Scrapbooking / Cards

Brandy Scrapbook

The great thing about manipulating photos is getting a personal touch with your photos and you can create cards to posters you are only limited by the size of the printer and your imagination.   

Some things mentioned in this post may not be on your photoshop mainly the 3D effects, the cookie cutter, and some of the brushes used to create the patterns.  

Video for In class photoshop

Elements Scrapbook

Elements Cookie Cutter 

Type Mask/create new brush

Free scrapbook items 

Layer styles / 3D effects 

see exercise below

Selecting Exercise

Hi All,
I am posting the first exercise for this class. I also have more videos/readings on selecting and specific tools by clicking here.
If there are any questions you can always contact me by email or in the comments box below.   If you run into any trouble click here for some selecting tool overview and tips.

Selecting Tools Reading

I hope everyone had a great time and are inspired to do some practicing. 

*note this is a extra information section if you are having ay trouble with the exercises try these techniques, or if you are a reader and like to know the ins and outs of everything. 

Family Album

The applications for the Stickman selection exercise are firstly to get you used to making complex selections and can be used to add missing family members and objects to photos. 
The best types of photos for this is one with a solid background think of a green screen as a example it makes it easier to get a accurate and quick selection.


But that doesn't always happen
different selection tools are ideal for different things 

• Marque and Oval ----- These are best for basic shapes and creating effects examples are cropping and vignettes. Holding shift gives you perfect squares and circles.

• Lasso  
• The free hand tool allows for more odd shaped selections.
• The polygonal is great for selecting presents buildings and any straight edged object.
•  The magnetic lasso tool is great but not in all programs it works best with the green screen photos and will automatically attach to the color. Good for green screen photos.
For this tool you need to create a full loop if you cant find the end double click to complete the loop 

• Wands
• The magic wand selects blocks of color. Good for green screen or selecting a solid color clothing or object. 

The next tricks can be applied to all selection tools

• Multiple selections --- Holding SHIFT while selecting multiple times will keep adding selection ants where you highlight and you can switch tools as well.
• De-selecting---- If you want to de-select everything hit Ctrl+D. If you just want to make a tighter selection or fix a selection holding ALT will de-select just the sections you highlight. 

•  Selecting the opposite -----using the green screen method mentioned in the stickman exercise going to SELECT > INVERSE will do that.

• Reselecting---- If you get the perfect selection and you loose it by accident you can go to SELECT>RESELECT

Getting started

Welcome to the first class you may feel overwhelmed but we will take it slow and may not get to everything but as long as you have fun and accomplish your own goals you are doing fine.

 In the first class we are getting to know the program and tools. You can use a photos from your own collection or those provided with the lessons to practice on. A photo of a object with a solid color background is best for this lesson. This is a week I just want everyone to be comfortable with their program and just start playing around. If you are unsure what programs or versions you have or have any computer setup questions now is the time to ask. I will try my best to help get everyone up and running.      

Here are a few links for review of the tools we covered this week. We will focus on the selection tools because they are the most commonly used tools but, you can try using other tools to get an idea what they do. 

Try selecting just the blue or peach background, the objects or just parts. Have fun


For the readers

**** When playing with tools remember DO NOT SAVE you could ruin a treasured photo ***

For those looking for advice on how to organize their digital photo collection to make photos easier to find Here is a great article.

  I also have continued on this post the photos we used during the class. Practice makes perfect and have fun. 

To get this image for your program simply RIGHT CLICK and SAVE IMAGE AS and put it in a file where you can find it I usually SAVE TO DESKTOP