What are you working on (in June 2023)?

[Ann Seeber]

I posted this  under its own topic but in case you missed it, here it is, also. I was reviewing the Back Off Master Class when I realized with the newer versions of PSP we have Artificial Intelligence built in that promises to change backgrounds easily. I tried it with a photo of my grandson, Brad, and his girlfriend, Livia. The original background was quite dark and I replaced it with a beach scene offered by my PSP 2023 Ultimate. Here is the original and the digitally changed version.

[Michele]

18 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

I love this style of layout.  The font has a darker glow around it, is that a layer style or drop shadow? i really like how you used the lady with the lower opacity on the orange background.

Thanks so much, Susan. First I used a black outline on the font. Then I added 1) a small black drop shadow at a low opacity and 2) a larger orange drop shadow at a higher opacity and moved it below the first one. Does that make sense? I'm glad you liked the low-opacity lady on the background; I thought it might have been too much.

[Susan Ewart]

3 hours ago, Michele said:

Thanks so much, Susan. First I used a black outline on the font. Then I added 1) a small black drop shadow at a low opacity and 2) a larger orange drop shadow at a higher opacity and moved it below the first one. Does that make sense? I'm glad you liked the low-opacity lady on the background; I thought it might have been too much.

Thank you Michele.  The lowered opacity lady is that little extra that elevates the design.  it's subtle enough that it's one of those wonderful discoveries you make while looking at the layout.  

[Susan Ewart]

5 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

I posted this  under its own topic but in case you missed it, here it is, also. I was reviewing the Back Off Master Class when I realized with the newer versions of PSP we have Artificial Intelligence built in that promises to change backgrounds easily. I tried it with a photo of my grandson, Brad, and his girlfriend, Livia. The original background was quite dark and I replaced it with a beach scene offered by my PSP 2023 Ultimate. Here is the original and the digitally changed version.

This is really cool.  I would have thought that's how it was, the only 'tell' was a piece of blue above the yellow flower.  I wouldnt even know how to go about using this tool.  Hopefully when I grow up I'll be as brave as you.  (I'm not sure I'll ever grow up though ?)

[Ann Seeber]

15 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

This is really cool.  I would have thought that's how it was, the only 'tell' was a piece of blue above the yellow flower.  I wouldnt even know how to go about using this tool.  Hopefully when I grow up I'll be as brave as you.  (I'm not sure I'll ever grow up though ?)

I started by clicking on the tutorial on the bottom left from the center collection on my Edit workspace. It walked me through it. It turned out to be a combo of using the edit selection tool and then just choosing a background photo. I used one of PSPs built in suggested beach photos but now I'm on a hunt for suitable background for my icky bird photos that show mostly my parking lot. I'll display something once I'm happy with it.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Ann Seeber

[Susan Ewart]

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

I started by clicking on the tutorial on the bottom left from the center collection on my Edit workspace. It walked me through it. It turned out to be a combo of using the edit selection tool and then just choosing a background photo. I used one of PSPs built in suggested beach photos but now I'm on a hunt for suitable background for my icky bird photos that show mostly my parking lot. I'll display something once I'm happy with it.

I cant wait.  I have an itchy old green corrugated fence in the yard this is often my "background".  Be nice to change it.  I'll have to find some time to try out those tutorials.  I really liked what you did. 

[Rene Marker]

I haven't been scrapping much lately since I've been working on a history project for my church with my cousin. But I did finish an album about the pandemic and had it printed at Shutterfly. It is not especially interesting since it is mostly facts about Ohio, my county and my town. Lots of journaling. I started it with January 2020 and finally stopped with May of 2023 when both the WHO and the CDC declared the emergency of Covid as over.

For my front and back covers I used some cut-outs from Scrapping With Liz. For the front cover I used Heidelstein font for the word Pandemic and Cass-punched out script after applying a paper to the raster layer. All papers and elements for both pages (except the cutouts) are from a kit that That Was A Year from Sweet Shoppe Designs. The back cover of all the cutouts was originally saved as 12x12 since I was going to use it as a page. I changed my mind so I had to make some adjustments so things were not cut out on the book cover. I just put every layer into a group and used the pick tool to scale down the size and recenter everything on the page. This is the 12x12 version of it. Worked great!

[Mary Solaas]

There are so many tools in PSP.  But I did download that fractal explorer that Kasany was talking about.  Played around with it in my OCD phase about papers and patterns.  Well I made 2 patterns out of that and then thought about psp's preset shapes and the heart shape and so I'll show you what I have been doing instead of what I should be doing!!LOL!!!

[Mary Solaas]

and here are some of the papers I made with the patterns.

[Mary Solaas]

and 1 more

[Susan Ewart]

23 minutes ago, Mary Solaas said:

and 1 more

I really love this one.  Is it fairly straight forward to use?  what was it called again?

 

[Suzy]

Yeah, what was that triangle one? Part of PSP? I hope. Because I didn’t download that fractal program.

plus the texture on the sage green heart….how can I make that?

the germ or smoggy snowflake has two sides cut off, so 4 of the 6 points are sheared,  Does the program do that? Or did you crop it?

[Susan Ewart]

16 minutes ago, Suzy said:

Yeah, what was that triangle one? Part of PSP? I hope. Because I didn’t download that fractal program.

plus the texture on the sage green heart….how can I make that?

the germ or smoggy snowflake has two sides cut off, so 4 of the 6 points are sheared,  Does the program do that? Or did you crop it?

If you look closely at the snowflake, it is all sheared off (all sides).  In fact it would fit perfectly into a hexagon shape.  It's pretty cool and would make an interesting mask.  I like the papers and hearts too.  Looks like an interesting program.

[Corrie Kinkel]

20 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

Back in the Lab again!  This time Lab 6-9

• Wire Clip
• Flower 2
• Overlapped String

The wire clip was fun to make, making sure I read the WHOLE instructions on how to use the clip properly in my layout is another story.  At first I thought my flower was going to be ho-hum boring but after getting to the end and adding the shadows and the color on the edges it really took shape.  They are quite pretty when they are done.  The string, well, let's just say I did get two parts overlapped.  I wont be known for making fantastic string. I used the see-through technique on the title.  And I used the painted frame freebies from the store blog.  I put the same asphalt texture (or is it called cement?) on the layer so it looked like it was painted on the asphalt/cement. I also used the eraser tool to make it look scuffed up.  The cracks are from my garage door that I photographed and extracted the cracks and made an overlay.  Fonts are: Wonderbar 2.0 (title) from Creative Fabrica and Gill Sans MT for the date (windows).  Photo is mine. two little brads on the flowers are from Gina Jones Delish Brad 09 (Digital Scrapbook)

Susan I like your layout and your idea to take photos of your garagedoor and use it for an overlay I definitively must remember. We don't have a garage anymore but enough other suitable places like the gardenfence.

 

[Corrie Kinkel]

And one more for my book. This one is of the village and the surroundings where my daughter lives with the places we visited  there like Stanford University! I kept this page in line with the others qua style and font to get a somewhat cohesive look for my book.

Mary Solaas, thank you for the shield which I adapted for the road where I was. It made this page come together a bit quicker. I have one more to do and then I can assemble the book with all the individual photos and send it to the printer.

[Susan Ewart]

11 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

Susan I like your layout and your idea to take photos of your garagedoor and use it for an overlay I definitively must remember. We don't have a garage anymore but enough other suitable places like the gardenfence.

 

I find myself looking at textures everywhere now that I know they are good to have for layouts.  Finally the old wooden garage door is good for more than just opening and closing.  we have a fence that needs replacing that has some promising textures too. Garden fences would be great, especially if they are old and weathered. Thank you for your kind words on my layout.  

[Susan Ewart]

2 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

And one more for my book. This one is of the village and the surroundings where my daughter lives with the places we visited  there like Stanford University! I kept this page in line with the others qua style and font to get a somewhat cohesive look for my book.

Mary Solaas, thank you for the shield which I adapted for the road where I was. It made this page come together a bit quicker. I have one more to do and then I can assemble the book with all the individual photos and send it to the printer.

Love the background map paper.  Good idea there. 

[Mary Solaas]

Suzy and Susan.  It is not easy to use and since it was free I just messed around with it.  PSP is easier and especially since Carole is so good at explaining things and knows so much.  You all can have the patterns I managed to make as noted above or I can post them as png's on Facebook (can I?)  Only if you want to.  I have to quit.  I made one more pattern and 1 more paper but it is too time consuming for me to continue with it.  It won't do what I would really like it to do.  I have a few ideas in mind since fractals are just repetitive patterns in nature. I'll post the new pattern and the new paper here.

[Mary Solaas]

speaking of things we have all been doing, Susan I really liked that overlay you did of your barn door  cracks.  Could I get a copy?

[Susan Ewart]

Of course you can.  Just home from work (late) and need to hit the bed.  I will get to it tomorrow.  I think I can put the file on the FB page.  Do you want the overlay and also the original photo as well so you can make an overlay.  I changed the brightness contrast when I was trying to make an overlay (never done that before) to emphasize the black lines and used different tolerance levels with the magic wand and got different thickness of black crack lines.  to me they are a little too thick so next time I would try and contract a pixel or two and see what that does.  I also just left the photo and did unspeakable adjustment with the brightness and contrast and came up with a cool paper on it's own.  I'm just learning how to make them and guessed my way through it.  Here is the one I used, a smaller sample.  i will upload the full size file tomorrow.

I would love copies of what you made too.  

[Susan Ewart]

Here's another one I can also send.  I shot quite a few (it's actually the horizontal slats on my garage door) different areas and will try shooting with my wide angle lens if it ever stops raining.  I love shooting this kind of thing.  Once I learn how to zip and use something like drop box I can send more and the orignal photos for you to make the overlay in the way you would like.  these are reduced size so might not be that great.  This overlay was made using a lower tolerance with the magic wand where the one above had a higher tolerance and produced thicker and blacker blacks.  that's why you might want the photo as well.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Susan Ewart

[Susan Ewart]

6 hours ago, Mary Solaas said:

Suzy and Susan.  It is not easy to use and since it was free I just messed around with it.  PSP is easier and especially since Carole is so good at explaining things and knows so much.  You all can have the patterns I managed to make as noted above or I can post them as png's on Facebook (can I?)  Only if you want to.  I have to quit.  I made one more pattern and 1 more paper but it is too time consuming for me to continue with it.  It won't do what I would really like it to do.  I have a few ideas in mind since fractals are just repetitive patterns in nature. I'll post the new pattern and the new paper here.

I'm glad you told me about it.  I think I will pass on it.  I have to decide where best to spend my time. I think I need to really concentrate on learning PSP before I lose time to learning another complicated program.  I really like what you did in a short time using that program, the papers are very nice and I'd love to have them.  

[Ann Seeber]

9 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

And one more for my book. This one is of the village and the surroundings where my daughter lives with the places we visited  there like Stanford University! I kept this page in line with the others qua style and font to get a somewhat cohesive look for my book.

Mary Solaas, thank you for the shield which I adapted for the road where I was. It made this page come together a bit quicker. I have one more to do and then I can assemble the book with all the individual photos and send it to the printer.

So interesting, Corrie! My granddaughter lives just north of Stanford in Palo Alto. I think this area is termed Silicon Valley? All the big software houses are there. Her husband is a senior software engineer for Meta/Facebook.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Ann Seeber

[fiona cook]

9 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

I find myself looking at textures everywhere now that I know they are good to have for layouts.  Finally the old wooden garage door is good for more than just opening and closing.  we have a fence that needs replacing that has some promising textures too. Garden fences would be great, especially if they are old and weathered. Thank you for your kind words on my layout.  

I also liked your clever use of a basic texture from your own photo. I take photos like that usually of dilapidated buildings or foliage but have not used them much as you have done here. Inspiration indeed for textures and that Lab tutorial. Thank you.

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

So interesting, Corrie! My granddaughter lives just north of Stanford in Palo Alto. I think this area is termed Silicon Valley? All the big software houses are there. Her husband is a senior software engineer for Meta/Facebook.

Yes this area is silicon valley and my daughter works for Apple and her husband for Amazon. They live, you may have guessed that from my layout, in Los Altos. One should think that the internet and other facilities in such an area are topnotch, but no they are very frequent without power! Very convenient if you work from home.........?