{posting this for Stefanie}

Hi All…Let’s talk about Blending

Blending is a technique that I love to use especially when I feel like I’m in a scrapping rut and need a little oomph to my page. Blending also works well on pictures that are slightly out of focus. Blending is something that can be done in so many different ways and today I am going to go through my blending technique that I use…this would work in Photoshop or Elements.

Open your background paper that you want to use and place your picture. If you decide on a patterned paper make sure it’s subtle and won’t take away from the blended picture. I usually chose lightly textured papers which to me seem to blend better. Enhance your picture as you would if you were using this version in your layout.

Next make sure your picture layer is selected and change the setting to either soft light, overlay or screen. I chose soft light since I wanted a more subtle blend. If the picture is too light (depending on the background paper you picked also) you can duplicate the picture once or twice if that helps also.

Much better but now I have to get rid of the lines around the picture and make it blend. Merge your layers of pictures together. Take your eraser on a soft brush with a lower opacity. I used 40% opacity for my brush. Lightly go over the edges to “blend” the picture into the background. I also used the Dodge tool to lighten up the areas in from the edges alittle so the picture blends better.

If you are not happy with the picture being in color and blended you can always desaturate the picture by going to image – adjustments – desaturate

and here is my final layout using Britt-ish Designs edge to edge wordart V4 and Bright Happy Funny

and for some inspiration look at what the wonderful CT has done:

Tanya using the NEW Got Curves Templates by WM [squared] Designs, along with Viva Fiesta, Messy Stamped Alpha and Simply Dated v.5 all by WM [squared] Designs.

Cristina using Lean and Green and EZ Date Spots by Erica Zane:

Michelle using Sunday Afternoon by Trixie Scraps and Sarah Bennett:

Melissa using Got Curves Templates-Vol 1 and Shabby Chic from WM[squared]; and Mr. & Mrs. from WM[squared] and Haynay Designs:

and Bonnie using EZ Elegance & Lazy Days-E by Erica Zane; Cut It Out Alpha & 2 Page Party Pack Templates by Denise Beatty Originals:

Remember the MOS rules:
*ONE point for a LO that is posted in the Sat Special Gallery and here in the forum; TWO points if you use a product released at SM within the last seven days. Please state in the thread that you used a new product.
*No double-dipping; your LO must be unique to this challenge
*This challenge will end May 31.

Can’t wait to see what you create!!

Jen W. (aka abcmomof4) with your Saturday Special Challenge. I’ve got a cool trick on getting rid of those under-eye circles using the patch tool. The patch tool is a cross between a self healing brush and the lasso tool.

The patch tool is exclusive to CS programs. However, not to fret! I came up with a PSE option.

I live in Central California. We are known for our bad air and terrible allergy season. Our entire family gets these terrible dark circles under our eyes in the Spring. So as you can imagine, I use the patch tool often.

So to begin, open your file and create a duplicate layer by using the hot key CTRL j.
Select the patch tool.

Now select source at the top. Choosing source allows you to make a patch from a different source elsewhere on the picture. Draw a circle around the area that needs to be softened. Try not to include the eyelashes or they will get blended away also.

Now hover over the marching ants. The patch tool will change in appearance. Click and drag to the cheek area then release the mouse. The area under the eye will now have a patch over it. Now repeat this process for the other eye.

With the duplicate layer still selected, lighten the opacity. This is important or it may look fakey. I like to preserve some of the natural eye lines.

Here is a before and after using the patch tool:

Now for the PSE version:
Ctrl j for a duplicate layer.
Choose the lasso tool to draw a selection on the cheek.
Ctrl j for duplicate layer of the selection made.
Now with the move tool, move that layer to the are to be softened. Use the eraser tool with a soft brush to erase where the patch is not needed.
Lower the opacity. Remember, we want some of the lines to show through.
You may or may not want to use a blending mode on this layer. Either soft light or overlay in my opinion.
Here is a picture using that method:

Here is a before and after by canadianmommy. Wow!!!

There are many other uses for the patch tool. I use it to get rid of fly away hairs in the face and pimples. I prefer it to the self healing tool as I can control the outcome a little better.

Your challenge is to use this new trick on a photo and to use it in a layout.

Remember…
* Post your layouts to the Saturday Special gallery. Link us up here so we can leave you love !
* You will earn one point by participating in this challenge. You can receive an EXTRA point for using a product that has been released in the seven days prior to your post – be sure to make a note of this in your post so you receive proper credit!
* Your layout must be created for this challenge – no double dipping..
* You have the rest of April to complete the layout.

Happy Scrapping!!!

Hey ladies! I’m continuing on our extraction theme for January and focusing on something I’ve been meaning to try for a long time: silhouettes.  I’ve been meaning to make silhouettes of my kids as a gift for my mom and I got a chance to experiment while working on a project for my kids’ room. I was making a set of alphabet cards and wanted silhouettes of the kids to put on their initial. Here’s the entire set:

And here’s a close-up of my completed silhouette.

So ready to get to it? First up, take a profile pic of your subject. Be sure to shoot in a well-lit room against a light background. here’s mine:

Next: use your favorite extraction method to cut out your subject’s head. I use the polygonal lasso tool, but you can reference this tutorial from earlier this month for additional instructions. Extracting hair can be tricky, but for this project, you want a simple shape, so I just cut off most of the strays. I did keep my son’s cowlick because I thought it added character to his profile.

Last: Select the layer (in PSE hold down the control button while clicking on the extracted layer thumbnail in the layers pallette). Now that the marching ants are surrounding your photo, go to edit, and then fill selection from the drop-down menu. A pop-up box will appear and if you click okay, it will fill the photo with the foreground color. Ta-da! You’re done! Just drag the silhouette onto your project and you’re done!

And check out this page from Amanda (panders77) using Juno’s One of a Kind, Chelles Creations The Cutting Edge Templates, and Brittish Designs Dated Stamped and Doodlie Doo Borders. I love it!

These look great on scrapping pages, but also make great gifts. Just print out your silhouette, frame it and you’ll have the perfect valentine’s gift. Now on to the fine print: complete an extraction and post your project or LO in the gallery. Link up here in the forum to get one MOS point. Earn an additional point by using a new release. Finally, I’ll award a point to my favorite layout or project. You have until the end of February to turn in your entries. I can’t wait to see your creations!

I love the 3-D look of elements intertwined with other elements, alphas and photos on my digital scrapbook pages.  It just adds a lot of dimension to a page AND it is so easy to do!!

I’m using PSE7 in this tutorial, but I’m sure this simple technique will also work in the other programs out there.

For this layout, I want to overlap some ribbon over my photo/text.  I position the ribbon where I want it BEHIND my photo.

After I have the ribbon in the right spot, I duplicate it in the layers palette and then move this new copy to ABOVE my photo.  Make sure to link your 2 ribbons together so they don’t accidentally get shifted from each other.

With your “ribbon copy” layer selected, begin to erase it.  Erase the ribbon over the entire photo part, so when you’re finished it looks like the ribbon is underneath the photo and then weaves up over the “J”.  I used the “block” eraser next to the edges so I can have a nice clean line when I go to add shadows.

How easy was that! Your challenge is to intertwine and overlap like crazy on your layout.

Here’s my LO using Paint Me a Picture by Denise Beatty Originals…

And I have a  few examples for you from the ScrapMatters CT…

Linz has used All Things New by Tracie Stroud.  I love how the red string goes through the alpha and wraps around the frame!

Because this challenge begins at the end of April, it will run until the end of May.  You receive 1 point for completing the challenge, another point if you use a newly released ScrapMatters product and one lucky and talented gal will receive an additional point for knocking my socks off with their intertwining abilities!!

Have fun!

CT Member Kim here with the new Saturday Special Challenge!

Erica Zane’s Woodland Fantasy and Sya’s Blueprints Dynamic Duo Set 3.

By Stefanie using MickeyB Designs Winter Birthday and Sya’s Blueprints Kristin-spiration

Stacy here with your next Saturday Special Challenge.  You hear about the rule of thirds a lot in photography, but it also applies to your scrapbook pages as well.  What is the rule of thirds exactly?  It is a compositional rule of thumb which states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections (Wikipedia).

I found some great examples in photography if you want to take a look and get an idea of what I am talking about.  http://photoinf.com/General/KODAK/guidelines_for_better_photographic_composition_rule_of_thirds.html

How does this apply to our scrapbook pages?  Well for some unknown reason our brains like the number three.  This always makes me laugh because I don’t like odd numbers, but I do realize that things seem more appeasing (even to my strange odd number phobia brain) when they are placed in groups of three.  If you look around you will see this rule in a lot of places, watch TV for example, the eyes are usually placed in the top third of the frame.  The rule of thirds helps to bring more energy and interest to your photographs and also your LOs.

So for this challenge you need to scrap a LO using the rule of thirds.  There is an easy way to do this and know where you lines should be.  In PSE simply open up your new LO and hit edit, preferences, grid.

You can choose what color you want your grid lines to be, as well as what kind of lines you want them to be.   In the grid line box put in 33.33 and change the drop down to percent.  Change subdivisions to 1.

Then if you want to see your grid simply hit view and grid and easy as that your grid will show up to guide you.

Here is my example with the grid showing:

As you can see my picture is in the bottom two squares, the ribbons follow the first horizontal line and the journaling and title follow the second horizontal line.  Remember this is a guideline – it doesn’t have to be exact.

Here is the LO without the grid:

I used JenLin Designs NEW kit  A winter’s memory along with her date tags.

Here are some other examples.

Krista (Norton94) using Alma’s ScrapHabit Designs – Brighter Tomorrows:

Denise (neeceebee) using Home Sweet Home by GG Digital Designs and Jeni Hopewell:

Andrea (Chia) Ferntree Fairies–Scrap’ It Designs by Brianna Cox:

Monique (monsu) On the Playground Kit and Pokies Swirls and nature bits by Jeni Hopewell:

There you have it.  Hope this helps you think of another way to scrap those LO.  Can’t wait to see your magical creations!

It’s What Matters Monday, and today I thought we’d talk about SHADOWS.

Shadows are what matter because they are what take our digi-pages from lookin’ digital and give them depth and realism. I know as I look back on my pages, and as I can see my understanding and ability to create realistic shadows grow that my pages look better and better.

So – here are just a few little tips when creating shadows.

Tip #1) Don’t be a lazy-shadower!

Taking just a few extra minutes on our shadows really does make a HUGE difference! I have read that some people spend over a half an hour just on shadows, and I have to say, that is excessive! I don’t think you need to spend even close to that amount of time to make realistic shadows. BUT sometimes just clicking that shadow style, or doing the same old shadow work for EVERY element, is cutting yourself short! You could have a KILLER shadow on something, IF you just spend a little more time playing with settings, or warping, or whatever. And while you think it might not matter that much, a great shadow can turn a so-so LO into a WOW LO!

For example, here’s a piece of a LO with no shadows.

The I added my basic shadows. I created these shadows by duplicating the layer, turning that bottom layer black (turning the lightness all the way down to black), running a Gaussian Blur filter on it, and then turning down the opacity to about 60%. Something I do over and over when creating shadows. And it looks alright. MUCH better than no shadows.

But (and I timed it) I spent an extra 90 seconds, just a minute and a half, clicking ctrl+T, right clicking and selecting “warp” and pulling my shadows down and here and there. I changed my shadow layers to “Linear Burn” and played a little more with the opacity and It took my elements from “good enough”, to REALLY realistic!! I think now it looks like there’s a light off to the left, shining on it.

I honestly remember when I first started out thinking that spending time on shadows was silly, until I realized how fast it is and how awesome I can make it look.

Tip #2) Learn and Try

Depending on the program you use, there are lots of different ways to create shadows. I know there are even shadows created by digi-designers that you can buy and run with great results. The key is to keep learning your program and trying new ways to do shadows and see what you like best. You never know what you might learn. I learned from another designer recently that I can create REALLY good shadows REALLY quickly with some layer style settings I hadn’t tried before.

If you can’t read it, it says Blending Mode: Linear Burn, Opacity: 65%. Distance: 5, Spread: 0, Size: 8. This works GREAT a lot of the time. I definitely play with the settings, because unfortunately, shadows are not one-size-fits-all! For certain elements I do need to create a separate layer and warp it but, anything that saves time and gives me a REALLY good look is a GREAT thing to learn!!

Tip #3) THINK

Think about what your shadows are. How deep they should be, if the thing your are shadowing would REALLY make that big of a shadow. A rub-on or stamp, or printed text wouldn’t create ANY shadow, would it? But a big fluffy flower is deep and would create a lot of shadow. And are your shadows going in the same direction? Shadows should all be thrown in the same direction. Just stop and think as you are doing shadow work. It’s those little details that make your work great.

Well, I hope this helped a little. I am in no way, a shadow expert! But I can honestly say that the more I work on my shadows and strive to be better at it, the more I like my LOs and the more I feel like my LOs are praiseworthy! HAHA! I have actually started to look forward to my shadow work, seeing how much better, more realistic and high quality I can make my already cute LO look!! Shadows DEFINITELY “matter” to me!!!

Have a happy Monday!!

xoxo,

Good morning blog readers! It’s tHeory tHursday at ScrapMatters. That means on tHursdays we will be bringing you different tips, info, design theories and even the hottest trends in digi-scrap!

This week I want to focus on LINE. Whether you mean to or not, almost every scrapper uses line to express emotion and feeling in their work. What separates the outstanding layouts from the average ones are those that use line to its full advantage!

What is “line”, you ask? Well, in design, “line” refers to how the viewer’s eye movement can be controlled by the arrangement of the work. Eye movement is unconsciously influenced by the way things fit or flow together, both on the horizontal and vertical planes.

Different lines subconsciously give different emotions or feeling to our layouts.

When you use horizontal lines in your layouts, (i.e. lines going from left to right across straight across the page) give feelings of peace, calm, quiet, and joyful serentiy.

Possibly we relate horizontal lines to the peace of a rising or setting sun on the horizon, lying down to sleep, or the calm sea. Whatever the reason, utilize horizontal lines in your layout design with horizontally arranged photos, long lines of type or journaling, or panoramic shaped photos and frames when you want the viewer to feel tranquil and serene.

Vertical lines (i.e. lines going up and down on the page) suggest potential for movement. Verticals stripes, stacked photos, even tall lettering or alphas all create vertical lines.

With the potential for movement, comes a feeling of anticipation, hope, and optimism. Perhaps our minds relate vertical lines with ladders leading upward and onward. Use vertical photo-booth strips, vertically striped papers, or ribbons running down the page to create a happy and expectant feeling in your layout design.

And lastly, diagonal lines (i.e. lines on a tilt, not parallel with the edges of the page create movement. They give the viewer feelings of vitality and energy.

By tilting photos, running elements from corner to corner across the LO, not lining up photo mats and elements symmetrically, or using a diagonal striped paper, we give our page liveliness and excitement! Clustering and using that “messy” look you’ve seen in layouts, creates contrasting diagonal lines, and adds even more life and more energy.

Look through your existing layouts. I guarantee you will find that these line rules apply to many of your pages, even if you didn’t know it at the time you scrapped it! These rules are unintentional. We don’t feel certain ways about lines because we are told to; it’s subliminal. And these rules of line aren’t hard fast. They are theory. You’ll find that some layouts may not follow these rules at all!

However, by being conscious of line and utilizing the influence of line to express emotion, your layouts will become even more effective. And when you look back at your memories years from now, you will be able to feel the emotions of each page, as powerfully as you did the day you scrapped it. And isn’t that “what matters most”?