Getting There

For a challenge by Black Dog Designs, at her new Out Of The Box challenge blog. I did, and did labor over this one, and there's a lot I'm not pleased with, but I certainly went well out of my box (and fell into the drink, I think)!



Credits: Love card by Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, Simple Spots). Metal heart by Creashens (Catscrap, Bye Bye Birdie). Letter paper by Jesse Edwards, Journaling Challenge 12-21-08. Composition book by 3 Pixel Chicks (3 Pixel Chicks, Chick Your Grade). Shelf by Jofia Devoe (Digichick, In My Mommy's Dream). Chalk by M. Paige (Oscraps, To The Blackboard). Hanging frame, bolts, and rope frame by Natali Designs (StudioGirls, Countryside Kit). Dried roses by Monica Larsen (DSPB, Floralis). Other elements mine, aided by stock photography from StockExchange or Morgue Files, or my own. Fonts: Tahoma and 1942 Report. Journaling reads:


Getting there


I'm not sure where there is.


It used to be that all I wanted
Was to get married
And have kids.
And it didn't happen.
And it didn't happen.
And it didn't happen.
And after the third time,
I said to myself that perhaps
It wasn't supposed to happen
And threw all of me into other things
My Ph.D., my teaching, my deviant self.
And then, of course, it happened.
And really, once you get there, it's
Almost the end of everything, because
The child is a black hole of love and attention.
Inside of me, inside an older, more temperate
More attentive me, there are other aspects
Waiting to be birthed:
The artist, the poet, the lonely
Watcher, overwhelmed with beauty.


I love where I am now
But I still see a path
Running ahead like moon on the water
And I pray for clear skies.

Manipulating Layer Effects As Pixels

Recently it seems that I barely have time to squeak out a layout before my son wanders in, so I never have time to blog about them...

This one is a rather quick one that I did to commemorate his newest haircut, which actually shows his ears. His longer hair was cute too, but he was starting to look like a hood'--and I'm sure I'll have enough of that during his teen years!

When I finally found a photo I liked, his eyes were looking a little bruised, and dodging (using the dodge tool, that little lollipop-looking thing that makes pixels a shade or so lighter) didn't really take care of the problem satisfactorily, so I performed a Filter-->Distort-->Diffuse Glow on it. Now he looks like an angel. =)

The title work came together rather quickly in terms of placement, but I felt it needed something, so I did end up using a 3-pixel stroke of light blue around it. Then I didn't like how that cut the words apart, so I created layers for all the effects. To do that, use the "hide/show all others" by right-clicking on the eye next to the layer in question. All the others will disappear. Then, right-click on the layer effect symbol on the left-hand side of that layer, and choose "create layer". Actually, if you have all the layers where you're trying to do this highlighted at once, it'll create a separate layer for all of them. In fact, it creates a separate layer for *each* effect, such as one for the drop shadow, one for the outline stroke, one for the emboss, etc.

I only had the stroke effect on the title, so it created three layers, one for each of my words. I then nudged each of the stroke layers down and over a couple of pixels, leaving the upper connection between the words until I liked what I got. I did a little selective erasing where the connection was being cut off between the words by the stroke, too.

This creation of layers for the effects is quite handy; I've used it in a couple of different situations. One is to manipulate drop shadows so they look a touch more realistic--it's pretty easy to lasso the portion you want to work with, go to Edit-->Transform-->Warp and do what you need to to the shadow, and click on an another tool to get the apply dialogue, say yes--and now your shadow is not quite so even, and more as if real light were falling on the object.

You can also manipulate the drop shadow when you're trying to get a vellum effect. To make vellum, select a shape, fill it with white at 30-40%, then give it a drop shadow. Whoops! The whole thing fills with grey--what's up with that? Never fear: create a layer for your effect. Then go to the original vellum layer and select your shape, then move to the shadow layer and *delete* that portion of the drop shadow. Ahhh, much better! Now your vellum is still pristine white, but you can get a drop shadow too...

Oh, the layout! I really got side-tracked on this one. =) By the way, the swirly white things? Eraser.

Mapping Texture

Ok, I'm a little bit pleased, and a little frustrated too. Here's the culprit:


(Font: Birch Standard. Elements and background paper from Lynn Grieveson's Catalina kit @ Designer Digitals.)

The part I'm really pleased about is the background (check out how even the stitching actually follows the contours of the cloth!). How'd I do that? Sooooo glad you asked... ;)

I scanned a white t-shirt and made a desaturated image with it. Then, I overlaid Lynn Grieveson's beautiful paper on top and changed the paper layer to an overlay blend. Then I also did a displacement filter (distort-->displace using the t-shirt psd file) on the paper. What this does is actually warp the paper so that it's not only a flat illusion, but the displacement changes the paper so it looks like it goes "down" on the dark areas, and "up" on the light ones; by superimposing the distortion over the grayscale image you get much more of a sense of depth (props to Photoshop 7 Wow! for the technique). I did the same thing with the word art (clipped it to the grayscale background first, though). For the stitching, I only used the displace filter, but I had to go in and clean up with the smudge tool afterwards. The stitching is really cool, though--it "makes" the effect by being so zigzaggy directly on top of the fabric folds... Fun stuff!

The frustrating part is that I still need lots and lots more practice with that darned "curved photo" look. Still looks pretty amateurish to me...

Digital Realism (or lack thereof)

Here's a layout I've been fighting with for a couple of months now:

(Fonts: Chachie & Saginaw; ribbon by Lynn Grieveson at Designer Digitals)

There are a couple of issues going on here. One is that the focal point is not well-determined; the eye has a tendency to keep on bouncing onto the next element, over and over again. There's a lot to look at here! The other is that the level of realism varies from pretty realistic to obviously digital, so the mind has problems perceiving the layout as a functional whole.

The puzzle pieces are ok... except that you expect a continuous image, not one image per puzzle piece. The ribbon is great (one of the reasons I chose it--the other being that I can't tie a proper knot to save my life and so I've never gotten any good enough to where I'd be willing to spend time extracting it from a scan), the little tags with staples aren't too bad... but the cookie splats (yes, that's what those are!) are pretty unconvincing, even though I took them off another picture and blew them up; the "sticker" (Mmm -- cookies!) is kinda lame, and my torn edge is seriously lacking. And even if I'm kind of proud of my first pin, I don't really think the head looks very real... Annoying!

Here's a fun site for you: decide whether the photos are real, or digital. It's not that obvious! But it sure points out what a long way to go I have...

A few sites I've found useful for beginning efforts at realism:

- Janee's Photoshop Tutorials (she also covers Elements when there's a big difference)
- Planet Photoshop
- The Photoshop Guru's Handbook

And if you have anything to suggest for this layout, please do!