Cassel

What kind of vehicle do you drive or have driven? Did you keep your vehicles long? Let's chat.

Whenever you create a project, you will likely want to use some text. In this case, you might be looking for some interesting fonts to showcase titles or dates. This month, I am suggesting a font that indicates some thickness. Although it might look like a layered font, it is not, but you can easily "paint" the sides/center in different colors for a special effect. You can get this free font HERE.

In May, our monthly theme is POOL. Summer will soon arrive and you will surely enjoy some time in or on the edge of a POOL. What can you do around the pool? Having a party? Play some games? Have a little drink? Or some treats? Let's add some words related to the pool (and around the pool) that start with the various letters of the alphabet. Who will jump in first? 😉 Let's go!

The theme for May is POOL. You surely have pool-related photos to showcase, or already made layouts about some good time around the pool. Do you have photos of yourself? The kids? The parties? Let's go! Post your project in the gallery.

Do you want to challenge yourself to take photos every week for a year? Maybe you want to practice your photography skills, or just try to capture "ordinary" daily occurrences. Let's just encourage each other. This is a no-pressure thread, and you can share the photos you took or the theme you are going for (if you are going with a theme). And if you don't want to share the photos yet, and only showcase them once they are in a montage or a scrapbook page, you can just say that you did it. And it is ok to start your 52 weeks at any time. It does not have to start in January!

It is a new month and new projects. Show off what you are working on in May be it a scrapbook page, a collage, a tutorial, or anything else you want. We are curious and want to see, learn, and get inspired. These threads are quickly becoming a fantastic source of inspiration, support, and friendship. Keep them coming! Remember to size down your image to about 600x600 pixels and save it in .jpg format before posting it (if you are creating a double page, you can resize it to 1000 pixels in width if you don't want to post the pages separately). Here are a few guidelines for everyone: when you post a project, give as much information on your sources or techniques used. It will help others who are curious and would like to do the same. if someone uses something that you like on their page, ask where they got it. Sometimes, you can go get it too and it will be better quality than trying to extract it (as it would have been resized to post in the forum anyway). if it is something that they did from scratch, ask how they did it. It would be so helpful to everyone! if you like a photo and would like to “play with it”, ALWAYS ask permission. Sometimes, there are some limitations and the person is not allowed to let others use it. Don’t get them in trouble. Usually, people are happy to say yes (if they can) when you ask politely. And if you get permission, you might get a better-quality image than the resized image anyway.

What kind of themes have you seen, heard, or organized for birthday parties? When I was a kid, "themed parties" were not a thing. We would invite kids/relatives, have a cake, open gifts, maybe play games and that was it. Now, birthday parties are themed, kids leave with goodie bags, big decorations, etc. Let's chat.

Yes, black and white are hard colors to change as there is no hue or lightness to work with. When someone needs to color black or white, they have to adjust those sections. There is a blog post about it, and it would likely apply to this too: https://scrapbookcampus.com/2021/01/how-to-colorize-black-or-white-elements/

@Susan Ewart For Filter Forge, have you tried simply adding the path to the standalone version, inside the File Location for plugins? I am not 100% sure if it will or if it is, somewhat, a different "version" between the plugin and the standalone. @Ann Seeber To me, "creature" is anything alive, big or small, so that bird is a creature (might not be the correct word though). Even with pages you are not 100% in love with, you are able to tweak them using PSP. Great skills! @Jeni Simpson are those white packages some harvested crops? It is funny that they are square. Here, they are round. @Mary Solaas Yes, Layer Styles can be useful. I just find them clunky to use, although they can give great results. @Bonnie Ballentine I love seeing flower pictures especially when they are "fresh". We just got rid of our snow, and the most "spring-like" elements we have are buds on the trees. I have not seen any flower budding yet. And kitties!!! I love kitties! @Donna Sillia You are really creative with that butterflies title! For the footsteps, if you set the picture tube Selection Mode to Angular, the footsteps would follow the circle. @Anja Pelzer Great pictures for the cactus. Do you do anything specific to make it flower at the same time every year? Keep this up. If you have not finished, don't worry as you will have another week to continue or catch up.

Hey Daniel. Did you try to use one of the default presets for the Change to Target tool? At least, it should have some "workable" settings to see the effect. Another thing to check is the Brush variance palette (F11). Reset those with the icon on the bottom right. Does that give you anything different?

Learning scrapbooking is often done with practice, looking around for inspiration, and trying to recreate projects we admire. Sometimes, we can be inspired by finished projects, but sometimes, we also have to use our imagination to interpret something. This challenge will allow you to envision something from a “boring” base, and you will have to imagine the end result differently. The sketch is only a written idea, and you can fly with it, modify it, and customize it to fit your vision, your photos, and your supplies. And if you want more information on using sketches, check out this article. Post your project in the gallery.

@Susan Ewart For Filter Forge, it is a plugin that you can access from PSP directly. Under Effects > Plugins > Filter Forge. Do that while your image is active in PSP and it will automatically "open in FF". Those irregular letters on the Flower Power makes the layout so much fun! @Jeni Simpson Great choice of photos for those pages! @Michele That photo really made me smile. Isn't that a great attitude we should all have? @Ann Seeber Isn't that great to see those cute creatures so close to home!? It is great that you find space to add a lot of information about your photos on the page. @Anne Lamp Is that you, dancing, in the photo? @Mary Solaas On your Museum photo, did you place the photo on top of a shadow? It looks like part of the shadow on the plant is missing. Moving the arrow is definitely a chore; it is not really meant to be moved as it is a flattened png format! You are making things hard on yourself 🙂 Interesting to see that a bride was not wearing white at her wedding. You are also adding fun information to your pages. @Donna Sillia Beautiful cat! Black cats can look mysterious! @Bonnie Ballentine Are the deer photos from the cam? Keep them coming, and if anyone has not started yet, you can still do so. Those pages are quick to make so you should easily catch up.

@Donna Sillia That fish photo is perfect for this QP. And the changes you made look like they were part of the page to start with. @Anja Pelzer It is a fun idea to include the year inside the camera element! @Ann Seeber it fun to see you use an opacity change to let the whole photo show on the FB header! @Mary Solaas Quick and easy, and efficient work! @Bonnie Ballentine That must be you on the picture! I recognize the smile!

@Ann Seeber Nice match of the colors on Logan's page. @Sue Thomas It is ok to post as you clearly indicate that you created the page. Without that clarification, some participants might be wondering where that page was! @Anja Pelzer Wow, you are busy working on all three projects. That is a good indication that it does not take long to complete! @Susan Ewart That carousel photo couldn't be more perfect for that page! It is interesting how you created a background. @Anne Lamp That dragonfly alpha looks great but it seems a little hard to read when it is small. @Jeni Simpson I see that it didn't take much time to complete three projects! @Bonnie Ballentine That is a very cool wordart/title about growing old. Where did you get that?

How is the weather in your area? Is April typical of other years or different? Do you have pictures of the weather? Let's chat.

Welcome to @Bonnie Ballentine, @Ann Seeber, @Mary Solaas, @Michele, @Susan Ewart, @Anja Pelzer, @Donna Sillia, @Emerald Jay. @Ann Seeber. It is nice how you added that rainbow alphabet to the banners. @Donna Sillia, it is nice that you can get a layered quick-page as they usually are flattened single layer images! @Emerald Jay, are those flowers from your garden? @Bonnie Ballentine, I will never get tired of kitties pictures! If anyone has issues receiving their emails in the series, let me know Google and Yahoo are particularly picky about received emails and some might be deleted without your knowledge. Looking forward to more projects in the next days!

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 remove glare on a photo. It could be on someone's glasses, but it could also be from a window Check this blog article for detailed instructions. Show us the before and after so we can see how much work you did!

That was a 32-bit plugin. So it will only work with older versions of PSP, if you load the 32-bit.

One thing to remember is that a lot of older plugins were 32-bits and PSP2023 is only 64-bits so all those old plugins won't work in that version. That is the reason many PSP users are keeping an older version, just to use those old plugins. AKVIS has several plugins that work with PSP2023. Eye Candy can work although it is not 100% compatible with PSP: it won't add the effects on separate layers like it should (and does in Photoshop). Topaz also work for photo effects. Filter Forge is often my go-to plugin since it includes so many filters. In general, except for Filter Forge, I rarely use plugins. Others might chime in with additional plugins that work. But in the meantime, see if you can keep an older version of PSP to use those older plugins.

Yeah, you would not dare do that on a physical book borrowed from the library!!!

How are libraries in your area? Do they have activities sections or are they still "books only" libraries? What kinds of interesting areas do they have? What activities do they offer? Let's chat. Let's discover libraries around the world (almost).

You are catching all my lapses! 😉

Let's continue this new challenge. We might often be the ones taking pictures but we are not the feature of our layouts, so let's change that since we ARE important and we have lots to say. Every month or so, the layout will be about YOU, and a prompt will be given. If you have taken the Story Week Challenge, you will find some similarities but it won't be the same. For the April layout, tell us something about a pet you had (or wished you had) or animals in your life. Did you have pets? Were you allowed to have some? If you couldn't have pets, did you have any connection with someone else's pets? Were you raised on a farm? Or did someone in your family have a farm that you visited? Remember that if you want to create pages for previous prompts, those threads will stay open for you. There is no right or wrong order to share about you.

That is my plan to have new additional supplies for the DIAMOND members.

So, for North America, it was the day of the total eclipse yesterday. Did you witness it? Did you ever witness a total eclipse? Do you have photos? Scrapbook pages? Stories about it? Let's chat about it.