Love Story Challenge

[Anja Pelzer]

finished now the bokeh effect paper , this was fun to do

 

 

 

 

[Sandra Farnham]

Very nicely done everyone!

 

 

[Cristina]

Cassel, I used "hearts brushes.abr" that I downloaded a long time ago. It doesn't have the name of the site/designer, and back then I was not adding this information if they were not in the file, what I do now. This set contains hearts and florals and I used a combination of both. It could have been from Fuzzimo.com / DeviantArt /Brusheezy or All-free-download, but I am not sure.

[Cristina]

Beautiful new layouts!

 

I am still working on Day 6 but so far I didn't like how the photo is blending with the black bokeh background... it doesn't blend naturally like some pages here and Cassel's example. I have to practice more :)

[Michele]

Here's my Day 4. Mom and Dad at their engagement party circa 1948.

[Vicki1672511057]

Cristina  Hanlon I didn't use a black background for my bokeh.  I used one that complimented my photo.  Maybe try that?

[Teri Cleaveland]

Christina Hamlin, I believe it's the placement of your solid color layer. It needs to be above the photo you're taking your dots from. Use the little eyeball to make it visible or hidden..

[Cristina]

Aus, thank you for the tip! I think I am not choosing the right photo for a black bokeh background, besides "struggling" with the technique. :D  And by the way, I love your layouts.

 

Teri, I thank you for the tip! I will take both into consideration and see if I can come up with something my Day 6 layout. And you also have great layouts. :)

[Sue Thomas]

Cristina, you don't have to have a black  background, or even a very dark coloured one.  Instead of doing a few layers of different sized  bokeh, change the Brush variance pallet settings.  After you have altered the brightness and contrast, and added a blur, also selected a colour with the dropper tool.   For example.  Jitter to around  100,  colour blend 100, size 2, fade rate 100, impressions per step around 5.   Brush setting:  size varies, opacity 45 step 18 you'll get different sizes with the colour. Add a new layer to do a different colour.  Once done, blur again if need be.

[AprilDawn]

I pop in every day to look at all the pages that have been posted and all the new ones that have been added... everyone's pages are beautiful !   and a joy to view them.... well done everyone!

 

Dawn.

 

 

[Teri Cleaveland]

Carole,

Thank you for the extra help. I don't think I would ever have solved that problem!

 

I've had a lot of fun learning how to make my own papers and masks so I can make pages like this one! Course, it helps to have such a great subject! My paper was made from the photo on the right.

[Cassel]

@ Teri, I am just happy that it was such a simple fix.

 

For anyone wondering, Teri had issues where selecting a color with the Dropper tool was not kept when the Brush tool was activated, which meant she could not create that Bokeh effect as in the tutorial. It turned out that a little check box in the Material palette labelled "All tools" needed to be CHECKED when the Brush tool was active but had accidentally been UNchecked. Simple fix to a strange issue. This could happen with any version of PSP, so if you ever have some odd color selection issue, check if that box is checked or not.

[Cristina]

Hi Sue, thanks for the tip! This is a very interesting way of creating the bokeh effect using the Brush Variance. Before watching some time ago Cassel's webinar using this tool I had no idea that it existed. :)

 

I copied your comment and will also try this way. This is the great thing about the Forum, I learn a lot from all you.

[Cristina]

Finally, I have Day 6. Although I had several attempts before this one it was fun to play with this effect, and I thank everyone who gave me suggestions. I do appreciate <3 and will try them later.

[Michele]

Day 5. I had to brush on a couple of the snowflakes. The picture of the arctic fox was too small and I kept running into the edges. The photo is from Unsplash. I made the background with the kaleidoscope effect from a watercolor illustration I had. And the font is Flower Child by Skyla Design.

[Teri Cleaveland]

Finally finished my last challenge! Took quite awhile. I knew I was going to use our Doxies, so I wanted a paper to go with them. It took me awhile to do the font as well. Too bad that life (dishes, going to the feed store, feeding out livestock, shoveling snow) has to get in the way of what I want to do! :-) Glad I am retired!! The pictures of our "kids" are drawings that my husband has done. You can see his work on Facebook @Cleaveland Indians Online. I may be prejudged, but I think he's pretty good!

 

I have enjoyed seeing everyone's creations! Very fun and there is so much talent out there!

 

Teri

 

[Marlene Lingham]

Finally got my last three pages finished.

 

Day 5 was fun, I used an overlay to get the background paper (Cassel's blog) and a flower brush on the mask. The car & caravan are freebies from Manu Designs. The RUSL25 number plate on the car is a personalised plate I bought for Russell for Christmas in 1993 to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the day we met, I nearly changed it to 50 in 2008 but didn't. It is great fun having total strangers calling him by name after looking at the car!

 

Day 6 took me a bit longer. I used the photo of us by the helicopter for the bokeh, which I found fairly easy to do. I have also done it just using the Brush Variance pallet and not separate layers, which was easy as well. I had most problems trying to decide what colour background to use, still not sure about the blue.

 

For Day 7 I did the polkadot background as per the tutorial, gave the dots a bevel and a bit of a blur, then used Cassel's Corner Punch brush to highlight the corners. I also used the same frame as before, just changed the colour to match. I had most trouble doing the text. I had a tutorial for wire text using SuperBlade Pro and tried that but it wasn't very nice, so went back to using the sculpture effect. I wanted silver and that wasn't too easy to find a texture, I ended up using felt. The font is Saginaw, which wasn't as spread out as Love Notes.

 

Thank you Cassel for setting us this challenge, it has been really good taking part and seeing what everyone has done. Some of the tutorials I had already done (Diamond Member) but it still a bit of a challenge to do them again, and there were new things to learn as well. Everyone who has taken part has done some really nice pages, and I have also come to know people a bit more personally through seeing the things they love.

 

Looking forward to the next challenge!

 

 

[Cristina]

This is my Day 7. About the Wire Text... In order to make it easier for me, I create an image of 3000px and wrote the text. From it, I created separate images with one word each. This way each image only had a few promoted selection layers and not dozens like when I tried it for the first time.  My text had lots of amendments to be made. :)  After it was done, I added all images to just one file. I used the Emily Regular Font.

 

Like always, it is so much fun to participate in the challenges. I love them! I learn a lot and have a reason to do something with my photos. Thank you, Cassel.

 

 

[Sue Thomas]

Wonderful  work ladies.  I check in periodically  to see what has been posted, same techniques used, yet every paper is unique. I always learn something new.  Cristina, you can always  change the impression per step to 1, so you have more control of where you want each bokeh to be positioned. You'll still get the different sized bokeh, which gives perspective, and with the opacity low, I like the overlapping, where  you see the  colour of the one underneath seeping through when they overlap, apart from the different sizes which also gives perspective.  I know that this a Christmas card, I make them throughout the winter months, in readiness for  next Xmas, using last years  photos.  Saying that I took this photo of a Snowy Owl last weekend when I was out doing a bird count.  I made  my own mask, used the wire text tutorial for the  greeting,  used a picture frame for the torn paper,  image, picture frame, coloured and used  a sandstone texture, for the right side  border, selection tool, material palette, gold pattern with dither 20pct texture. My wire text isn't as defined as  what Carole did in her tutorial. So I'm a bit disappointed  with that. Plenty of time  to do it again.  I can always add a few elements closer to next Xmas.

[Teri Cleaveland]

@ Sue Thomas

Love the card! Could you just add a shadow to the text to make it stand out more?

[Sue Thomas]

Thank you Teri!  An extra pair of eyes can be invaluable, I appreciate the suggestion.  Yes I  agree I should have added a drop shadow, to give it more emphasis.  What I have done too, which has made the text more defined, is , I added the sculpture texture again to the main text and to the promoted selection, and that made a  huge difference.  Initially I didn't promote each letter individually, I selected each letter and promoted them en block.

[Cristina]

Hi, Sue. Your card is lovely, and the photo of the owl is beautiful!

 

Like I did some time ago with the frame tips you gave, I copied your comment and added to the other one from Feb25th. Next time I make a bokeh effect I will do like you suggested. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. :)

[Vickie Sattelberg]

Here is my Day 4

[Vickie Sattelberg]

Day 5

[Vickie Sattelberg]

Almost done. Day 6