Mind Your Manners....hrmmm... I mean Layers

I think the thing that confuses a digital newbie most is how to get to each element after they've been dragged and dropped on the canvas. There is this wonderful box that shows you all the elements and how they are chronologically arranged on your canvas.


Imagine having a sheet of 12x12 scrapping paper on your desk; you place your photo on top of this sheet of paper [that will be layer 1], then you add a frame on your paper, whether that frame is on top of your photo or on one side of your background paper, that will be layer 2. Then add another thing on top of your sheet, that will be layer 3, and so on.


In digital scrapbooking, mind where the layers are. Is layer 2 above layer 1 but below layer 5 and 4? What you want to position the flower peeking out from behind the picture?

Highlight the flower [LAYER 3], drag it with your mouse and put it between the photo [LAYER 1] and background paper.

You can rename your layers if you want to. Renaming them is especially helpful if you have more than 10 and more than two of the same kind of element (for example 3 flowers), and also if you cannot identify what the layers are because the previews are too tiny. To rename, double click on the name of the layer.

If you don't want to rename them, you can play the game hide and seek. If you have 10 tiny flowers and you now don't remember which layer is the one you want to move around or delete, click on the eye icon [layer visibility]. Watch your canvas when you do this because whatever element disappears from your canvas is the layer you clicked. Keep on clicking until you find the correct layer. [Now's the time to name those layers!]

The next picture shows you how to add notes to your digital layout. I use this to take note of who the digital designers are so that when I upload my LO in my gallery, then I have the information at my fingertips.

To add notes, click on the NOTE icon in the TOOL BOX. Add the notes as soon as you drag an element on your canvas, or before you close your digital supplies folder so you won't forget.

So here, I have a finished, simple LO. This file is in PSD format, therefore it is a fairly big sized file. To shrink the size of the file and to be able to upload it in your gallery, save your file as BMP or JPG. I save mine as JPG with a resolution of 72 dpi.

Take note that when you save your document as JPG, you'll lose the note. I usually shrink my PSD file in a smaller sized-file by merging some of the documents. See this tutorial.

If you have questions or comments about this tut, please let me know. TFL!

Credits: Do It Digi July Inspiration Kit - Summer Romance by BrokenJar Creations www.digitalscrapping.com

Newbies to Digital Scrapbooking

I learned using photoshop on my own, with a little help from a former officemate. I am no expert but I will share with you what I know and how I do things. I'm pretty sure that there are other ways to do things and perhaps they are the correct ways or the ways that make more sense, but until I discover them or until someone shows me the better, easier way, I will stick to what I currently know.

A couple of friends, an officemate, and three people who found me in the tangled web of the internet have asked, "how do I make a layout? Where and how do I start? How do I put things together? Shall I pick the picture and build around it, or shall I pick the supplies then pick the picture?

There really is not just one correct way to start an LO, whether it is traditional or digital. You might find beautiful papers and embellishments and want to use them right away then find the perfect picture/s to post; or you might have a beautiful picture and scrounge through your scrapbooking supplies for the perfect papers and embellishments. Either way works. It is easier if you have a theme. If you have a photograph on or of the beach, look for supplies pertaining to the beach; if your supplies are bright and happy colors fit for a birthday or summer celebration, then look for a photograph that would go with those colors and emotions.

Check your resolutions - if you are like me, armed with an old computer, I suggest changing your pictures' [that doesn't just pertain to photos] resolutions and make them all the same - see here. I found out that if I do not use elements of the same resolution, one would be bigger than another when it's not supposed to [for example, a bling shouldn't be bigger than a flower]. True, I can re-size the flower, but by doing so, re-sizing might make the flower fuzzy or blurred - because remember, you are increasing the size of the element but the resolution of, say 72 dpi is not enough for such size.

Putting your elements together - It is easy to put elements together in one LO. Start with a simple LO first until you master the art of finding things around your digital work area (^.^) Scraplift a simple traditional or digital LO. As with crediting digital suppliers, please don't forget to give credit to the person you scraplifted from.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Ever had the experience of taking a photo of something, like a view of a garden, the horizon, or the beach but there are people walking across in front of you thus blocking the view or adding unnecessary noise to your photograph?


You wait patiently for people to get out of your way to take that perfect picture. Some see you and move away with an apologetic smile. Others.... they see you but just take their time and won't budge at all!



Well, this happened to me during my yearly Mother's Day visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. We didn't really get to go on Mother's Day because it rained. We went the following weekend. I wanted to take lots of pictures and practice using the Nikon D80. DH has been nagging me about learning how to use it. I was content with my Olympus but learning how to use a different one is OK.



In this picture there was this woman and a child who blocked my view. They were not aware I was behind them so I waited patiently. The little boy went to the side and the mother followed suit. HA! My chance, I thought. But alas! not quite out of my view. I took the shot anyway as DH said there are more people coming our way. Wouldn't this have been a perfect shot?

I didn't fret. I knew with the use of Photoshop I can re-touch this picture... so here you see it, now you don't....
I used PS8 for this tutorial. What I did: I cloned the areas to the right side of the woman to erase her from my picture. In my picture, I copied a portion of the tree to replace the woman's head and torso, the ground underneath the tree to replace her hips, and the grass to replace her legs. Then I carefully copied the edge of the walkway to replace her shoes.Zoom in to the area you want to re-touch. In the Tool Box, choose the CLONE STAMP tool, it is the 5th box down in the first column. Make the diameter/size of the stamp tool manageable [small or big enough to copy the pixels next to the area you want to clone]. Press ALT key [notice that the cursor changed shape- like a target or bull's eye]. Bring the cursor to the area you want to clone. Left click while depressing the ALT key. Then release ALT key and bring the cursor to the area you want to erase or replace. Left click and move your mouse around to clone the area you selected [notice that the cursor changed into a small circle and a plus sign. The plus sign is where you are copying, the circle is where you are replacing.]



Here are other pictures where I used the Clone Stamp Tool. Original picture below, the ball was cut-off the camera's view. I looked for another picture with a complete view of the ball, merged the picture side by side so I could clone the ball.
In so doing, I also cloned some areas of the backdrop.


I didn't stop there. I cloned another ball so N. will have her own. Take note that the brand name of the ball is on top - that's because I rotated the clone so it will look like it's a different ball!


The possibilities are endless! So go ahead, clone yourself a twin!

Changing Your Resolutions

Today's tutorial is changing resolutions.I'm not talking about your personal resolutions, like your new year's resolutions. I'm talking about the resolutions of your pictures and digital elements. As defined by PhotoFinish, "Resolution is the interpreter between the physical world of inches and the digital world of pixels." Pixels is short for picture elements. A pixel is the smallest unit in a computer image or display. Every image on your computer is made up of a colored grid of pixels. So when you work with digital pictures [photographs, embellishments used in digital scrapbooking, etc.] you work with pixels.

Usually the digital papers and embellishments are made with a resolution of 300 pixels. The more pixels in a picture, the higher the resolution. The higher the resolution and the more files you have open super slows down your computer! If you have 5 pictures of 300 pixels each that would slow down your work time tremendously.

So here's what I do... I always change the resolution of each element I use to 150 ppi (pixels per inch) or dpi [dots per inch]. Go to IMAGE, then IMAGE SIZE, then DOCUMENT SIZE. Under RESOLUTION, change the size to 150 pixels per inch. Remember to use the same resolution for all elements you are going to use on a layout. Otherwise, you'll find that some elements [like a flower] might be larger than your background paper.



When closing the files you used, remember to not use "SAVE" otherwise you will be changing the resolutions of your originals.

Once you have completed a layout, then you can merge all your layers into one layer and save the entire layout using .jpg instead of .png. You can also change the jpeg resolution to 72. This is the resolution I use when uploading pictures into my websites.

If you have questions about this simple tutorial, please leave me a comment. Thank you.

Transforming An Element

I have noticed that some elements used on a digital layout have lost their original size and dimension. A button that once was circular in shape became slightly oval; a person's figure became stretched sideways making the person short and fat; or stretched vertically that it made their faces elongated.

I know why this is as it happened to me the first time I've worked on re-sizing the elements to fit my page or to flip it around to make it face the other way.

So as not to lose the original dimensions of an element, I am sharing with you what I do. There may be other better ways I've yet to discover but this works for me and I'll keep doing it until I discover a short cut or better way to do it.

I used CS3 extended in creating the pictures below, you will be able to do it with any photoshop versions as the process is still the same.

Open the element you want to use. If the element is already on your digital layout, choose that layer.

Under EDIT, choose FREE TRANSFORM. Your screen or layer should look like the one below. You should be able to see a "box" of lines surrounding your element. There are "handles" at each corner, top and bottom, right and left sides of the box.

To re-size the element, grab one of the corner handles. The cursor should change into a double-ended straight arrow. Press the SHIFT and ALT keys while you move the cursor inwards [making the element smaller] or outwards [making the element bigger].

So there you are. Don't forgot to press SHIFT + ALT when re-sizing to keep the dimensions intact.

If this were a flower and you'd want to use five of the same flower, and of different sizes, don't forget to turn them around a little bit in different directions so that it will appear that you have different flowers instead of one - this is especially true if one petal is folded or shaped differently than the others. If you transform the flower and move it around so that particular petal is on the right side or at the bottom, then the flowers will not look alike.

To rotate the element, choose EDIT and FREE TRANSFORM once again. Bring the cursor outside the "box" in one of the corner handles. The cursor will change into a double-ended curved arrow. Now move the cursor up or down. You may want to hold down SHIFT + ALT just in case so you won't make a mistake of re-sizing the object.

Next lesson will be about re-coloring an element.