Another Take on Titles

I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the trend of templates featuring gigantic, block-letter titles with cardstock borders. And I KNOW I’m not the only one who’d like to use them but the titles offered aren’t working for me. So today I’m going to show you how to make your own jumbo titles that you can customize to your heart’s content. My inspiration was some photos of my granddaughter that were taken in August. She’s absolutely fearless and is already showing great promise as a gymnast, and I’m convinced she could be a worthy American Ninja Warrior even at her young age. I knew I wanted my layout to have a prominent title and that it should be feminine, because she’s wearing a dress in most of the photos… such a contradiction she is. The gigantic-block-letter-cardstock-bordered title appealed to me so I started by looking at my fonts for suitable candidates. There are lots of commercial fonts that are “layered”, meaning they have a a set of characters that provide a border that could work, but they tend to be fussy, and I wanted this to be accessible to everyone, so we’re not going to use one of those!

Actually, many of the system fonts that come standard on most computers will work beautifully for this technique; I’m pretty sure Impact is the basis for the commercially-available template versions. I decided to try two fonts and see which I liked better. I started with a commercial font called Liberation Sans Narrow Bold (yes… the name is that long!). It’s blocky but not harsh. And my second choice was Constantia Bold, a system-based serif font that I wasn’t sure would work, but worth a try. I went with BIG, 200 pixels for my text. And each letter is on its own layer.

Next, I created a New Layer above the first “N” and CTRL/CMD>clicked on the layer thumbnail for the “N” layer to select the outer edges. (Marching ants are not visible in this screenshot.) These steps will be followed for each letter in the title.

I added a white, 15 pixel Stroke to the outside of the selection. Edit>Stroke (Outline Selection) By putting the Stroke outside the selection, it keeps the sharp points and edges although some corners are slightly rounded. That won’t be visible in the end. You can make the Stroke wider, but be careful not to obliterate your areas that should have gaps. I’d suggest no wider than 25 pixels.

Each of the letters can now be used as a clipping mask. (That’s why I used gray as my foreground colour – to remind me to clip something to them.)

I added a white Stroke to every letter in the same manner. The white Stroke layers will become my “cardstock” border.

But first, to get the Stroke to that lofty goal, I need to make some adjustments. The Stroke by itself is a little anemic, so I’m going to give it a Bevel Style. I Selected all the Stroke layers by holding down the CTRL/CMD key and clicking on each of them, as you can see in the screenshot. Why? So I can apply the Bevel Style to all of the borders in a single step. Remember: Work Smart, Not Hard!

Adding a Bevel Style will accomplish a couple of things – it’ll give the border some substance and it’ll add a bit of shadowing to eliminate the need for doing that as a separate step. Click on the Styles button at the lower right of your workspace and select Bevels from the dropdown menu. Of course, I tried ALL the options for Beveling so I could say authoritatively that Simple Emboss is the right choice.

The default settings for this Style are 90° Lighting Angle, 21 pixel Size and Up for the Direction. I wasn’t blown away by the defaults so I started adjusting each of the Bevels with the letter “A”. Double-click on the fx symbol at the far right of the layer in the Layers panel to open up the adjustment menu. Then I made my changes. You may be able to see the difference between the “J” and the “A”. Once I was happy with the look, I right-clicked on the “A” layer and chose Copy Layer Style. Then I reselected the rest of the border layers and right-clicked again, this time selecting Paste Layer Style. WSNH again!

Then I went on to my second title, the one with the serifs. This time when I added the Bevel, I also added both an Inner and Outer Glow – all found in the adjustments for the Layer Style. I made it simple by setting everything to 10. In the image, I’ve adjusted the first “N” but that’s all.

When I was happy I chose some girly papers to clip to my letters from Ooh La La Scraps‘ Birthday Wishes Girl bundle. Need a refresher on clipping? Put your paper over top of the layer you’re using as your clipping mask. Then right-click on the paper layer and choose Create Clipping Mask or CTRL/CMD>G for PSE versions up to 14, CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for versions 15+. Cute, huh?

But which one will I use for my title?

Yes, I went with the second one with the serifs. If I want to manipulate the letters any further, I need to either Merge or Link the layers so that when I move one letter, all parts of it go with it. I Merged (CTRL/CMD>E), but if you prefer to have the layers separate but linked, go ahead and select all three of the layers for each letter then click on the little chunk of chain next to the eyeball icon.

I moved my letters around to make them a little less starchy. And it’s finished! I’m going to be looking for your layouts with jumbo titles now!

Here is a downloadable PDF: https://bit.ly/2LU4oT5

One BIG Word – Using a Title as a Divider

This week’s tutorial is brought to you by Ellen (gmae) and Ann (ScrappinRosie). As you’ve likely noticed, Ellen is one of my topic-generators, bringing me ideas for tutorials fairly regularly. This one came to me via private message: “I came across this layout by ScrappinRosie and of course I love it. I know I can figure out how to do this but some others may not so I thought it may make a nice tut sometime. You did a tut about joining letters with extra swashes which is a good reference but some may not know how to decide what may make a good font to use in the first place and could a printed font even work.”

The tutorial Ellen referenced about using the extra characters that come with some fonts can be found here. As for choosing a font for this type of application, MainType has a handy way to show which fonts have extra glyphs – swashes, curlicues, whatever you want to call them. It’s discussed in the tutorial but for a little refresher, here’s a screenshot to help you out. (I just upgraded to the most current version of MainType, so I haven’t tagged any of my 1645 fonts yet. Gotta be in the mood, know what I mean?)

I started by opening a 12×12 scrapbook page canvas on my work space then surveyed my collection of fonts to see which ones would give the look I wanted. The title for my page was going to completely transect my layout, and it had to work with the mood of the layout. The things I considered were how I wanted the layout to feel, how the title would work with my chosen photo(s) and how large I wanted it to be. If my subject was something less emotive, I might have chosen a more upright, less fancy font. But “mellow” cries out for swirls!

The font I used is Camellia Regular; there are free versions that don’t include the extra characters so you might want to check first. I purchased my version from Font Bundles as part of a script bundle. Be sure to look at your font stash to see which ones might have the swashes included; you might have some really good ones already! For this step, any colour will do because it’s not forever. I replaced the “m” and the “w” with glyphs from the font extras to extend the beginning and end of the word. In some of the later screenshots you can see that in the layers panel – there are symbols in place of the letters in the name of the layer. If your chosen title will have more than one word like Ann’s does, you’ll need to ensure that the words physically touch, and that can be accomplished by using a long tail glyph to connect them.

It looked good but I thought that as a title it probably needed to be a bit more present. Remember that text layers are “smart” until you Simplify then, meaning you can’t change their appearance in any way other than colour and size. To add a Stroke – a heavier outline – the text couldn’t be “smart”. I Simplified the text layer by right-clicking on the layer and choosing Simplify Layer from the dropdown menu.

There are a couple of ways to make things bigger, and applying a Stroke is the easiest and gives the best results if done correctly. Edit>Stroke (Outline Selection)

Generally speaking, Strokes can be dainty or bulldozer-y, and everything in between, depending on the effect you’re looking for. With text, applying a Stroke needs a light touch. If you make your stroke too big, it’ll obliterate the loops and swirls and completely defeat the font you chose. If you apply your Stroke Inside the selection, it might not make a lot of difference. If you apply it Outside the selection there may be a tiny gap between the object and the Stroke – and that can be a disastrous thing to discover several steps down the road. So when I apply a Stroke to text, I choose Center, which puts the Stroke directly over the edge, half inside, half outside. Going with 4 pixels is usually a good number, adding just a bit more weight but without making your loops into lumps.

As you can see, the difference isn’t really obvious. But now the title has oomph!

The next step is to Resize the title so it extends all the way across the layout. I went horizontal, but yours could be vertical or diagonal. I plan to put a photo at the top of the layout with the title overlying, but you could easily use different papers for your layout. It’s important to have the title touching the edges of the canvas, as you’ll see in the next frame.

Because I want the lower paper to follow the contours of the title, I’m going to create myself a clipping mask. To do that I first need to make a Copy of my title layer. Right-click>Duplicate Layer or CTRL/CMD>J 

Then I went back to the original title layer and using the Paint Bucket tool, I Filled in the space where my paper will go with solid white. If my title didn’t touch the edges of the canvas or with multiple words that weren’t touching, when I dumped my Paint Bucket, it would have filled the whole 12×12 space! Where the title touches the edges, it forms a dam to keep the paint inside.

I want to be able to see the title against my photo and I’ll probably Clip a paper to it. I don’t want the lower paper to cover the title though, so to ensure that, I’m going to Select the title from that clipping mask layer and remove it. I CTRL/CMD>Clicked on the Copy title layer’s thumbnail but kept the clipping mask layer active. That isolates the title from the rest of the mask. You may be able to see the marching ants in the screenshot.

Still on the clipping mask layer, I Cut away the title: Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X 

And with the Copy title invisible, this is what my clipping mask layer looks like.

I decided I needed to put my photo in place to see if I needed to move the title up or down. The clipping mask could be expanded vertically if needed to ensure my purple paper will cover the whole bottom. I put the photo under the other layers and adjusted the size to fit my space (and to crop out a post!). For those who are wondering, this is the view from our deck!

Clipping my purple paper to the clipping mask came next, then clipping paper to my title layer. The keyboard shortcut for clipping something to something else is CTRL/CMD>G for PSE versions lower than 15 and CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for versions 15+.

I thought I might add just a bit more interest to the title so I added a Texture Filter: Filter>Texture>Texturizer.

There are some options for what kind of texture you can use with this Filter tool: Brick, Burlap, Canvas or Sandstone. Each has a different look and I chose Burlap for this. Adjustments are Scaling (size of the texture), Relief (depth of the texture) and direction of the Light source. You can see what your Filter looks like on the Preview. I didn’t want the texture to be the focus, but rather a supporting detail so I went with 50% Scaling, 2 for Relief and the Light is coming from the upper right.

There it is! Definite, but subtle.

Last step is to add a shadow to the title! I could use a Shadow Style but I’m so used to creating my own custom shadows that I do it automatically. Once I’m done with that I can add my embellishments and journaling. Et voilà!

Have you seen a layout that wowed you but you’re not sure how to achieve the same results? Maybe I can help!

For a PDF version of this tutorial, go here. (linked)

Creating a 3D Metallic Look on 2D Shapes

We made it! This is the last Tuesday of 2020… and I’m sure none of us thought we’d ever get here. It’s been a long, long year. This is also my 200th Tutorial Tuesday post! I definitely never thought I’d have that much to share with you, but thanks to the women who approach me with questions, I’m still going. This week’s tutorial is the result of a query from Bernice (bkasko). She’s a planner, and she found a beautiful planner template set created by Lisa, the Cherry on Top. She was particularly attracted to the template that looks like a multi-ring binder, but she wasn’t having any luck creating a realistic metal effect for the rings. She’d tried a bunch of things and wasn’t happy with the results so she asked me what she could try. Off I went to find out. I watched a bunch of videos based in Photoshop, which of course are useless to Elements users. But… because I’ve been learning all the ins and outs of Elements so I can teach them to you, I was able to come up with an Elements method by playing with some of the less-commonly accessed features in the software. Let’s see what I’ve done.

First I had to decide what kind of 2-dimensional image I was going to play with. I chose a brush (it’s NOT a reflection of anything, however!) that lends itself nicely to a metal effect.

A very important part of this technique is to work on a transparent background, with your 2D image on a new, blank workspace. As you see in the screenshot, my brush is on a transparent background; if you’re using a template, Duplicate the layer with the item you’re metallizing onto a new document, then move it back to the template when it’s finished. Now, this brush is a little anemic when it comes to presence. So I added some padding to it.

I used an 8 pixel Stroke centered over the brush to just beef it up a bit. Not so much that the clean lines were lost.

Yes! That’s more like it!

Then I made 3 copies (CTRL/CMD>J) of the original layer. To keep them straight in your mind you might want to rename the layers but that’s not essential. I also turned off visibility to all but the layer at the bottom.

I really find it helpful to Zoom in and out while I’m working on this kind of project. Keyboard shortcuts: Zoom In CTRL/CMD>+ and Zoom Out CTRL/CMD>-. The first adjustment I’m going to make to my image is to add a Bevel. Click on the Styles button at the lower right of the workspace then choose Bevels from the pull-down menu. The Bevel shown inside the red box is the Simple Inner Bevel and that’s what I used.

You can see that there’s now some rounded dimension to the brush. Cool, right?

Editing Layer Styles adds so much creativity and possibility to our work. To open up the Edit menu, double-click on the fx icon on the layer. The new menu shows you what you can change about that Layer Style. The defaults for Bevels are Lighting Angle 90°, Size 21 pixels and Up Direction. I adjusted the Lighting Angle to 120° and the Size to 40 pixels.

Next, I moved UP one layer to Layer 1 Copy. Visibility is on.

Still in the Styles menu, I chose the Inner Glows function.

From the Inner Glows options, I chose the Small Border Glow.

Huh! Look at that! There’s some definite dimension there now! (It looks a bit like epoxy right now.)

I’m going to Edit this Style too. Double-click on fx and adjust the Size and Opacity of the Glow. This is an active process and your preview will change as you make your adjustments so you can see what you’re doing. It’s also possible to change the colour of the Glow by clicking on the colour swatch and choosing another colour. Pure white is “ffffff” for those you like to be precise.

Now to change the Blend Mode for the Inner Glow layer to Screen. This lightens the layer and gives it the contours of the layer below.

Moving up to the Layer 1 Copy 2 layer, I turned the visibility back on. Don’t worry that all the work you’ve done so far isn’t visible. It will be!

For this layer I’m going to add a Wow Plastic Style.

The two layers at the bottom of the stack are off. The Wow Plastic style I used is the Clear Shadow style. Right now it looks ummmm… bad! But it’s easily fixed.

First thing I did in the Edit Style menu was to turn off that honking huge shadow. This style uses an Outer Glow, which I adjusted so that the Size is 18 pixels, the Opacity is 22% and the colour is pure white. Then I increased the Bevel on this layer to 75%.

Here’s where I sorta dropped the ball. I missed a screenshot. I’ve moved up to the Layer 1 Copy 3 layer and now I’m going to add another Inner Glow.

Again I used the Small Border Glow.

But this time I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply. This Blend Mode darkens but maintains the contours. Then I dropped the Opacity of the layer to 55%. Up close it doesn’t look too great.

But when I moved the Multiply layer down one space so it’s under the Wow Plastic layer, it looks a lot better!

Then when I pull the Zoom back, the full effect is much more visible. It’s shiny, but not liquidy-shiny. And it has 3 dimensions. 23

I popped a paper (from the December Mini Kit Challenge created by Jumpstart Designs) underneath it. Just to see how I like it. To me, it looks more like pewter than chrome or silver. What to do…?

I Zoomed back in and played with the Opacity of the Multiply layer and settled on 40%. It looks more silvery now.

Okay! I think that looks better. This technique will work on any template object you’d like to metallize. And if you apply it to a scripty font, you can create wire words!

Bernice, please let me know if this was the look you were seeking. To all of you, Happy New Year!! Let’s all hope 2021 is an improvement on all things. See you next year!

Is it Thanksgiving, or Giving Thanks?

This year, Thanksgiving has a completely different meaning for most of us. Here in Canada, our celebrations at Thanksgiving are always much less exuberant than those of our neighbours to the south (and six weeks earlier). Even so, we had to make some accommodations to the times we’re living in. When this year began, I imagined our Thanksgiving to include my elderly parents, my sister and brother, our daughter and son-in-law and the three of us, all around the table with a big turkey in the centre. Instead, it was the three of us, our daughter and son-in-law and the world’s smallest turkey. But it was how it had to be. With the whole of the United States heading into their 4-day (or is it a week now?) Thanksgiving extravaganza at the same time that the weather has pushed people indoors AND a rapid increase in COVID spread has begun, it looks like the perfect storm to this observer. So I’d like to take a few moments to encourage everyone to think about the real meaning of “thanksgiving”.

Every one of us, no matter where we are or what’s happening in our lives, has something to be thankful for this year. Some of us have big things – graduations, weddings, promotions, new homes, new family members. Some of us have small things – a new friend, a better job (or any job!), learning a new skill, time for DIY projects, finding something long thought to be lost forever. But all of us have SOMETHING. An attitude of gratitude starts with recognizing that, and what better time to start making that shift than at Thanksgiving?

I know people are tired of restrictions and want life to be the way it was before. There’s a lot of temptation to just say to heck with it… I’m out! But the thing about this situation is that we have lots of examples of how short-term sacrifice bears long-term benefit. The Spanish Flu pandemic is one example. Far more people died in those two years than we could possibly imagine, but the ones who survived have allowed US to exist! They too hated the restrictions placed on them – much harsher than the ones we’re faced with, to be honest. But in the end, they did what needed to be done. World War 11 gives us another strong model of personal privation that ultimately kept the world spinning. Just like this crisis, the effects were stronger and lasted longer in some areas than others. I think they had it far worse than we do… compulsory identification of all citizens and aliens, food and gasoline rationing, blackouts, restricted travel, internment camps and conscription all came into being. And for the most part, people did what needed doing without much resistance. But they didn’t have many of the amenities we take for granted. The internet for example! With it we can not only stay in contact with each other, but we can SEE each other without being in the same place. Imagine how a farm family in 1944 would have loved the opportunity to visit with neighbours without even leaving home! We have unlimited options for amusement right in our own homes, while they had to shelter in place in the dark every night. We have easy access to whatever food choices we might make, and can have it brought right to the door; no thought of “this is all the hamburger we have for the month”. We have an international army of scientists working flat out to understand how COVID works, how to treat it better, how to save lives and to develop vaccines so that NEXT year, we’ll have a real reason to be thankful as we gather with the people we love. We’re really very lucky, but we don’t appreciate it when we focus on what we’re giving up.

So what does this have to do with scrapbooking, you ask. Everything! Scrapbooks record the significant people and events in our lives so we can remember them later. The good parts… and if you’re “real”, the bad too.  My challenge to each of you is to take a few minutes just to think about what – and who – you really need in your life. Why are your choices important to you? What are you prepared to do to keep them? What do you have to celebrate in 2020? What makes it worth celebrating? And to finish up, are you ready to be thankful for what you already have? I am. I hope you are too.

Jazzing Up a Neutral Background

Let’s see how NOT trying to outsmart WordPress works!

Let’s talk about personal style for a minute. We’ve all got our own preferences when it comes to how we construct our layouts. I like neutral backgrounds and am totally lost (terrified is more like it!) when it comes to using papers with bold patterns. But at the same time, I often feel that using a plain paper or cardstock leaves my layouts looking a little unfinished. So you’ll notice that I add some sort of border to most of them. When I looked at this month’s Bake Sale I was delighted to see that Lindsay Jane had a set of her Edge It border masks in there that I didn’t have. She also has a line of simple doodled borders I’ve been collecting. But she’s not the only one who creates gorgeous borders. Most of our talented designers have border sets in their stores. Take a moment to check them out!

Anyway, I thought I’d show you how to take a simple piece of cardstock and make it into an eyecatching background using borders.

This cardstock came from a GingerBread Ladies collection called Certainly Summer. I like it a lot because it’s got a nubby texture to it. But it’s PLAIN otherwise.

Here’s one of those border masks from Lindsay’s Edge it V7 pack. (Yes! The set of 6 is on sale until November 20, 2020 for the incredible sum of $1!) Of course, it’s black in its original state, and that isn’t the look I’m after…

Contrasting borders look great in certain situations, but I really like monochrome looks a lot, so I grabbed the Eye Dropper tool and clicked on the cardstock to activate the Color Picker to keep my border in the same colour family.

By going just a bit darker, I can turn this border into almost a vignette-like look. I love that I can see the contrast between the current colour and the colour I’m choosing.

To get that new darker teal onto the border mask, I’ll click Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color.

The menu takes a lot of the work out of the process by letting me Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask. In one step I can turn just the border a different colour.

This time when the Color Picker opens, Elements shows me what the new border will look like, and it gives me the option of changing it if it doesn’t please my eye.

I want to have control over the border as it is with the new colour filling it so I Merged the two layers. I love how it’s coming along.

But it’s still a little bright. Wanting subtlety, I decreased the Opacity to 40% and like how it looks.

But what would it look like if I clipped a paper (from PrelestnayaP‘s Delicate Moments) to that border? (Or to one of the borders in Irina‘s kit?) Let’s see!

Here it is, clipped to the border and the two layers Merged. I think it looks a bit like snow, with the pattern indistinct. Hmm.

If the pattern isn’t a factor, maybe if I decrease the Opacity to 60%? That’s nice and subtle.

Here I’ve added a doodled border from Lindsay Jane’s Page Borders V34. I’m going to  it with the same darker teal that I used before.

That looks pretty!

After I toned it down a smidge, the outer border looks a lot more interesting.

What happens if I add a Bevel Style to that doodle border? The best Bevel for adding visual interest in this situation is the Simple Emboss. I think it’s a bit heavy-handed though.

Layer Styles are adjustable, so if you don’t like what you see, play with it! I double-clicked on the fx symbol on that layer and opened up the adjustment menu. Then I dropped the size of the Bevel to 3 pixels. (Default is 21 pixels.) I think it still looks a bit sharp though.

So I decreased the Opacity of that layer to 10%. Better. But still not what I want.

I ended up removing the messy border layer to showcase the embossed border better. And now I’m going to clip another cardstock layer to the embossed doodled border layer.

That looks pretty good, but still too in-my-face. So now what?

With the Opacity at 10% I have a nice, soft embossed border!

But before we go, let’s see what it looks like if I add some glitter to that messy border. This can be either by using a Glitter Style or by clipping a sheet of glitter paper to the mask. Yes! That might work for a fancy layout!!

There are so many ways to find our own style!

Reflections, Perspectives and Shadows

Well. Today has been an unmitigated disaster. I should just not try to outsmart WordPress, because I only end up making more work for myself! Let’s see if third time’s the charm.

Have you ever looked at a layout and thought, “Holy cow! That’s so amazing… I have to scraplift it right away!” and then tried to figure out how the original scrapper did it? That’s the challenge that Ginger – Dandelion Dust Designs – threw at me. One of her Facebook fans had seen a totally fabulous layout in Katie Pertiet’s gallery on her blog and wanted to know if Ginger had any tips for recreating it. Ginger came to me… so I scraplifted it myself and now I’m going to show you how I did it. The layout was created by Jane_Bond7, who says in her description that SHE scraplifted it from a layout she saw on Pinterest… and she used a photo strip template from Katie that you can download here. WARNING!! This is an advanced tutorial, with 55 screenshots. You have been warned!

Isn’t that a fabulous layout? The first thing I did was to download the template, choose a photo and some embellies for my layout and got underway.

Then I had a look at things. Obviously, if my layout is going to be true to Jane’s I’m going to need to rotate my template by Image>Rotate>Flip Horizontal.

Next I opted to Merge the three photo spots together into a single photo strip. That’ll save me some effort later. Select the three layers, right-click>Merge Layers or CTRL/CMD>E.

Looking at Jane‘s layout to guide me, I Resized the photo strip to leave room for the shadow and the reflection. 75% of the original size looks about right.

I looked at Jane‘s layout again for awhile and decided the height of the photo strip wasn’t quite right. So I stretched JUST the height by 10%.

Time to add the photo. I’ll adjust its size and position after I’ve got it clipped to the photo strip to make sure as much of the vineyard is visible as possible.

To clip the photo to the strip, right-click on the layer>Create Clipping Mask OR CTRL/CMD>G for PSE versions before 14, OR CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for PSE versions 14 or later.

For ease of handling later I Merged the photo with the photo strip then Selected the edges of the photo strip by CTRL/CMD>clicking inside the layer thumbnail in the layers panel. Alternatively click Select>All.

I got a bit carried away and picked the foreground colour for my shadow before creating a blank layer UNDER my photo strip. But not to worry… it’s going to happen. I typed in the dark brown colour I wanted for my shadow, “2c1901” and the Color Picker shows you what it looks like.

The easiest way to add a blank layer under another layer is to CTRL/CMD>click on the sheet of paper icon at the top left of the layers panel. Then I activated the Paint Bucket tool to fill the Selection I made previously, with brown. That’s the basis for the shadow layer.

Okay… let’s play with the shadow. But first Deselect the edges either by Select>Deselect or CTRL/CMD>D.

If you need a visual…

Now I’ve turned the Visibility of all but the shadow and background layers off so I can see what I’m doing better.

If you look closely at Jane‘s layout you’ll see the only part of this shadow layer I actually need is the large one at the left end. So I activated the Rectangle Marquee tool and corralled the other two pieces.

And to remove the other two pieces Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X and they go away.

How on Earth’s layout has a lot of air behind her photos strip with the shadow quite a distance off. It also looks like the photo has a fold at the bottom. So I’ve moved my shadow over to the left a fair bit.

Now, how on Earth did she get that folded look? I think the Polygon Cookie Cutter will help with that. A triangle should work so I activated the Cookie Cutter tool, chose the Polygon and 3 sides.

I made my triangle bigger than I thought I would need, in a colour different from my background and shadow. Remember when I was talking about Smart Objects in the Preferences tutorial? Shapes created by the Cookie Cutter are Smart Objects. So in order to do much with them they need to be Simplified. Right-click>Simplify Layer.

Now I moved the triangle and rotated it so that it’s over the lower left corner of the shadow. It’s not going to hang around so don’t worry if it hangs off the page.

I like to put the shape underneath whatever I’m using it to alter so when I DO the alteration I can see it. It isn’t necessary though.

Time to Select the outline of the triangle by CTRL/CMD>Clicking inside the layer thumbnail as before.

Then I can cut off the corner of the shadow: Edit>Cut or CTRL/CMD>X. TaDA… a “folded” shadow!

If you look at the layer thumbnail in the layers panel you can see the corner’s gone.

The triangle isn’t needed any more. You can turn it off or delete it now. The photo layer needs to be visible so the shadow can be positioned in the correct spot.

It turned out to be easier to control the corners by using the Image>Transform>Skew tool. This tool lets you move a corner of your bounding box in any direct to skew the shape inside it.

It’s not easy to see but the lower left corner of the bounding box around the shadow is lower than the right corner now.

On Jane‘s layout I think I see a slight curve to the side of her shadow. So I activated the Smudge tool, made it as big as I could but only 57% of its maximum strength then very… very… carefully Smudged it just a tiny bit. The Smudge tool also blurs whatever it touches a bit, which you can see in the screenshot.

What I’ve been showing you in these last few steps is how I manage all of my custom shadows. The next step is to soften it up, using a Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

The Preview pane lets you see what’s happening to your image as you adjust the Blur, so you know where to stop. I decided 6.0 pixels was just right.

I change the Blend Mode to Linear Burn for my shadows. It allows a bit more of the layer below to show through as shadowed, not just covered.

Adjusting the depth of shadow is best done with the image Zoomed out. Then I decreased the Opacity of the shadow layer until it looked right to me, at 40%.

Jane‘s layout appears to have a narrow Stroke around the edges of her photos so I added a 7 pixel dark brown stroke to mine. Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection

That looks good, so on to the really complicated part – the reflection. Getting it right isn’t going to be easy! I changed the Canvas size to give me some more room to work. I just picked a number out of the air. Image>Resize>Canvas or CTRL/CMD>ALT>C Then I Duplicated the photo strip layer. Right-click>Duplicate Layer or CTRL/CMD>J

Reflections are mirror images so this Copy layer needs to be inverted. To do this, grab the “handle” in the centre of the top edge and pull it down toward the bottom of the workspace. Type -100 into the Height box and it will be exactly the same size as the initial photo strip layer.

As I might have mentioned, this is the really fiddly part. The reflection layer will need a lot of manipulation to get it right. There can’t be any space between the photo strip and its reflection so I Rotated and nudged the reflection layer so the two overlap.

Then I moved the reflection layer down so it’s underneath the photo strip layer. For this reflection to work, the left lower corner and the two gaps have to line up. Easier said than done. Image>Transform>Skew or Distort will come into play here.

In Jane‘s image, it seems to me that the reflection of the photo at the left side is a bit longer than this, so Image>Transform>Skew lets me pull that corner down and in a bit to more closely approximate what I see in Jane‘s layout. You can see in the screenshot how the bounding box’s corner isn’t 90° any more.

Next… To try and better align the corners and gaps. Image>Transform>Distort gives the ability to move any or all of the corners of the bounding box in any direction I want. So that’s what I did!

It’s a lot better, but still needs a tiny tweak at that intersection. In Jane‘s layout it looks like the reflection extends perfectly from the folded edge of the shadow so that needs to be dealt with.

It looks pretty good now! Time to clean up. I’m going to Erase the little bits of corners that show where they shouldn’t and I’m going to use a Layer Mask so if I take away too much, I can paint it back.

Once I was happy with the clean-up, I Simplified the reflection layer to absorb the Layer Mask.

To turn the reflection into more of a reflection I decreased the Opacity down to 55% and it’s starting to look like Jane‘s.

The Blend Mode goes to Multiply.

Then to give the reflection even more realism I’ll add a Filter>Blur>Lens Blur to it.

I set the Preview to More Accurate so I can see the changes more easily, then Radius, Blade Curvature, Rotation, Brightness, and Amount are set to 10, Threshold to 255, Distribution is Gaussian and Monochromatic is checked.

There!! All that’s left is to blend the edges and it’s done!

I used the Eraser tool with a large (500 pixel) soft brush set to 45% Opacity and ran it over the edges.

And it’s done! Now to complete the rest of the layout…

You may have seen my layout in the Gallery. If not…