{"id":28450,"date":"2019-01-29T19:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T03:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=28450"},"modified":"2019-01-29T16:48:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T00:48:41","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2019\/01\/tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fancifying Those Fonts<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As promised, today’s tutorial is a demonstration of how to add some variety to your fonts. IceCold<\/strong> had the most options so I went with it for the layout I did up for the Mix It Up Challenge<\/strong><\/a>. I used a template from Jumpstart Designs that I’ve had forever and CathyK<\/strong><\/a>‘s Aviator<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0kit.<\/p>\n

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If you’re a faithful reader, you’ll recall that I like to create my titles on their own work space so I can play around without distraction and without messing up anything on my layout accidentally.<\/p>\n

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Before I can do anything to the text I first have to Simplify<\/strong> the layer. Right-click<\/strong> on the layer on the Layers panel<\/strong> then select Simplify Layer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Because I never know where I might go with my experimentation, I like to make several copies of my original layer so I won’t have to recreate it later. Then I play with the copies. CTRL\/CMD>J<\/strong> will make one copy for each time you perform the keyboard shortcut. Or you can right-click<\/strong> on the layer in the Layers panel<\/strong> and select Duplicate Layer<\/strong>. (Can you see why I use the WSNH<\/strong>\u00a0– W<\/strong>ork S<\/strong>mart N<\/strong>ot H<\/strong>ard – shortcut?)<\/p>\n

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The first thing that occurred to me was to make the snow caps look like snow caps. I was originally going to just Erase<\/strong> the letter parts but thought better of it.<\/p>\n

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I added a Layer Mask<\/strong> by clicking on the icon that looks like a square of paper with a circle in the centre, right there in the middle of the icons at the top of the Layers panel<\/strong>. Why? Because if I go too far with my Eraser<\/strong>, I can easily change the tool to a paint brush and paint back the part I should have left alone. It’s as simple as toggling<\/strong> between black and white in the Color Selector<\/strong>. To know which color is the one you want, remember the phrase “White conceals, Black reveals<\/strong>“. Keyboard shortcut? Just hit the X key<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

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Then I started Erasing<\/strong> away the letters from the snow caps.<\/p>\n

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This part of my technique is VERY time-consuming. And it causes eye-strain too… but that never stops me from trying new things or writing tutorials about my experiments!<\/p>\n

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Is it just me or do these look more like eyebrows than snow caps?<\/p>\n

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Once I had all the letter parts removed, I Simplified the layer. Same like with the font step. Otherwise, unless you’re paying particular attention (and I’m usually not… watching TV while I work is how I roll!) you won’t know what part of the layer you’re working on until you’ve committed some massive blunder and can’t reverse it. (Guilty as charged!)<\/p>\n

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Now I want to add some chill to my snow caps. In retrospect, I really didn’t need this step, but I have the screenshots so I’m going to show you because it does tie in with a later step.<\/p>\n

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To quickly and easily change to colour of fonts and text, just create a Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color<\/strong>. It will apply your new colour to everything selected.<\/p>\n

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When the New Layer menu box opens, make sure the Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask<\/strong> box is checked. If you don’t take that action, the whole canvas will be filled with that new colour.<\/p>\n

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I know the blue is impossible to see, and as I said, I really didn’t need to do this step. But can you see in the screenshot that I Copied<\/strong> the snow cap layer BEFORE<\/span> I added the Fill<\/strong> layer to the original snow cap layer? That’s another WSNH<\/strong> tip. Only do things once!<\/p>\n

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Again, you want to Merge<\/strong> these two layers in the same way and for the same reason you Simplify<\/strong> text and other Layer Masks<\/strong>. It’s to preserve what you’ve already done.<\/p>\n

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This next screenshot is impossible for anyone to actually read, so I’ve included the pertinent information on it. I’m going to use a glitter Styles<\/strong> set from Just So Scrappy<\/strong><\/a>‘s Lucky Me<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0bundle. The fastest way to get to your Styles<\/strong> folder is to just click on the Styles<\/strong> button at the bottom of the Layers panel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Katie<\/strong> of JSS<\/strong> always includes both chunky and fine glitter in her Styles<\/strong> bundles. I chose the fine white glitter #2 option because my title isn’t going to be huge, and snowflakes aren’t either.<\/p>\n

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This is the effect it gave my snow caps. Now you can see why I said the colour change wasn’t necessary… you can’t see any of the blue anyway!<\/p>\n

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On we go to the copy of the snow caps.<\/p>\n

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The colours in JSS<\/strong>‘s Lucky Me<\/strong> bundle work for this next phase, so I’m using the Chrome<\/strong> set for this. The Style<\/strong> adds a very smooth shiny look to whatever you hit with it.<\/p>\n

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Again, Katie<\/strong> offers options! There are thick and thin Chrome<\/strong> coatings here. I knew I’d want the thin one so that’s what I used.<\/p>\n

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It didn’t look quite like I wanted it to, so I right-clicked<\/strong> on the fx<\/strong><\/em> icon on the layer in the Layers panel<\/strong> and opened up the Style<\/strong> menu. I adjusted the various sliders to give me more of a chilly, icy look.<\/p>\n

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Then I lowered the Opacity<\/strong> of the Chrome<\/strong> layer and the snow cap has dimension, some colour and some sparkle.<\/p>\n

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I could stop here. HA!<\/p>\n

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I went down to the very first layer where I’d typed out my title, hid all the other layers, and added a Layer Mask<\/strong> to that first layer.<\/p>\n

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Then I started Erasing<\/strong> the thin lines from the letter section of the title.<\/p>\n

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Once I got them all Erased<\/strong>, I Simplified<\/strong> the layer.<\/p>\n

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I also wanted to lose the snow caps, but because I’d already isolated the snow caps, it was a piece of cake to get rid of them. I clicked<\/strong> on one of the snow-cap only layer thumbnail<\/strong>s to Select<\/strong> the outlines of the snowcaps – while still on my lowest layer<\/span> – then Edit>Cut<\/strong> (CTRL\/CMD>X<\/strong>) them away.<\/p>\n

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I knew I wanted to use the Paint Bucket<\/strong> to fill the wide spaces with colour and I knew (from prior experience) that if the areas I was filling were not COMPLETELY enclosed, the whole shebang would be filled, I decided to put a Edit>Stroke<\/strong> around the snow caps’ edges. Just a skinny one, 1 pixel wide. Then I erased the parts that weren’t required.<\/p>\n

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This is where I wound up.<\/p>\n

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Then I used the Paint Bucket<\/strong> tool to fill in all the spaces inside the letters using the same light blue as before. I decided the dark brown lines were just too harsh, so I wanted to change them to a darker blue\/green. So I went to Enhance>Adjust Color>Replace Color<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Another thing I’ve learned form doing it wrong a thousand times is to make sure the colour I WANT is the BACKGROUND colour. Then I clicked on the colour swatch at the top of the menu – the colour I want to replace – and used the eyedropper that popped up to click on the dark brown.<\/p>\n

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Then I clicked on the lower colour swatch to make it active. If I had a colour on my canvas that I wanted to use, I could then click on it with the eyedropper, but I don’t so I clicked on the background colour swatch where I have my darker blue-green. And bingo! the dark brown is now dark blue-green.<\/p>\n

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I could stop here. But you know me… I didn’t. I felt like the letters needed some sheen to make them look icy. I opted to use the Wow Plastic Styles<\/strong> that were already in PSE when I bought it. There are 10 options in that set. If you hover your cursor over the little blocks it’ll tell you what each one is.<\/p>\n

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As you can see, it changed the colours quite a bit while adding that shine I was after. I played around with the fx<\/strong><\/em> menu a bit.<\/p>\n

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Then I checked to see if the title looked the way I wanted it to. And it didn’t.<\/p>\n

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I went back to the title canvas and Copied<\/strong> the white glitter layer, moving<\/strong> the copy layer to the very top, above<\/strong> the shiny blue Chrome<\/strong> layer. Then I Erased<\/strong> some of the top white glitter layer to make it look like freshly-fallen snow on top of some older, crusty stuff. (Those of you who live in the snowbelt know what I mean.) Then I opted to play with the letters layers again. I tried one of the Glass Buttons Styles<\/strong>, which also are integrated PSE styles.<\/p>\n

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Only snag? All that work I did with the stripes went bye-bye. Boo! But wait… There’s a tweak for that.<\/p>\n

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And back they come! Almost happy…<\/p>\n

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I still had some snow-cap-less layers there in the middle so I went to one of them and erased everything but the skinny lines.<\/p>\n

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Quick change to the colour – Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color<\/strong> in white.<\/p>\n

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It’s pretty subtle, but it’s there and I like it! So let’s see how it looks on the layout.<\/p>\n

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YES!! I think it’s a lot closer to the colours in the photo and I’m very happy with the outcome!<\/p>\n

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See you all next week!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fancifying Those Fonts As promised, today’s tutorial is a demonstration of how to add some variety to your fonts. IceCold had the most options so I went with it for the layout I did up for the Mix It Up Challenge. I used a template from Jumpstart Designs that I’ve had forever and CathyK‘s Aviator\u00a0kit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,102,92,285,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 10:50:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28496,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28450\/revisions\/28496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}