Learning how to create a mask is easy. By blending a variety of brushes, overlays, etc you can create your own artsy mask. Let me show you how, using Photoshop.Here's a screen shot of my layout with my layers of brushes which were combined to make a mask for my photo. I've turned off all the other layers except for the background layer so you can see the completed mask with the photo clipped to it before I finished off the page. I used brushes from Tangie Baxter's 2017 Brush Of The Month Club February Brushes and Lynne-Marie's Mixed Media kit.How I start my mask building is to first select the photo I will use so I can get a sense of the shape of mask I want to create. Then I turn down the opacity of the photo layer so that I can see through it to the mask layers below as I create them. This step isn't necessary and by no means do you need to select a photo first, this is just my … [Read more...]
Selective Coloring
Hello all my artsy friends! I'm just popping in today with a quick tip for removing distracting backgrounds from photos. Ever have a photo with a background that clashes with the colors on your page, or that is a bit busy for the design? One of my favorite ways to tone down distracting or clashing colors is to convert the photo to black and white. However, there are times when I want the subject to remain in color. On these occasions, I select out the main subject and just convert the background to black and white. I used the technique on this page: There are lots of colors and layers going on in the design, so I wanted to tone down the photo a bit, but I didn't want to remove all the color. Removing just the background color helped to direct attention to the focal point of the photo. Here is a comparison of the original photo, selective … [Read more...]
Quick Beveled Alphas
Hello all my artsy friends! I hope everyone is recovering well from MOC 5. :) I just wanted to pop in today with a quick tip for creating super fast, but "oh so awesome," beveled alphas. Have you ever had trouble finding the perfect alpha for a page? Maybe the kit you are using didn't come with a coordinating alpha, or the style just doesn't fit with the theme of your page. Never fear - there is a super quick and easy way to make a dimensional beveled alpha that will coordinate with any kit (or combination of kits) you want to use. Take a look at this page to see the style I am talking about: The title "Manly Dude" looks like it came with the kit doesn't it? The patterns and colors coordinate perfectly with the other elements on the page. That is because I created it with papers from the kit I was using and then applied a bevel style to it! … [Read more...]
Using Borders
Borders are very versatile and can be used to frame all or part of a layout. Borders can be duplicated, erased, resized and rearranged, allowing for a multitude of possibilities for your page design.They can also be used within your layout, not just the outer edge. If you use a border stamp or overlay, you can duplicate or erase areas as desired. If using a border for an outer edge accent, decide whether you want the border to add impact or subtlety to your page. You might wish to desaturate, recolor, change the blend mode or apply a color overlay. On my sample page I used two borders for the outer portion of the page.For the edge I used Borders V.1 by Sara Gleason. I duplicated a border to arrange all along the outer edge, merged them together and recolored. To add a bit of subtle border around my photo and elements, I used Border Edge Transparencies #1 by Paula Kesselring … [Read more...]
Layered Digital Backgrounds
Hello my fellow artsy peeps! How is MOC 5 coming along for you? Are you caught up, not so caught up (^raises hand^) or in panic mode? First of all, definitely DON'T panic. There is still plenty of time left for you to catch up, I promise. I'm going to help you out today with a few quick tips for creating layered backgrounds on your digital creations. These tips have helped me speed up my creative process and build layered backgrounds in no time at all. Here is a page that I created with some goodness from this week's SOSN sale - 50% through today. (Click on the layout to get the full credits). I used the three tricks I'm going to talk about to create the layered background: Tip #1: Quickly resize and perfectly center background pages with this simple shortcut . . .I resized the top and middle background pages by putting them in transform … [Read more...]
Disappearing Title Technique
Happy Wednesday my artful friends! I'm popping in today with a helpful hint for placing title work on patterned background. Don't you just love all the luscious patterned papers in kits? I love to use them as backgrounds on my pages, but they can make the title very difficult to read because it gets lost in patterns and colors. There is a simple and quick fix for this dilemma, though. Just add a small solid colored border around the title to give it a bit of separation from the background. Here is an example of this technique: Notice the thin, blue border around the word "Today" at the top of the page? I created that to help make the title more visible on the page. Here is what it looked like before I added the border: See how it kind of blends into the patterned background? There is an easy fix, though. Just … [Read more...]
It’s a Wrap: Artful Ideas for Gift Wrap
Hello everyone! Now that the December holiday season is sadly coming to a close, I wanted to share with you some ideas for incorporating gift wrap paper into your traditional art journals and digital designs. It could be paper that you have left over or, more meaningfully, paper from gifts that you received. I always feel bad about throwing away the beautiful paper covering gifts that I receive, but I also know that there is no reasonable way of keeping it all either. My happy medium is keeping a few scraps of the seasonal paper to include in a traditional art journal page, and also scanning it in to include on digital pages. Digital Pages/ProjectsIt is super easy to include gift wrap on digital scrapbooking pages by scanning in the papers. There are several methods for including wrapping paper into your digital scrapbooking. Here are just a few of my favorites: … [Read more...]
Filling Open Alphas with Paper
Hello all my digi-friends! I don't know about you, but I am always looking for ways to stretch my digital stash. I'm here today with a quick tip on how to dress up open alphas by adding a patterned background to them. Take a look at this layout (made with supplies from today's SOSN 50% sale): I used the Copper Plated Alpha by Pink Reptile Designs and filled it with some patterned paper from Etc. by Danyale's Sweet Santa Kit. The paper background completely transformed the alpha and helped it to coordinate beautifully with the rest of the page. It is a super simple and quick technique, so let's get started . . . Step 1:Position the wire alpha letters the way you want them to appear on the page. I aligned my letters horizontally. Step 2:Merge the letters into one layer by selecting all of them, right click and then … [Read more...]
Recreating Painterly and Blended Background Photo [with video]
Hey everyone! I thought I would do a quick post on how I did the photo blending on my background on this page with the November 2016 awesome M3. A lot of this was learned from Jana and the November 2016 Champions at Scrapaneers (which featured an awesome kit of Lynn's!).First off you are going to need a smart phone, or know how to recreate your own pencil like sketching in your photo editing software. I used the Prisma App for both of my photos editing but for this little tutorial, I am going to focus on the blended background photo.Open your photo in Prisma and you will find all kinds of fun filters to create painting/drawing effects on your photos. These change regularly! So if there is one that you like edit a bunch of photos with it and save them because it might not be there long!For my photo I ran the #GettUrban filter. I wanted to keep some of the blue of … [Read more...]
Blending Papers
Hi everyone, it's Polly Rae here, and today I'm going to share with you my process of blending papers with blend modes. Often a paper has a pattern, color or texture I like but it doesn't quite mesh with my page design. I could use an adjustment layer to manipulate the colors but I prefer to try changing the color blend modes on my paper layer and often duplicate the layers, changing blend modes and opacity on each layer.For my sample page, here are the paper layers I will be using, along with the blend mode and opacity of each layer.I know how the blend modes affect my papers in a general sense and I'm happy with that. I don't need to know all the scientific and mathematical calculations, in the same sense as I know generally how my car works and what happens when I turn the key in the ignition and drive. I just need to know how to adjust and manipulate the modes to my … [Read more...]