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Thank you Krystyna. I should have said which ones they were. Land is Asterixa, Air is Twinkling Night and Sea is Night Light (which when you load it, it shows up in the font list as Ninght Light - I found out when I couldnt find it in the list). All of them are from Creative Fabrica.

One for good measure

Thank you Corrie I will give that a go. Much appreciated.

Just for fun

You have some lovely fonts.

It really is the only "safe" topic any more...

Lesson 7 page 1 and 2

I have finished Day 7, and it's a double page again. Maybe there will be a Day 8, to use the last photos I have from this 2023 Malmö tour.

The first thing I do if I make a change to my toolbar or workspace is save it. That was something I learned to do a long time ago!

A few of my photographs taken over the years

So true. That's why there are certain subjects that I don't talk to others about, even people I've known my whole life. In the last 6 months, I reconnected with a high school classmate and I know that her views on certain subjects are much different than mine. We just don't talk about them, instead we talk about our lives in the 50 years since graduation (that's a lot to cover!) We also talk about the trip we went on together (that's where we reconnected, she was the bus lead on the bus I was on) and the bus trips we'll be on together this year. At least one where she will be in charge and possibly another one if there are 2 buses for the trip.

Too many people don't know how to have a conversation with people who have different views. We used to have civil talks and learned from each other. I still try. Oh, and it's really cold here. lol

Isnt that the truth.

The weather has become "small talk" when you don't really know someone and don't know what to talk about.

I have been playing and trying some things; here I placed some of my experiments together on a backgroundpaper. There is a tutorial from the LilyPad on how to use jpg pattern tiles and I have some jpg pattern tiles by Carole that placed in a folder called Assets (in the Window menu on top). Then I made a custom shape, outline no fill and with the gradient fill tool (I had to find that via customize and placed it on the lefthand side toolbar) active click on the pattern and by magic it is inside the shape. Afterwards it is possible to change the size of the pattern. That was the heart, then I tried it on a text and it works the same. Then I used a text and filled it with a photo which works just like we did in the Bootcamp with text filled with a paper. The word Spring has a small bevel and Coming has a very thick one, just to get more familiar with the settings and both have a dropshadow as well. Before using two different effects on a same layer(text) I had to duplicate and use the bevel on the top and the shadow on the bottom layer of the two. The heart has a shadow and a reverse shadow, also on a duplicate layer and then group them. This is something I have to get used to, more duplicating layers! I have a lot of abr. brushes imported in PSP but luckily I kept the zipfiles too and now I can use them in Affinity as well. I tried to use 2 of them as a stamp and recolored them just to practice. I find the colorpicker very difficult to use, especially picking a color from a photo because it uses 1px by 1px size. Not doable with my unsteady hands but in the lefthand toolbar is a colorpicker icon too and if you click on it, there is a toolmenu on the top where you can set the size of that picker to your liking or needs. That is it for today, I think next I will try text on a path and reverse text, wrapped text and whatever comes up to explore.

Several years ago, the kids called me outside as they found a huge butterfly. It was my first encounter with a Luna Moth. Unlike most moths, this one is quite colorful. I noticed that the moth was on the ground, and our cat was about to pounce on it. I grabbed it and it kind of hopped on my sweater and crawled on my face. It was likely injured, but it ended up flying away (and we brought the cat inside, to give it a chance). This moth has a life span of about one week.

Recently Anna Aspnes was retiring a lot of her older products and had those on sale with a big discount and I bought just a small kit and in this kit was a butterfly and lovely backgrounds and elements. With this month's theme I had to try to make a layout in Affinity and I used one of my own butterfly photos and put it inside the frame from the kit. Then I had to use a pin from my stash to "hang" the frame on. The font I used is called My Butterfly and has lovely swatches and although I have found a way to use some I couldn't figure out how to use others. There is so much to learn.......

Yes you can. Window > Studio > Add Preset.

Thank you for the reminder. I just saved this workspace. The last one I saved was back in August and I know I made some changes since.

This was from our Text Workshop last November.

For me it will be extremely difficult to talk to people when I'm visiting my family in California in April. The times I was visiting them in the last coupe of years I was always asked what we in Europe are thinking of what is happening, or what we are thinking about Trump/Biden. I firstly have to explain that Europe is the continent and that it has many different countries who don't think the same or agree on the same things on many subjects. But this time I probably won't go into details and try to avoid such conversations as much as possible.

And then I was into spiders. The challenge topic was "FEAR"

It seems I was really into bees 2 years ago! 🐝

I used a bootcamp layout for a Bee festival that my daughter was involved with.

Even though my bookmark says this is still February, I will post my new March Wild Cat Calendar. The template is from our calendar workshop last Oct. '24. They have unusual masks that add to the surrounding frame, and a separate layer which can be colorized. This is an action shot of a powerful jaguar attacking a caiman, which is a relative of the alligator. I get my information and photos from Panthera.org. The background paper is from Marisa Lerin. It started out purple but I changed that with the Change to Target brush using the dark blue color from the caiman's skin. The greens are from the photo. The March title font is Aviation Cocktail. I will post a full size version in our Facebook group Scrapbooking with PaintShop Pro and Affinity that is suitable for printing. I put mine on my refrigerator.

Duh! Thanks, Rene, I'm all set now but will remember your technique if it happens again.

I will try to explain There is one large photo layer but what if you have two photos to showcase? You can simply create two new shapes. You can use the Move tool and activate the photo layer, and make it about half the height it was before. Then rightclick on that new layer and duplicate it and move the copy. For 3 layers you just have to make the layers smaller.

OK, so I am having a go at Lesson 5 from a single to multiple masks and having a problem. The first time I tried it, the top mask layer was ok, but the bottom mask didn't show up. I have tried this now about 4 times, and in each case the black fill is just not happening. After I inverted the selection on the mask, chose black, and the fill tool it looks as though nothing is being filled. I have closed PSP2020 and opened it up again in case there was a glitch, but I am still not getting the desired effect. I have also tried this technique on one of the other templates for masks in this workshop, but still have the same outcome. Can you help please.

If you listen to the radio, it is the topic. If you are on break at work, it is the topic. If you go to the Tim Horton's, you will hear people talking about the weather. I guess, we have so much variety and range in weather/temperature/events, there is always something to talk about!

She is perfect. Totally a living doll. 🙂

Lesson 5. Shadow just for visibility in the forum. I wanted to try doing the diagonal version mentioned in the tutorial. With a little luck I'll get this done by the end of the weekend.

Here is the Right side.

Here I am, the turtle bringing up the rear. Lesson 4. I added an reverse shadow to the page so it shows where the white page ends (it's only on this smaller forum version). After I am done all the pages I'll decided about the background or added more frames. I kind of like the white, last year I added backgrounds. Also the blue boxes I'll have to decide on a color. here is the left side.

Life has been happening so I still have to complete my D7, but I have created a new template (below), I just need to decide which photos to include and maybe move the template around. I also saw a video on text and how to include different colours/patterns and decided to have a play - it is the same method as Carole showed us in the Bootcamp, (drag the colour/pattern layer onto the text) but just by adding extra layers of colour or pattern and by moving them around it gives options. My play included similar to what we did on D3. Thank you to all who posted such interesting stories and places to visit and the amazing creations, it really is a talented group. Thank you Carole for taking on Affinity and sharing your knowledge with us it really is appreciated.

Yes, she is, Clarine. Thank you. Here is a more recent layout showing how she is now thriving in the care of my daughter, Beth, who is her grandmother.

Your little Sonya is a dolly.

We have added a feature that will help others guide you, if you happen to have any technical difficulties or questions. Step 1. Go to your forum Profile Step 2. Click Edit Profile Step 3. Scroll to the bottom and you will see Programs used. Fill out the information as appropriate for your usage. Step 4. You will see that information appear under your name, in the forum. This will be helpful when you ask a technical question, so we know what program you might be referring to.

Today I looked at text on a path, text on a shape (circle) with the text inside the shape on top and outside on the bottom. For wrapped text in a shape I choose I a heart and I'm so happy that in Affinity I can finally use this feature again! I like it very much and am still a bit disappointed that PSP 2023 won't do this any longer and that this bug will stay for ever now PSP is terminated. Furthermore I tried the tutorial from the Lily Pad about a simple warped shadow with the mesh warp tool. I used a journal card from Jessica Dunn for this, but I could have used a photo as well. I found it very much like the mesh warp in PSP. In Affinity you have to set all the lines for the mesh yourself, which is a bit tedious if you want to use many. Maybe there is a further setting that takes care of this, but I haven't explored the tool settings much further for now. However I have the same problem with both PSP and Affinity; my hands are not stable enough, I have to redo many times until I get something that is acceptable. I don't complain, it is a fact that I live with it for almost 30 years now and I make the best of it🥲

Unfortunately, now even the weather is controversial. The NOAA, the federal weather and climate agency, has been hit with job cuts from DOGE. They oversee warnings about hurricanes and tornados and that season is just now starting up for 2025. They also report on global warming, and I guess that's now a no, no. Bad news there might impact big bottom lines... 😁