Crop Corner

ScrapbookBytes website has some great tips on how to use Photoshop to make digital elements for your pages.

For example - check out their tutorial on how to use Photoshop to make RickRack.

Also worth a look is how to create plaid paper from striped paper.

What I like most about the site (from a scrapbooking perspective), is that the tips and techniques are relevant to scrapbooking itself, not just vanilla image manipulation.

Pre-made templates can be a quick and fun way to put together pages. This tutorial will show you how to use layered templates in Photoshop, adding papers and photos. To add the background paper, open desired paper & holding the shift key to center, drag paper into layered file. Rename layer to background and move to the bottom of the layers palette. Delete the original background template layer. To add papers to the shapes, open new paper and drag over holding the shift key to center. Place paper above the desired shape layer, in example Layer 11 is the yellow paper to be masked by Layer 2.

This technique is particularly useful and makes removing skies, even where their are fine details encroaching into the sky, easy. It allows you to protect the areas you do not wish to erase, eliminating fiddly painting work. The first task is to create a history point this will allow you to paint back the original image in any areas that may be accidentally erased. Double click the photo layer (background) to turn it in to an editable layer. In the History Palette, click the box next to Make Layer, to set the history point.

In the Rounded Corners in Photoshop tutorial CLICK HERE TO VIEW Layers and Layer Masks were used to create the rounded corners of a paper. This tutorial will show how to add more papers and ribbons to be cut along the same edges as the rounded paper, using the Layer Mask previously created. Starting with the file Corners from the last tutorial, open a new paper to add to the file. File > Open or (Ctrl/Cmd + O). Drag the new paper over to the Corners file while holding the shift key to center the paper in the file. This will be Layer 1.

This tutorial is going to cover the very basics of layers in PSP. Layers are what make these more advanced programs more versatile but they are also a little overwhelming to the new user. If you can imagine starting a layout with a blank piece of paper, and working your way to a finished piece, you would be building it up layer by layer. When you open a paper in PSP, it will default to a Background layer. In order to make any changes to this layer, such as using the deform tool, you will need to change it to a Raster layer.

The dodge tool is used to lighten areas of a photo or element by clicking and dragging across the areas you want to lighten. Conversely, the burn tool is used to darken areas. (You can think of the dodge and burn tools as a sort of paintbrush that you use to paint highlights or shadows.) While using either of the tools, you can also right-click and it will execute the opposite tool. For instance, if you have the burn tool activated, you can right-click and drag and it temporarily becomes the dodge tool and vice versa. The dodge tool keyboard shortcut is J but the burn tool does not have a keyboard shortcut. Endless dodge and burn effects can be produced by varying the brush style as well as the opacity.

On the surface, making selections seems like a very straightforward function and hardly worthy of a separate tutorial, but there are so many ways selections can be made and used that it can really advance your Photoshop skills, such as providing you with the ability to make text on a path in new ways, or text within custom shapes. First let's talk about what tools are selection tools. The marquee tool, located on the top left in the toolbox is the most commonly used tool. There is the rectangle, the ellipse, the single row and the single column. These tools share the same spot in the toolbox and are accessed by using the tool flyout arrow, or right clicking. The last two are the least commonly used in digi-scrapping but can be very handy in making stripes.

This layout belongs to Lauren. She simply used the Waves QC and her chosen kit. In my example, we'll take it a step further, rotate some layers and move things around. To begin, open all your QC Waves contents into your program. I'll be using Photoshop, however the direction can easily be translated into the program of choice. As you can see, this is exactly like Lauren's layout. Click on the white curved border. Change the angle to 90 and then click on the check mark. Now ctrl-click on the remainder of the wave borders. Click on the arrow in your tool palette, now click on the outside edge to bring up your transform options. Change the "W" to -100, then change the angle to 90. Click on the arrow when you are done. You should have something like this.

Scrapbook pages are works of art in their own right, but differ greatly from advertisements or other works by graphic designers in that in creating a scrapbook page we are preserving treasures memories for generations to come. Most of us have been faced with albums, boxes, piles of yellowing family photographs - often with no annotation explaining the who's and why's. In my opinion, no scrapbook page is complete without words - at the very least a title, and a date, but hopefully with journaling as well.

Open a New File: File New Blank File. Set size to 3x3 inches. Set resolution to 300dpi. In the menu bar, choose View and Grid and select Snap to Grid. When it is highlighted with the dancing dashes, select Shape 2 in the Layers Palette and then hit the Delete key. Dont forget to turn off Magic Wand tool by clicking outside your document area. Save your tag. Use the color picker to change colors on your tag, as desired, or use the punch-out technique and use digital patterned paper to fill the tag. Or, try a favorite font to make a monogram tag. When your tag is how you like it, choose Layers and Merge Visible and save. Try making square or other shaped tags! Have fun being creative with your tags! Digital Papers for these tags from the Funky Papers Collection by Cynthia Derousseau downloaded from Scrapbook-bytes.com.