fiona cook

Lesson 4. I had a little trouble locating the image to brush the mask with white because the mask completely blanks it but by trial and error seemed to work out. I made two masks groups including an additional background one for the green bits. The main photo is a colour one of mine that I made monochrome. For the text I used Effects/3D Effects/Chisel (with solid white colour). The words are extracted from the poem 'The Oak' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Artistic licence requested for the shape of the leaves, not being oak!

Lesson 3 I made the kaleidoscope pattern from a selection using the main photo (mine from my window) so that the colours matched a bit. I used another Melo Vrijhof Mask from Digital Scrapbook.com as it fitted the format of the photo better. For the 'Mama' text I used 'Selection from Vector Object' and placed the text selection over the main image and Promoted the Selection as a new layer which I slightly offset on top of the original white text.

love the composition and the power of simplicity despite using quite a few elements

For today's Lesson 2 I am still on my Trees theme. I condensed the the main photo mask shape so it suited the format of my photo better. I used a brush tip 'Fuzz soft' to white out the mask a bit on the sun flare and a bit on the trunk to bring those bits out that were subdued by the grey of the mask. Deciding I liked the grass under the tree on my main photo I duplicated it and made a selection of just the grass. I also like the white of the background for this image so I didn't use the plaid idea although I think on some of the designs I have seen today, the pattern suits. I used the same photo for a panoramic effect for both the small photo masks. I used the Mama font again but am finding I need to kern it quit a bit.

Hi Corrie, yes I see what you mean with how I had it before amending. I relooked at the amended one and the shadow is in the correct place but not showing up on the image so I have changed the Brightness value to make it more visible. Thank you for your help again.

I have now used the extra template and some supplies that Carole gave us to practice the technique. It did help to question with each move what I was actually trying to achieve with each layer. Thank you Harmony for your help there. For this template I found it easier to rename the Stroke layers (1-5) to differentiate them. The main image I created from a picture tube I created of hearts and placed it on my photo of an old painted wall. The wall image fell short of the Mask window so I duplicated the wall image to fit, and used the Smudge brush to blend the join. Then Merged down to one layer.

Thanks Harmony. This helps me as well from Julian's original question and it may explain what I got wrong with one of my layers with my tree project. I was using the wrong layer perhaps.

Corrie, I have note taken on paper like you which I find easier for me to digest. Susan, your idea of screen shots of the steps I will take up. I had made a mistake on the last photo for this lesson and still don't know what I did wrong (See snip of my layers) I rectified by deleting the offending layers and replacing by dragging across from the original template and redoing just that last photo. My theme is back to my local tree project and because the main tree image was not wide enough for the mask , it caused a sharp edge where it fell short. I used a black brush stroke inside the white area of the mask using a splodgy brush tip (a-dozi's background-08 003) to blend the edge in. The 2 background layers were blended with Multiply having used Adjust\Colour\Colour Mixer to change a red to blue. The main title font is Mama which Carole gave us the link to download

Beautiful photos

Hi Ann, I get the concept but when it comes to where to put the layers, floating layers and inverting I have not remembered it well. Doing the course again will be good for me.

Well I hadn't realised how varied his artistic talents were but what a sad shame for the other. Perhaps it's appropriate for that typography joke (shown in the book Just My Type as mentioned) :- Comic Sans walks into a bar and the bartender says, "we don't serve your type"

Thank you. Yes it is surprising that there was not much of a change between some of the months. (I didn't cheat! Went up there dutifully every month). I think we had enough wet and sunny weather last year for the trees to like it. Also in south of England not too much cold compared to other years. I will work on other designs when I get inspired and can always use the images for the community magazine. They are always asking for local photographs.

I am in too but was thinking I would be the only one who has completed the course before to be repeating the exercise. I am so relieved. Like Monique says 'repeating is a good thing' For me it's a subject that is a little difficult to feel at home with as I find it difficult thinking in reverse as it were. When I have been successful the result is so satisfying and I also think that the MasterClass is one of my favourites. Thank you for putting it on again Carole.

I have a book somewhere Just My Type described as "not just a font book, but a book of stories. About how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world" It's surprisingly interesting. I must find it to see about Gill Sans. When I left work I bought each of the designers in the studio the book and selected a typeface that matched their character.

I am just getting done in time for the end of January for my first attempt at my Hook trees project. I saw people using the 2023 review template so thought I would give it a go for the trees although I will still work on some other designs in due course. This one shows my photos with their respective dates and the central photo shows the tree in situ in the field. Adjustments to the template included: - resetting the dates as the white text on the raster text layer supplied did not show up on my chosen background. - changing the grey squares to an oak leaf design paper from Digital Scrapbook.com. In order to select a different part of the pattern for each mat for the sake of interest, my process was to save the oak leaf paper as a layer. Then for each grey Mat in turn made a selection and then on the oak leaf paper layer promoted the selection to a layer and positioned it above the Mat layer. - adding a fine outline to the main letter characters as some of the photos did not contrast well with the background. As each character was a raster layer my process was to duplicate the character layer and move it above its group. Then use the Magic Wand on the new outline layer. Selection/Modify/Contract by 3 pixels and then delete and de-select.