Taking you back to the 80’s - remember Cindy Lauper’s version of that song? Well, I’m always on the lookout for color combos that would make interesting kits - and there are a zillion color schemers out there - but did you know some sites will let you download an .aco (swatch) file? I’m starting to use my swatch palette a lot more - it’s way faster than sampling from a color swatch image.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m working on a slide show for our friends who are celebrating their 20th anniversary tomorrow night - here is the end slide.  I actually used three different fonts to put the word art together - and it can be a REAL pain to choose fonts.  I’m the kind of person who needs to SEE the type in the font before I can choose, so I have a quick, easy way to do that!

1. Type your text in any font you have handy.

2. Change to the move tool (hit V) and click on the type layer you want to choose a font for.

3. Change back to the type tool (hit T) and go up to the tool options bar - click on the name of the font - it will highlight blue.

4. Use your arrow up or down keys to move through the list of fonts.  When you change the font in the tool options bar, you will see the font on your layout change too!  That way you can see JUST how it will look on your layout, and know what you’re getting!

And just for a little gift - CLICK HERE for the word art!

Happy Scrapping!

Jenn

One of the most confusing things I think is explaining to students how you need to use the UNSHARP MASK filter to SHARPEN an image!  Today I came across a tutorial that explains it so well - better than I could hope to!  Watch this image to see how you can improve a photo…

just amazing!  The PHOTOJOJO blog has this tut today - CLICK HERE to read it.  If you don’t subscribe to this blog, and you use photoshop… you’re missing out!

Now go look for all those photos you thought weren’t sharp enough to use and get busy!

Happy Scrapping!

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

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

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!

I wanted to share with you what I did tonight - this is my first effort with this technique, and I’m fairly pleased with the results!

First I took this image:

and made it into a cartoon:

THEN turned that into the cover of our middle school cookbook:

I’m hoping the cookbook committee likes it!

I learned a lot from a great tutorial by Melissa Clifton HERE - she’s got lots of great tuts, go check them out!

Thanks for looking!

Here’s a DaddyKitty Quick Tip:

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:

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!

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

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!

I’ve posted my January Tricks of the Trade Challenge at SOTB!  This month has a new tutorial, so scroll down to get the link!  CLICK HERE

You can earn this lovely posting bonus!  Check out all the other challenges, and earn the whole megakit by doing all the challenges!

Look at what others are doing in the Tricks of the Trade Gallery HERE