Mixed Media Tips & More! | DYD 2021

Hi everyone

I'm here today to share with you some quick hints and tips for using Mixed Media in digital projects.

This can be a very large subject matter and I could go on and on, but for now, I have tried to post a couple of tips that you could apply straight away with your general scrapbook layouts and try with your December documenting.

Please feel free to message me with requests for future posts and tutorials

When creating my designs I scan a lot of original artwork and textures, so there is already a lot of realism for your finished pages BUT there are adjustments that you can make so that your finished pages look even more realistic.

How to make layers look more realistic.

There are different ways that you can achieve this look so this is just one of them, this is the way that I most often adjust layers on my own layouts and for the first example I am going to use paper tape.

This works well when applying tape to a dimensional element or an element that is lifted off the page with a shadow.

1. Place your tape over the element that you wish to adhere to your page.
2. Apply a small shadow to the tape, I tend to use the following settings:
   
3. Duplicate the element and move this layer above the paper tape.
4. Assuming that your duplicated element has a drop shadow effect applied to it, rasterise the layer style so that your element and it's shadow are now merged together.
5. Change the blend mode of the duplicated element to multiply.
6. We are now going to clip this duplicated element layer to our tape. This will add the illusion of some transparency to the tape, almost as if the hard edges of your element underneath is pressing against the tape where it's adhered to your page.
7. To add realism we need to tweak the opacity of the duplicated element so go ahead and reduce the opacity on this layer until you find the setting that looks right for you.

This is my layout in progress, I have circled where I have added some paper tape before any adjustments. It looks okay, but following the steps above it could look more realistic.



Here is a close up of the layout with the adjusted layers following the steps above and you can see how the tape has changed it's appearance a little bit. The adjustments allow the harder edge of the photo mat that is shadowed to show through the tape a little more and look more realistic.

At this point I was actually unhappy with the exact drop shadow settings on the tape that I posted above and I reduced the distance and size a little so the tape was closer to the layers beneath it.



Here is a screenshot of my layers showing the duplicated element clipped to the photo, the blend mode changed to multiply and the adjusted opacity.



The same technique can be applied to paint, so that the paint appears to be actually painted on the layer beneath it and not just layered above it. Again, this works especially well if the paint is above a layer that is slightly lifted off the page.

In my example here, the paint is applied on top of a paper piece that has a slight shadow so I applied the same steps above and attach some images for you showing the differences.

Close up of the work in progress layout before any adjustments made . .



The adjustments add a little more realism as they allow the shadow of the paper to show through the paint itself and the paint laid onto the darker paper is a little darker as it's painted over the texture of the paper piece.

You could instead simply play with the blend modes on the paint layer itself, and then if you know how, apply a non destructive layer mask and erase a tiny bit of the paint away where it follows the line of the edge of the shadow/paper piece for realism.



Here is a screenshot of my layers showing the duplicated paper piece clipped to the paint, the blend mode changed to multiply and the adjusted opacity.



Final Adjustments and Background Paper Manipulation.

The final adjustments that I made to my layout were using non destructive layer masks to blend background papers together to form my composition. Using a layer mask means that you can change your mind. If you erase some paper but later change your mind you simply switch your foreground colour to white and paint back in areas that you want to re-appear.

I decided to simplify the background paper a little and wanted to combine textures from two different papers together. So I added an extra paper in the layer behind my main paper that I wanted to blend and used a layer mask on the top paper with a soft black brush to erase away the edges of my original paper so the two were blended together.

I did also make some tweaks to the shade of white on the papers to make them look 'as one'. I did this with Image > Adjustments > Selective colour and played with the sliders for the White Colour.

I added in some more layers to fill in the gaps around the photo and create a visual triangle and layout finished!!

Here is the final screen shot showing you what your layer mask would look like to blend your papers and my finished layout.

Layer Mask Tips

1. Be sure to have your foreground and background colour set to black and white
2. Use a brush with a soft edge, not a hard edge.
3. Be sure to have the Mask thumbnail selected in your layer palette before you start using the brush tool.

Happy Scrapping and please tag me if you have any questions

 

I’ve moved the thread @cfile

I’m glad you all found it useful! I hope home life and work balance settles down as I’d love to write more.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch @Pachimac with anything more specific you need

 

You are so welcome!
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch @Laura ODonnell with anything more specific you need and I'll have a think about starter tips, I already have some other ideas but open to requests/suggestions