Gerry Landreth

I'm catching up today. Exploring the Bokeh effect was interesting.  I went through many iterations before realizing that I was obsessing on the background, which is only one layer (pun intended), at the expense of the final product.

 

Sue: Thank you for the thoughts on my snowflake mask dilemma. I reviewed creating masks in general and will double back on that. It is a useful technique.

 

These are 4/5 of my great-nieces and nephews at Thanksgiving. They are a very close bunch.

I'm running behind but here is Day 5 which proved to be a challenge. I was unable to replicate the snowflake effect in Cassel's example. I have submitted a copy in hopes someone may be able to guide me out of my mess.

 

Rather than ditch the snowflakes entirely, I used them to create the polka dot effect in the video.

 

I want to thank everyone for their encouragement and help. This has been a very positive experience.

 

This is my great-nephew who turned two a few days before Christmas tree shopping.

Barbara: Thank you for the advice. I had read about the tool some time ago but never got around to working with it. Now that I have discovered the old photos, I will know where to begin. The difference is amazing.

I discovered that my mother has a large collection of old photographs going back to a picture of my father's parents in the late 1890s. A project for another day is to learn more about cleaning them up. The photo I used today has a fold in it that I want to remove.

 

Creating a mask from scratch is an exciting tool for me. Many photos I had wanted to use earlier were close-ups that did not fit neatly into pre-made masks. This technique opens more opportunities.

 

Looking at other posts, I am inspired to expand my font catalog.

 

This picture is of my parents on their wedding day 26 April 1958.

I ran out of creative steam working on this one. It's not what I had in mind but I'm really not sure what I did have in mind.

 

I worked with the kaleidoscope function which was interesting. I look forward to exploring that a bit more.

 

These are my great-nephews from 2016. The moment of tranquility lasted a nanosecond.

 

It always reminds me of Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau." As a pianist who spent a great deal of time studying his work and this piece is special to me.

Cassel, thank you for the information on kearning/leading. Although there is not much text in this project, I used it as an opportunity to explore that further - this time with a little more patience.

 

I always learn a great deal from your tutorials, but I am also learning from the works posted by others.

 

The picture is of my dog, Lynda. She is 12, deaf with failing eyesight and arthritis. She never misses a meal or an opportunity to give kisses.

I tried different fonts, mostly cursive, but it was clear that I need to work on spacing to make it look seamless.

 

These are my great-niece and nephew. The former "baby of the family" is doting on the new "baby of the family."

I got sidetracked with other stuff so I worked on this project in stages - a good thing. There were several a few tricks you showed that helped me recover from my missteps. One was to change the opacity to determine an area for selection to match what is underneath.

 

I'm not yet comfortable with the shadowing on the ribbon. That will come with practice. It took several tries but I began to see the difference and understand the importance of the detail.

 

Thanks for a great course. I'm looking forward to working in The Lab.

I am enjoying these lessons and exercises. Your explanations and demonstrations are informative and easy to follow.

 

Outside of my usual challenge with choosing a picture, papers, and elements, I didn't have problems working on this one other than paying more attention to the ever-smaller details.

 

I look forward to working on Module 5. From there, I will be considering joining The Lab.

 

UPDATE: In looking over the layout this afternoon, I forgot to add the shadows to the brads. Details.

This exercise was interesting and challenging. The various shadow techniques made a significant difference.

 

In my original layout, the journaling was longer. As a writer, I get carried away with telling a story. I need to keep the use of the graphic in mind, in a gallery with a smaller size vs. a standalone that can fill the screen.

 

I had a problem with the journaling disappearing when resizing from the PSPimage to 600X600. I tried several scenarios but couldn't determine the cause. There was no problem saving as a 3600X3600 JPG. I resized to 600 using the larger JPG.

Since I don't yet have a library of papers and elements, I spend a lot of time looking (and looking.) I finally remembered that I actually needed to do something.

 

Thank you for the instructions on softening a busy patterned paper. It opens more opportunities beyond solid colors.

 

I got errors when running the script. I will forward the information later today.

This project let me revisit a trip to visit a friend in San Francisco. One confession, I converted the journaling to a raster layer then deleted the vector layer only to realize that the date of the trip was 2017. I could hear that little voice in the video describing why you should hide it .

 

Stylistically, I think the shadow on the balloon may be too heavy and maybe too little on the frames. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

I created the background, rectangle, and squares using the color picker to select colors in the photograph and the frame. The colors are a bit bland but it was an interesting exercise.

 

I tried using a drop shadow on the icon in the bottom left corner but the result was blurred. After trying different settings, I left it alone. I am grateful that there is a <Default> option to get me back to the start.

 

Before, I mentioned being confused about extraneous blank layers. They were being created when I deleted the content, not the layer. When I changed my mind on an element, I would hit the delete button which left a blank layer.

 

Now that I am more comfortable with the process, I will be revisiting the previous projects to practice, and hopefully, improve on them.

 

Thank you for an excellent workout at the Bootcamp. One of the best parts of this course is the real-time application and feedback. I look forward to more of the webinars that you have done. They are always informative and worth the time.

The borders around the pictures gave me fits until I remember that I had to change the setting to opacity. Of course, to help me remember, I replayed that section of the video (twice.)

 

I like the cutout trick, but I am not pleased with the outcome in this case. It will require more practice at another time.

 

I always check out your webinars. You do an excellent job of explaining and walking us through complicated steps. Working with projects in this course has taught me two things: 1. I knew more than I thought I did; and 2. I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

 

Thank you for this opportunity.

**I'm not sure if I clicked the Submit button before. If this is a duplicate, I apologize.**

 

Thank you the instructions on creating a custom fill. It's a technique that has lots of possibilities.

 

RE: the paper that I used in Project 1, it is from a bundle called Lavender Fields by jessicaD from Pixel Scrapper. It has lots of great things in it.

Day 4 Project. I get stuck on composition but creativity comes with practice.

 

I had trouble with extra blank layers. I'm not sure where or when I created them. I deleted most of them. It would help if you have any guidance on that.

 

The other technical question deals with using arrow keys for fine-tuning the position of an element. I tried but there didn't seem to be any measurable difference.

My first attempt. I'm looking forward to learning more.

I rewatched the Day 3 session and came up with this. The image is a blur by design. They grow up too fast.