I have been busily creating a new collection of (.abr & .png) brushes and overlays perfect for distressing layouts, adding paint marks, and creating water colour works of art. They are available in both personal use and professional use versions, so digiscrap designers can use them to create their papers and kits. These brushes and overlays are guaranteed to be sharp at 100%.
Check them out now in the DigiScrapArt store. (images clickable)
Now that my August grab bag has been removed from SBE it is time to reveal 2 of the items that were in the bag, and are now available as separates at SBE. If you missed them in the grab bag, you can now grab them in my SBE store. (images clickable)
This Sunday, two more of the items that were in my August grab bag will be available in store at SBE.
SBE is having a 25% OFF
SALE…
…and for the duration of the sale only, you can pick up this grab bag for only $2.95!
Once, the sale is over, the individual items will be added to the store at FULL price.
I thought I would share a layout of my darling 6 year old daughter.
I have used my new Faux Lomo and Dreamy Photo Actions on her photo, although some of the Faux Lomo effect has been cropped afterwards. The kit and wordart is a little sneak peak of a grab bag that will be appearing in store at SBE very soon! (NOW AVAILABLE!!) Stay tuned for it’s release! It will have 4 juicy products at a nice teeny price! 
It is a bit exciting to be releasing my very first solo grab bag!
Anyway, here is the layout…I just go soft inside every time I look at her. I am SO lucky!
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Have you always wanted to give your photos that dreamy look, a soft dewy glow, blemishes all but non-existant. Check out this new action now available in the shoppe.
Dreamy Photo Photoshop Action - This action is one of the most versatile effects you can have for your photos. It gives a nice ethereal glow to your photos, as well as softens blemishes, warms the tone and brightens harsh shadows. It is perfect for dreamy fairy photos, or jazzing up flash photo snaps. Use it in conjunction with the Faux Lomo action for a stunning vintage ethereal feel.
What on earth is Lomography you ask? Lomography is a form of photography using a Vintage camera called the Lomo or another similar style ‘toy’ camera.
The Lomo camera has developed a following and resurgence of popularity. The Lomo along with other ‘toy’ camera’s have a characteristic vignette altered colour tones and some lens distortion. Using the camera and other ‘toy’ camera’s such the Diana camera creates a unique and quite arty looking effect on your photos.
Now rather than buying one of these ‘toy’ cameras and processing the images the old fashioned way, you can do it digitally to any photo in photoshop with the click of a button using my new action.
For those of you new to digital scrapbooking communities and galleries, you may never have had the need to save images for viewing on the web before. Read on to find out how to save your images for web use to enable fast viewing and to be able to upload to online galleries.
mages viewed via the web do not need to be the same resolution as images saved for printing, as the maximum viewing resolution on a monitor is 72dpi. Images should also be compressed to allow for quick displaying of images when viewed via the internet. The image should also be smaller in size than that to be printed out, as viewing size on a monitor is much smaller than that being printed out.
This tutorial explains how to save images for sharing on the web or in online galleries.
When you layout is complete, the first step is to flatten your layers. Doing this prevents your layer styles from needing to be rescaled when your image sizes is reduced, which can happen on occasion, particularly in Photoshop Elements.
To flatten your layers, go to the layers palette and click on the more button in PSE or in Photoshop, the small button with a triangle pointing to the right of your screen.
From the menu which appears select flatten image.
This will flatten all the layers in your layout to a single layer.
After you have done this it is time to resize your image. In the digiscrapart.com gallery, the maximum size you can upload to our gallery is 600×600pixels, and 125kb. In your image menu, select Resize> Image Size. (or in Photoshop just select Image Size)
In the window that appears, you can select the size you wish to make your image.
Firstly ensure that Resample Image is checked so that you are able to access the pixel dimensions portion of the window. (constrain proportions should also be checked) In the Width and height the maximum amount of pixels should be 600. You may make it smaller if you wish however 500-600pixels is a good viewing size for the web. For a square image, you can resize it too 600×600 pixels, and for rectangular images, the maximum Width or Height is 600pixels. Just change the largest Dimension to 600 and providing Constrain Proportions is checked, the other dimension will change automatically. Once you have changed the amount of pixels to 600 or less, click on ok. This reduces the viewing size to a suitable size for viewing on the web.
Next we need to save our image for the web. This allows us to reduce file size as much as possible without reducing viewing quality. (do not use this method for layouts you wish to print)
Go to your file menu and choose Save for Web.
A new window will appear with two versions of your image. (in Photoshop you may need to click on the 2 Up tab) On the left is your original image and on the right is the sample of the image as you adjust its compression settings.
In the Preset box, ensure that you have JPEG selected in the box for file types. To the right of this box is a Quality box. This is where you adjust your compression level. Adjusting the level in the Quality box directly effects the file size shown under your sample image. The aim is to get the maximum viewing quality possible, with minimum file size. Play with the levels in the Quality box and see how it affects your sample image in comparison to your original image. Brightly coloured or high contrast images tend to be large file sizes than lower contrast images.
To be able to upload your image to the digiscrapart.com gallery, your image file size must be less than 125k. Check the file size under JPEG shown as above below the sample image. Generally speaking you should be able to keep your images under 100k for most layouts. If you need to zoom in to get a better view of the effect of the compression, you can click on the magnifying glass at the top left and click on your image to zoom in. (hold down the alt key and click to zoom back out)
Once you are happy with your adjustments, click on the Ok button.
Be sure not to overwrite your high resolution images by saving as the same name. You might like to put -lowres or -forweb at the end of your file name to indicate that the image is a low resolution image for web/email viewing.
Once you have named your file and chosen an easy to remember place on your hard drive to save it, click on Save, to save your new, low resolution version of your image.
Tip: When going back to your image in PS or PSE, remember not to resave your original as your full printing size will be lost. You may wish to undo your sizing and layer changes before saving again, or in Photoshop you can click on Revert in the File menu to revert to the last saved version.
© Robyn Gough 2006
All Rights Reserved
Not to be reproduced without express written permission.
Drop shadows can have a dramatic affect on your layouts and can provide a variety of different effects and looks. Adjusting a drop shadow can really make your layout pop, or can spoil it. The trick is creating the right type of drop shadow for the effect you are trying to create.
Below is a photo with six different drop shadows to illustrate the different effects a drop shadow can give.
The first image has a subtle drop shadow, a short distance from the image, with the shadow being heavier on two sides of the photo, illustrating that the light source is coming from the top left. The small size of the shadow also suggests that the photo is likely to be directly on top of the background paper as it might be on a traditional paper layout.
The second photo has a heavier and larger drop shadow again heavier on two sides of the photo indicating that the light source is coming from the top left. The increased size and softness to the drop shadow makes the photo appear that it might be further away from the background paper. Such a shadow might also be used for objects such as page pebbles, or other embellishments which would appear to be thicker in real life than a photo. In this instance, used on a photo which is less than a millimetre thick, it makes the photo appear to float on the page.
The third photo has a very large drop shadow and is much softer looking than the previous two. The shadow has dispersed just as shadows do in real life when an object is a distance from something. The closer the object is to where the shadow is being cast, the darker, smaller and sharper the shadow will become. This shadow makes the photo appear as if it is floating some distance above the page and does not lend itself towards a realistic looking paper style layout as much as the first shadow does.
The fourth photo has a small brown drop shadow with the colour altered from black to dark brown. The shadow is set at zero distance giving an even size around the photo and indicating that the light source might be directly above the photo. This form of drop shadow gives a lovely soft look and is useful for creating a realistic and soft looking shadow around the photo. This effect is particularly useful for freestyle layouts and a variety of other effects and looks.
The fifth photo has a larger, softer drop shadow, at zero distance with the colour altered from black to dark brown. The shadow has also had noise added to give a less even look. The size of the drop shadow does not lend itself to a realistic photo on top of paper look, however it does almost give the appearance that the photo is set behind the paper instead of on top of it. To enhance this effect you may wish to reduce the opacity of the shadow and include an inner shadow on the photo itself. It is another style of drop shadow which may be useful for freestyle layouts.
The sixth photo does not look at all like it has a drop shadow but like it has a frame around it or that the paper may have been embossed. This look was achieved by using zero distance, changing the colour to dark brown and experimenting with the contour of the drop shadow. Once again, not a very realistic looking drop shadow, but perhaps an interesting effect to experiment with!
Knowing how to make the most of your drop shadows is a very useful tool to have under your belt and it can be fun to experiment with them. Why not give it a go in your next layout?
© Robyn Gough 2006
All Rights Reserved
Not to be reproduced without express written permission.
One of the most fundamental aspects of digital scrapbooking is being able to unzip the files you download. Read on to find out how to zip and unzip zip files.
Creating and Extracting Zip Files
In digital scrapbooking there are many occasions where you might have to deal with creating and extracting (opening) zip files.
Most digital scrapbook kits you download, whether you buy them or whether they are freebies come in zipped files. Zip files are normally a way of compressing files to keep down the size of them as well as keeping them together in a single file rather than several separate ones. With graphic files, zips do not normally reduce the file size much, if at all, however they are a very good way of keeping a collection of files together to enable easier downloading and uploading on the web.
Windows XP now provides it’s own zipping facilities, but if you do not have Window’s XP there are several zipping programs out there, such as WinZip or WinRar (which has the ability to compress in various file types such as Zip and Rar).
For the purpose of this tutorial, since most people tend to use Windows XP we will explain how to zip and extract files with Windows XP.
Extracting Zip Files
Firstly open Windows Explorer
Start> All Programs> Windows Explorer
Locate the zip file you wish to extract the files from and right click on the file. From the menu that is displayed, choose Extract All
The Windows extraction wizard will open. Click on Next to continue and you will come to the window below.
Here can select a destination for the files to be extracted to. You can click browse to find a folder on your hard drive, or type the path of where you want the files to be extracted to. The default is a folder named the same as your zip file, usually in the folder the zip is contained in.
If you are happy to have your files extracted to the default directory and folder, click on next to continue.
This completes the extraction of your files, check the box next to ‘Show extracted files’ if you wish to have a window open showing the extracted files.
Note: Double clicking on a zip file will show you what is inside the zip file but will not extract them.
Creating a Zipped File
Firstly open Windows Explorer
Start> All Programs> Windows Explorer
Add all the files you wish to zip into a folder. Right click on the folder and choose Send to> Compressed (Zipped) Folder, from the menu that appears.
Your zipped file will appear beneath the folder you right clicked on.
Your zipped files are now ready to upload to the web, send to someone else or do what you will with!
This article is © Robyn Gough (clikchic) 2007
All Rights Reserved
Not to be reproduced without express written permission
A wonderful technique for softening the look of your photos and reducing the effect of blotchy skin is to use the diffuse glow filter in Photoshop. You can take advantage of this wonderful filter to make a dramatic change, or just a subtle adjustment.
Firstly open the photo you wish to apply the filter to. For the purpose of this article we will work with this photo.
To apply the filter, go to the Filter menu > Distort > Diffuse Glow (Note: that your background colour on your colour swatches must be set to white for this to work effectively.)
You may need to adjust the zoom settings on the bottom left of the window to enable you to view enough of your image in the window provided.
By adjusting the Graininess, Glow Amount and Clear Amount you can experiment with the settings to get the desired effect, depending on how dramatic a change you would like to achieve. I usually like to make the change a little more dramatic and fine tune the changes by using the Fade setting in the Edit menu. Once you are happy with the result, click on OK.
As mentioned above you can fine tune the changes by using the Fade Diffuse Glow option in the edit menu. This option is no longer available once you make any further adjustments to the image, so should be done immediately upon applying the Diffuse Glow filter.
You can fine tune the Diffuse Glow settings by using the Opacity slider. Doing it this way enables easier control of the effects and allows you to better see how the adjustments effect the image.
In this instance I reduced the opacity by 69%. You may prefer a different setting depending on your image and how you applied the filter originally.
It is also possible to adjust the Mode settings to get different effects. One of the effects is shown below.
However, in this instance, I want a much softer look, and have left the Mode setting set to normal, giving the end result below.
© Robyn Gough 2005
All Rights Reserved
Not to be reproduced without express written permission.
