Old How To: Photo Blends

Hi Everyone!!! I found an old tutorial that I had created for Jennifer Fox before she retired that I never posted over here.  So... I thought I'd share it!  

For this tutorial, I had used Jennifer Fox Designs (she has since retired) Just For Fun Grab Bag... when she was selling at 9th and Bloom. 

When writing tutorials, I try to ask the other girlies on the CT what they themselves wanted to learn, and a suggestion was a photo blend.  This type of blend is the one where you will see a photo blended into the background paper!  So here we go.... but remember - there are so many ways to do this little technique!  This is my own take on it, and a pretty simple one too!

First, open a blank document, a plainish background paper to practice on and a copy of a photo.  When I am working on something, I save it with the title Working Copy, this way I know what I am working on, and can title it will all my used products at a final save.  

I've used Jen's Grab Bag - Just For Fun Tinted Krafties for my example. The picture is my son crusing around on a small quad, and not crashing!  :)

Place your background paper, and then the photo on top.  When placing your photo, place it where you would like the main part of the image to remain.  Here is how I placed mine: 

Now... on the Layers Palette, with the photo selected, you can scroll through the different Blend Modes that are available to you in PS or PSE. 

TIP:  To "see" what all the blend modes look like with your picture is to do this:  Choose the layer that will be blended in the Layers palette.  Now, press the Shift key, and use your + and - keys to "scroll" through the different blend modes. How easy and cool is that?!  

I really liked the Luminosity blend mode and I also liked the Linear Burn, and Multiply.  Look at them all though - each picture will have a different effect determined by the background paper you choose as well as the picture itself.  Here is the Luminosity blend mode:

And here is what my Layers Palette looks like - yours should look similar. I also changed the Opacity of my photo so it was a view that I liked. It is at 55%. 

After the photo blend mode is complete, you will now "erase" part of your picture.  Choose the eraser tool, and make sure it is in Brush Mode. You want to have a soft brush, and you can play with the opacity for your erasing.  For my picture, I used an Eraser opacity of  about 65% and my brush was about 500 pixels. 

Next, you will begin to erase your photo.  Go slowly, and first stick to the edges. Gradually go over the harsh square/rectangular edges of your photo.  Move closer into the subject and get as close as you like.  Make it visually appealing to you!  Here is mine:

Guess what!?  That is it!  You thought it was a lot harder, right!?  So did I until I learned how!  But wait... you can do more.... Say you want to mix up the look.  Duplicate your finished blended photo, and then try additional blending modes and opacities!  Here is one that I just plain duplicated the image and put the blend mode on Multiply.

And here is one where I duplicated the blended image, the first layer uses the Luminosity Blend Mode and for the second image, I chose the Color Blend Mode. 

There you have it... and easy way to do a quick blend of a photo into a background paper!  Hope that you liked it!  If you would like to learn a specific technique, just comment here and I be happy to make a tutorial up!  I would get to learn something too!

I wrote and created this tutorial originally for Jennifer Fox Designs, but she has retired since then. I hope it was still fun and an interesting technique. 

Thanks for visiting!  

Jenn

(jk703/The Typative Scrapper)

Tutorial: Outline/Stroke a Font!

Hi Everyone!  Hope you are having a great day!  I'm here to share a little tutorial to add a little something to all those fonts you use on your layouts!  I'm sure many of you are fontaholics just like me! 

Many times on a layout, I will use an alpha for a main word in my title, and then use a font the other words that are in the title.  BUT, there are also times when I just use fonts for my whole title.  Outlining the font gives it a little oomph and makes it stand out a little.  It can look like a sticker, or just give the font an different look.

For my example, I am using He's My Brother kit, and the font is called Smiley Monster, a free scrapbooking font by Kevin and Amanda.  An awesome color palette, and lots of fun embellishments!  

Ok... let's get started!  You should have a layout open in PS or PSE. 

Using the Type Tool, choose your font, and type in your title or the words that you will be outlining.

Double check the font, spelling, and placement to make sure it is how you want it to look.  

Next, you will right click on the Type Layer in the Layers Palette.  Choose Rasterize layer or Simplify Layer, depending on your program.  

In the File Menu, click on Edit > Stroke, and the Stroke menu will pop up.  

I usually use anywhere between 2 and 8 pixels.  If you want a larger stroke outline, you can always adjust the distance between letters to allow for more space.  

Another way to change it up is to play with the stroke color, with different colors used to match my layout. In the Stroke menu, the Color box is clickable, and the Select Color Menu will pop up so you can choose any color you want.

Remember, you can play with all the settings here, to see what pops up.  If you don't like what you did, click to undo!  I first tried a brown outline as seen here.  

Next, I tried teal, and last I tried White.  White on white is nice, just add a shadow to really show off the edges as if it was a sticker. 

There you have it... a nice outline to my title with a font!  It looks like a sticker with the edge, and then the added shadow gives it some depth!  Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!  Thanks for visiting!

This post was originally created by me for Jennifer Fox Designs!  

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Jenn (aka jk703 or The Typative Scrapper)

Crusin' Outside!.... Last time!

No... I'm not going crusin around the neighborhood... we have horrible rains right now and I would be soaked.  I'm going to show off Shayne riding a mini quad... and not crashing!  :)

For these layouts, I scrapped with Jennifer Fox's Grab Bag - Just for Fun... and I used EVERYTHING in it!  lol!  This is such a great grab bag, and so versatile!  The faded paper is of my doing, but the masks that are in the grab bad provide the faint yellowing behind the photos and clusters!

Jennnifer Fox Designs - Just for Fun Grab Bag
Includes: Just for Fun Mini Kit, Just for Fun Tinted Krafties, Scraps To Go V13, 

Just for Fun Photo Masks and Wonderfully White Alpha.
Ali Edwards - Outside Word
Font is LD Noodge (P2).

I can't wait for more warm weather!  We are itching to get out of hibernation mode and enjoy all the outside can offer!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  A tutorial is up next!
Thanks for visiting and I'd love you to share my bloggity blog with your friends!
Jenn
(jk703/The Typative Scrapper)

Brusha, Brusha, Brusha! lol!

Hi Everyone!  Hope your week is going great!  I'm here today to share more information about the Brush Tool in Photoshop.... but before I do... lets go over some of the basics!

About the Brush Tool and the Options

First, you need to start a new document, layout or an existing project. You will select the Tool Brush from the tools toolbar.  This is what the Brush Tool is, and what other tools are available. 

The Options Palette on the top looks like the picture below... and is pretty easy to use. You can change the size of the brush, as well as play with the hardness of the brush that you will use. When you change the number of pixels of a brush, you are changing the Hardness.  A higher number on the Hardness slider will make the edges on your brush more defined.  A lower number on the Hardness slider will make the edges on your brush less defined. 

On the Options palette you can choose the Mode that you want the brush to have, the actual stroke.  The Opacity percentage will change the opacity of the brush stroke. Lowering the percentage will make the brush stroke more transparent, while raising the percentage will make it less transparent.  

There is also a button for Flow.  This allows you to select how much paint will come out of the brush when applied to your document. The higher the flow, the more paint, as well as the lower the flow, the less paint used when you click your mouse.


There is also an Airbrush feature available. This allows paint to come out of the brush the whole time you are moving your mouse.

If that isn't enough to learn... there is a whole nother menu under the brush presets. This is what that menu looks like:  

There are a lot of setting here, but many are pretty self explanatory -- as long as you play with them, try them out, and experiment. Here are some of the options in this menu:

• Brush Tip Shape -- determines the main shape of the brush. 
• Shape Dynamics -- allows you to modify the shape of the brush.
• Scattering -- this option determines how closely the brush marks are to the stroke. This can add a nice randomness to your stroke. 
• Texture -- Adding a texture to your brush can really show some depth. Photoshop allows you to apply any of your Texture presets to your brush. 
• Dual Brush  -- Combining two different brushes using the Dual Brush option can really create some fantastic effects - unavailable if you were only using one brush. 
• Color Dynamics  -- this option allows for modification of the color of the stroke.  Playing with this will allow you to create some interesting color variations.  
• Noise -- Creates random noise within your brush shape.
• Wet Edges -- If you keep the edges of your brush at the highest opacity, and lowering the inside of your brush's opacity will create a similar look to watercolor, hence the Wet Edges.
• Airbrush -- works with Flow, that is on the Menu bar above. 
• Smoothing -- Smoothes the curves of the stroke.
• Protect Texture -- This can allow you to make sure the same texture is used for every brush with a texture.

Brush Tool Shortcuts:

• B -- Brush Tool
• Shift + B -- Rotate through Brush tools (i.e. Brush, Pencil, etc)
• F5 -- Show or hide Brushes palette
• [ -- Decrease brush diameter
• ] -- Increase brush diameter
• Shift + [ -- Decrease brush hardness by 25%
• Shift + ] -- Increase brush hardness by 25%
• , --  Previous brush
• . --  Next brush
• Option (hold) --  Temporarily switch to Eyedropper tool
• Shift + Option (hold) -- Temporarily switch to Color Sampler tool
• Command (hold) -- Temporarily switch to Move tool
• Command + Option (hold) -- Duplicate and Drag layer
• Space (hold) -- Temporarily switch to Hand tool

Now for something quick to teach you a fun way to use the tool!  We are going to add some really basic watercoloring to a paper.  I've used a piece of paper from Jennifer's Tomorrow's Another Day Kit to show off my example. 

First, you will open the paper in a separate document and apply the shadow style you would like. Next... Command and Click on the Notebook Paper, so you see the marching ants. 

Click on Layer > New > Group. Then click on Add a Layer Mask, which is this little button

on the layers Palette. Create a new layer above the notepaper. 

First, I am going to select the Pencil Tool within the Brush tool, change the opacity to 30% on the menu bar options, and make my brush size about 125 pixels.  Drag your cursor over the paper to areas you want to add watercolor to. This is brown added:

Next, I did the same technique, changed up the opacity and brush sizes, and added faint Pink and Green layers.  I also played with the blending modes of each color layer.  My favorites are Multiply, Linear Dodge, Linear Burn... you have to play with them all!  Here is what I ended up with. 

Now, think of what you could add... doodles, coffee stains, textures, splatters... so much more! I've only barely touched what the Brush Tool is all about or what it can do!  I hope that you might have learned something today!  

Originally created by me for Jennifer Fox Designs: HERE!

Thanks for visiting!  

Jenn (aka jk703/The Typative Scrapper)

The Painless Education: Font Facts

I everyone... I'm back!  I decided to start to share a little knowledge -- easy to understand, painless, learning! These are things that I find useful! I just hope that you do too! I've recently been working with a lot of alphabet sets, and fonts in my layouts and that got me thinking! I don't really know much about font, the types or basic info. I do know that I like to use fonts on my layouts for titles, journaling, or even a little creative background. There are THOUSANDS of fonts out there, so many to choose from - it is such a big part of digital scrapbooking today! So, I'm going to share what I found on my little crash course in FONTS!

Typeface or Font? 

Many people are often unsure of the difference between these two, as it seems that the terms are both widely used. To clear it up, my basic understanding is that a typeface is a family of fonts (such as Helvetica Regular, Helvetica Italic, Helvetica Bold, Helvetica Black, etc.). A font is one weight or style within a typeface family (such as Helvetica Regular). When I looked it up, font was defined as: a noun, is basically defined as an assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes one size. I have found there are three basic font types or classifications: Serif Fonts, Sans Serif Fonts, and Decorative Fonts. There are numerous classifications, but those seem to be the most common.

A serif font is one that has the little line at the top or bottom of a font such as: Times or Garamond. These lines are supposed to help to keep your eye moving along the page.

Fonts without serifs are called sans serif fonts (literally, “without serif," isn't that the most ingenious name? lol). The most common sans serif font is Arial.

Decorative fonts are for, well, decoration. These are the fancy fonts that are designed to make a visual impact rather than to be easily read. Fonts that look like cursive script or handwriting fall into this category! These are the ones that I find most often on my layouts! Here is an example of one by Larabie, called Minya Nouvelle:

Some great resources for fonts, free and paid:

MyFonts.com

Ilovetypography.com

Urbanfonts.com

DaFont.com

FontSquirrel.com

LetteringDelights.com

kevinandamanda.com

As I was roaming around the internet, I found a fun, cool quiz that you can take!  I would love to know "What Font Are YOU?!"  Here is a link to the quiz, from PBS:

Fun Font Quiz from PBS

Another fun site to check out is Wordle.  Wordle is text that you've typed in, turned into a "word cloud."  Try it out -- it's fun and pretty cool! You can mix it up, color and font choices too!

Wordle

Share your favorite font sites, or even the font themselves!  I love them!  Thanks for visiting!

Created originally by me for Jennifer Fox Designs: Here!

Thanks for visiting!

Jenn

(jk703/The Typative Scrapper)

C'mon, Check Out My Meatballs!

Meatballs!  Besides calling my kids that, I love to eat them!  I hope you do too - cause that is my meal to share today!  An easy family favorite... 

Crock Pot Meatballs!

You will need (the winded version):

Frozen Meatballs!  I choose to use Turkey meatballs...and I made 96 meatballs. 

Red Spagetti Sauce - homemade sauce or bottled sauce will do! 

Diced Veggies -  approx. 2-3 cups - onions, mushrooms, squash, zucchini, green pepper, carrots, or any others that you might like. 

McCormack Grinders Italian Seasoning

Optional:  Cheese, Garlic (Powder, Salt, or even Fresh... add if you like)

1. Plop the meatballs in your crock pot....set to Low Temperature. I have a 96 piece bag!

2. Add either your own sauce or any other sauce you like, approx. 32-48 oz.  I tend to use about half of the number of meatballs! For today, since I have 96 meatballs, I used approx. 48 oz. of sauce. Here is a pic as I am adding the sauce in... Turkey Meatballs are sooo yummy!

3. Add the diced veggies.  I've added onion, green pepper, mushrooms - they are very small because I try to hide them from my kids!  LOL!

4. Stir it all together; coat meatballs and veggies well. 

5. Sprinkle some garlic salt or garlic powder, or even a fresh clove of garlic. 

6. Grind the McCormack Grinders Italian Seasonings.  I used about a 1/2 tsp for my large amount. Stir. 

Cook for  4-6 hours on low. Remember to check your meatballs at 4, 5, and 6 hours depending on your crock pot and temperature settings.  Here are mine after a good stir and 6 hours of cooking... 

Now at the end... you have some choices for your dinner. You could boil some pasta and serve the meatballs over.  Just toss the cooked pasta in with the meatballs and serve... OR you could do what we did and make mini Meatball Hoagies!  My boys love them, and they are yummy!  Sprinkle the cheese goodies on top if you like... We didn't tonight, but it is my fav topping!

This big batch is perfect for lunch later in the week or a second meal one night! Easily freezes too!  Hope you've enjoyed it!  

Thanks for visiting!  If you have any recipes that you are looking for a fast version for, let me know -- I love a good challenge!  Have a great Monday!

Originally created and posted by me for Jennifer Fox Designs: Here!

Jenn

(jk703)

Healing Tool: Operation Mustard REMOVAL!

Hi Everyone! 

I am sure that there are photos of friends, kids, or even you with food on your face! Well, today I am going to touch on the Healing Tool and we can remove those food spots, as well as cuts, acne or even lighten skin! Such a cool tool, and my best friend if I have a blemish on my face! OK! Here is the Tool (such a cute little bandaid, right?!): 

Here is a picture of my son, Shayne, eating a pretzel with mustard when we visited Touch a Truck day late last year! Now, I know you are thinking... where is the mustard... it is there, and it bothered me, so this was a great example of removing the "food blemish!" lol! 

This close up shows that it is there, and it is actually in a few places: left corner, left spot on his cheek, right bottom smudge, and there is a small cut on his nose and cheek. He's my cute slob! :)

The healing brush is used remove blemishes. It gathers information from the immediate surrounding area that we are altering and then it will blend it to make the changes smooth and very unnoticeable - if done correctly.

To make things more beneficial, we need to use the right kind of brush. If you have the brush set at a high hardness, the changes that you make will show. I normally use a hardness and spacing of 20%, the size will change as you work so there is not a set size for this. Please know, it will take time to experiment with these settings, these are just what I find most effective. For this example, I adjusted my hardness a bit higher. 

You may notice that my brush size is pretty small. When fixing blemishes, you will want to zoom in pretty close to make the best changes. The small brush size is effective at that level of closeness.

This is the  Healing Brush Tool menu bar:

Mode Specifies the blending mode. Choose Replace to preserve noise, film grain, and texture at the edges of the brush stroke when using a soft‑edge brush.

Proximity Match Uses pixels around the edge of the selection to find an area to use as a patch.

Create Texture Uses pixels in the selection to create a texture. If the texture doesn’t work, try dragging through the area a second time.
Content-Aware Compares nearby image content to seamlessly fill the selection, realistically maintaining key details such as shadows and object edges.


This is the  Spot Healing Brush Tool menu bar:

Mode Specifies the blending mode. Choose Replace to preserve noise, film grain, and texture at the edges of the brush stroke when using a soft‑edge brush.
Source Specifies the source to use for repairing pixels. Sampled to use pixels from the current image, or Pattern to use pixels from a pattern. If you chose Pattern, select a pattern from the Pattern pop‑up panel.
Aligned Samples pixels continuously, without losing the current sampling point, even if you release the mouse button. Deselect Aligned to continue to use the sampled pixels from the initial sampling point each time you stop and resume painting.
Sample Samples data from the layers you specify. To sample from the active layer and visible layers below it, choose Current And Below. To sample only from the active layer, choose Current Layer. To sample from all visible layers, choose All Layers. To sample from all visible layers except adjustment layers, choose All Layers and click the Ignore Adjustment Layers icon to the right of the Sample pop‑up menu.
Removing Blemishes
So, here are some steps to removing blemishes and other unwanted marks on your photos!

Open up your photo, and create a duplicate of the original so that if you don't like the changes, you still have the original to go back to!

1. Choose the Healing Tool, and note that the Background layer should be the active layer. 
2. Zoom in close to the area that you will be working on. 
3. Move your cursor NEXT to the blemish, to a nearby "Clean" location. 
4. Press the Alt Key (Option for Mac) and hold it. Click with your left mouse button. You will see something similar to a bullseye when you do this part. You now have a made a sample that you will use to cover the blemish.
5. Next, you start clicking on the blemish to change/fix it. 
6. Re-sample often and near to the blemish -- it will appear smooth, and doesn't look blotchy when you continue to re-sample. 
7. Sometimes, changing the opacity helps in making the changes seem more realistic. 

For this example, I left my tool in the Normal mode. If it was a dark spot, I might choose lighten, or if it were a light spot, I might choose darken. Play around with the options, and find your style!

Here is the Before and After of my Mustard Mouth! 

There you have it... a quick and easy blemish fix! I hope you learned something, and I would  LOVE to see what you were able to remove from your photos!  

This post was created by me originally for Jennifer Fox Designs: HERE!

Jenn

(jk703)

Cool Camera Toy!

Oooooooh boy, have I got a cool gadget for you! 

We've all got cameras, and we use them constantly!  I take oodles and oodles of pictures!  All the time, and they total in the thousands!!  I'm sure that a lot of you are just like me!  Then, after I take all those pictures, I have to upload them to my computer so I can edit, share, or scrap them! I used to hate taking all those cords out, finding the right ones and making sure it is all connected correctly!  But then... aaaaaahhhhh... I found these little wonders:

They are called Eye-Fi Cards!  Simply, they are awesomeness that is about the size of a postage stamp!  What do they do?  Well, I take my pictures, come home, turn on my computer and turn on my camera.  The Eye-Fi card will AUTOMATICALLY transfer my images to my computer. INSTANTLY!  No cords, no connections, just instant photo upload!  

For my personal use, I upload to my computer and leave it as it.  Later, when I am sitting down and plan to work with my photos,  (I have a Mac and I run multiple photo libraries) I click on my Photo Manager and choose the correct library that I want my pictures to be saved at, and once it loads, it also loads my new pictures!  WOW, right?!  

You can choose different options for the card, as well as choosing instant uploads to other outside websites, such as Facebook, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Flikr, or one of 20 other sites!!!  Depending on the card you choose, you can do video also!  Here is a chart that shows the differences between the cards!  

If you can, go check them out!  They really are as easy as that, and make my life so much easier that I don't have to do go through the processes of uploading photos - cause all I have to do now is press a button!  

I originally created this post for Jennifer Fox Designs: HERE!

Let me know what you think!

Have a great day!

Jenn

(jk703)