Donna Sillia

Lesson 4: I decided to use my flower pictures since I had so many of them. I used batch processing to add the white borders but not the size because of the different orientations. I used a script to change the sizes. The background is my gold shimmer, the leaves are from a kit that I purchased and the daffodil bouquet is my own. The font is Ambidexter, another open license font. I had downloaded the cass-alphaseparator script by mistake, but it came in really handy with the title. It not only separated the letters, but they were already formatted to change the fill and the stroke. The butterflies are from my kit and are beveled because a shadow ruined the transparency. I also beveled the title letters(saved the unbeveled file in case Carole doesn't like the bevel) because I thought that they stood out better. I also remembered to save the shadows on a new layer in case those need to be changed. Love that script, Carole!

Carole, on Lesson 1, I forgot to add the shadows on the pictures. I will redo them tomorrow and use your suggestion regarding the line and increasing the shadows on the embellishments. I really would like to send the layout to my daughter. Thank you for your assistance.

I finally gave up with trying to remove the line. The mask had created some spots where the canvas could be seen, so I made a new layer underneath which I matched to the gray of the mountains. The pictures are from my grandson who visited Iceland in 2019. The masks are from preset shapes. The font is Berlin Sans FB and filled with an ice texture that I made with Filter Forge.

I am stuck on Lesson 3. I cannot get the line between the two pictures to disappear even though I am using the Blending Pictures technique. Is there something that I am missing?

Day 2: The pictures are from my grandsons who live in Las Vegas and frequently hike, taking their dogs with them (and sometimes a girlfriend). The background and frame are from my kit. The font is an open font license called Centaury Display. I filled the Title with some help from Carole using a rust texture in my pattern files and outlined with a green grass texture. I finally figured out how to combine the two images and how to eliminate the line between the plaids thanks to the Blending Pictures Master Class. My grandsons are also trained to send me interesting pictures.

Thanks, Susan. I forgot to merge the mask groups and add the shadows.

Here is my first double page as I am running behind. They are pictures of that my daughter sent me after her vacation at St. Simons Island. I have her trained to take pictures for my projects. The first page is of the sea and the second is the lighthouse and her climbing and descending the stairs. Two of the shells and the seahorse are downloads from DigitalScrappers. Two are from Filter Forge, and the rest are mine extracted from shells collected by my grandson in Thailand. The font is from my kit with changes to the stroke and fill to a plaid that is also in my kit. The papers are my shimmer papers. I had to edit to change the size of the pages.

I posted a 3600 px dark gray paper in the FB group.

Mary, I made a 3600 px page and used your settings without distorting the pattern. I started with 1000 px 300 and resized to 3600. I also used brightness and contrast to lighten the file, but it came out darker than yours. Do you know how I can post a 3600 page?

Oh, Mary, I do love that one. How did you make it silver?

Absolutely yes, you may and have fun. I just wish I could get the 3600 size to you/

I got tired of trying to match the Photoshop shimmer paper, so I made a grayscale one and saved it as a png. It doesn't change color with hue saturation, but colorize works. Another alternative is to create a color layer above the gray and use blend modes.

Thank you, Monique, I actually made the daffodil bouquet and plaid for a March birthday card. I used Vectortube on her name and the bow for the March birthstone which was created using FF crystal and a preset shape made into a tube.

Gorgeous, Mary. Is there anyway that you can post the steps?

Thank you, Susan. I never really cared for plaids, but, all of a sudden, I am loving making them and using them.

An Easter card. The daffodils and leaves were extracted from photos of daffodils in my yard. Bow is a Cassel bow. I made the plaid and the letters are from my kit altered to change stroke and fill.

Thank you, Carole. It's a texture using the Photoshop render clouds using the background and foreground colors. Then the glass filter with a canvas texture is applied and then the sharpen or sharpen more. My problem is that I can't find a Filter Forge setting that will render the clouds in that format. Also, the glass filters that I have in Filter Forge don't give the same effect. PSP has a canvas filter, but I don't know how to make it the same as PS. Maybe you can make a script!

Here is the tutorial. It is rather simple in Photoshop. You can also download the textures, but I didn't like the downloaded textures.

Carole, I have been working on making shimmer papers. So far, they can only be made using Photoshop. Although, I am experimenting with PSP, I can't seem to duplicate them. Is there anyway to make this type of background using PSP? I am not sure how the 600 jpeg is going to look.

For the day 7 workshop, I used a picture of my grandson, David, playing rugby in Las Vegas. He is the one running over the guy on the ground. He is currently coaching the women's Las Vegas rugby team that has made a splash by winning all of their games so far. I deviated from using my kit except for the star. Rugby does not really fit the art deco style so I used a sports kit that included rugby from Marisa Lerin. I colored her background paper, originally black, to green. The colors in her kit for rugby coincides with David's Las Vegas team colors. The background for the wavy section is a RB 80's gradient with the opacity lowered. The text is GuinnessExtra Stout in honor of the boys always drinking stout. All the other graphics are from the kit, including the WordArt which I modified, but the words are hers. They are perfect, but I never would have thought of them myself. *I had to edit the first one because I forgot the shadows. Psp was working very slow until I shut it down and ran Norton Utilites to clean out the junk files.

For No 6, I used a photo that was sent to me by my grandson who spent 3 months in Southeast Asia, sightseeing and playing Rugby. I made a background of leaves using one of my kit papers, changing the brightness and contrast to each section. The orange flower was made when I was going through my flower making obsession. The tree is a tube, and the pineapple was created using Microsoft AI. I included the pineapple because David informed me that Thailand has huge pineapple farms. The font is Showcase Gothic outlined with Cass gimp tube with which I fell in love when browsing the store. The gold layer is a RB 80s gradient.

I really did not like the title treatment in my first try so I changed the color. I also gave it a little emboss using layer styles which work on a vector.

There is a replica Tara in Sharon, PA which we visited several years ago and stayed in the Rhett Butler bedroom. My photo is of a clock on the main floor and seems to be very art deco. I did use papers from my kit but made a small selection of the wallpaper for the striped background. It fits into my kit perfectly. The font is Broadway. Yesterday I received an email from Microsoft inviting me to try their new AI site, Microsoft Designer, which is where I made the roses which are also perfect for my kit. The blue paper has a PSP texture while the pink background has one of my pattern papers. I saved all of my papers not only as jpegs but also as psp images which makes it easy to change colors. I am very happy with the result except for the Title. I experimented with it, but it does seem to stand out the way that I would like it to.

I finally finished No. 4 after many issues with the move and pick tools. I am still using my kit items and finding out that either don't like some or the colors don't work. For the background, used an embossed background but the bevel I had loaded had a light pink color. I decided to use it since that is one of my colors. The font used is Veni; the pictures are my own from Hilton Head.The jeweled flowers are part of my kit. The arrows were made today from presets, and I will add them to my kit. I've used the title before so I must be longing to return to the ocean. I am sort of getting the hang of curved text and started using it in my card making projects. I also should add that I am trying to be more aware of the use of shadows. I am saving them on their own layer so that they can be adjusted.

I always have problems with using shadows even though I try to save the settings I use in workshops. I will review the shadows workshops again and maybe something will sink in.