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Cassel, I think the mysterious “two p’s” were on a second base paper that I hadn’t yet deleted. Probably another example of text that somehow got converted to raster, because I couldn’t select them to delete.
Thanks again for all your encouragement and support.
BTW, I lost the link to that photo-editing seminar you mentioned. Is it too late to sign up for it?
Previous post also has my Project 5. I had problems with the Text tool, but here it is finished. The frame I chose was too narrow to use a bevel-edge, so I beveled the edge of the photo instead.
Thanks again to Cassel and the rest of the community for the support and encouragement.
A few more thoughts on lessons learned this time around:
(1) I became pretty fussy about labeling each layer as I created it. “Photo” rather than “Raster 1,” “Beads lower R” rather than “Raster 7,” and so on. It’s much easier to identify which layer I’m working on.
(2) Similary, I became fussy about keeping linked elements next to each other in the Layers palette. For example, one layout used a scatter of beads repeated four times: upper/lower R, and upper/lower L. Keeping them together makes them easier to manage (and merge, if you want to).
(3) Having the drop shadow on a separate layer is really helpful, but be mindful that it’s possible to “rearrange” your layers in a way thqt separates the element from its shadow (take it from one who’s been there). That doesn’t hurt anything, but especially if you haven’t labeled your layers for quick identification — you may have a challenge locating it again.
(4) And of course, if you really can’t tell which raster layer is the one you need, you can always survey the project by making everything invisible, and then making one-at-a-time checks: it’s also a useful way to troubleshoot some problem that is sitting there, thumbing its nose at you.
(5) Finally, I’ll finish with the advice I offered in my previous post: check your tool settings. Example: I’d been having issues with the Text tool, so Cassel helped me sort out the problem. I returned to my project and began entering text; the cursor was moving; but no letters appeared. I sat and puzzled for a moment: that problem was not there before! Then I checked settings in the Materials palette and noticed that the small square below the “foreground” swatch was set to “transparent.” I’d been entering ghost characters! Easy fix.
Thanks to Cassel for the support and helpful advice. It’s been both challenging and rewarding.
Lessons learned:
(1) Always be mindful of the old computer-programmer’s chestnut: “the computer won’t do what you want it to do; it’ll do what you tell it to do.”
(2) PSP diligently remembers the tool settings you last used – even if you haven’t used that tool for a very long time, even if you don’t remember using that tool at all.
(3) which is to say, do look over your tool settings before clicking the “Accept” checkmark. Those settings are what you’re telling PSP to do. And PSP will do its best to follow those instructions.
(4) And, of course, CTL+Z is a really nice way to back out of a mistake. PSP remembers – I think it’s over a dozen – of your last commands, and you can often salvage a fair amount of work, even if you’ve gone several steps past the “killer” mistake.
(5) I’m glad several folks enjoyed my use of a scanned placemat as a background texture/paper on Project 4. Textures are everywhere. I’ve used photos of a hardwood floor, gray ceramic tile, a painted cinderblock wall – take maybe fifteen minutes with your digital camera and do a survey of your surroundings. I’ll bet you can find five or six likely candidates easily.
Cassel, thanks for your support. I would be grateful to do a Zoom call and try to sort out my Text-tool issues. My schedule is very flexible, so if you don’t mind setting up a Zoom session – just let me know date and time (I’m in Cemtral time zone).
I put a quote in the text box to complete the layout uneventfully (to my surprise). If we can fix the problem with the text in the title, the layout will be done.
I’ll post “Bootcamp Lessons Learned” separately.
Thanks!
Here’s Project 5, which is 95% complete. As with other layouts, I’m having trouble with the text tool. Does anybody know what’s going awry here?
I selected the base paper and activated the text tool. I entered text with the texture, no problem. I added the graphic element. I went on to work on other elements. When it came time to use the drop shadow, I was not able to select the text — it was a part of the base paper. There was no separate layer with the text on it. It does not show the drop shadow I applied to the base paper just to see.
This layout is a nod to my son, who’s a high-voltage lineman. I decided that the frame was too thin to apply a bevel, so I gave it a thicker shadow, and applied the bevel to the photo. I rather like that.
I haven’t entered the last text yet. I’ll put in the first few lines of Whitman’s “I sing the body electric,” but before I mess up something else with the text tool, I thought I’d see if anyone else can offer help with my text issues.
After much fussing and fretting, here’s Project 4. I was having trouble with the white photo outlines, and as far as I can tell, the problem was the settings on the flood-fill tool. Opacity had vbeen at 20 (20 percent, right?) and so on. I set all the settings to the same as with the Magic Wand, and made sure the crosshairs were right inside the selection border beforfe clicking. THAT worked. Finlly!
Several other issues:
(1) I have had repeated problems going back to text elements to edit them. Most often, I’ll click the “Text” tool, click or double-click the text, and PSP acts as if I were entering a new text element. I can’t figure out how to get back to previously-entered text to, say, highlight; or change font/size; or color. This predictably happens after I’ve performed other functions and decide to go back and edit. If I delete the text and re-enter it AND do all the changing/editing before any other action, the tool behaves pretty well. Is there something I’m missing?
(2) When I went back to copy a text layer and convert to raster, I saw both layers with text had “convert to raster” dithered out. Somehow, the top text was embedded in the layer of the paper it was typed on. I was not able to select it separately, and when I made the paper invisible, the text vanished also. When I did a drop shodow, both the paper and text got drop shadows, so my needs were met; but not as expected.
Anyway, it took a lot longer than expected, and a lot more effort. There are several successes that happened more despite, than because of my efforts.
I remembered several times when a teacher would hand me an assignment with the comment, “this will be a good learning experience.” I knew I was in for a rough ride, usually with a good reward at the end.
It’s been a great learning experience (really!)
Okay, I’m stuck again. I’m trying to put the white frame around the photo in project 4. I chose Magic wand, edit selection border, inside, 30 pixels. Selected the photo. You can see the border outlined in the screen shot. I clicked on a white color, selected Flood Fill, brought the crosshairs over the selected border, left-clicked. No fill.
Several questions:
(1) what’s going wrong?
(2) I see 2 small squares at the top-left of the Materials palette – is that what I need to click to select the fill color? One says “Foreground/Fill” and one says “Backgrund/Stroke.”
(3) If thqat’s not what I need to click, what is?
(4) If I wanted to use a texture rather than a color (I rather liked PSP’s “wood grain” texture), is that possible?
(5) After selecting the fill color/texture, the next step is to select “Flood Fill,” right? Then move the pointer over the selection area and click? That’s where I’m stuck. No filling happens.
This is particularly frustrating because I did this project last year and don’t remember having this much trouble.
Thanks again for your suppofrt and expertise.
Wow – Project 3 is done (I hope!) but it was far more difficult than I thought it would be.
First, following that teeny little mouse pointer on the video lesson was really difficult for me. I’m vision- impaired, but even for folks with good vision, it could be a real challenge when the pointer moves quickly across the screen. Second, I had a lot of difficulty placing text that I copied from MS Word into the project. Once it was placed, I could not figure out how to select and edit it. I selected the layer with the text on it, double clicked, and I could see a cursor blinking in the text, but I could not use control- A to select it all. I finally decided just to leave it as- is and move onward.
Here’s where the others of you can learn from my mistakes: as I brought photos into this project, I realized that they needed to be modified. I had to adjust contrast and exposure, and such. I did so, and then saved the photos in their original folders as JPGs. After working on the entire project for another half- hour or so, I saved it, but did not realize that PSP retained my previous “save as” settings, so my entire project, which had been a “PSPimage,” was saved as JPG. That left me stranded, and I needed to restart the whole project over. Note to self: don’t do that again!
Just for fun, as my background paper I created my own. I put one of our placemats from the kitchen table on the scanner and scanned it as a JPG. It turns out to have a nice texture to it. Might be worth a try, folks!
Yes, that is what I thought. Thanks for verifying it. Not a big deal… I just started over, and this time I did it a little more carefully. I will get it done in the next day or so, assuming all goes well.
As for your question about texture versus glitters, I was going to use a different paper other than glitters to add a texture behind the photo. However, I’m going to try it your way first. Maybe that will work!
Thanks, as always for your support and help.
Regards,
Peter
I’ve run into several snags on project 3. First, the one you’re most likely to know the fix for: I was ready to put the textured frame behind my photos, but my Materials palette shows up with no tabs to get to the “textures.” How do I do that?
Second – and I think I’m going to have to start over on this project – when I brought up my project there was only one layer. It had been a PSPimage file originaly, but was now a jpg. I imported the three photos into the PSP image, but edited and re-saved each photo as jpg’s before proceeding. I added each photo and “saved” after each addition. Apparently PSP saved the entire project as a jpg.
I’m stuck, right? there’s no PSPimage file for this. Do I need to start from scratch?
Also, now that I think of it, is the fact that this image is a jpg what keeps the Materials palette from offering me the options I was looking for?
Thanks!
Peter
Here’s Project 2. Cassel, thanks for teh advice. I decided to accept my diagonal paper strips as-is and call it a lesson learned. Similarly, I chose to leave the title on top of the papers and flowers, because (1) I think of it as more of a collage than a scrapbook page; (2) there wasn’t really anywhere on the layout without some other element; (3) I was really nervous about triggering a cascade of unintended consequences with other elements;* and (4) my primary interest was to use this panorama photo.
*Somehow, the vertical “date” text got flipped end-for-end during editing. I’m not sure how. Perhaps the text was associated with one of the decorative-element layers that I flipped as I arranged them. I had to delete the layer altogether and re-do it, because if I just deleted the text on that layer and re-typed it, it came back in, same way: flipped.
Hello- Things are moving along well on my “outdoor adventure” project, with one exception. I wanted to make my secondary paper a series of diagonal strips. I cut a full-height vertical strip and pasted iut into my project. I used the “freehand rotate” option to rotate it 45 degrees, but as you can see it doesn’t stretch for a full diagonal corner-to-corner. I wanted to stretch the strip, but the selection box remains square around the diagonal strip – which means that if I stretch a corner handle, the strip gets thicker as it gets longer. I don’t mind it much as-is, but I’m sure there’s a way to elongate those strips. Any suggestions?
Not done yet, but nearly so. I still have shadows to add and a bit of cleanup.
Project 2: Still hit a few bumps in the road, but not as many as last year. A great refresher and a satisfying project.
Here is my sandwich project. I was really impressed with all of the creative variations other students used. However, because I’m getting my feet wet for the second time, I decided that it was best to complete the assignment as presented. However, I did decide on a little creative arrangement of onions, pickles, and lettuce leaves. A very enjoyable exercise, and another great learning experience! I had forgotten that elements cannot be moved from one window to the other, but must be dragged from the “layers” pallette. A challenging and enjoyable start!
Hello, all- This is my second trip through bootcamp. I’m not really interested in scrapbooking (though I appreciate all the community support), but I am interested in learning more of the features of PSP for my photo editing. I enjoyed my first trip through, but I see I’ve lost some of the “knack” I got with the first time.
Long story, but we ended up with quite a few amaryllis bulbs this Christmas season, so I have a plan to use them in upcoming layouts. They’re quite photogenic. With any luck, I’ll figure out how to use “background remover” to isolate just the blossoms and stems.
Happy winter, everyone! See you soon.
Well, at last Project 5 is finished. Thanks much to Sue Thomas and Mary Solaas for helping me get the text difficulties straightened out.
I didn’t have a frame in my kit, and when I tried to create one by using the “erase” tool on the inside of a framed image, the result did not play well with the other layers, so I decided to do without. I’ve used the “bevel” tool before, so the skill was already established.
Bootcamp has been enormously helpful in getting me familiar with layers, and other tools. That’s what I wanted from the bootcamp, and I was entirely happy with what I learned. AND what I got from making mistakes and then figuring out why.
Thanks, Cassel, and all the others who helped.
Peter
Hello-
This isn’t really a reply to a post. i can’t find a link to the forum, so I used this link instead.
It’s a request for advice. I’m working on Project 5, and I can’t get text to wrap in a selection box. Here’s a screen shoe of the workspace. I created the selection rectangle, activated the text tool, (had font/size/color pre-selected) copied the text from MS Word and pasted using CTL-V. Text ran off the page. What’s going wrong?
Thanks
Peter
Hello- Here’s a screen shot of my most recent attempt to put a border around a photo using flood fill. I reviewed the video again, and tolerance was zero. All other values 100. I clicked on each corner, and a few times on the right margin. Still, incomplete filling. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
Peter Sherrill
Hello-
Here’s a screen shot of the workspace where I’m having trouble getting colors to fill in text. I don’t see the same materials palette as yours, and I wasn’t clear on the sequence of commands that you used to color the text. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Peter Sherrill
This project was again a lot more difficult than it looked. I’m not using a lot of the materials suggested ion the lesson, because I clicked on one of the “kit” links and ended up in a bewildering site with lots of irrelevant stuff like homeschooling lessons, and no clear path to the kit in the lesson. I bailed on that direction out of frustratyion. Since my interest in bootcamp is much more focused on getting familiar with PSP 21 (I have no significant interest in scrapbooking), I just used my limited collection of papers, etc., so I could learn tghe techniques.
The first problem came with flood-filling the borders. I followed the directions, but I had to click dozerns of times in the borders to get the colors to partially fill. Even then, some area would not fill and the bordes are ragged. Any thoughts?
Getting toe font to change dolor did not work as shown in the video. The only way I could get the color to change was to click on the color box in the text toolbar, which brought up the color wheel. That worked fine, but each letter required the same process, and in each click on the color box, I had to select a color anew – which meant that I was not using exactlyh hte same color as the previous time. There was no “recent colors” area so I could consistently use the same hue.
I think the most important question for me is why the flood fill didn’t work as expected. Anuy advice is welcome.
Thanks!
Peter
Wow, this project went a lot easire and faster. By labeling each layer as I added it, I was able tyo keep track of everything a whole lot easier and manip[ulate/rearrange them with very little trouble. I don’t have any glitter papers in my files yet, but one of the textures in the color palette worked well as a photo background, and for the first time I used the flood-fill tool and it worked right the first time.
Take-home points:
Manage the layers carefully; label them individually;
Know which layer you’re manipulating;
Double-check to be sure you’re using the tool you want;
Make sure the rectangle that frames the photos is below all the photos in the “layers” palette;
Shortcut keystrokes will save tons of time. Learn ’em. Use ’em.
OK, here’s my second attempt at assignment 2. Thanks to Sue Thomas and Laurie Solaas for their VERY helpful advice. It turns out that PSP decided to create a new layer (unannounced and not asked for) for some of the text I was creating, which kept me from seeing it. Also, somehow my base-paper got selected, which made many tools unavailable on other layers. I ended up making all layers invisible (thanks for that trick, Cassel!) and then – one at a time – looked at each layer to see what was on it. My missing text showed up on several different layers (the result of several failed attempts) so I deleted all the extra layers and placed the text again. Curiously, I couldn’t get the “return” key to place text on a second line. I created a second text element, but then PSP wouldn’t rotate it; AND, when it came time to save as .jpg, that text element wasn’t there. Not sure why
My take-home lessons: do a “select: none” often; label each layer with some identifier so I’ll recognize when PSP has “provided” an extra layer I didn’t ask for; don’t be shy about making all layers invisible, and then checking each one individually. This is particularly important for me, since I’m vision-impaired and those teeny little images in the “layers” area are almost useless for inspection purposes.
Well, again I thought this would be a lot easier than it looked… and to begin, it worked fairly well. But I couldn’t get the “scatter” flowers to resize. I couldn’t get the rastered text or the scatters to drop-shadow. I wanted to add some more text, but the text tool stopped working. Something is wrong, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing that gets these features to not work, when they did with the last project. Any thoughts?
Wow again! That was a lot harder, and took a lot longer, than I thought it would. I couldn’t find the “pick” tool, and thought maybe the “select” option would work (the words mean the same: I thought maybe Corel had just renamed the tool.)
Not so. I fell down that rabbit hole for almost an hour, and had to shut down for the night and sleep on it. In the morning, I actually hovered over every icon on the desktop and spent maybe twenty minutes before I realized that the “move” tool (and its “this-is-not-the-pick-tool icon) also included the “Pick” tool in a submenu. Once I selected the “pick” tool, the icon on the toolbar changed tot he “pick” arrow, and things proceeded mush more smoothly. I used the “help” feature (F1) but the website wasn’t much help. There was no mention that “pick” and “move” were grouped together, and that the icon would change to indicate the active tool.
Another learn-from-my-mistakes lesson.
Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be! I tried clicking on the “bread” in the image window rather than on the layers area, and the stuff just kept disappearing completely! After reviewing the tutorial more carefully, I clicked on the Layers “bread,” etc., and things proceeded much more predictably. It was a great learning experience and I learned a lot from my mistakes. Thanks for starting this bootcamp with baby steps.
