Type in a Circle (Photoshop CS2)

-Select your custom elipse tool (appears under the type tool). Make sure you've chosen "Path" up in the options menu (the middle icon in the left-most section on the options bar), then make a circle of the size you want. You'll see a line that's just sitting there, that's good.

Note: If you want to make any other type of path text, the steps are basically the same: use any of the custom shape tools, or draw your own path.

-Select your type tool, make your font, size, etc. selections, then click anywhere on the path. Where you click will be your starting point. If your text is left aligned, that will be the left-most point. If you're doing centered text, the exact OPPOSITE of the circle will be your center, and where you first clicked is where the END of the text will be (a little confusing, that, in my opinion).

-Type your text. You can adjust by adding spaces at the beginning or end, or even just nudging it a bit using the alt+(right/left)arrow key.

-In your paths palette (usually in your layers box), click anywhere NOT on the path layer--that will deselect your path so you don't see it (and also so it doesn't copy when you do ctrl+c).

-You should be good to go!

Spring Freebie

Phew... This one took a while, probably because it's on the more whimsical end of the spectrum, and sometimes those are difficult to work with... But I think the layout I made is pretty cute!



The freebie includes 4 papers, 2 frames (with photomasks included--check the TOU.txt for instructions), 1 tag (I left the inside of the tag blank, though--you can fill it with a semi-transparent gradient, like I did in my layout, or any other color you choose), 2 stickers, and 2 pebbles ETA: Thanks for looking! I've taken this one out of circulation (as usual, after 1 day) until I can find a store...:

And the font in my banner is...

...not Selfish, which is pretty cool in and of itself, but Porcelain.

Just a note for Ely, who asked (and who has a very cool, new blog, by the way), but didn't leave an e-mail addy.

Catching Up...

So, after a busy weekend in Portland, we're back in our gorgeous little town. Portland was fun, but man--do NOT miss the traffic! Or the pollution!

It was Allen's 5th birthday, so of course had to make a layout with that:



I loved using Julia Makotinsky's kit at Little Dreamer Designs -- it was the only kit I bought. Only a couple more days left till they make the choice, I guess... I had fun lining the little stars up with the tram picture, as I had to blow out the sky (overexpose) in order to make the tram look good. The star was a perfect way to fill that space, which was bleeding into the layout!

I took a Naturescaping class while in Portland, too: all about gardening in such a way as to minimize your impact on the local ecology and watershed. The golden rule: the right plant in the right place. Using primarily native plants, or at least plants that fit perfectly with the soil and weather conditions, minimizes the need for pest management, attracts animals (and pest managers ;), and makes for a lovely, healthy garden with no need for extra watering or special care. After the class we dropped by a nursery, and I shot this incredible picture of a daffodil, outside, with my old trusty point and shoot!



Then finally, I wanted to use this strange picture that I shot (by mistake?) of Allen while we were riding on the streetcar. It was raining outside, and the light reflected off the drops, and also gave the reflection a pretty fuzzy quality. Changing the color made it blend really well, and this kit by Anna Aspnes (Designer Digitals) was SO fun to play with! She included *all kinds* of textures, overlays, grunged up stuff--really very cool and wonderful.



So, that's it for now... I'm working on some stuff--froggies are in the works. =)

Asian Mists Freebie

Ran out of time to do anything more to this mini-kit, what with Allen's birthday coming up and a short trip to the big city. So here's a fun little freebie... Stampers, try printing out the papers and using them as backgrounds--I'd love to see how they turn out, since I don't have a color printer! Here's what's included:
* 3 traditionally-themed papers (plum blossom, chrysanthemum, and pine)
* 2 plum blossom and dragonfly frames, 1 regular, 1 distressed
* 1 photo mask for inside the frame (shown offset in preview) NOTE: I made this because if you try to simply put the frame over a 4x6 photo, you'll have all kinds of stick-outy bits in the flowers, which isn't too aesthetically pleasing. So, just place your photo in a layer above the photo mask layer, clip them (alt+ctrl+g), then move the clipped photo into place so it lines up nicely just inside the blossoms in the frame. You can either just let the paper show through, or else color the blossoms on a different layer beneath it... Should be fun!
* 1 overlay of sakura blossoms
* 2 distressed borders
(personal use only)

As always, I so much appreciate comments. It makes it more worth it to me to offer more freebies further down the line. And if you use my stuff in a layout, I'd love to hear about it and spread the love! ETA: Thanks for stopping by! This kit is no longer available.

Masks & Overlays

Did a couple of fun things today. One was creating some masks to clip paper to so it would look like torn, hand-made paper, and another was creating some brushes from overlays to use as grungers.

The masks are pretty easy--on a separate layer of the paper document, or in a new document, draw a basic shape. You can either use these as accents (like I did with the faded purple paper in the first layout and the flower paper in the second), or as photo mats, like the bigger-sized one in the first layout, so make the shape according to the use. Then, fill it with black, or a grunged, fairly dense, texture. I used various brushes (chalk in one case, and the queen anne's lace brush of mine in another) to "feather" the edges of the mask--you can be kinda crazy, or keep it subtle, as you please. Once you have this shape down (save it!) place it in a layer beneath the paper you're trying to use, and ctrl+alt+g/clip it the top layer to the bottom one. Ctrl+e/merge the top layer to the mask, and now you have the shape ready to be dragged into your other document. Easy! As you'll see, I used this method twice in the first layout, once for the striped paper, and once for the faded purple paper.

(click for larger image, credits, and journaling).

In this second layout, I had fun trying to replicate Kate Teague's scratched wood texture which was present on her alphabet. I created the little circles from some paper in her same kit (the April Freebie on 2Peas), then made a layer beneath all that for the "border". Then, I used an overlay from Denise Liemert at Digital Scrapbook Pages (a site I just found last night while looking for elements--I have the hardest time finding stuff because I don't really know how to use it, I suppose! I did get those wildflowers in the first layout there, though). I just cut out a circle from the overlay and pasted it in a new layer, then hiked the contrast to have an uneven brush with some white and pure black in it. I hid the bottom layer with the complete overlay on it, selected the part I wanted to work with, and then clicked on "Create New Brush" under the Edit menu (if you don't select just the area you want to work with, it's likely that at 300 dpi that particular menu option won't even be available, since Photoshop has an upper size limit with which it can make brushes). Then, I just selected that as my brush, went in and grunged up my border layer, and was pretty pleased! I also used the same brush on an overlay that I created for the photo, which lent it some nice texture, as well as reduced the brightness to match that of the kit elements.

At some point, you'll need to actually save your new brush. Don't forget to go to Preset Manager (also in the Edit menu, a bit lower). In the new window, select all the brushes you'd like in one set (I have a Textures set, for example, so I load those before saving the new one and just add it to them), and save your set--I have my own folder of brushes, or you can save it in the regular Photoshop folder. Make sure you credit the designer each time you use the brush, though! I actually added the designer's name in the brush label so I wouldn't forget whose it was...

Extractions

No, not teeth. Though that may yet come.

For this one I used a dark brown linen bookbinder's thread stitched loosely into some light, white-coated chipboard with a large embroidering needle, then scanned it at 600 dpi. Because of all the little "hairs" coming off the thread, I decided to use the Extraction filter (up in the top portion under Filters).

This filter is pretty tricky, and I find it useful only in some very specific cases, such as when you have fine lines that are burned through with background color, which makes extraction with a selection marquee (either with a pen or the lasso) pretty useless, and very frustrating in its fiddly-ness. The Extraction Filter works by painting over the edges of what you want to retain, then filling the inside. You can even set the opacity in terms of what is retained, and that's where it comes in handy... For this one I used a 1 pixel brush to go over the contour of the thread and the "hairs"! On the image below you'll see the original scan, and the extracted thread used on my "Tangle" layout, which follows:




(click for credits and description)