July TUT/TECH Challenge (2024)

[Cassel]

 

The Campus is the perfect place to learn more about photo editing, various techniques, or PSP in general.

This challenge will allow you to practice some of those techniques or use some tools.

This time, the Tut/Tech Challenge will be to create a lifted element on a project. It could be a photo, a paper letter, a tag, etc.

Check this blog article for detailed instructions.

 

[Sue Thomas]

Here is my page for the Tut /tech challenge.   I create the page a week or so ago.  I added, by creating the  date banner, lifting some of the  pennants, also I added a ribbon, and lifted  one edge.  I replaced the date stamp with the  banner.  Head on over to the facebook  page, if you want to  see a  much less compressed layout, to see the details and colours in the photos.  I rarely edit my photos.  If I find there  is a need to, all I tend to do is  use the  brightness and contrast, and crop tools.  In this case the photos weren't edited.  Also, for those that may be interested, birds are like dog, they don't perspire, instead they pant like dogs.  For the past fortnight the temps have been in the high thirties, again today it is 37c, and hazy, due to smoke blowing  in. 

Edited July 20 by Sue Thomas

[Susan Ewart]

6 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Here is my page for the Tut /tech challenge.   I create the page a week or so ago.  I added, by creating the  date banner, lifting some of the  pennants, also I added a ribbon, and lifted  one edge.  I replaced the date stamp with the  banner.  Head on over to the facebook  page, if you want to  see a  much less compressed layout, to see the details and colours in the photos.  I rarely edit my photos.  If I find there  is a need to, all I tend to do is  use the  brightness and contrast, and crop tools.  In this case the photos weren't edited.  Also, for those that may be interested, birds are like dog, they don't perspire, instead they pant like dogs.  For the past fortnight the temps have been in the high thirties, again today it is 37c, and hazy, due to smoke blowing  in. 

Another beautiful layout Sue.  We are experiencing the same weather and smoke.  I've been changing the three bird baths every several hours today.  6 crows in the yard most of the day with cooling off in the way your explained above.  And lots of bathing.  The water had black bits on the bottom and I wondered if it could be ash from the smoke.  It's really quite bad.  My eyes are stingy.  I feel so bad for the animal/bird/insect world who has to live with the smoke.  Yesterday before the smoke rolled in, we had crows, magpies and pigeons all on the ground in my tiny backyard, chillin' out (at the same time).  Just last week there was a young crow and magpie hanging out together and it seemed like they were playing together, picking up a stick and then dropping it, then the other one would pick up the same stick and do the same.  they followed each other around for quite some time and would fly up to the same perches on the roof, the power lines.  I've never seen that before.  

[Sue Thomas]

I'm  having to change the birds bath water several times a day. I also have 2 small solar fountains which I have in  what were shallow animal mineral tubs. The birds  love  a shower. I even have bowls of water out for the ground squirrels, rabbits and other  4 legged mammals. The corvids are social birds, also highly intelligent. They willingly interact with others as you have witnessed. I have to clean out the horses watering bowl  daily, as the  birds not only  use it to drink from, but as a bath.  Then there are the birds that use bird baths to dispose of their young droppings. Taking attention far away from the nest. We really don't  need to provide food or water  for birds, we do it purely to attract them for our own  enjoyment. It's a huge lucrative industry.

Edited July 21 by Sue Thomas

[Corrie Kinkel]

15 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Here is my page for the Tut /tech challenge.   I create the page a week or so ago.  I added, by creating the  date banner, lifting some of the  pennants, also I added a ribbon, and lifted  one edge.  I replaced the date stamp with the  banner.  Head on over to the facebook  page, if you want to  see a  much less compressed layout, to see the details and colours in the photos.  I rarely edit my photos.  If I find there  is a need to, all I tend to do is  use the  brightness and contrast, and crop tools.  In this case the photos weren't edited.  Also, for those that may be interested, birds are like dog, they don't perspire, instead they pant like dogs.  For the past fortnight the temps have been in the high thirties, again today it is 37c, and hazy, due to smoke blowing  in. 

I have taken a look on FB and you really can see the difference with the more compressed version here. I don't do much on FB and keep it just for seeing what is going on with the Campus and post there as well as here. It is a handy alternative if the campus site is down for whatever reason. It is a pity that there is smoke coming your way again. My daughter in CA told me that the wildfires are starting there too. At least we don't have many of those, although the last couple of years which were hot and dry, have made us here aware that we can get more fires too but they are so far on a much smaller scale. When visiting Yosemite this spring we drove for miles and miles along a road through the Sierra National Forest that had only blackened trees without any greenery.

[Sue Thomas]

7 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

I have taken a look on FB and you really can see the difference with the more compressed version here. I don't do much on FB and keep it just for seeing what is going on with the Campus and post there as well as here. It is a handy alternative if the campus site is down for whatever reason. It is a pity that there is smoke coming your way again. My daughter in CA told me that the wildfires are starting there too. At least we don't have many of those, although the last couple of years which were hot and dry, have made us here aware that we can get more fires too but they are so far on a much smaller scale. When visiting Yosemite this spring we drove for miles and miles along a road through the Sierra National Forest that had only blackened trees without any greenery.

It really pains me to reduce an image to  600 pixels and  under 200kb. lol  Saying that I understand completely why it is nescesary to do so.  Although I did  reduce the imgae for facebook from 6mb to  1.5mb. As you say facebook is a handy alternative on occassions.  When the wild fires started last year, there were  two hundered  and so, this year when they started there were over 300 fires.  Unfortunately, the wild fires have to be controlled due to more and more people wanting to live  in rural areas.  Wild fires play an important  part in   renewing and recycling ecosytems.   Many of the trees planted today for commercial use,  are quick growing, and  are unable to  withstand  the fires like so many of the native plants and trees, which depend on the fires for their survial.  Fires open up the forests canopy to sunlight, to encourage new growth, including  tree saplings.

  

[Sue Thomas]

I should have also mentioned that I used Carole's banner 2  special font, which I bought. I'm hooked on creating banners at the moment, especially after watching  the  more recent master class on banners and pennants. Also used one of her punches, which I love. For the circle photo I used the technique I have demonstrated before.  Personally, I prefer to use it on oval and circles  rather than square or rectangle shapes.  I did give instructions on how to create that effect, using  vector shapes, to maintain clean sharp  edges.  As using the selction tool creates very jaggy edges on anything that isn't square or rectangle. 

[Julie Magerka]

I'd say I threw this together quickly and easily, but it wasn't quick. I dithered around with it for too long and just wanted to keep it simple to align with the challenge.

BeaBea belongs to a friend. I have no kitty, over a year now.😢

Now that I've conquered the Interlacing Technique....you'll likely see it often! 😁

[Sue Thomas]

Well done, your persitence has paid off.  I see you have mastered that technique.  I bet you are now looking back and thinking what was all the frustration about.  🙂  lol

[Bonnie Ballentine]

I need more work/practice with this technique. I gave up and used Carole's script.

Brushes/PNG's - Deer Tracks Sheila Reid at Digital Scrapbooking

[Cassel]

For those who will want to practice more with this technique, there will be one lesson in the upcoming Shadow Workshop, scheduled for August 🙂

[Sue Thomas]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

For those who will want to practice more with this technique, there will be one lesson in the upcoming Shadow Workshop, scheduled for August 🙂

Is this a brand new Workshop? I'm intrigued!

[Susan Ewart]

3 hours ago, Bonnie Ballentine said:

I need more work/practice with this technique. I gave up and used Carole's script.

Brushes/PNG's - Deer Tracks Sheila Reid at Digital Scrapbooking

What a great shot Bonnie.  I also think that's the best advice any deer or human could ever get.  Love it!

[Ann Seeber]

7 hours ago, Bonnie Ballentine said:

I gave up and used Carole's script.

Don't feel bad, Bonnie, I did the exact same thing! I did try with the Warp Brush and you'd shudder like I did, to see the results! 😁

[Julie Magerka]

13 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Well done, your persitence has paid off.  I see you have mastered that technique.  I bet you are now looking back and thinking what was all the frustration about.  🙂  lol

Thanks Sue. You're right, of course. But I realize that every new skill is difficult before it's easy. It took me some time, but your encouragement kept me going. Now, on to other things I'm terrible at....

[Julie Magerka]

3 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Don't feel bad, Bonnie, I did the exact same thing! I did try with the Warp Brush and you'd shudder like I did, to see the results! 😁

I didn't use the Warp Brush technique. It looked too wonky. So I reverted to the shadow on new layer and used the Perspective tool to adjust the corners and the shadow.

[Sue Thomas]

53 minutes ago, Julie Magerka said:

I didn't use the Warp Brush technique. It looked too wonky. So I reverted to the shadow on new layer and used the Perspective tool to adjust the corners and the shadow.

Good thinking Julie!  I often use that technique, especially for something which has straight edges.  There is always more than one alternative way of doing anything in PSP, to get the desired result. 

[Corrie Kinkel]

I started this layout last saturday but with the story workshop and a very busy week I just finished this one. I wanted to make the lifted corner by hand, but I'm not entirely happy with it. Next time I'll probably go with the script that I have. However I used the cass-SlippedInCorner2 which I won last week! I tried all the different options but settled here for this one. Script is nice and easy to use, love it! For the background I made an overlay with raindrops. Somewhere on the net I saw an umbrella adorned with flowers and made this brolly myself, just as the watersplash. The cluster is by Jessica Dunn and the rain or shine text comes from my stash. The title font is Star Bright.

[Sue Thomas]

Here is one more for this challenge. I used one of Carole's edge brushes, as it resembled the bird's slightly fanned tail feathers. For the background I used the photo as an overlay.  I created a barcode in order to date  when the photo was taken. The Least flycahtcher is such a beautiful little  bird, not much bigger than the Wren. I have several pairs here, they are very secretive birds, keeping low in wait on branches, catching insects on the wing. 

Edited July 28 by Sue Thomas

[Julie Magerka]

11 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Here is one more for this challenge. I used one of Carole's edge brushes, as it resembled the bird's slightly fanned tail feathers. For the background I used the photo as an overlay.  I created a barcode in order to date  when the photo was taken. The Least flycahtcher is such a beautiful little  bird, not much bigger than the Wren. I have several pairs here, they are very secretive birds, keeping low in wait on branches, catching insects on the wing. 

They might be small and secretive, but your patience paid off with this pic.

[Julie Magerka]

On 7/26/2024 at 6:14 AM, Corrie Kinkel said:

I started this layout last saturday but with the story workshop and a very busy week I just finished this one. I wanted to make the lifted corner by hand, but I'm not entirely happy with it. Next time I'll probably go with the script that I have. However I used the cass-SlippedInCorner2 which I won last week! I tried all the different options but settled here for this one. Script is nice and easy to use, love it! For the background I made an overlay with raindrops. Somewhere on the net I saw an umbrella adorned with flowers and made this brolly myself, just as the watersplash. The cluster is by Jessica Dunn and the rain or shine text comes from my stash. The title font is Star Bright.

Love it all especially the brolly & flowers touch.

[Sue Thomas]

47 minutes ago, Julie Magerka said:

They might be small and secretive, but your patience paid off with this pic.

It is always rewarding when I can get a nice shot, when I'm least expecting it!   lol

[Sue Thomas]

A tip for anyone thinking of doing a lifted corner on a corner where that corner is lifted above the frame.  Don't use the selection tool, promote to a new layer technique.  Use the duplicate and eraser tool technique.  The  other technique doens't work so well, and is tricky to do.  

[Julie Magerka]

Since I recently got another pic of my friend's great-grandson, I wanted to play with more lifted corners.

The baby's folks (young couple) set out from near Windsor, Ontario, to drive with a four-month old to Florida! The baby looks happy; wonder what the parents look like?

That's a long drive.....!

[Sue Thomas]

2 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

Since I recently got another pic of my friend's great-grandson, I wanted to play with more lifted corners.

The baby's folks (young couple) set out from near Windsor, Ontario, to drive with a four-month old to Florida! The baby looks happy; wonder what the parents look like?

That's a long drive.....!

Beautifully  executed. In my opinion, simplicity  is the best.