Digital Pin Exchange - February 2018 Edition!

Tiffany and Mylinn - what program do you use to scrap/make pins with?
Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have a pretty extensive shape library that come with the program under the 'custom shape tool' and you can load new shapes from csh files that are out there on the web. It's not as easy as they have made brushes, actions and styles in PSE, but it is still not too hard. This is my PSE15... the custom shape tool is that weird amoeba/blob looking shape.

As far as making drawn lines smooth, that is not very easy in PSE since we don't have the pen tool to work with and can't load svgs and such. I did find an action not too long ago that seems to work pretty well for taking a shape or lines and turning it into a smooth path - I used it on my valentine pins above and it made things so much faster than me trying to smooth and do clean brush edits and all of the other time-consuming tricks that I used before when working with png graphics. Some of my lines were a little funky, but I could live with it. It's not free any longer, but it wasn't too bad of a price- probably well worth it if it does what you want.
https://designbundles.net/graphicspirit/2603-path-and-shape-maker-for-photoshop

 

Here are some places you can get free commercial use graphics from that I know of-
Vecteezy.com - this is the place I like best for finding cute things for the pin exchange
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-vectors
https://designbundles.net/free-design-resources
https://thehungryjpeg.com/freebies/ - make sure what you grab here is commercial use, not everything is
https://creativemarket.com/free-goods - freebies change weekly on Monday morning, there are 6 new ones every week - type of things varies every week so you have to go check and see what they are
https://www.creativefabrica.com/freebies/
Some only have a few things free weekly, others have a pretty large freebies area. Most all rotate things in and out of the freebies area, so if you see something you like you should grab it.

 

@mmbstaley Thank you for the links!! I only had 2 of them already. Wheee!! So many things to chose from I use PS CC - a bit of research says that I should use my Illustrator to make vector files if I want really smooth strokes, easy drawing and such. Hmmm. Learn another program or try your action first? Action!! lol, ty

 

If you have PS CC you have the pen tool you can use if you are comfortable drawing on the computer. Live trace in Illustrator is not too hard to figure out if you have a drawing of some kind from another program (scan of a picture or some other form of jpg or png, for example).

The action was really easy, and it does work in PSE though it doesn't say it. I don't think I'm seeing the full range of options since I can't edit the shapes any once it is traced, but that is OK as it is doing the main thing I need it to do.

 

@mmbstaley I'm using PSE 15. I really like the pins that are kind of like illustrations, like that really cute rainbow example.

@nachtmol Thanks for the reference to vecteezy, it looks really fun

 

It was National Pizza Day here in the US today , so I made a pizza pin

 

Hi @Dalis This is my first time playing along. I had all kinds of issues with these pins. I couldnt get the Pin Builder Metal Rim style to work so figured something must be wrong with my installation of the Enamel Pin Style. I reinstalled and still its not working. Anyhoooo, if they aren’t quite acceptable don’t feel you have to use them. I did have fun and am determined to work out whats going on with my style set... gahh

 

What color are you using for the rim? I've found full black doesn't show the details that can be seen with other colors. Try changing the rim color to a dark gray, which looks black with the style applied, and see if that helps
Here are the main colors I use when I make pins.

 

Size of the graphic makes a difference too on the amount of detail that can be seen. Make sure they are no bigger than 2 inches in the largest dimension.

 

Loving the pins so far! @mmbstaley the glass jars are awesome - I can already think of some ways to use them!
I've got some time to play with pins today so I'll pop in later!

 

Mine were in a soft charcoal but thank you for the image above Ive grabbed that for future reference and hopefully my next attempt will be better

 

A quick preview of what I've come up with so far!

 

I don't want to hijack thread completely so please message me comments, suggestions, specific colors etc. The questions about face style and rim color could go below...maybe?

Oh my, I have discovered a tutorial about Illustrator and actually did something fun! I even like em, lol. Here are 2 of them with various fillings/colors. Okay - please help, lol. I like the outlines but something isn't going well in the face bits. These are the pins w a drop shadow at about 2 inches x2 inches on a page. For the face - I am hoping to get a one for 4 or 5 different skin tones from darkest to light (gotta figure out which rim color to use too)...then get several good hair colors. I'm liking the brown hard enamel and black glitter one so far.

THANKS!

 

@Dalis Something is off about them - the face part for sure - it just doesn't look enamel to me. Dunno if it needs smaller area, larger area, larger rims??
that gold is R 243 G 162 B 44
(I do struggle with objectivity when looking at my own creations, rueful grin)