Susan Ewart

Thank you Ann.  I see such beautiful work and I need to remember I am at the beginning of this journey.  Your words mean a lot to me.  I have no idea what to do (design-wise) when I sit down to make a layout in PSP.  No plan.  This is disconcerting to me as I literally have 1000's of idea of photo's I want to make in my studio.  I guess that's because I've had photography as a hobby since I was 17 (almost 40 yrs).  I guess I cant expect to see the designs in my head for scrap layouts until I've put in enough time.  I'm greatful for the Sketch type layout.  The designs are perfect for me to learn with.

Here is my try at the Sketch Challenge.  I'm blown away by the layouts made by everyone here and on FB.  It's inspiring to see where I can go when I get more experience under my belt (I'm a long way off).  I'm keeping it very simple so I can at least complete a layout.  It was great to get the email about Sketches, which I'd never heard of.  I think this is just what will help me to produce more layouts rather than sitting at the computer thinking what do I do?  These abstract images can be a little ouchy on the eyes (sorry), glad they are small.

 

 

Wow! so much beautiful and inspiring work from everyone.  I just bought the scales script and what fun it is.  I'm embarrassed to say I was a little afraid of scripts but this one practically took me by the hand and walked me through it.  It was so easy and fun to try out different choices.  here are some I did.  I used the same color and selected a black outline and one with a white outline and they sure look different.  the other one I chose a 45 degree angle and made it slightly larger.

Lynda and Mary, beautiful work with the slats.  I downloaded the freebie and bought the script but havent tried it yet.  You've given me inspiration and ideas on what types of photo's to use.

 

 

here is my cover(s).  I made two and haven't decided which one I'll use.  Thank you Carole, this has been an enjoyable challenge (my first challenge).  I learned a lot.  Now I need to go make notes so I don't forget these techniques.

My Nov and Dec pages.  I haven't decided what to put in the empty space.  So many awesome (inspiring) pages have given me some ideas.  This might be the place to put those "portrait" oriented photo's.  At first I wanted to use it for notes.  But really like the feather photo look.

 

Sue, I love your calendar.  I like to see the possibilities.

 

Making templates seem to be the next thing I should look into.  I like the idea of using color from the photo.  I did find though what the color actually is, is quite different than our eyes read it to be.  So I did pick from the photo often, then in the pallet, chose a lighter or darker, or even more/less intense version of the hue.

Ann, that's brilliant!  (days of the week-names)

I'm glad the date boxes came this late.  It gave me 10x the practice.  I choose to use filling in the boxes because I was having problems with it and thought doing it 10x would help me remember the steps.  I'd forget to invert, or I'd lock the transparency, or didn't add the raster layer.  No freak-out moments though.  Just back to the video and paused and did each step with Carole.  The Sept. photo is a portrait on it's side, I like the curl.  I used the clone tool for the first time (badly!). Thankfully most of it got cut out anyway.  I would have cloned out some distracting stuff in the October photo but that's a tool to be reckoned with.  I see if you don't use it right it looks bad.  More study needed on that.

I like that "lock transparency" button...when I remember to lock and unlock.  I learned pretty quickly what happens when I forget to lock.  I used a grey for the weekends, red for holidays and yellow for family birthdays.  In July my mom's b-day falls on Mothers day, she would have been 92 in 2020.  She was 35 when she and my dad adopted me; best day ever!

Wow!  These are fabulous pages.

 

Ann, you page is stunning.  the gradient is perfect and I love what you did with the frame/photo, it makes the photo show better.  Inspiring.

 

I love seeing all the critters (cats, dogs and more) and the flowers and scenery is so beautiful.

 

Matsugirl, I thought it look very much like Rockies coming from the Alberta (CAN) side.  Alaska is a wish for me...someday.

 

Sue, there are no words, that photo is captivating!  I love any/all nature.  I get teased at work because I stop to pick up a dried leaf cause it looks cool.  I must've have the co-workers trained because now they spot cool leaves, feathers, what have you.  (I also drag unwitting co-workers to "stains" on the warehouse floor to look at the picture I see in them, or the color in the spines of flyer bundles, I know, crazy isnt too far off a description for me).

 

Here's my May & June, changed the font resized and moved it, but will move it again I think.  This font didn't have any extra characters and I looked for ones I liked that did, but didn't find any.  Now I know how to find the character map, so I'm happy with that.

Thank you Cassel, I found the invert button.  Well, wouldn't you know.  I went to screen shot the resize issue and it worked like it always does.  I did something wrong obviously.  I hate when I don't learn what that "something" is.  It worked today.  thank you.

 

What beautiful images I'm seeing in the forum.  Inspiring.  Sue, OMG!  those owls are amazing.

 

Ann, I love your backgrounds, it really adds that little extra wow.

Here is my pages so far.  The gradient is cool.  I would like to figure out how to get the gradient with darker on top and lighter on the bottom.  yesterday with my starter page I was able to resize after saving as a .jpeg.  Today, it wont do that.  I have "saved as"  a jpeg for the 4 months, but when I go to resize and put in 600 there is a lock (I think that's what it is) and it greys out the "ok" at the bottom so I cant click it.  It's on "by pixel" .  I am using 2021 now.  Not sure what I've done.  I went into MS Office and resized it there.  Hope it's not too large.  Nice to see so many varied and interesting calendars.

Here is my January work-in-progress (WIP).  Most of my photo's are portrait orientation so I'll have to do some creative cropping.  it will get me out of the box for sure.

I am like Pirkko,  also having never made a Calendar (of any kind) before.  I hope I'm able to do it too.  Picked out some old flower photo's (my current work is mostly abstracts so might not suit a calendar).

Thank you Carole, I will try that (lowering the opacity on the paint splotch).  Yes, I used a bevel and I shadow I think, was just trying it to see what it would look like.  I did lower the opacity on the black border.  Not sure why I didnt on the paint.  it's still a work in progress, looking at it more, the title is too high, as is the picture.

 

Brenda, that's a nice tribute.  I am a snail as well, pages take me a loooong time.  I think only practice will help me to get better and faster.

 

Bonnie, I love that story.  And I never met a pickle I didnt like.

Bonnie, I will do that. Picklball is an interesting name, I presume no "pickles" are harmed (maybe eaten) during this game.  haha.

 

Here is a very basic page.  I am still figuring out how to do stuff in PSP and thought I should do something with the tutorial on triangles.  here's a apt page for this time of year.  I think the paint part isn't right, as it wouldn't sit on top of a paper (that's the one I made) like that in real life.  It should be like it's sinking into crevices of the triangle paper.

 

The font is called Midnight Minutes from Creative Fabrica; overlay, border and papers from DigitalScrapbook.  I think I will go back and add some more elements,  I ran out of time. I used the centering trick (for the orange and black papers around the picture) from the "Tips and Tricks for Paintshop Pro" book.

Bonnie, it's really fun playing with the Kaleidoscope papers. If you only have a short time to play you like I did, you can create something (a lot of somethings!) in a very short period of time.  Congrats on your pickle ball victories.  I dont know what pickle ball really is but it's looks fun.

 

Colin, that's a great pumpkin.

 

Ann!  that is really beautiful.  You have such good design sense.

Minka, YUMMY, I love that layout...wish I could eat it.  And <b> Bonnie,</b> you get the best visitors to your yard. Beautiful photo's

 

my contribution isnt so yummy or as awesome as a raptor.  I'm still playing with making papers.  Here's my favorites from a hour of playing with the Kaleidoscope Paper tutorial from the Creative Scrap. You could really go to town making papers this way.  Thank you Carole for your tutorials, you make it easier to learn.

Helen, Michele, Ann, Anne..WOW. Beautiful work.  I totally missed our fall colors, they were also spectacular this year. I'm trying to carve out some PSP time and had 1/2 hour so I did a Triangle Paper tutorial from the Creative Scrap (also in Lab 7 Mod 8).  My triangle spacing isn't great but I went with it and played around with colors, opacity, inner bevel and shadows.  It was fun to do and I can see how I could spend hours playing with this.   I like the darker blue one that has more muted triangles.

Congratulations to Connie, Colin and Bonnie!

 

Connie, would love to hear your thoughts on PSP 2022

 

Colin, you will love this membership, the amount of tutorials is astounding

 

Bonnie, cant wait to see the results of the goodies you pick up from the store.

 

See you in in the forums.

Cassel, that's funny you said creepy.  There is a Mr. Lube business I drive by that puts funny quotes on their sign each month.  One month it said:  "I was looking through the blinds at my neighbour....he's so creepy".  So I had a good laugh at your comment.

 

Thank you for clearing up what kerning is and how to use it.

Marie, so cool to use paw prints.  Love your layout.

Here is my last project.  I know I was going to do only Christmas card photos, but couldn't resist this tongue-in-cheek layout.  I work at a newspaper web press in the inserting department (where flyers are inserted into various papers by machine) and I happen to be inserting this weeks Lowe's flyer.  This is the words I was looking at while loading the hopper the flyer goes into.  In my head I could hear Carole's voice "anti-alias always on" ( or maybe it's "always checked", but my mind hears "ON").  Even Lowe's is helping us to remember those sacred words.  Pixel scrapper for all the elements.  Font was one that came with windows I believe.  I darkened the font, but used the same blue paper.  thank you Ann, for telling me about Hue/Saturation.  You had a cool job in graphics.  Oh, if I had it to do all over again... the things I'd do.... Oh, and I didnt have an "O" to take out so I made a space for a button to dot the eye.  The spacing is off, as is on my squares I see.

 

Carole, I'd love to see a post about Kerning, how to use it, what all of it means in the box that pops up. Is there "normal" settings.  Can you move one letter away from another, closer.  I've done that once, but I cant seem to do it again.  I did calligraphy and type fonts never seem to get "O", "W", "V" and "A" right, they put them too far away as they need to be spaced closer than normal to "appear" to be correct because of the angle and curves (depending on which letter is beside it).

Sue, thank you for the swans layout.  It is beautiful, and I never knew about that thing on their bills.  It is astounding to me they are in Sask.  I think of them as sea birds.  What an amazing place you live in.  I have relatives in Sask.(my parents were from there) and went there since I was a kid and never knew anything about the diverse bird population and the migratory stop-over locations.

Ann!  Thank You!  This is what I've been looking for.  I wanted something that has true Cyan, Magenta, Yellow from which all other colors are made.  Now to learn how to put the hex codes in.  Why can't they just do codes with Hue formula the way the paper processor did in my film processing days, would be so much easier. I am hoping to input the exact amounts of CMY.   Also, this will go along with Carole's PDF tutorial on the Hex codes.

 

Sue, I would love those sounds.  You live in the best place.  11 million is mind boggling.  Do you see pelicans too?  does it get crazy with birders from all over the world there?  It must be an incredibly humbling experience to see the magnificence of nature.