{"id":37815,"date":"2020-11-17T17:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T01:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=37815"},"modified":"2020-11-17T16:18:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T00:18:56","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-132","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2020\/11\/tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-132\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jazzing Up a Neutral Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Let’s see how NOT trying to outsmart WordPress works!<\/p>\n

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<\/strong><\/a><\/span> I was delighted to see that Lindsay Jane<\/strong><\/a><\/span> had a set of her Edge It<\/strong><\/a><\/span> 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!<\/p>\n

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

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This cardstock came from a GingerBread Ladies<\/strong><\/a><\/span> collection called Certainly Summer<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. I like it a lot because it’s got a nubby texture to it. But it’s PLAIN otherwise.<\/p>\n

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Here’s one of those border masks from Lindsay’s Edge it V7<\/strong> 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…<\/p>\n

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

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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.<\/p>\n

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To get that new darker teal onto the border mask, I’ll click Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

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This time when the Color Picker<\/strong> opens, Elements<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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I want to have control over the border as it is with the new colour filling it so I Merged<\/strong> the two layers. I love how it’s coming along.\"\"<\/p>\n

But it’s still a little bright. Wanting subtlety, I decreased the Opacity<\/strong> to 40%<\/strong> and like how it looks.<\/p>\n

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

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Here it is, clipped to the border and the two layers Merged<\/strong>. I think it looks a bit like snow, with the pattern indistinct. Hmm.<\/p>\n

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If the pattern isn’t a factor, maybe if I decrease the Opacity<\/strong> to 60%<\/strong>? That’s nice and subtle.<\/p>\n

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Here I’ve added a doodled border from Lindsay Jane’s Page Borders V34<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. I’m going to \"\"\u00a0it with the same darker teal that I used before.<\/p>\n

That looks pretty!<\/p>\n

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After I toned it down a smidge, the outer border looks a lot more interesting.<\/p>\n

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

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Layer Styles are adjustable, so if you don’t like what you see, play with it! I double-clicked on the\u00a0fx<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em>symbol on that layer and opened up the adjustment menu. Then I dropped the size of the Bevel<\/strong> to 3 pixels<\/strong>. (Default is 21 pixels.) I think it still looks a bit sharp though.<\/p>\n

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So I decreased the Opacity<\/strong> of that layer to 10%<\/strong>. Better. But still not what I want.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

That looks pretty good, but still too in-my-face. So now what?<\/p>\n

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With the Opacity<\/strong> at 10%<\/strong> I have a nice, soft embossed border!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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!!<\/p>\n

There are so\"\" many ways to find our own style!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,102,284,92,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 09:22:35","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\/37815"}],"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=37815"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37844,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37815\/revisions\/37844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}