ok…NOW you can buy!

Posted: January 17th, 2008 by bigscrapkitty

ok, NOW YOU CAN BUY THIS!
Today only, at SOTB, you can get CRAZY in LOVE for 50% off from ScrapKitty Design!  This deal is good until midnight tonight, so get it now!
The rest of my store is on sale all week for 50% off with a $10 purchase, so now is the time to get those kits you’ve been wanting!  I’m going to start retiring things after this week, so take advantage of the sale! CLICK HERE to see the rest of my kits.

Don’t miss tonight’s crop: 10PM at SOTB and you can get THIS - plus we’ll have prizes!

CLICK HERE to join us!

Happy Scrapping!

1 Comment | Filed under % off, SALE, news

DON’T BUY THIS KIT…yet -

Posted: January 16th, 2008 by bigscrapkitty

My new kit is in the store at SOTB, but DON’T BUY IT NOW!

I am the Designer of the Week next week at SOTB, and this kit will be 50% off on Thursday Jan. 17.

Come to the Fab 50 Crop on Thursday at 10PM at SOTB, and I’ll have a coordinating crop gift for you!

AND don’t miss the newsletter (you can get to it from the SOTB homepage) because there will be a free mini in there that coordinates TOO!! I’m EVERYWHERE!!

To hold you over though, here’s a little freebie! CLICK HERE or on the image to DL:

Don’t forget to stop by SOTB tomorrow and get the newsletter freebie AND visit my crop - there’ll be a coordinating gift AND PRIZES!!

15 Comments | Filed under % off, Kits, SALE, Uncategorized, crop, freebie

Quick Tip - subject too dark

Posted: January 11th, 2008 by daddykitty

Here’s a DaddyKitty Quick Tip:

Backlit before

Ever have a photo like this?

It’s easy to fix using either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (all versions). Go to Image - Adjustments - Shadow/Highlights. You get this menu:

Menu

Notice that the more you move the shadow amount slider to the right, the lighter the shadows will get. The more you move the highlight amount slider to the right, the darker the highlights get. You can also adjust slightly the color correction and midtone contrast sliders although these usually look good where they are.

And here’s what you get!

After fixing backlit photo

We’ll be having lots more Quick Tips in future posts - stay tuned.

12 Comments | Filed under Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Quick Tip, tutorial

Winter Walk Freebie Kit Week 2

Posted: January 11th, 2008 by bigscrapkitty

CLICK HERE for this week’s installment of my collaboration kit with Lisa Minor!

Don’t forget to visit her BLOG to get her half of this week’s kit!

Leave us a comment on either blog and let us know how you like it!  If you send a link to a layout, we just might feature it on our blogs!

14 Comments | Filed under Kits, freebie

Half Price Winter Nights - and a freebie!

Posted: January 11th, 2008 by bigscrapkitty

I’m having a sale at my ‘little’ store at www.digitalscrapn.com for the rest of the month! Last chance to get this great kit at this great price, it will not go on sale again until next winter!

LOOK WHAT NW Lady made!!

This is the most amazing layout my friend NW Lady did with this kit! It’s SO GOOD it was Layout of the Day at 3Scrapateers yesterday! Go leave her some love! CLICK HERE

She also has a great blog - check out her amazing list of Photoshop kits! CLICK HERE to see her blog

She also made YOU this great QP! Leave a comment and say Thank you NW Lady! She ROCKS!

CLICK HERE to download

3 Comments | Filed under % off, SALE, freebie

A New Year Gift!

Posted: January 4th, 2008 by bigscrapkitty

I’ve done a great new collab kit with my good friend Lisa Minor - and we’re GIVING IT TO YOU!! Lisa is not a selling designer, but she makes the cutest stuff, and is a blast to work with! Check out her blog HERE

Every Friday for the next four weeks, there will be a segment of the kit on each of our blogs! You will need to visit both blogs every week to get the full kit. After that, I will be adding to my portion and putting it up for sale, but Lisa’s portion will be gone forever, so be sure to write it on your calendars!

Here’s my portion for this week:

CLICK HERE or on the graphic to DL

Here’s a sneak preview of Lisa’s Week 1:

CLICK HERE to visit Lisa’s Blog

Happy Scrapping!

22 Comments | Filed under Kits, Uncategorized, freebie

Adobe Photoshop or Elements - Which is Right for you?

Posted: January 1st, 2008 by daddykitty

For digiscrappers, the gold standard of image editing programs is Adobe Photoshop. But the price! Retail cost of a basic version of Photoshop CS3 (most current version) is $649 while Elements is only $149. (Street price is a even greater difference - $619 vs. $80-90 although you can get educational discounts.) So do you need the full version of Photoshop?

Luckily for your bank account - probably not. Photoshop Elements offers almost everything Photoshop does. It really comes down to how much of a commitment you want to make. If you are a good old digiscrapper, wanting to fix pictures, move elements around, and put different kits together into layouts, Elements is perfect and inexpensive. If you have an eye to being a designer like the ScrapKitty, then you might want to bite the bullet and get the full version of Photoshop.

Why might you want the full version of Photoshop? Here’s a partial list of reasons and my thoughts:

  • Type - Big difference here. Photoshop allows adjusting the kerning (spacing between two individual letters) and tracking (spacing between all letters). It also allows type on a path which is where you can draw any shape of line (curve , circle, oval, rectangle) and have the type follow it automatically.
  • Better Selection Tools - Photoshop offers better control over selections with the Magic Selection tool, Refine Edge, Color Range, and the Extract tools. Note that the features are very similar and the tools often leap frog on another - see it in one version and the same better tools shows up latter in the other. But Photoshop still beats out Elements for those tricky ones.
  • Layer Styles - Layer styles are quick tools to add snap and zip to a layer. They can add drop shadows, bevels, gradients, etc to plain shapes and type. While Elements comes with a good selection of pre-defined layer styles, you can’t make your own or alter the ones already there. With Photoshop, go wild. You can download layer styles for free from a variety of sources and change them to suit your needs or just create your own. Your creativity is your only limit! Photoshop is the hands-down winner here.
  • Quick Mask Mode - While Elements has a watered down, harder to use version, the quick mask mode in Photoshop is superior and one of the most under appreciated tools in Photoshop. It allows you to “paint” a selection by using the paint brush. It allows much greater control over a selection of tricky areas like jagged edges, hair, etc. You can also quickly switch in and out of quick mask mode to check your work - can’t do that in Elements.
  • Custom Brushes - While you can create you own brushes in Elements, you have greater control and options in Photoshop. I can guarantee almost any brush you might download or buy is done in Photoshop. And as brushes are an essential tool to digiscrappers, again Photoshop gets the nod.
  • Actions - Actions are steps that you do over and over that you can automate and run with one click. Some actions are incredibly complex (see Clohie Watkins Bow actions or any of the actions at Atomic Cupcake.) It’s easy once you know a few basics to create your own but you can only do it in Photoshop. Elements can run actions made in Photoshop but you can not create your own actions in Elements (and it can be tricky to install actions in Elements).

I hope this shed a little light on this. If you need training on either Photoshop or Elements, look on the blog for the ScrapKitty’s classes forming in January. Our classes are 4 sessions of interactive chat as well as ample written workbooks giving you the training you need to get good using either program. We’ve taught these classes before and our students always find them useful and focus on just the features you need to know.

As always, you can contact me by clicking here. Happy Scrappin!

3 Comments | Filed under technical, tutorial