Susan Ewart

I LOVE chickens! this is fabulous and the lino paper is perfectly done for this layout.

I use a Font Viewer too. So not technically needing to "load" them. I probably should have said I have lots of ZIP files to unzip. My font viewer updates when I turn it on. I can choose to leave it on or off as I have enough system resources now that it doesn't bog down. As a habit I do turn it off and it stays pinned to the bottom task bar (or whatever that bar at the bottom of Windows is called).

Beautiful Ann, I love seeing your frames, you really got the eye for them.

Fiona, this such a beautiful and peaceful photo. I love that shape design you used and the effect on the paper is really cool.

This is so cool, "Spanner" I watch a photographer on Youtube and he has an English accent. I don't know where he actually lives, but he photographed a wrench like I have and he called it a spanner. I only knew he meant that because it was the only thing he was photographing. I have never heard that term before.

You should see me "drawing in the air" trying to describe the tool to my husband so i can get the name. Pipe wrench. I should know all this stuff; we've done enough reno's in the past and I worked for my brother who made custom Japanese furniture and shoji doors. You know how it is...there is only so much information a brain can hold, sometimes I gotta purge out some information to let knew information in. (side note: I have a small head, therefore a small amount of information space inside it! 🤪)

I love the kaleidoscope (and the picture!), it's really pretty and eye-catching too.

Thank you Fiona, both scripts are fun to play with. I'm learn what kind of photos work best. Corrie originally tested it and said watch for light edges, they disappear and that is spot on. Some disappearing edges are okay but too much and I found you couldn't tell what it was. And when my photo has areas that are too dark then there is no detail. I had to learn to edit the photo for the pencil sketch and that makes the world of difference.

Thank you again. The whole painted part I made grey and then used a mask to bring back the colored parts ( I think I brought too much back). Here's the layers palette shot of it.

Thank you Ann. I totally forgot that name. Isn't there a saying about a monkey wrench? Either way, it's a funny name, I wonder how it came to be named like that.

Happy Birthday Ann! I hope your day is filled with yummy cake and lots of laughs...and some kitty snuggles too!

Day 4 I tried the PencilSketch2 script but there was too many hues that are dark so it didn't work well. In fact I had planned on using an image of the paint palette on it's own with the tubes of paint in front of it. It didnt work. so I went on to trying to the use the brush with a "hide all" mask and well, it's looked something you'd throw out with the trash. I had this other image of me playing with 20 yr old gouache WC paint using only CMY K and White for my color group I belong to. I had the idea of having a desaturated image and using the mask to bring back color in the palette and certain areas. I dont know why, but that was a head scratcher using the two layers of the same image (one desaturated and one fully hue-full). I got there in the end and this is just the technique I have been wanting to learn. I need to practice it way more. I extracted the tubes from the other image I was going to use and put them on this image as separate elements. The little square color swatches is from my color group, something we are doing until the real color cards get made and mailed to us. The font is Evidance, by Creative Fabrica I think. With an inner bevel added and a gradient fill and lowered opacity (with the shadow layer below it turned in into a dark tone, as the shadow was not 100% black, otherwise it would have been a dark shade). Tomorrow I will only be 3 days behind. Yippee!

I love the paper. Good call to lower the opacity. I dont like it too busy either and end up doing that often. This sample is really nice.

thank you Carole! This is how I did do it. I couldn't make selections of the objects with the magic want even though they were on a white background. So I ended up using point to point and then "edit selection". the article is great and has reminded me of the two master classes that I was watch and follow along with since I couldnt seem to make the selection tools work well. I wonder because some of it was metal which has highlights so it wouldn't choose the outline. I have much to learn.

Day 3 Plugging along at a snails pace. Had fun with this one. I wanted one object in color but still with the Pencilsketch2 effects. I believe I used hard light blend mode with an extracted version of the pipe wrench (is that what it is?). The two little box wrenches(?) in the corners were originally photographed (along with a third ugly one that I didnt include in the layout) with the main group of tools. So I extracted them, inner bevel added. I used the Letter press script again with Gill Sans Ultra Bold font (formerly from MSWindows). This time I added the spaces you get when you add a space (I think) when entering the text. And this is a one row box you have the option of making. I did desaturate it to make it look like metal and I had to resize it because it was wooden and the box bottom shows through. The Letterpress script is quite customizable with the each element on a separate layer (when you choose adding the box for it it all goes into layers and I recomend using this because you can choose to use or not use the box and you can also group it all for easy resizing all at once for for copying and pasting into a layout as a group. It's much easier than handling each element separately. And like everyone else, I went down the rabbit hole for a good hour playing with the kaleidoscope effect. One to Day 4 now.

I think I need to join you in that intervention. I'm so bad and I have loads I haven't loaded (installed) yet.

Oh man, there is so many ideas running around my head that I couldnt sleep last night. I've said it before, I really need a 48 hr day...lots of money....and no job to go to! Okay, I added the last two items just for good measure. I'm about to post again. I had fun, but did a lot of extractions to get what I want that I think masks would be better for (like what I see in PS tutorials but for some reason I cant wrap my head around translating it to PSP.

There is nothing more peaceful than looking at a cat(s) sleeping. Am I right?

Love that plaid!

Yes, that's the ones we have around my house. They are zippy little birds for sure. The cats (and us humans in the house) love to watch them.

I love these little guys. They are tenacious and make a cute little sound. the ones I see have brown/rust(?) color on them. This one is so pretty in a blue tone.

The brush work on your Day 4 layout is really beautifully done. So perfect for that image.

Day 2! I'm just moving right along now. I might even get done by the end of next week! Yeesh, what week to have a heavy workload. Continuing on with playing with the PencilSketch2 Script and some old tools left by the previous homeowner when we bought the house (and he was "kind" enough to leave numerous mystery liquids in unrelated containers that we had to take to the hazardous materials dump since we didn't know what any of it was 😨). But, the tools were cool so I kept them. the railroad spikes I had already. I used the Lady 22 template 158 and changed it to fit my photos. I didn't do the plaid...mostly because I forgot and because it didn't fit with the idea I had, although plaid shirts and tools go together so maybe I should re-think that. For the title I used the Letterpress Script (Creation Cassel) and I used the steel version but added a bit of color. Background paper is from Sheila Reid VPS Set 01 - paper texture - 06 (Digital Scrapbook) - it's originally blue, I did a negative image then changed the color with HSL. I love the PencilSketch2 script, there is a lot you can customize with the layers you get after the script is finished. You might see a little more color in the smaller photo. The photo you use is also in the layers palette (a duplicate as your original is not harmed in any way) so I brought it up above the background layers then lowered the opacity so add a little more color.

PERFECT way to solve the Kaleidoscope! It makes it look more like an art piece. What a great idea.

Stunning moon shot Anne!