And lastly, more things I would like to try:
::Make a picture Lichtenstein-worthy here.
::An introduction to digital scrap-booking through videos here.
::And I'm also loving the "stitching on a path" tutorial here.
I've been so inspired this week, thank you for joining me!
ps. This is my attempt at the "Polaroid Collage" (from Monday). The tutorial was written for Photoshop, so I had to improvise a lot using Elements. Improvise, of course, meant spending way too much time on it. I'm now really considering proper Photoshop (smile).
I fell in love with black and white photography in high school. At the time, the only way to create your own pictures was to hide in the dark room until you had mastered your light exposure and your hands smelled like fixer. It was magical. And I was apprehensive of digital photography at first, because the computer would be handling the process instead of me. But this technique made me a convert, because I could never do this in a dark room...
and it's such a nice effect. So nice in fact, that many do it and many have different techniques of doing it. Here's what works for me:
1) Open your picture
3) Now zoom in on the area to be colored so that it fills your screen. Select your brush tool, pick a size, set mode to "normal" and opacity to "100%." Set the foreground color to black. Make sure the gradient map layer is selected and begin to paint over the area to be colored. I like to investigate the brush's "more options" and soften the brush as I reach the outside edges.
4) Once I've finished painting the colored area, I usually see some color beyond the outside edges. Tidy it back up by setting the foreground color to white, then paint the color away once more.
5) Flatten your image, save as a .jpg, and...
I love wallet sized pictures. I think they're the sweetest size to keep, to tuck in a note, and to give away. Although I can print 4x6 prints for around 10 cents a picture- even less on sale- wallets can be as much as 30 to 50 cents a piece. Yikes! Then I discovered how to take one 4x6 picture...
and turn it into two wallets!
Since my traditional white border would have gotten lost on the white blog, I used gray instead for contrast. I think I like it... and I think I might need to think of other fun border colors (smile).
The directions are for two "landscape" wallets. If you would prefer "portrait" wallets instead:
How to make 2 wallets from a 4x6 picture:
(modified from: http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?p=547212)
- Open a new, blank file (File>new>blank file) and set width to 4 inches & height to 6 inches, resolution 300px/in, background white or any color of your choice
- Access the rectangular marquee tool, and in the the tool's option bar select "Fixed size." Set the width to 3.25 inches and the height to 2.25 inches. Turn on the grid, View>grid, and snap to grid, View>snap to grid.
- Duplicate the background layer, Layer>Duplicate layer, and create the first box by clicking with the rectangular marquee tool. Position the box, then fill it with 50% gray (Edit>fill selection, and under contents select 50% gray.) Select>deselect gets rid of the marching ants.
- Repeat for the next box. You should now have a document containing two rectangular boxes filled with 50% gray.
- Select the first box that you wish to fill (with the picture) with the magic wand tool. On the tool's option bar be sure that contiguous is checked. You should see "marching ants" around the selection, indicating that it is active.
- Open picture 1, go to Select>all, Edit>copy, then go to your layout as completed in step #5, and Edit>paste into selection
- Your image will be larger that the rectangular box, but you can drag it around to position it as you like. Holding shift as you resize the image with the corner handles will keep it from distorting.
- Repeat for picture 2 with the 2nd box. Or, if you'd like to use the same picture for both boxes: select box 1 with the rectangular marquee tool (set back to "normal"), Edit>copy, select box #2 with the magic wand tool (still "contiguous"), then Edit>paste into selection.
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| Billy is now 6 months, and wearing an outfit from when Papa was a baby. Handsome! |
- Open a new, blank file (File>new>blank file) and set width to 6 inches & height to 4 inches, resolution 300px/in, background white or any color of your choice
- Access the rectangular marquee tool, and in the the tool's option bar select "Fixed size." Set the width to 2.25 inches and the height to 3.25 inches. Turn on the grid, View>grid, and snap to grid, View>snap to grid.
- (Continue as above)
Our little Billy is now 6 months old, which has prompted a flurry of picture taking. I've been busy designing photo packages for family to celebrate this milestone. (We're halfway through his 1st year... eek!) While searching my computer for different saved ideas and tips, I realized that it would be handy, and quicker, for me to post some links and notes here instead for future reference. Then I thought it might be helpful for you too- so that is what we shall do this week. An idea or editing trick a day, starting with...
the collage! I like the simple banner across the middle of the page, but I'm thinking about branching out into:
::making a polaroid collage from one picture, here.
::adding some amazing distressing to my clean edges, here.
::incorporating some beautiful (free!) digital scrapbook paper, here.
::making a polaroid collage from one picture, here.
::adding some amazing distressing to my clean edges, here.
::incorporating some beautiful (free!) digital scrapbook paper, here.
Like most art teachers, I have a hard time throwing away anything. I see magazine holders in cereal boxes, buildings in oatmeal canisters- and a canvas in a ripped paper grocery bag. The last of which is especially fun to hang on the refrigerator for little hands to draw on.
And see that fantastic marker holder? It was a gift from a friend right before Billy was born. If you'd like to make one of your own, directions here. It's been so much fun for drawing, as well as entertaining (putting markers in and out... in and out...). Happy drawing!
