Let me start off by saying, I am no photographer by any means. I did have to take a photography course in college though, and I do remember my professor saying some useful stuff. Some of it still sits in the back of my head and occasionally I think to myself: “You know your picture would be better if you would just do this… or that…” but then reality jumps in, and I am hurrying trying to capture a moment in my crazy 3 year olds life and all I can do is just try and push the shutter button, hoping that he will stay still long enough to get a shot that is in focus. (And that’s just with a point and shoot camera- I can’t imagine trying to use an SLR!!)
Fortunately, unlike my college days where we were shooting with slide film- we have a huge advantage with our digital cameras. I may not be able to take an amazing shot straight out of my camera- but with the help of some post editing, I can turn my photo into one.
One of the greatest “tricks” of digital editing is how easy it is to crop your picture. Some of you might have heard of the rule of thirds- today I am going to show you how to use it to help your pictures pop.
The basic idea behind the rule of thirds is if you were take your picture and divide it into thirds both horizontally and vertically, then place points of interest where those lines intersect, your photo becomes more balanced and pleasing to the eye.

Ideally it would be great if you could have this rule in mind when actually shooting your photographs, but as I illustrated above, that is not always possible. Enter your cropping tool.

Here I have a picture of my son – it’s not a bad picture, but his head is just almost in the exact center of the photo, which doesn’t make it very interesting. To help you with your rule of third cropping I am including a grid (.png) that you can download to help play around with on your photos.
Click HERE to download.
To start I open the grid and drag it into my photo.

Now I think this picture would work better horizontally so I am going to rotate my grid 90 degrees. Then I am going to play with moving it around- and resizing it until I can get my point of interest in the photo (my son’s face) to be in one of those intersecting points (or near as I can get it). Don’t worry about keeping the proportions of the grid the same as you re-size it, even if you widen it, it will still keep those lines dividing it in thirds. Finally this is what I come up with.

Now all I have to do is select my crop tool and crop along the outside box of my grid. Once I have cropped my picture I can delete the grid layer. And here I have a picture that is much more interesting.

And here is the layout I did for the Tuesday Template challenge using Storytime by Designs by Sarah Bennett, Lil’ Digi Bits by Jude, and Stacey’s Backdoor Designs.

Here’s what QuiltyMom created using Dandelion Wishes, Mask-querade, My Heart Soars & Newspaper Clippings alpha by Jennifer Barrette

And this last one is by Julie Momof4- she used : Dood by- Simply.Scraps, Fill in the Blank by- Erika Zane, Simply Dated by- WM [Squared] Designs, Cool Kid Alpha by- Jennifer Barrette, Just a Little Punchy Template by- Sya’s Blueprints.

Your challenge is to create a page where you crop your picture(s) using the rule of thirds.
Remember:
*You will receive one point for completing this challenge and posting your finished layout in both the challenge gallery AND in the challenge thread.
*You will receive one EXTRA point if you use a new release product within the week of its release. (Be sure to note that you used a new release when you post your layout in the forum and in the gallery.)
*Because this challenge is during the last week of the month you have until the end of March to complete your page. (If you complete it in Feb. you will receive your point in Feb.)

I can’t wait to see your awesome cropped pictures!

Mary here with today’s Saturday Special. Last year sometime, there was an Everyday Magic challenge about our favorite websites. I wasn’t able to complete a LO for that challenge, but I’ve wanted to scrap that subject ever since then. Recently, I stumbled upon some free avatar making sites. The two ideas merged, and now we have a Saturday Special!

For this challenge, I want you to create an avatar of yourself (or the self you want to be ) and use it in a LO. There are plenty of free avatar making sites out there. I have a few suggestions, but please feel free to use and share other sites!

These three avatars of myself were made at the following sites (moving left to right): www.doppelme.com, for you lego fans… http://www.minimizer.com, and http://www.meez.com.

For my LO, I used the site http://www.moeruavatar.com. Please be sure to mention the avatar making site in your credits too!

Digital scrapbooking supplies: Love Bytes by Britt-ish Designs, alpha-bits by Plum Dumpling Designs, and alpha from Enjoy the Moment by Sahlin Studio.

kimbytx created this adorable avatar at http://www.blessthischick.com. Digital Scrapbooking supplies: Sya’s Blueprints and Juno Designs A Different Kind of Love

And I love Amanda’s avatar and how she included her real life self in the LO too.

Digital scrapbooking supplies: Sahlin Studios Innovation, Alpha from Enjoy the Moment and Date Stamped by Brittish Designs

You have until February 28, 2010 to create a LO and post in the Saturday Special Gallery as well as in this thread in the forum. For a complete list of Matter of Scrap Rules, please visit this thread.

Have fun and create a little virtual you!!!

Happy New Year everyone!! I hope everyone is ready to jump into a new year of Saturday Specials!!  I love to use extractions in my LOs.  Alot of times I use them for blending a big picture into the background and I want to get rid of the background of the photo and highlight just the main subject, or to put a person just hanging out with my elements.  Or you can even create a 3-d look and pop a person out of a picture frame like I am going to do in my LO today.
I used to struggle with extraction and used the magic extractor tool in PSE but it never was very magical for me.  One day I stumbled upon the technique I am going to show you today.  It works the best if you have a fairly uncomplicated background that contrasts with your subject (these are the best photos to extract anyway..) So lets get to it shall we?

Here is my original photo..

Now the tool I want to use is the “magic eraser”.  You can find it by left clicking your eraser tool.

Hover your eraser over the largest spot of the background and click.  See what happens.  (If the eraser chooses to select too much just undo and click somewhere else.  It is erasing similar colors here.  So in my case, it is going to get all the blues until it hits something different.)  Here is what happened:

Notice my problem areas.  There is blue line around my DH and DD and the tree is still there.  First I will first get rid of the tree by simply drawing a box around it and pressing control X (or Cut). 
Now I have to get rid of the line.  My first tool will be the magic eraser again.  We will see if this will work.  You want to zoom in pretty close to make sure you are clicking in just the right place.  You will also want to make sure the eraser is not picking up too much of the subject by mistake.  (Remember there is always the undo button!! Nothing is permanent here!! LOL!)

Voila!  The magic eraser tool worked for me this time. And just so you are aware getting rid of the smaller details takes some patience and alot of clicking.
But if the magic eraser wasn’t doing the trick (because the background colors close to the main subject are too similar) I also use the magnetic lasso tool to drag around the image like this..

(obviously for example only.. there was nothing to clean up there!)
Now all I have to do is clean up the image a bit.  I want to get rid of the fly aways on my DDs hair because it is impossible to get the blue out of those.  So I use the regular eraser tool and a dry media brush (or any brush that will look more natural and not have harsh edges) to erase that and any other rough edges.  Here is my finished image:

To use this in an layout you will want to save it as a PNG (so the background will stay clear).  Here is my finished LO.  As I said in the beginning of this post I wanted to pop her out of the frame. So I put the original photo under the frame and matched my extraction on top of the frame.  Then I deleted the part of the regular picture that wasn’t in the frame.  I did have to duplicate the frame and drag it on top and do a litte erasing to make it overlap correctly.  You can check out a tutorial on how to do that here. Feel free to ask in the thread if you have any questions on how to do this!

(Credits- Land of Fantasy by Sahlin Studios and Brittish Designs, So this is Love by Sahlin Studios and Foam Stamped Alpha Sorbet (recolored) by Sahlin Studios)
Here are a few examples from my gallery to show some other ways to use extractions:
Give your extraction a shadow and make it look like the person is standing in the LO.. in this one my DD is holding onto the Balloons!

(Credits: Let them Eat Cake by WM Squared)
Another great thing about extractions is you are free from the original composition of the picture. In this blended extraction I was able to move them closer together to really play up that look of adoradation my DD has in her eyes!

(Credits- A Knights Tale by Brittish Designs and Man in the Moon Designs)
And finally here is some great inspiration from our CT member Li!

(credits – Bumps and Blahs by Kaye Winecki)
Please upload your LO to the SATURDAY SPECIAL GALLERY and link back to this thread in the forum so we know you are playing along. 

This challenge will run through January 31.  No double-dipping… your LO must be unique to this challenge.  Everyone who participates will receive one point.  You’ll also get an additional point if you use a NEW ScrapMatters Product (released within the last week.)  Please let us know in the forum that you’ve used a new product.  Also, one special LO will be awarded another point.  That’s 3 possible points for this challenge!

Now get to extracting!! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!!

-Amanda (Panders77)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to YOU! Emilee (emileem) here to bring you an easy tutorial. I think we all need something simple this time of year–don’t you? I’m going to talk about editing a scatter to better suit your needs.

I love when a designer includes a fun scatter in a kit–basically I love anything that makes my life easier–but sometimes the scatter needs a little tweaking to conform with my LO.  Let me give you an example using Andilynn & Haynay Designs Visions of Sugarplums Kit that includes a few great scatters.

Here is the LO I’m working on; I’ve decided I need a scatter under my title so I add a fun scatter, but it’s not long enough to emphasize my whole title.  First, I duplicate the whole scatter and drag it to the opposite side of the title, but then I have a blank space in the middle.  Next, I click on my lasso tool and highlight a portion of the scatter I would like to duplicate:

Then I duplicated (CTRL J with PSE) that section and moved it to an appropriate spot.

Next, I decide to move the first scatter so it is above my title, but it is a bit busy–so I take my lasso tool again and highlight a few sequins and delete them from the scatter:

Now I have a great scatter for my LO:

See how easy that was? Always remember you can edit elements by changing the size, color, shape, etc.

Here some more examples from the ScrapMatters CT to help get your creative juices flowing:
from Cyndi (Cyndi146):

from Nancy (kathleena):

Your challenge is to create a LO using this simple tutorial–edit a scatter to better conform to your LO–then add your LO to the Saturday Special Gallery and Forum.  Remember you can receive ONE point for your LO and TWO points in the Matter of Scrap Challenge system if you use a kit that has been released in the last seven days.  This challenge will continue through January 31.  Post your LO in December to receive points in December; post in January to earn points in January.

Emilee

Hello All… this is Cyndi and I am here to challenge you with a new technique for our Saturday Special.  Today we are going to revisit an oldie but a goodie.  Shadowing transparent objects.

Let me start by saying, there are soooo many ways to do this.  And probably much easier ways than I’m about to show you.  But I started digi-scrapping in Photoshop Elements and was so frustrated that Elements didn’t have all the fancy flexibility as some of the other programs.  Let me tell ya… this method works in Photoshop Elements.  I hope it works in other programs too.

Also, a lot of designers these days are shadowing their elements just to make it easier on us.  But let’s say you want a darker shadow than what’s provided.  We’ll assume that’s the case.

Let’s start by opening the transparent elements you want to shadow.  Now drag them onto your layout.  I’m using Krista’s gorgeous alpha from her new kit So Grateful and just a colored background so you can easily see the results.

Duplicate your element layer from the flyout menu on the layers palette or just click Ctrl-J.  Now click on the lower layer.  Shadow your lower layer as you prefer.  (Settings that work well with acrylic are Distance 5-8, Size 5-8 and Opacity 60-70%)

With your lower layer still active, go to Edit > Fill layer.  Fill the layer with Black and make sure the Preserve Transparency box is checked.  Use the bucket tool to completely fill in the element with black.  Hide your top acrylic layer and make sure your “filled” layer is solid black.  You may need to touch up some spots with your brush tool.  Just be sure not to go outside the lines

Now go to the top of the layers palette and set your blending mode to Difference.  Your black fill should be gone with just the shadow showing.

Now click on your top acrylic layer to bring it back and you should have a wonderfully shadowed acrylic element.

Your challenge is to scrap a layout using at least one transparent element (acrylic, vellum, glass, etc.) and be sure to shadow them.

Here’s my LO

using So Grateful by Sahlin Studio and Sugarplum Paperie; Fabulously Negative Template v.3 and Simply Dated v.2 by WM[squared]; Edge 2 Edge Word Art & See Right Through You by Britt-ish Designs

And some from your CT and DT…

from Amber
using Innovation and Lots O’ Photo Templates by Sahlin Studio

using Sarah Bennett’s Tough Boy and Clearly Funky alpha

using Haynay’s new Playtime Petshop, Sahlin Studios and Sugarplum Paperie’s So Grateful, and Brittish Designs We’re Just Dating V3 and Doodlie- Doos Page Borders

and from Liz

using Chocolate Frosted Snowflakes, All Bundled Up, Icy Alpha, Clearly Seen Elements and In Stitches: Wonky and A Story of Friendship and template by Cindy Schneider

Please upload your LO to the SATURDAY SPECIAL GALLERY and link back to THIS THREAD so we know you are playing along. 

This challenge will run through December 31.  No double-dipping… your LO must be unique to this challenge.  Everyone who participates will receive one point.  You’ll also get an additional point if you use a NEW ScrapMatters Product (released within the last week.)  Please let us know in the forum that you’ve used a new product.  Also, one special LO will be awarded another point.  That’s 3 possible points for an easy peasy challenge. 
Can’t wait to see your beautiful shadows!

This is my first Saturday Special so please feel free to let me know if it makes absolutely no sense at all. If you want a free template to do this tutorial, click on the image to grab it. This template is not required to finish this Challenge. You may use any template you like.

Make sure that you have your template open in Photoshop. Also make sure that you have your layers pallette open. If you don’t have that up and don’t know where to find it, here you go. In your toolbar click Windows>Layers. You will then be able to see the layers to the template. Here is a shot of what you should see.

Step one and the most important step. File>save as> Use A DIFFERENT NAME. I don’t know how many times I accidentally saved the original file with everything on it…Flattened. Ruined template and sometimes lost money.

Now, choose the photo or photos you want to use as well as the basics you would like to have on your layout. ie. other papers, elements. Load them to Photoshop as well so you have them ready to use.
Are you ready?

Here we go…

I like to start with the photo/s. Click on the layer that you would put your photo on. Drag and drop your photo to template. It will be on a layer above the photo layer in the template. (If you hold down the shift key when you drop it in, the photo will be directly in the center of your your page.) If it is not in the right layer, you can drag your layer in the layers pallete till it is in the right position. Make sure your photo layer is the active layer. For PSE click CTRL G (or Edit > Group with Previous) to clip it to the layer below. From there you can either Ctrl+E (or right click > Merge Down) so you have fewer layers. For PSCS 2 and 3 click CTRL+ALT+G to clip. Remember this because this is how you will do any clipping the easy way.

Resize your photo to fit in the template layer the way you would like. Right click the photo and click merge down in the menu that comes up. OR Right click the template layer and click Merge Clipping Mask. Both ways will work. In PSCS 3 you can click CTRL E to merge. I am not sure it will work in PSE. I never tried it when I was using that program. Repeat the above steps for any other photos you have. Also repeat for the paper blocks/ strips that you may have on the template. Click on the background layer next. Drag and Drop the paper you chose for the background. You can right click and merge that layer down or leave it as is.

Add any other elements you would like above or under the layers you still have by clicking the layer that would be under the element. Rearrange and re size till you are satisfied with the result. Add in your journaling, word-art and alpha the same way. Some templates have drop shadows already added, some do not. Add or adjust the shadows to your liking and save it. Don’t forget to flatten your image before saving. Here is the finished layout with my layers showing.
Click the image for credit.

Your challenge then is to use a template. Remember that any template will be fine. Load your finished layout to the Saturday Special gallery and then link it HERE. You have till February 31st to finish this Challenge.

Here is a another layout using this template for inspiration.
{littlehiccup} Morning Comics

Hello All,

Cyndi here, with my very first Saturday Special Challenge… he he!!

This week our challenge will focus on seasons.  I find that by the end of one season, I am so ready for the next.  I am so fortunate to live in a state where we experience all the seasons.  I can find something I love about each and every one.   Here in California, the weather’s cooling, the leaves are beginning to turn, the air is even smelling different.

My challenge to you is to scrap something you love about a specific season.  I chose Autumn because that is the next season I’ll experience… and I am soooo ready for fall.  You can choose your favorite season, or your next season, or any season you want.  Or you can follow the example of our brilliant CT Members and make up your own!!  Just scrap something you love about it.  There are many things I love about fall, but I chose to scrap about my love for pumpkins.  I love the way they look, the way they taste, I even love the way they smell.

Here is my LO:

I used Tater’s brand new “Wrapped In Autumn” kit available in the store.

Here’s some very beautiful and diverse inspiration from our wonderful Creative Team -

Fall Season by Kim:

Sweatshirt Season by Mary:

Baseball Season by Christine:

Pumpkin Spiced Latte Season (another of my personal favorites) by Stefanie:

And Spring Season by Krista:

How’s that for inspiration!!  I love them all!  So get scrapping… be creative… think outside the box!  I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

You have until Midnight Friday, September 26th to post in the gallery and link back to the forum  HERE so I know you are playing along.

Everyone who submits a LO will receive this awesome participation prize “Sunflower Garden”by Haynay Designs  (perfect for your favorite Spring Season LOs, wouldn’t you say??)

Have a great weekend and I can’t wait to see your LOs!!

Brittney here just popping in to announce the winner of Sya’s “Music & Lyrics” Saturday Special Challenge last week!  Congrats to sahlink with this beautiful LO, “One Boy, One Girl”.

I will PM you your GC right away!  Back to you stacy!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

8 SIMPLE RULES CHALLENGE

Eight happens to be my favorite number so for this challenge you have eight rules to follow.
1- Use only 2 pictures
2- Choose at least 4 different papers
3- Use the color yellow somewhere in your LO
4- You must use at least one alpha
5- You need 4 fasteners (i.e. stitches, tape, staples, etc)
6- One ribbon and one swirl which need to be the same color
7- Because there are eight rules, you need to add 8 additional embellishments. That’s 8 embellies anything from flowers, buttons, brads, etc.
8- Add some journaling!

Have fun!

All entries need to be done by Friday, May 30th, at midnight MST. I will pick two winners for a $5 gift certificate to the shop.

Everyone who participates will receive my stampin’ fun alpha.

As always the CT have been very busy – here are a few examples to get those creative juices flowing.

Here’s one by me. This is the first time we saw a koala in the wild – so cool!

Next comes sassypixie, such fun colors and I love how she has the arrow pointing to her son so she will remember where he is in the “line up”!

Apparently I caused Linz a few tears, LOL!! I am not sure she would call them 8 simple rules! LOL! Who is she kidding isn’t the whole thing spectacular? What a great moment to capture!

Next comes Zakirah. I love how she used the color yellow such a fun and happy color which goes well with the pictures she used!

Katie has such a cool picture here – I love how she shows the action of the slide. I also love the stacked papers behind the picture! What an adorable LO!

Last, but certainly not least, is Britt. I love how she continued the swing chains up the page and hung her pictures!

Now that you have seen a few ideas go out there and get scrappin! Can’t wait to see what you come up with! Remember you have until midnight MST Friday, May 30th, to complete your LO. I will send you a PM with the link for the alpha after you post your LO in the gallery and link it to the forum!

xoxo,

Stacy H.