologue just go, “OWIEOWIEOWIE” like mine did? No more tripping over kids’ shoes for Got2Scrap! I like the way she’s framed her photo with clusters to keep the eye moving.

Whew! An off-topic layout!! The palette of the kit coordinates perfectly with the photo kabrak1207 chose and that cluster is perfection. I love the way the rick-rack is anchoring the entire layout.

MarilynZ has used quite an assortment of papers to document her story. I think she changed the Blend Mode to give the red diamond-patterned paper a faded look. She also lightened the frame around her photo.

Here’s another non-themed layout from makeyesup, which is a desktop wallpaper. The little clusters don’t obstruct the calendar’s boxes, but do anchor it to the page. And that cutie-patootie extracted photo would put a smile on any face.

Content Warning! BriannasScrapper‘s photos are a bit gnarly. I like that she masked her large photo then added a photo strip down the side to show the reason for the large photo. The layout is clean and simple.

Here’s another nasty gash from domino44, but the way she cropped her photo blunts its impact a bit.

Is there anything that touches one’s heart more than the look on this little person’s face? The design of dhariana‘s layout makes the photo the focus, from the fade on the patterned paper into the solid to the arrangement of the embellishments. The little pops of red also lead the eye to the photo.

Route66‘s journaling reminds me of #1 daughter’s nose… broken multiple times. The record card is one of those priceless finds that only a documentor-of-life would understand. I like the way it has been framed with all the themed elements, and the use of the word strips augments her story.

Content warning! More gnarly photos from nimble4u … but I love the ugly Christmas sweater! See how the clusters move the eye around the layout? The bits of black tie the sweater to the rest of the layout.

I think every hospital in the world has the same blue gowns. They’re more flattering than the yellow isolation gowns, but a lot more drafty. 😉 The paper choices pbhill made pick up colour from the photo for a cohesive look.

Content warning! More gnarly fingers. I think we’re pretty lucky if we depart this world with all of them still attached. Jill has built her layout around the photos. keeping the palette on the masculine side. I like the black frames on the photos, they accent them nicely.

The journaling on mom2triplets04‘s layout does a lot of heavy lifting. I’m very relieved for her family that it turned out well.

What a note to end on… my layout hasn’t been posted to the Gallery yet – Christmas time is challenging. We drove up to Kamloops on Sunday to see my mom and deliver their gifts, which turned out to be great timing. Yesterday it snowed ALL day, so I know the drive through the mountains would have been nasty, especially coming back in the dark.

Since next Tuesday is Christmas Eve and the last day before Chanukah, I’ll be giving you all the day off, so to speak. I have one more tutorial request for 2024 and we’ll close out the year with it. I wish you all the best for the holidays. Take care of each other, life is short.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

December 10, 2024 by Jan 2 Comments

Here’s a Hybrid Gift Card Tag

Today’s tutorial is a big departure from the usual. I’ve created a hybrid project that mashes up a gift tag and a gift card holder, using digital scrapbooking images. I used the GingerBread Ladies Magic of Winter to build the look I wanted.

My brother is a humbug kinda guy when it comes to special occasions. He always says he doesn’t want anything for Christmas, but he’s also relatively impoverished, so I usually get him a gas gift card, something he definitely needs and will use. This year, I plan to give him a gag gift with the gift card inside the tag. Let me show you how I made it.

I started by making a template using the Custom Shape Tool. I measured an old gift card to get the dimensions. The template is the actual size I’ll need.

I Clipped a paper to the template then added a snowy overlay, also Clipped to the template. Then I added some wintery embellishments, the same as I would for a layout. Note that the text (Merry Christmas with love from Jan) is upside down in the image. That’s so that when I fold the cardstock to form the pocket, it will be facing in the right direction.

Before I moved on to printing, I Saved the finished tag by clicking File>Save As>PNG then deciding which folder to stash it in so I can find it later. I gave it a name I would remember then clicked OK. Why a PNG? I want the background to remain transparent.

The dialog box default settings are the ones I typically use so that I have a clean, crisp, solid image.

After I Saved everything, I put a sheet of white 65 lb cardstock in my printer and hit Print.

I used a guillotine paper trimmer to cut away the excess cardstock to make cutting out the tag a bit easier. Scissors work equally well. Rounding the corners takes a bit of finesse though. If you have a Cricut or similar cutting machine, you could do a Print and Cut with it to save yourself some effort.

Well #%@&!***. I used a new scoring board and the stylus that came with it to score the fold lines. But the cardstock I used tore! I’ve had some scoring issues with that particular brand of cardstock before, so I shouldn’t have been surprised… [Note to self: DON’T use the stylus that came with the board, use one with a ball tip!]

Back to the printer. This time I used premium matte photo paper, which gives a somewhat sharper, brighter image. It’s a 61 lb weight, and the finer fibers in it make it very smooth. I know from previous experience it scores nicely.

You can sort of see the horizontal scored line in the photo below. I’ve folded in the flaps and reinforced the folds to make them sharp.

For this step I used narrow double-faced tape. You could use quick setting liquid glue or a glue runner if you have one. Only the two flaps will be stuck down.

I tucked the flaps in as I folded the back up to meet the front. I put a ruler across the tops of the flaps while I did the fold to keep them flat, so I wouldn’t stick them crookedly.

Here’s the back of the tag with a gift card inside. It slid in there easily and there’s a decent amount of room to spare… It could probably hold several cards.

All that was left was to add a twine loop to hang it from the gag gift package.

If you want to give it a try, you can download the template HERE.

Next Tuesday will be Challenge Spotlight Day. Which Challenge will I pick this time? Check back to find out. 🙂

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Creative Style, Let's Get Crafty, Tutorials Tagged With: Tutorial Tuesday

Tutorial Tuesday (Fonts)

December 3, 2024 by Jan 1 Comment

Wintery, Christmasy Fonts

I didn’t realize it’s been FOUR YEARS since I last did a winter/Christmas font post! Just what I need… more fonts while I’m trying to move all my Very Important Files to a new laptop (thank you Black Friday sale at Costco!), right? I’m going to have to make a resolution to get MainType properly set up so all my fonts are sortable. Might need y’all to hold my feet to the fire. Anyway, let’s look at some new-ish seasonal fonts and a few related dingbats, shall we? If you see something you like, click on the name, it’s linked for you, and the download is FREE….

Christmas Comeback is what’s known in the industry as a “display font”. It’s a solid font with an assortment of glyphs and ligatures – those extras that really zhuzh up your titles.

Last Christmas is a multilingual script font that would be legible enough for journaling. Now I’ just have to hope I escape Whamaggedon, having just typed out that title..

Home Christmas is another solid display font. It’s an all-caps typeface, but has an upper and lowercase set. It includes punctuation and numerals, but no fancy swashes.

Wonderful Christmas is a multilingual mash-up; it has curly-swirly uppercase characters and formal serif-style lowercase caps. It’s definitely legible, so it’s suitable for titles, subtitles and journaling.

Santa’s Air Mail has a lot of title potential. The snowy tops could be glittered, while the actual characters could be any colour, pattern or texture. It includes numerals and punctuation.

Whoa! Christmas Squad. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The whole family in matching PJs on Christmas Eve… this title is included in the character map! The basic character set has those swashy caps, and offers multilingual options too.

Magic Christmas is an all-caps vintage display font. The character set includes both the version you see in the screenshot and a solid version. They could be layered with a shiny or glittery Style added to create a pretty fabulous title or siggie.

Magical Nordic includes BOTH of these typefaces in your download. Along with multilingual support, the snowflake is in the special character set. Since I’m currently working thrulines on my Swedish family tree, I was very drawn to this one.

Winterlight Season has such whimsy! The multilingual fairytale quality is charming, including punctuation and numerals.

Snowballs has a handwritten look to it, with snowflakes surrounding each character. Some characters have swash versions.

This one, Snowinter, started giving me ideas the second I saw it. The actual letters in white, with maybe a glossy coloured Style, and the crystally bits in matching glitter? Oh, yeah! I’m definitely going to play with it! It’s an all-caps-in-two-sizes multilingual typeset.

St Nicholas is giving me really strong A Christmas Carol or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas vibe. It’s such an old-timey look; there are numerals and basic punctuation marks in the set.

This one, Mickey’s Merry Christmas, is my segué from font to dingbat. This all-caps set has a Mickey in a Santa hat in all the uppercase characters! Christmas at Disney World, anyone?

I’m really doomed… Last Christmas Symbols is a collection of Christmas and winter images.

If you’d rather have festive outlines, Christmas has got you.

And last, a seasonal but not festive set of mittens! Christmast Gloves could be used in so many ways.

I’ve got an idea for next week’s tutorial that might be a useful one. It’s a hybrid technique. Stay tuned!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

November 26, 2024 by Jan 1 Comment

Quick Trick: Templates Without Drop Shadows

Templates are real time-savers (once you decide which of your hundreds of options you’ll use… speaking for myself) by literally telling you want to do. Many of them have integrated drop shadow Styles, which are super-easy to Copy and Paste onto your papers and elements, no great effort required. But some designers choose not to apply drop shadow Styles to their templates… which makes then less attractive to me, especially for repeat use. But I’ve come up with a bit of a hack for that! It only takes a few minutes and sets me up for even more options. Let’s talk about it.

For this tip to work, I’ll be using commercially-available drop shadow Styles, rather than creating a bunch of custom shadows. I can always change that up as I go along later. I’ll show you some options that are available in the GingerScraps Store:

Aimee Harrison‘s are pretty realistic. [Click on her name to be transported right to the Store!]

Scraps-N-Pieces has a simplified set.

Karen Schulz has LOTS of Styles and Actions in her bag of tricks.

Karen even has an Action that customizes your shadows for you! I haven’t tried it, but it’s been tested with Photoshop Elements 2018, 2019, 2020 using Windows, Photoshop Elements 2018 using a Mac and CC2020 in Windows so I have no doubt it would work for me. [Note to self: TRY THIS!!]

Okay, so now that’s been set up, I open my shadow-less template [Connie Prince Unwind 1]. I’m going to add shadows to ALL the layers, in batches by type. I’ll activate all the paper layers by click>CTRL/CMD>clicking on them one after the other until they’re all lit up. I start at the bottom, background layer and work my way up, but the other direction would also work.

Once I’ve got them all active, I’ll click on the Styles button at the bottom of the Layers Panel. Then using the Style Set Selector button, I’ll choose the Shadow Styles set I want to use. [Karen Schulz’] Hovering the cursor over the thumbnails, the type of shadow will appear so I can select a Paper Shadow. Then I click on it.

All the paper layers are now shadowed!

Working systematically, I’ll activate all the element types in the same way, adding the most appropriate shadow Style to each of them. For example, I’d activate all the flowers next, then use a flower shadow Style to add shadows to all of them at once. Then I could move on to leaves, flair, whatever layers remain unshadowed, until the whole template has a shadow on every layer. It really only takes a couple of minutes! Once that’s done, I’ll Save the shadowed version of the template in the same folder, with a new name [Connie Prince Unwind 1 shadowed] so I know which is which. Then I can go ahead and create my layout, knowing I can reuse the template later and the shadows will be there for me.

This may not be something you’d ever use, but now you know you have options.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

November 19, 2024 by Jan Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Quote Challenge

I hope I’m finding all of you in good health and good spirits! I had a COVID booster yesterday and feel a bit off today – poor sleep, sore arm, shoulder and neck, headache – which I expected. (I’ve had WAY worse reactions before that put me right in bed for a day… this is nothing.) So today is a bit low-key over here. The Challenge I chose, the Quote Challenge, is one I’ve only participated in once or twice. I love using quotes as journal prompts but find I can’t force it. That may be why there are only eight layouts for examination today. I’m showing them in the order they were posted to the Challenge thread. As usual, each layout is linked to its spot in the Gallery, simply click on the Scrapper‘s username and you’ll be whisked right to it.

The quote CathyK chose for this month reads: “We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.” ― Ellen Marie Wiseman Let’s see how it’s been interpreted.

Up first is alexandergirl68. Her layout is simple, placing the focus on a casual photo of her extended family. The quote forms the entirety of her journaling. I only just noticed she’s matched the plaid shirt of the central figure in her photo with paper. How clever!

Our second layout is by pinklily. She’s diligently catching up with a Project 52 album and for the week of November 28-December 4, 2022, her chronology is so sad! She has used the quote as a sort of mental pep talk.

I love the ombre paper cinna has used for her background. It works beautifully with the other soft colours she chose to accompany her photo. She’s using the quote as her journaling to reflect her gratitude for the people she has in her life.

How beautiful is this layout by lm44west?! That grungy background and elegant cluster that pull colours from her photo creates something very special. Her use of the quote as a caption is quite effective.

For her layout, trinanne made the quote a theme, reflected in the photos of her family she’s used here. The grid style is ideal for this type of layout.

This layout by formbygirl transforms the quote with typography into a word art statement. The emphasis on “together” is reflected in her photos. Her colour choices meld with the photos so beautifully!

I adore the philosophical direction justpennys has taken here. That grungy background makes the cluster pop, and the quote is more of a guide than a statement.

When I look at this layout, I feel the pull of yin and yang… good and not-so-good. I think that’s what yvonne55 is conveying with her use of the quote. Most marriages/relationships have ups and downs, good and not good days, and she’s reminding us that as long as we meet our challenges together, we can do hard things.

Have these ladies given you some inspiration?

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

November 12, 2024 by Jan Leave a Comment

Rerun: Raindrops with Photoshop (Elements)

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

I’ve had a lot going on the last couple of weeks, with more yet to come, and I’m mentally exhausted. But rather than making excuses I thought I’d crank up the WayBack Machine and revisit a fun technique from 6 years ago… digital raindrops! (They look a lot like the ones that blasted my windows today.)

I started with a 12×12 blank, transparent canvas. Then I chose the Elliptical Marquee tool to make my droplets.

Water droplets are spherical when they’re suspended in space and have a domed appearance when they’re on a surface. So I set the Tool Options to Fixed Ratio 1:1 to give me a perfect circle. I clicked-and-dragged out my first droplet and filled it with white using the Paint Bucket.

You can click-and-drag out a random (odd) number of drops of varying sizes using that method, or you can just copy that first one then resize them to suit.

I made 5 round drops to start with. Then, because the photo I used in my layout looked stormy, I thought I’d add some falling drops too. The Custom Shape tool has a raindrop in the default shapes, so it was pretty simple to click-and-drag out a raindrop using white again.

I want to be able to resize and alter the shape a little bit, but there’s a raindrop!

To be able to make changes to the image, I Simplified the layer.

Then I could change the angle on the drop to match the direction the rain would be falling from in the photo. I copied (CTRL/CMD>J)the layer a few times and resized them randomly.

After I had a good (odd) number of droplets, I Merged all the layers together. (CTRL/CMD>E) That way I could apply my next few steps to all of them in one click.

We’ve talked about Styles before in several other tutorials. What they are is a group of adjustments that make the layer take on a different look. Way down at the bottom of the list of Styles in PSE’s defaults is one called Wow Plastic. That’s the one I used. The menu looks like this.

One click on that Wow Plastic Aqua Blue turned them all into this.

I felt the blue was too blue, so I double-clicked on the fx icon on the layer in the Layers panel to get into the adjustment menu. I changed the blue on the shadow layer to one much lighter, and I turned off the Outer Glow setting because it made the drops look like they had a wire ring around them. The Bevel went to the max setting to make them look more spherical.

I also made sure the light source was coming from the same direction so there’s no visual conflict.

Below are my final adjustment settings.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a variety of purchased Styles in my stash – including a water set, but I wanted to make sure everybody could accomplish the look without having to buy anything else.

But OH they’re blue!! So I dropped the Opacity to 75%.

Then it was time to see how they all looked on my layout. So I dropped them onto it and moved it into place.

They still looked too blue and obvious so I dropped the Opacity again to 75% and liked it better.

But alas, they’re not very WET. I didn’t want to mess up what I’d already done, so I Duplicated (CTRL/CMD>J)the layer to give me a throw-away if what I wanted to try didn’t work.

Because the two layers are only 75% Opacity, I can see the underlying layer through the top one. That’s helpful; I went into Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue/Saturation (CTRL/CMD>U) and played with that.

I took the Saturation down to 0 and increased the Lightness to +20. Now it’s got a stormy gray look to the top layer.

Now it’s looking more like a water droplet on the leaf, but not so much on the photo. Hmm.

There has to be a way…

Back I went to the Styles>Wow Plastic menu and this time I chose the Clear style. I’m still on that copy layer on top of my original droplet layer.

A few tweaks of the Style in the fx menu and NOW I’m happy!! For this adjustment I turned off the INNER Glow. You could follow all of these steps on your blank canvas before moving it to your layout now that I’ve done all the experimentation for you. 😉

You can see my entire layout in the Gallery. For the layout I used Ooh La La Scraps‘ Falling Slowly collection (sans Styles) and a photo I found on Pixabay.

Next week is Challenge Spotlight Tuesday. Maybe I’ll have time to actually participate in a Challenge before then. 😉

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

November 5, 2024 by Jan Leave a Comment

History in the Making

Today is Election Day in the United States. I think the whole world is holding our collective breath, waiting to see which direction history will take. As a Canadian, I feel confident in stating that we want the very best for our neighbours to the south, our most improtant trading partner with whom we share the longest undefended border in the world. I have a daughter, a son-in-law and three grandchildren who will be more directly affected by the outcome of this election, and the stakes are ever so much higher for many of you. The stress of it is palpable! To distract myself, I went Windows shopping in the GingerScraps store for coordinating kits. These are the ones I found.

This was the only election-specific kit in the store. But I found some others that could definitely apply…

There’s a decent chance America will elect its first woman President, and how much more appropriate could this kit be? Check out the title word art that is part of the bundle.

I do declare, that silhouette looks remarkably familiar.

Women have only had the right to vote in the US since 1920. Canada wasn’t that far ahead, granting suffrage to women in 1917. France waited until 1944 and Lichtenstein until 1984! Many people are saying it will be women who decide this election. Go get it, girls!!

I feel like this kit ticks a lot of patriotic boxes, as a reminder of how the United States came to be.

And almost every word in this word strip pack has been spoken at campaign rallies over the last few months.

I love this kit, which so ably defines the entire 248-year experiment that is the United States. It also epitomizes what should be the focus of every voter – freedom. Whatever that means to you, I pray you’ll have every opportunity to have the freedoms you deserve.

If you want to see more related kits, the search feature in the store will show you ALL the things! Just type in a key word and go.

Tomorrow, while everyone waits for the final word on the future of the nation, my son will be undergoing an urgent procedure related to his transplanted liver, so I’ll be a little distracted. But I’ll be keeping an eye on the outcomes of both!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

October 29, 2024 by Jan 5 Comments

Quick Trick: About Those Shortcuts…

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

I know I’m always harping on keyboard shortcuts… every tutorial has a bunch of them. They’re really great time-savers once you have them memorized, but they’re not all that intuitive. Some are, but surely not most. There are plenty of spots on the internet where someone has made lists of them, but how well do those lists apply to digital scrapbooking, when Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have such broad graphic design application? Hmm. So I made a list of the ones I use most often and made a little chart you can print and save.

Let’s look at them individually.

B : Activate the Brush Tool – The Brush Picker menu opens so you can choose your Brush, make adjustments to size, angle, roundness and so on.
C : Activate the Crop Tool – The Crop Tool has so many options! You can set a specific size and you can move the overlay around to get it perfect.
E : Activate the Eraser Tool – I don’t use the Eraser that often, but it’s handy for quick tweaks… like if a leaf has a long stem that sticks out oddly.
I : Activate the Color Picker (Eyedropper) – This is such a versatile tool, especially for those artsy layouts.
K : Activate the Fill Tool* – aka the Paint Bucket. I use this one ALL the time for my custom shadows. The process is quick with shortcuts!
M : Activate the Marquee Tool – The default is the rectangle… or whichever one you last used. Click M again to choose the other one.
N : Activate the Pen Tool – Super-useful for those times you want to draw lines.
R : Activate the Smudge Tool* – There are three tools in this set, so make sure you’ve got the Flying Fickle Finger up there so you can adjust your shadows.
T : Activate the Text Tool – I think everybody already knows and uses this one.
V : Activate the Move Tool* – I firmly believe this is what you should select right before you close your software to prevent messing things up with you use it again. I use it automatically when shifting my shadow layers.
X : Toggle the Foreground and Background Colors – I mostly use this one for my tutorial screenshots, but also when customizing text, Styles and oh yeah… when I’m using a Layer Mask to interweave elements seamlessly.

The next batch uses a combination of keystrokes. I provide both the Windows (CTRL and ALT) and Mac (CMD and OPT) versions for accessibility.

CTRL/CMD> + or – : Zoom in or out – get in realllly close to see details, pull waaaay back to see the overall picture.
CTRL/CMD>A : Select All – This snaps the marching ants to the outside edge of the entire project.
CTRL/CMD>C : Copy – So handy for bringing objects from one project onto another, and for importing text from outside documents.
CTRL/CMD>D : Deselect* – This turns the marching ants off, to allow ongoing changes to other parts of the layout. When they’re on, you can’t do much.
CTRL/CMD>E : Merge selected layers – This is useful in so many ways, especially when you’re trying to create titles, word art or decreasing the size of your file.
CTRL/CMD>F : Repeat last Filter* – This goes for ANY Filter; my most used is the Gaussian Blur for my shadows to replicate the softening effect distance creates.
CTRL/CMD>I : Invert – This changes the colour of your object to the OPPOSITE on the colour wheel. Woohoo! More goodies for your stash!
CTRL/CMD>J : Duplicate layer(s) – You’ve seen this one a million times! It also works for multiple layers, so if you wanted to Duplicate a cluster, activate all the layers in that cluster and CTRL/CMD>J BOOM!
CTRL/CMD>L : Adjust Levels – Good for lightening or darkening images.
CTRL/CMD>N : New document – I like to build my titles and word art on their own documents then import them into the layout.
CTRL/CMD>O : Open last folder – I always fill a folder with the things I think I might use for a given layout, but sometimes I need to go back to the kit folder for more paper or whatever. If I’ve opened that kit folder once after starting my process, I can quickly get back to it using just these keystrokes.
CTRL/CMD>P : Print – You probably use this one a lot already.
CTRL/CMD>S : Save – If your computer is misfiring at times, or you need to interrupt your creativity to make supper, you might want to just Save what you’ve already done so it doesn’t vanish when your back is turned.
CTRL/CMD>U : Adjust Hue/Saturation – Very useful for recolouring on the fly.
CTRL/CMD>V : Paste – Whatever you last Copied or Cut will magically appear on your canvas.
CTRL/CMD>Y : Redo – For when you’ve overdone the Undo!
CTRL/CMD>Z : Undo – Undoubtedly my most uses shortcut of all time.
CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>S : Save AS – Elements creates a PhotoShop Document (PSD) so if you want you work Saved As a JPG or PNG, use this.
CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>I : Invert Selection – When I’ve Selected the edges of an object and want to alter everything outside of it, the Selection must be Inverted.
CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>I : Resize document – Quick way to get to the Resize menu so you can Save your layout As a 600×600 Gallery-friendly pixel version.
CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>C : Resize canvas – When you need more room to create your title, word art or cluster than you have, use this.

* : these shortcuts are my go-tos for custom shadows These are the shortcuts I reach for automatically while creating shadows. My fingers just know where to go!

I’m getting a bit closer to that new laptop I mentioned. Hubby was at Costco this morning checking out the options. (As IF he knows what I need…)

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