Do you know about the Custom Shape Tool in Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements? Lots of digiscrappers and hybrid scrappers do. But did you know you are not stuck with Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is here, summer is near and I’m TRYING to get some kind of order in this house! I need to get my ‘digital home’ in order too, so I thought I’d share a tip for keeping all those credits with your layouts.

This week’s Tip is a workflow tip – something to make your life a little easier while you’re scrapping.

Have you ever posted a layout somewhere and had to open up the layered file to get the names of the fonts? THEN you have to choose your type tool, choose the layer, and see which font you used.

Wanna do it more quickly?
Here’s what I do (WHEN I’m being organized!) **This works for PS and PSE!**

When you make a type layer, double click on the layer name and change it to the name of the font! You can do this for paper and element layers, put the designer/kit in there. NOW when you need to make your credits list, it’s all right there in front of you! Here’s one of mine:

BUT WAIT, there’s MORE!!

Have you ever opened up an old jpg layout and not known the credits? Can’t find or didn’t save the layered file? Have NO IDEA what kit all that stuff came from?

TRY THIS:
While you’re working on your layout, why not attach the credit information to your file, so when you resize and save as a .jpg you can still see all your credits!

While you’re still in the layered file, go to File>File Info and you will see lots of fields to fill in. I put my info in the ‘Description’ or ‘Caption’ field. Fortunately you HAVE all that info on your layers palette, because you renamed the layers with your credits!

Now when you resize and save as a jpg for posting, all that info will be there. Saved my butt more than once! I don’t always save my layered files, and can’t BEGIN to remember where I got some stuff!

XTRA TIP: Fill out the copyright info! This is especially true for you designers! Hit ALT+0169 to get the little © symbol, and when you reopen the file, it will show up like this:

Every time you save, even in a different format, the file info will be saved! Just open the file and look under File Info to get all your credits.

If this saves even one layout from the indignity of anonymity my work here will be done! LOL!

Happy Scrapping! - Jenn

WARNING-These Photoshop tutorial videos can be a little potty mouth sometimes… But they are worth it, funny and you learn something.

Donnie Hoyle from MyDamnChannel has posted a hilarious series of Photoshop tutorials called “You Suck at Photoshop”. Read the rest of this entry »

As you advance in digiscrapping, you get a lot of kits. And elements, and papers. It’s hard to keep them all organized. Last week I showed everyone how to do a contact sheet using Adobe Photoshop (See post here). This week we’ll look at how to do the same using Photoshop Elements. It’s similar but with a few key differences. Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, I know - it’s Wednesday. Jenn and I have been busy with a new business venture but we wanted to get this quick and useful tip out to all of the ScrapKitty Family.

As you advance in digiscrapping, you get a lot of kits. And elements, and papers. It’s hard to keep them all organized. We have seen some people print out the previews for the kits and file them in a binder. Did you know Photoshop has a quick and easy way to do this for you? Read the rest of this entry »

Oh admit it!  You have your favorites… well maybe you love all your KIDS the same, but I KNOW you have favorite kits or folders that you go to all the time.  And if you’re like me, you have to click and click to get to them sometimes.  But did you know there’s a shortcut?? (this works in PSCS2/3 and PSE).

Lately I’ve been really obsessed with working more efficiently.  Maybe the weather is so nice I don’t want to be stuck at the computer, or I’m just trying to cram too much into 24 hours… but I’m much more alert to things that speed up  my workflow.

So here’s one way to speed things up: the FAVORITES folder in the OPEN dialog box!  (The WHAT?? in WHERE??)

Go to File>Open and you will get a dialog box that looks like this:

Navigate to the folder you want to add to your favorites.

Click on the little folder icon with an asterisk in it at the top right (circled above).

You will get a little menu, click on Add Favorite.

TADA - there you go!  Next time you want to go there, just go to File>Open (or hold CTRL and press the letter O)  and click on that little file folder again.  Below the menu choices, you will see your favorite files listed!  Just click on the one you want.

if you decide you no longer need this folder in your favorites list, removing it is easy!

CTRL+O to get the Open dialog, Click on the favorites folder icon (folder with the asterisk in it) and click on Remove Favorite.  You will get a drop down menu listing all your favorites.

Just click on the one you want to remove, and click Remove.

Just THINK of all the things you could put in there!  Your templates file, your design tools, your layouts folder, the kit you’re currently enamored with!

OK, go get yourself all set up and…

Happy Scrapping!

Jenn

We’ve been away from straight Photoshop and Elements tips recently so here’s a great one.

Some fonts in both Photoshop and Elements come with a full range of styles: changes to the typeface like bold or italic that provide emphasis for the type. But a lot of digiscrappers use specialty fonts that don’t have styles. But sometimes in our layouts you want that emphasis. Photoshop and Elements can generate Faux styles that look close enough to the actual styles.

Here’s how: In Photoshop or Elements type your words, highlight them to select, and then right-click (Mac users hold down your Ctrl Key and click) on the line of type.

You’ll see a contextual menu pop up that gives you the choice of Faux Bold or Faux Italic.

Photoshop users get a more extensive pop up:

To see even more in Photoshop open your character and paragraph pallete (click this icon on your top toolbar when you have the type tool selected).

Right click the arrow in the upper right of the pallete and you get all of this!

If you have any questions leave a comment or contact me here.

Until next time - Keep Scrappin’!

Stan White - The DaddyKitty

The DaddyKitty has been playing hooky - I’ve been traveling and did not have time to do a quick tip

BUT

I got to do something totally cool! I took a good customer to:

The show was great! IF you are a Python fan you have to see it.

BUT

Unknown to me, I was seated in the “special seat”. I GOT TO BE IN THE SHOW!

Because I was in the special seat, the Holy Grail was hidden under my seat. I got a Peasant of the Year award (it’s the little gold foot in the picture), got to go up on stage and sing part of a song! This a really bad Polaroid pic they took during the show. King Arthur was played by John Hurley - he has also played Mr. Peterman from The Seinfeld Show.

It was an unforgettable experience and won me a customer for life! I’ll try and scrap some of the other pictures we took sometime later.

Keep Scrapping! Stan - The DaddyKitty

Ok, FINALLY, I got all my tutorials together in one place for you!  I’ve written some of these for classes, some for my Tricks of the Trade Challenge at SOTB   - but I put them all on one page HERE for you!  You might want to bookmark this, as I’ll update it when I have new tuts.  I’m working on tuts for the Patch and Healing Brush tools right now!

The newest one has several good things in it - all the neat shortcuts I used to make this page:

If you’ve already done a lot of my challenges, skip the whole list and get my newest tut HERE

And just to make things a little easier - CLICK HERE to download the grid and a layered file that were used for this layout!

Do let me know what tutorials you would like to see me add to the list - I’m always looking for good tut ideas!

Happy Scrapping!

One of the best sites I have found for information on digital cameras is www.dpreview.com. The founder and editor Phil Askely and his staff provide detailed, full reviews of digital cameras, news about up-coming cameras, and forums to post and read other people’s opinions. The site is easy to navigate and to quickly find the information you need. I like the in-depth reviews because it will show you screen shots of every screen and a explanation of all of the items on a screen or dial. Great if you forget what the or mean!

Keep scrappin!

Stan, the DaddyKitty