Friday, January 9, 2009

Sharing

Wonderful Winter Day - 1209_web

Well, I have been thinking lately about sharing with you some of the fascinating things I've learned along this exciting journey of digital scrapping and photography that I enjoy so much. Mind you, I'm no expert. Quite the contrary. It's just that I get so excited when I'm playing around with a new technique and end up learning something totally unexpected and wonderful...you know, those "accidents" that turn out to work just right. So I want to share with you one of those experiences I had today. Sort of a mini tutorial, if you will.

Over the past several years, since I became interested in digital scrapping and photography, I have found a wealth of information online. The internet is such a fabulous tool for self-teaching! There are SO many tutorials available as well as networks of people who are willing to share what they know. Several of my favorite tutorial sites are ScrapGirls, Digital Scrapbook Place, and one of my most recent favorites (within the last year) Pioneer Woman (don't ya just love her?). I have found tutorials in many other places as well, but these have been the most influential for me.

So, what I want to share with you today is a tutorial on digital chalking by Brandy Hackman that I found some time back at ScrapGirls. This tutorial was written for Photoshop, but I operate with Photoshop Elements 5 (or PSE) and it works just fine. If you take a look at the above layout I did of my daughter J, you will notice the little embossed, chalked, flower in the lower left corner. I won't share the whole tutorial with you here, as you can follow the link provided above and go through it yourself if you like. However, what was so fun to me was what happened as I was playing with it after I did the tutorial. Let me just say also, there are many ways to arrive at a given result. Like my Grandma used to say, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." Well, we won't do any real cat skinning here...I like them to much. So here's one way I did it.

After the "chalking" was done, I thought the flower would look cool if it had an embossed look to it too. So here is what I did:

- Turn the eye (icon) back on, on the PNG layer

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- Go to Layer Styles > Bevels > Simple Emboss: 125 degrees lighting angle; Bevel size: 1; click OK

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- Make sure the PNG layer is still selected (looks blue), then play with the blending modes (the drop-down menu under "normal" in the image below) until you find one that suits your taste.

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This effect made a wonderfully textured, embossed, chalked look! It was so easy and so fun!

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By the way, if there is anything mentioned here that you don't understand or are not familiar with, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to explain. Also, if you have done this technique, or another that you really enjoy, I would love to see it! Send me a link in the comments section below. Thanks!

Layout Credits: Background paper: "For Love of Clover" by Amy Bleser (DigitalFreebies.com); Flower Doodle: "Doodles 2" by Angie Briggs (ScrapGirls.com); Overlay: "Serenity" by Angela Sharrow (DigitalFreebies.com); Word Art: "Winter Sparkle 2" by Miss Mint (PeppermintCreative.com); Photo corners: "Patch It Up" by Theresa Kavouras (ScrapGirls.com); Font: Tangerine.

2 comments:

  1. Great tutorial! Makes me want to get into my 'new' PSE and get it figure out! And, now I want to know how you got the screen shot images on the post, too!

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  2. Your work is beautiful; I have enjoyed viewing all of your pictures. I'll be back frequently. :)

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