Tuesday Tip - Textures

Have you seen the beautiful photo art that has been popping up all over lately? Have you ever wondered how to make photo textures work on your images? Well that is what today's Tuesday Tip is all about! I'm going to show you how in a few short steps you can start on the adventure to making your photos a work of art!

Step One - You need to select a photo...photos with with some background work the best. Edit your photo in either Lightroom or Photoshop. The photo below has been edited in Lightroom using a preset from the Pixel Fairy Princess Season's Collection Open your selected image in Photoshop or PSE.

Step Two - Select a texture you would like to overlay you photo with. This takes a lot of trial and error, every texture will not work for every photo. As you become more accustom to using textures you will get a feel for what will work. Just play! I have selected a texture from the Pixel Fairy Princess Original Eclectic Texture Collection. Place the texture in a layer above your photo.

Step Three - Using the blending modes experiment and see which mode blends the texture with your photo the best. At this point you might also want to add a layer mask to your texture and using a soft brush conceal the parts that cover the skin of the person in your portrait.

Using textures in this way is really only the first step in turning your precious photographs into works of art. If you are interested it taking your photo art to the next level and beyond, come join us in our Photo Art Class. Registration is open and the class also includes the materials we will be using!

Don't forget to join us every Tuesday for a new Tip....and check out the Pixel Fairy Princess Photography Blog for a Try It giveaway every Tuesday as well!

Great Question!

Thank YOU JENNIFER!!!!
I need feedback and I love questions and this morning Jennifer had a great one - What is a brush?

I hope that she doesn't get mad - But I am just going to post a little bit from her e-mail.
I guess I'm still a little confused what brushes are to start. Is that flower thing is that an image you started with or is it a brush? Is a brush kind of like a stamp?

Yes - the flower is a brush.
I wanted to tell you that a brush is very similar to a stamp in traditional scrapbooking. You can "stamp" a brush or you can paint with a brush. In the technique that I did the tutorial for - we are "stamping" more than we are brushing. Brushes themselves come in many forms - flourishes, Alphas, Dingbats and traditional strokes.

Here is a link to Scrap Girls Brushes - you will find all sorts of goodies - like words and quotes too!

If we think of this type of BRUSH technique as STAMPING - we control the amount of INK we put on the brush by adjusting the Opacity and Flow(in CS3). For my additive technique - I set my brush to 100% opacity and for my subtractive technique - I adjusted the opacity. I stated arounf 65% and moved it down every few mouse clicks. Not being a traditional scrapper and NEVER having stamped - I think that the subtractive technique is one of the benefits of digital scrapping - but like I said - I really wouldn't know the traditional method for this.

When we talk about STAMPING in Photoshop - we are talking about using tools like the healing tool for retouching image or cloning to remove an unwanted object. We can discuss those too if anyone is interested?

Let me know if this helps :D

Let’s Talk About Brushes

This is the first in a series that I want to do on brushes. I want to start very simple and progress.
I will be working in Photoshop CS3 - but I am also doing it in Elements at the same time so that I can alert Elements users to any differences.

As you see in Figure 1. I have opened a blank white sheet on which we are going to play with brushes. Today we are going to create a distressed accent. The reason I have chosen this is because I think that you should learn this technique first - add and subtract.



The first thing is to get your brush tool and select a brush. Today I am going to use Diane Miller’s Serene Brush Set. For learning this technique - I suggest starting with a large brush.



I simply left click the mouse one time and an imprint of the brush I want to use is applied to my paper. Notice that I created a new layer for my brush stroke in the layers palate. This is the additive concept that we will build on. Today, this will be the only thing we add to the layout.

Now - I want to give it a grunged look. For that I am going to use my eraser as a brush. Your erase can be used in three different mode - brush, pencil, and block. You will find the mode selection at the top of you window under you main tabs. This tool bar will show you the brush you have selected, the size, mode, and opacity. Get comfortable with these. Make sure that your eraser is in brush and for our subtractive technique I am going to use Brandy Valenzuela Grungelle for distressing.


I am going to turn the opacity down to about 50 -60% and start SLOWLY left clicking my mouse. DO not drag your mouse.



You will see how the top part has a worn and faded look. I am going to switch brushes and subtract some more from the leaves. I like to switch brushes during the subtractive portion because it geive an more realistic effect.



Here is my almost finished product. I used 3 different brushes to subtract from the original. I stayed on Layer on for the entire technique. I used large sized brushes very few strokes. This technique take some practice - but it is very important.

Now - to finish it off I add a sheet of paper from Thao Cosgrove’s Life’s Canvas Collection and use the clipping mask feature to “glue” them together!


Please post some of what you do in the Pixel Fairy Princess Flickr group :D

Brushes -

I am working on a new tutorial. Thanks for all the comments about wanting to know more about brushes. I am going to do this a little different - and just need to take a little survey from those folk who actual come to this site. I don't know where followers of the blog are - so please take a minute and answer the two poll questions.

Text on a Path

As many of you have noticed – I have really been playing with my type lately. There are several ways to do this – the easiest is being to buy a collection like Valarie Randell's Collection Text on a Path. In a recent LO called Together I used Syndee’s Nuckles new Borderline2 Template and had my text follow the curves. Here is how I did it. You must have Photoshop CS3 to do this as Photoshop Elements does not have vector features like this – Sorry.

So lets look at the LO I am creating today of Princess-in-Training – my little trooper! I am going to use Thao Cosgrove's Ornamental Ink Brush Set right on my image. Here is where I am in the Layout.

BTW - you can click on the images to enlarge them.

Fig 1

I am going to select my freeform pen and draw a line that follows the curve of the swirl. I like to make sure that I have the rest of my LO pretty much set so that I don’t have to move the text once I do it.

Fig 2

Here is what it looks like after I draw the path I want to follow.

Fig 3.

I am now going to get my type tool and line it up with the path I just drew. I left click with my mouse and a text box appears with my cursor ready to go. One trick is to make sure that you have left justification checked - otherwise you might get frustrated.

Fig 4

Now I type some text.

Fig 5

See how easy that was – and fun :D

I will let you in on another secret – to draw my line, I use a Wascom Bamboo tablet and pen. They are a ton of fun and so addictive.

Hilton Head Island

I thought that I would go head and share this with you - I know - I normally don't do and I will try not to make it a habit.

This morning I had a wonderful shoot on the Beach with Princess-in-Training and Prince Charming. There is something so priceless about a little girl running on a beach in a pretty white dress - simple joy. As she danced, this is the song that played in my head. It is funny - these are just some of the spontaneous images I captured - but these are the ones that capture my heart! Tomorrow she will get up early and we will go to the hospital to begin our fifth series. It has been so nice to go all summer with no surgery. I will scrap these over this coming week and post them ;-D

Blending - the Very Basics

Okay - bear with me - I actually did this tutorial a while ago and never uploaded it - yes - me bad! The thing is that I don't know where I put the text for this one - maybe it has somehting to do with using three computers :D

Let's wing it - this is actually really easy!

So - here we have Princess-in-Training and the nice vignette and photo to work with from the last tutorial. Let's open a 12x12 workspace and drag some paper from Syndee Nuckles Collage Art Collection into the workspace.
Now, drag the image you are working with onto the workspace. Notice that you can see where things are located in the layer palate. This is important because we are now going to move the two pieces of paper into place so that fill up the workspace.
If you will look at the layers palate you will see that my dark orange paper is directly below my green paper and you cannot see it.
Now I am going to open the blending modes found at the top right corner of the layers palate. It is very important that my top paper layer (the Green Paper) is highlighted in the layers palate.
Now for the fun! I am going to use the overlay blending mode to change the color of the orange and get the handwriting to look as though it is on the music!

Pretty cool and super easy!
Try using the multiply mode and the others
to have fun with you papers!

Vignettes - and adding a little D*R*A*M*A

Today I am going to show you how to add a simple vignette to you images in PSE6.

First lets open an image, like this one of Princess-in-Training. Isn’t she cute (everyone say yes!) I just love that look on her face!

Next, we are going to go into filters and choose Correct Camera Distortion.

Your screen will now look like this:

On the right side you will see a slider for creating a vignette. Slide it toward the left to achieve the amount of vignette you want in your image. I like to turn off the Grid at the bottom of the page and then I can see how much I am sliding down my amount and midpoint.

Now click OK and you are done!

Like I told you easy – a vignette to add dept to our image!

I like it just fine – but that is about it. Still kind of flat for me. I like something a little more dramatic. So let’s add a little drama!

Using my Shape Tool I am going to drag a white rectangle over the image. Notice that I have white as my foreground color and black as my background.

You then repeat the steps to create a vignette – but first you need to simplify the shape.

Create another vignette with the slider.

Click okay when you are satisfied with your vignette.

Now for the drama – we are going to blend the vignette to the image of Princess-in-Training!

On the right side of your screen, right about the Shape in the Layers palate you will see a menu drop down that say normal. Click on that as I have:

Now you want to select Multiply – make sure that you have the Shape layer highlighted in the Layer Palate.

Merge the layers together and wow! Here is my final image :D

This is just a spring board to enhance your images her are some variations I did just to show you the possibilities!

Yes, she is defiantly a drama queen :D

Organization - A must for the digi scrapper :D

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is about organization. I will now try to welcome you into the world of the neuritic. Just remember that you asked for it.

My organization is really simple - I organize all my images by date. When I burn them to a DVD, I write down where and what we did. For me staying organized means being able to get what I want quickly - not having my computer slow me down because I have everything and the kitchen sink on it :D

I shoot Raw Files and they are - in the word of Will Ferrel in Elf - ginormous! So - to accommodate my large file I have 2 hard drives on my computer. My C drive is where my working programs are, for example Photoshop, Word, and Lightroom. My D drive is where stuff that I am currently editing is located and scraping materials that I am currently "in love with". I have two external hard drives and one is for storage of all my scraping materials and the other is for everything from a paper on The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption and USPTO stuff to images that have not been burned to a DVD (I now burn DVD's instead of CD's because of my file size) External Drive #2 is all my scraping supplies and that is the only thing that goes on that external. I also have all my images backed up on DVD's by the month and year. Once they are on DVD and I delete them from my external and internal drives. It works for me. I also want to encourage you to delete the compressed file that you receive for the shops where you buys your supplies - once you extract the file there is no reason to really keep the zip file. I burn them to a DVD as a back up and then they are gone.

As for my scraping materials - I have a three ring binder and I print out the contact sheets that come with most kits. I print them in color and then place them in the binder by designer and boutique. I do this so that when I am away and I want to prep a layout - I can pull out my three ring binder and work. Also - this is a great source when I am looking for an embellishment and I know that the one I want is by Syndee Nuckles from Scrap Girls - just as an example. I can start there and find what I want. It beats going through the hundreds of files I have accumulated in a short time since I started digi scraping.

For most folk I suggest two external drives. One for images and another for your scraping materials. I go back and forth between my laptop and desktop, so having two externals makes it easy to keep working. Also - Sending your scrapping materials to an external hard drive will keep your computer "clean" and working at optimal speed.

One more tip - I have a file for Prince Charming's Scrapbook and another file for Princess-in-Training's book. If you were to open that file you would see a file for each month in 2008. I save all my LO's in these files. Once I am sure that a file is perfect and I am not going to do anything else to it - I delete the PSD file. I only save and burn to DVD's the jpg. flies. Once a month I burn to the DVD the image and a slide show set to music.

Oh - BTW - I de-frag everyday - my computer is set up to do it automatically - this is just good maintenance :D

So that is how I stay organized ~ did it help? If you have a tip to share on how you stay organized - leave a comment and share it with everyone :D

Creating Chipboard Elements with Brushes

So you bought a kit – love all the doodles and swirls, the papers are perfect for the image you just shot, and last but not least the creative juices are flowing! Great – Wrong! The great swirl is in a stripe that looks horrific next to your daughter beautiful new…

Okay, maybe I am getting to personal, but I love having the ability to take a brush of a swirl and turn them into exactly what I want in the blink of an eye – well – a few click of a mouse :D

Today, we are going to take a brush from Rhonna Farrer and apply some papers and then add a stroke to edge it to give us an element that looks like chipboard. I love Rhonna Farrer’s swirls and I thin that they are well worth investing in for your digital toolbox and after this I hope that you will see how easy using brushes is. I have all my brushes installed and if you are having trouble installing brushes then shoot me an e-mail. Please don’t just leave me a comment because so many times I try to answer your questions and I get that “no reply” e-mail.

So – let open those brushes :D
I start by opening a new page. I happen to like working with the white background – but that is just a preference of mine and I will delete it at the end.

I am going to select my brush from the tool sidebar and it will give me my options at the top of my workspace.As you can see – I use the drop down menu to select what brush collection I want to use and then it will expand so that I can chose the brush I want.I need to do one more thing before I actually use my brush and that is create a new layer. Remember I told you that I was going to delete my background at the end; I need to create this layer so that I don’t delete my project.So here is a quick look at my screen Nothing to exciting – let’s fix that :D The first thing that we are going to do is just positin the brush on the page with our mouse and then give it a single left click. Make sure that you are working on Layer 1.
I don’t know what size this is going to be in my final layout so I am going to err on the big size and then shrink it to fit when I go to design my layout.The next thing I need to do is select a piece of paper and I am going to use black polka dots from Shabby Miss Jenn’s Gracie’s Garden for this. I have the two windows side by side.And I am simply going to drag and drop my black paper onto my brush design. When you do this you should not see your design. I have played with the opacity for the purpose of the tutroial.I am going to close my paper and expand my project. I want the dots to be smaller so I am going to shrink my paper to where it is just barely covers my brush design.

and now I can cut my design out from my brush by using the Ctrl G shortcut.

Viola ~ we have used a brush to create a perfectly matched element for your layout!

I am not quite done – I want it to look like chipboard so I am first going to add a stroke of white to outline the design. To do this I first going to delete my white background layer and flatten my image (this step is in another tutorial or e-mail me for help). I am going to use the stroke command found in the edit tab at the top of the screen.
When you select this you will get a window that asks you to select the pixel width of your outline and the color. For this I am using a pixel width of 5 and a white outline. FYI – when I outline pictures I use a pixel width of 20 to 35.Here is what we now have and we are almost done:
Remember I said I wanted to create a chipboard look; we do that by using the bevel feature in the Effect palate.I like the Simple Embossed bevel look so I pick that option and hit apply. I went ahead and added the drop shadow so that you could see the cardstock effect.

What do you think now? Easy huh :D

Please let me know if this tutorial was helpful and remember to e-mail me if you have questions – I’d love to help :D