michelle shefveland. everyday 6 papers, click.masks 2, stitchies sampler, buttons&blooms

How about another quick how-to?! When I was creating this page with our new papers and Click.Masks, I wanted a speedy, yet creative title. Hmmm…a ‘die-cut’ chunky title cut out of the paper with an off-set border sounded fun (and cheaper than the paper cut replica!)

Here’s how in Photoshop Elements. Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro would be almost identical.

fyi…yes, as the layout shows I just got a Lensbaby 3G Control Freak lens. You can see some of my first captures on my photography site here. Too fun!

1. Open Photoshop Elements
2. Open paper
3. Open Click.Masks 2
4. Open photos
5. Drag photos and Click.Masks onto paper
6. Position photos above corresponding Click.Mask in layer palette.
7. Choose Layer>Group with Previous (Ctrl-G or Cmd-G on a Mac) to clip photo to mask.
8. Repeat step 7 for each photo. Image below shows layer palette of photos and Click.Masks.
9. Add desired elements
10. Select Type Tool.
11. Choose chunky font for fun title. I used MTF Pork Chop.
12. Set type color to accent paper. I used color picker to pick up a green in the photos.
13. Type title in desired location on page.
14. Select title layer in layer palette. Select title shape by pressing Ctrl-Click (Cmd-Click on Mac) on type thumbnail in layer palette. Should have dancing ants around the title shape.
15. Select paper layer in layer palette. Copy/Paste the shape selection with Ctrl-J shortcut (Cmd-J on a Mac).
16. Select the new die-cut title layer right above the paper.
17. Move die-cut shape to top layer by pressing Layer>Arrange>Bring to Front (Shift-Ctrl-J, Shift-Cmd-J on a Mac).
18. Using arrow keys move this layer a tad to the left and top.
19. Done!

Keep learning! Michelle

michelle shefveland. supplies: Everyday Papers 1, Positivity Scrap.Words, Simply Faith Scrap.Words (sunflare)

It’s about time for another tutorial! Today I’ll share how to replicate the technique showcased on these pages: Cascading photos.

tonya regular

fyi…all layout details can be found here in our team gallery.

beth ervin. photo credit: sxc.hu

The concept is straightforward…take one masked/extracted subject and cascade it in decreasing opacity across the page.

Here’s how in Adobe Photoshop Elements (Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro follow similar steps).

1. Open Photoshop Elements
2. Open desired photo for technique. Choose a subject that can easily be extracted. Look for strong lines between subject and background for easier extraction. I chose a backlit, soft image…adding to the ethereal effect I was trying to achieve.
3. Using favorite extraction technique, remove background from image. See my past tutorial on extracting here. If wanting to mask out your background, see my technique article in the latest Somerset Memories on mimicking a layer mask in PSE.
4. Open digital 12×12 paper. You will most likely prefer a subtle collage pattern for this type of layout.
5. Drag extracted subject onto paper. Position and size as needed.
6. Duplicate photo layer twice or how ever many times you want (Layer>Duplicate Layer>OK).
7. Using Move Tool, slide each duplicate photo layer over to the edge of original photo layer and then edge of second photo layer and so on.
8. In Layer Palette move each layer beneath the one that should be above it as shown above.
9. Decrease opacity of second photo layer to about 70% and third photo layer to about 35% or until desired effect is achieved. Note: in PSE and PS you are unable to Auto-Select/Move a layer using Move Tool and Mouse/Pen Tool if less than 50% opacity, so you may need to increase opacity to move a layer and then decrease it again when in right position. Otherwise use the arrow keys to move it.
10. Since these layers are somewhat transparent you’ll want to remove the area where they intersect. A quick method for me is to Ctrl-Click Select (Command-Click for Mac) on layer thumbnail in layer palette the second photo layer so marching ants are around it.
11. Click on third photo layer to make it the active layer and remove intersecting selection by cutting it (Ctrl-X on PC, Command-X on Mac).
12. Add word art, brushwork, elements to complete layout.

Watch for the next blog post when I’ll give away the scattered bubble brushes used on this layout. You can be notified of new blog posts by signing up at top right.

Enjoy! Michelle

Hello friends! Today’s tutorial is a quick one that we get many questions about, even though everyone thinks it should be super simple. How do you change the color of a png format file that is black, such as word art or our Scrap Edges?

For example, the word art in Winged Hope is black but I would like it olive green for this layout. Here’s how in PS/PSE/PSP:

In Adobe Photoshop and Elements, press Ctrl-U (Cmd-U on a Mac) to open the Hue/Saturation Dialog (or Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue and Saturation). Check the Colorize Box in the lower right, and then bring the saturation and lightness sliders both above 0. Now change the color to your taste!

In Corel Paint Shop Pro, press Shift-H to open the Hue/Saturation Dialog (or Adjust>Hue and Saturation>Hue/Saturation/Lightness). Check the Colorize Box in the middle, check Preview on Image at top right (version X2 and higher), and then bring the saturation and lightness sliders both above 0 until you see color appear. Now change the color to your taste.

So easy, even if a bit tricky at first glance. And, for white word art or pngs, follow the same steps above, but in the opposite direction for lightness…make it less than 0.

Have fun!

Michelle

Hi everyone…Trish here today with a focus on magnifying your art (digitally, of course). Michelle’s freebie is at the end of the tutorial.

I love, whenever I am able, to add a bit of realism to the elements on a scrapbook layout. For example, a real magnifying glass will magnify and distort anything underneath it. You can easily create this same effect digitally in Photoshop/Elements using a magnifying glass element and a very simple technique.

In the layout below, I used the magnifying glass element from the Adventure Page Pak.

trish richhart. adventure pak, little couture boxes, manila picks, recycled alpha

You can see that the word art has been magnified and distorted like it would be if this were a real magnifying glass.

Here’s how in Adobe Photoshop/Elements:

1. Open image editor
2. Open paper for layout
3. Drag magnifying glass and element you want to magnify. Move and re-size as desired.
4. In layer palette, drag element layer below magnifying glass layer, if not already there. You can have other types of elements, text, or even just a background. For simplicity in this tutorial, I am just going to use the word art (not showing the paper).
5. Make a selection of what is under the magnifying glass using the elliptical selection tool, while holding the shift key to make a perfect circle (elliptical selection tool is in the same tool bar as the rectangular selection tool-right click on this tool to select the elliptical tool) . Make sure you are on the layer of the element that you wish to magnify.
6. Select Filter>Distort>Spherize
7. In Spherize dialog make sure the Mode is set to Normal and adjust the slider bar to the desired amount of magnification. I used 75% for this example.
8. Click OK. Ta da! It is just that easy.
9. If you have more elements under the magnifying glass, this process needs to be repeated for each one by clicking on that element’s layer in the Layer Palette, making a selection of the glass shape, and using the Spherize filter. Don’t forget the background, too. If you are magnifying text, you must right click the text layer in the layer palette and choose Rasterize Text (or in PSE, Simplify Layer) before you can apply a filter to it. If you forget to do so, a window will pop up that gives you this option. Click OK.
10. Important note: even if the element is just a little bug you still need to select the whole magnifying glass portion to get the proper distortion on the bug. If you make no selection it assumes the selection is the whole layout so improper distortion will also occur.

Use your imagination and see what you can do with this technique. You could magnify a bug or other detail that you wish to emphasize or part of a photo.

Some of our “glass” tags or medical slides would work similarly with this technique, as in our As Time Goes By Pak...I just wouldn’t distort them as much since they aren’t magnifying.

And, for you to be able to play along, Michelle made a similar ScrapOver QuickPage Freebie (download link at bottom of post). She also included a separate tag for you to distort and drag beneath the glass (or to fill with other stuff). Karen added a dog sticker and punch label under hers.

michelle shefveland. adventure pak, Adventure ScrapOver Freebie (below), Scrap.Frames 9 - Vintage, Harvest Medley (shadowbox background)

karen wilhelm. adventure pak, Puppy Love Pak, Adventure ScrapOver Freebie (below)

See you tomorrow for more fun!

Our birthday sale of 37% off ALL DOWNLOADS goes thru Tuesday.

Adventure ScrapOver Free Download by Michelle Shefveland (Expired Sunday). Have fun! Trish

edited to add: latest birthday freebie and post can be found on home page of blog here.

Wow, time flies…Rachel graduates in a month and CottageArts.net is seven years old! So time for a party! Details and prizes are outlined in today’s newsletter. To receive future newsletters, free sign-up is here. We’ll likely be sending out another newsletter Tuesday if you missed this one.

We’re celebrating with 37% off ALL DOWNLOADS for 5 days. Sale ends Midnight CT, Tuesday, April 27, 2010.

Michelle Shefveland. Scrap.Templates 13, Sweet Midori Papers

And, for each of the next 5 days we’ll have team inspiration and a blog freebie download for the day here, which will expire at 9 am CT the next day (like last year, they’ll be available in our shop if you miss them).

Today’s theme is layered templates, like our Scrap.Templates series. We released a new set today.

What is a Layered Template? Each element or paper/photo mask is on its own layer for you to fill with your own photos and favorite papers. Elements, drop shadows, and text layers are also provided. Each layer can be moved, re-sized, duplicated, rotated, etc.

We’ve been offering layered PSD templates on our CDs and downloads for the past seven years, as they are an awesome way to teach beginners about digital scrapbooking and also a super speedy manner to get lots of pages done, while allowing customization.

1.  Unzip download pak, using an unzipping utility such as WinZip. Save templates and usage guidelines/instructions in desired folder on your system.
2.  Open the PSD Template in Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Photoshop.
3.  Open 12×12 paper (or photo) to fill shapes with. 
4.  Click on the background paper (or photo) and drag it onto the template file. The paper or image should completely cover the photo mask or shape. If the photo is too small, then make the shape template smaller. Increasing the size of the paper or photo will decrease quality.
5.  Now ‘Clip’ the background paper (or photo) to the photo mask or shape as follows:

• Click on the thumbnail of the paper or photo in the layer palette and in:

1. PSCS and above - press Ctrl+Alt+G or choose Layer>Create Clipping Mask
2. PSE - press Ctrl+G
3. You can move the photo or paper around until satisfied, then click Enter or Check Mark to Accept this function.

6.  Repeat for all layers and photos.
7.  Add journaling by clicking on text layers in layer palette and begin typing. Adjust color, font size, and font type as desired. Or add, some of our custom word art.

Rachel Shefveland. Scrap.Templates 13, Blanc de Noir 4 Papers

8.  Save as a layered PSD file to edit layers in future.
9.  Print on home printer (at 12×12 if your printer is over-sized; 8×8 if standard) or upload to on-line print lab for economical 12×12 prints, such as CostCo or Scrapbook Pictures.

fyi…Our Scrap.Templates include a link to our step-by-step Clipping Mask tutorial including visuals.

Get Creative. Rotate or flip the templates for multiple looks. You can duplicate layers, delete layers, move them around, change their colors, etc. Have fun!!!!

Melinda Ver Meer. Scrap.Templates 11, Snowflake Papers, Merry Berry Scrap.Words

Below (end of post) is a simple layered template freebie to get you started. No drop shadows and a focus on photos; great for all of you Project 365′ers! Come back tomorrow for more goodies and inspiration!

New products will be added throughout the sale in our shop. Here are today’s new releases.

Scrap.Template Sampler Free Download by Michelle Shefveland (download expired). Download size is 1 MB (extracted PSD template is 3MB).

Enjoy! Michelle and team

beth ervin. photo credit: sxc.hu.layout details here

Using clipping/photo masks in conjunction with photos is the common function of these artistic tools, but they can also provide a wide range of decorative effects using just a little imagination. See below for some different techniques using our new Creative Text Paths/Masks 3 and Blessings & Love Photo Masks.

(Enjoy our big Everything’s on Sale Sale, too…thru Sunday!)

In King of My Heart I sandwiched a colorized mask between two layers. Using the King of Hearts card from the Game Night Pak, I duplicated the card layer, selected/copied/pasted just the king, placed the mask on top of the full card and added the new king layer on top of this collage. To adjust the color, select Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue and Saturation and in dialog box, check the Colorize box, Hue to 18, Saturation to 86, Lightness to 30. In the Layer Palette I adjusted this layer’s opacity to 65%.

In My Love the mask is framed with a red ribbony frame and softened using Gaussian blur. Add a light drop shadow to the mask (I used 25% opacity) then select mask layer in your layer palette, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur. Adjust the radius. The higher the number the larger the blur factor. My sample used 25.

In Sage Sisters the mask is used a baseboard for my title on top of a mat. Again, I changed the hue and this time I intensified the mask by duplicating the layer, which allowed the white title to stand out on top of it. Again a slight drop shadow was added to the lower mask layer only.

Clipping patterned paper to masks is one of the quickest ways to add a beautiful accent to your digital pages. In pink Baby Girl I clipped the pink flourish paper from Simply Lullaby Pak to the mask by resizing the paper to fit over the mask, dragging paper on top and use <Ctrl>G to clip the paper into the mask shape.

Michelle and Rachel framed their painted mask images with our new Creative Text Paths/Masks 3. Adding a quote or journaling in a beautiful font around these painted images adds more focus to the piece.

See more step-by-step tutorials on our blog for using Text Paths here and Clipping Masks here.

Happy mask creating! Beth

Hi, everyone. We’ve enjoyed sunny, upper-20s weather today…spring is on the way!

But, as long as winter is still here I thought I’d share some more perspective tips and ideas using our snowy Off the Beaten Path 9 Papers.

What makes winter perspective pages so easy? If the photos are shot on a snowy background, all you have to do is drag them onto your page, position, and change the layer blend mode to Darken and voila…instant blending into the background (I also chose to erase the birch trees out of the photo)!

It was snowing so heavily during my shoot of Alyssa…check out how many flakes are around her face! Rachael’s shot (below) is during a sunny day, which works just as well.

Add a bit of word art and your winter scene is complete. I prefer to keep perspective pages simple in design, focusing on the imagery.

michelle shefveland. off the beaten path 9 papers, inspiration scrap words say it again scrap words

I mentioned it already on my photo blog, but remember to compensate for shooting into a snowy/white background by upping the exposure compensation +1 to +2. Check your camera’s histogram to determine the best setting for your conditions. You want the bulk of the data on your histogram to fall on the right side when heavily white, while not blowing out the highlights.

michelle shefveland. off the beaten path 9 papers, simply love 2, simply faith 2

(To see two more tutorials on the blog for creating perspective pages, go here and here. For prom perspective ideas see this post.)

rachael czepyha. supplies here

karen wilhelm. supplies here

Snowy photo shoot ideas for perspective pages:

1. Close-ups in fur hoods or caps are awesome. Aim for sharply focused eyes.
2. Walking down a snowy country road, away from or towards the camera
3. Sledding towards the camera
4. Building a snowman/snow fort
5. Throwing snowballs
6. Making snow angels. Add our wings for an even more angelic effect, as Beth did below.

Happy creating! Michelle

beth ervin. photo: sxc.hu. o christmas tree add-on2, off the beaten path 8 papers, simply faith 2

michelle shefveland. NS Journals 8, World Travels, Say it Again 1,Scrap.Words - Life, Grunge Paints 2 Brushes

In creating digital art and in processing images you can never have too much training, right?! So wanted to let you know of some awesome free training videos by Adobe Photoshop Guru, Deke McClelland, over at Lynda.com. Deke is offering 40 free weekly videos of his top Photoshop features on their blog with no strings attached….very informative and highly entertaining. Many are valuable for Photoshop Elements users, as well.

As of this writing, Deke still has 14 more weekly tutorials to post, which you can check out every Tuesday. My favorite episode thus far is #23 on Color Range, helpful in creating layer masks.

Have fun!

Michelle

Hey everyone! Wanted to share some fun ideas from Tonya who used our Perpetual Calendars in creative ways. Her layouts below use the 4×6 format, but can be translated to any of our other sizes (8×8, CD case, and 8.5×11). What I especially love about the 4×6 size is they can be printed as standard prints at any photo lab.

supplies

supplies

supplies

The perpetual calendar paks include a step-by-step tutorial (in PDF format) on how to use the templates. An additional technique Tonya used (not included in the tutorial) was selecting a portion of the calendar grid to act as a clipping mask, rather than the whole grid. Here’s how to accomplish this in Photoshop Elements/Photoshop:

1. Open calendar template
2. Open photo
3. Drag photo onto calendar template
4. Size photo to desired size using Move Tool and position where desired (over the calendar squares)
5. Make photo layer invisible (by clicking on eye icon on left edge of layer in layer palette)
6. Click on “calendar squares” layer to make it the active layer
7. Using Magic Wand Tool (marked Contiguous and around 30 Tolerance), click on squares you want to use as photo mask.
8. When selection is complete, press Ctrl-J (Cmd-J on a Mac) to make a new layer, taking on the shape of this selection
9. Move photo to layer right above this new shape layer, if not there already
10. On photo layer, select Layer>Group with Previous (shortcut Ctrl-G on a PC/Cmd-G on a Mac) to clip to shape of mask

michelle shefveland. supplies: 4×6 Perpetual Calendar, Harvest Medley Papers & Elements

You can repeat these steps for adding other photos and papers to the entire calendar grid. Follow my full tutorial included with the calendar to add background paper, decorative accents, month/day-of- the-week fonts, date layout, etc.

Happy creating! Michelle

Calendars are one of our favorite gift-giving digital products…mostly because they are useful, pretty, and share a piece of our lives with loved ones.

In the past few weeks, we’ve been getting e-mails asking for resources for printing our 2-page 11×8.5 calendars so thought I could offer some options/tips here today.

Printing at Home

Of course, the obvious option is printing at home. The upper photo layout portion measures 11×8.5, as does the bottom calendar portion. You’ll need a printer that prints borderless and two-sided photo paper, normally offered in matte. Find a paper that is made for your printer model to ensure highest quality printing.

You’ll need 13 pieces of photo paper to print the entire calendar. The first page can have a cover for the calendar when it is closed, and on the other side would be the photo layout for January (flipped vertically from the front). The second page would have January’s calendar and on the other side would be the photo layout for February (flipped vertically from the front). And so on. You can then take to your print center and have them add a roller binding for you (or if you have the cool Zutter’s Bind-It-All, you can bind it yourself).

Tip: When selecting your printer properties during printing of the calendar pages, make sure you select the correct paper type and size, as well as Borderless printing. You also will need to print landscape, since the calendar is 11 inches wide.

On-line Print Labs

Customized calendar printing is very popular with on-line print labs, so most offer the ability to upload our finished 11×8.5 photo layouts to use in the calendars. The key is to look for borderless/full-bleed 11×8.5 photos for the top portion of the calendar, so you can upload your finished pages as 11×8.5 flattened JPGs.

Most print labs print a generic calendar at the bottom of the calendar, and don’t allow our coordinating calendars to be uploaded/printed.

The following are printers we know of offering full bleed 11×8.5 photo calendars:

Shutterfly

Vista Print

If you have experience with printing 11×8.5 digital calendars with other print labs, we’d love to hear about it!

Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll help as best we can.

Happy gift creating!

Michelle

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Sale Reminder…October’s Blog Coupon for an additional 13% off all purchases is:

STUDIO13

Enter coupon code during checkout in Promo Code field. Coupon Codes expire October 31, 2009. Coupon codes not valid on purchase of Gift Certificates.

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