Digital Scrapbook Pro

Today - Found this nice resource for a free background for your Digital Scrapbooking. It is called WinterLand - Free From Sils Creations.
Enjoy and have fun with this - Time to put last winters photos on a page and this will help you get started.

- Scrapbook Pro

I found this great resource pack at Deviant art - It includes the wood panel - the Web 2.0 Button - Post it Note Style Paper - A glossy frame - Stack of Photos - couple of diffent stickers and a 2 push pins to use to hold down your images.

I used this pack to create the following image of my Kennywood Memories from a few years back - I just happened to receive a copy of these images as I thought I lost all of these to a Hard Drive Crash before I could back them up. (Another Day  - How to backup your photos and resources)

I really like this Resource Pack as it is pretty simple and adds enough life to the images to be quite useful by itself or with any of the many other Photoshop Resources that are out there.

Here is what I completed.

I love the LensBaby Set of Creative Lens for The Canon or Nikon - Someday I want to purchase one, but in the meantime  I wanted to simulate the effect in photoshop without the cost of the lens kit.

You can look at this Flickr Group for some ideas as to what the LensBaby is capabile of. There are thousands of examples and more added daily.

This effect can take a normal good photo and add alot of impact to it. For Example  here is the Before and after of a photo that I took of an accident (I was not involved - Just happened in my rear view mirror and I stopped to call 911)

Before the Lensbaby Lens Treatment

After the Lensbabies Treatment
As you can see it takes a normal photo and add drama and life to the photo. The photo without the lensbaby effect is pretty boring. But afterwards the photo is much more dramatic and in my humble opinion is a much better photo.

Now on to how I did this in Photoshop CS4.

1) Open Photo in Photoshop and Duplicate the layer (Right click on layer and click on Duplicate background layer)

2) Give yourself some room to work - Increase the canvas size by 125%  (Main Menu - Image - Canvas Size)

3) Add the Blurs - I do two different blurs to get this effect - This is Personal Preference and depends on what photo you are working on. - I suggest you study some of the photos from flickr to see what the lensbaby does and put that to use here. For this photo I used a gaussian blur (3.3 Radius Note The Ammount depends of the size of the image More for larger images The Image I was working on is onl 1024 Pixels wide) then I applied Motion Blur (Angle 27 and a Distance of 64 Pixels) Again this depends on the size of the image you are working on. And is your peronal preference.

4) Add a layer mask to the duplicate layer (Main Menu - Layer - Layer Mask - Reveal All)

5) Select the Gradient tool (Press G on keyboard) Set Color to Black Foreground White Background - and Radial Gradient.

6) Using the Radial Gradient tool (You may have to play around a few times to get it to look right) Select a center point and make a circle around the area you want in focus - and since we used black to white it fades from Sharp focus to the blurs.

7) Crop the photo to get rid of the extra border we added earlier and or crop it to make it have a better use of the rules of thirds.

Thanks - DigitalAlan

Technorati Tags: Free, Photoshop, Tutorial, Lensbabies, Lenbaby, Selective, Focus, Blur, Impace, Photo, Photography, Digital, Scrapbook

Today’s Free Font can help you when heading down to your favorite park with a large friendly mouse.

This font is named after Walt Disney. This is based on his signature style of writing.

You can use this to write in a fun interesting style that will enhance the look of your digital scrapbook page.

You can use this for Title’s or even a small paragraph writing about your wonderful trip to the mouseville.

Below you can see a sample of the text and then a sample page I created from my trips photos reminding me some of the highlights of the trip - From Seeing Nova Era at Downtown Disney to Riding the Disney Monorail,  my Favorite Photo of the Epcot Center and  then Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

You can download it here - Thanks Joyce for Pointing that I forgot to add that… Oops

Technorati Tags: Free, Font, Friday, Walt, Mouse, Fonts, Amusement, Park

As most of you know I am from Pittsburgh and I without saying - I am a Pittsburgh Steelers Fan - Well I wanted to scrap all the Photos that I liked into a nice booklet to Print out and keep as a keepsake of the Pittsburgh Steelers winning yet another Super Bowl.

This Required a Masculine Look and Feel - Needed to be Quite Rugged -So, I decided to make a steel plate for the Steel City Winners.

To do this I used the following Photoshop Tutorial from PlanetPhotoshop. This is an easy to follow Tutorial on how to make a Bolted down Steel Plaque. Using Real Textures. Since the Tutoral didn’t give me the Steel Plate he used in the Video - I went to my favorite Photo Storage Location (FLIKR.COM) and did an advance Search looking for photos I could use. I found one that was in the Creative Commons and Started following the On Screen Tutorial. I used the rewind and stop button to work in Photoshop as Corey Baker taught me how to make my own steel texture effect. Total Time for me to complete my Steelers Page was about an Hour. To the right is what I created.

The Background was created using a Maroon Shade of Read and I used 2 layer effects - Gradiant Overlay (Set to Darken, and I used Clear to Black) & I used Texture Overlay - (Set to a nice Fiber Texture - again using opaciticy to adjust the layet to get the look and feel I wanted)

To add the photos I use a 2 layer Drop Shadow - ( I will write up a post explaining this technique)

And that was it.  Thanks for Viewing and Have a great and digital scrapbooking day.

And if you decide to do this tutorial please let me know in the comments below and link to what you created yourself - I would love to see what work you completed.

Technorati Tags: Digital, Scrapbook, Digital+Scrapbook, Pittsburgh, Steelers, Steel, Metal, Iron, Design, Photos, Super, Bowl

Here we go - some more Manly Scrapbook Additions.

Free Metal Meshes Patterns by Axertion. These can be uses for many different things - From Backgrounds to Tags to Titles to even enhancing some Text. I love these metal meshes as these are all tileable allowing you to use them for any size you need.

Below is an example of a Metal Tag I made to add to a scrapbook page I was working on. But as I mentioned you can use these for more then just a tag.  You can use these to Frame a photo - As a background to add depth and interest to your page. The Ideas are only limited to what you can imagine.

And the Metal Tag I created is on the right - This took me about 10 minutes to create in Photoshop -A quick synopsis of what I did was to start with a blank Image of 400×400 pixels (I like giving myself room to work. Then I added a new Layer (Using Ctrl-Shift-N) then on this layer I used the Rounded-Rectangle Tool to create the Base - and used the following layer styles to create the metal bottom layer -

• Pattern Overlay - Chrome Overlay (From Mesh Pack)
  - Scale of 30% & 80% Opaciticy
• Stroke Overlay-
  - 9px Size - Outside - Normal Blend - Gradient Fill (Silver)
• Emboss -
  Smooth - 113% - 3px Size
• Drop Shadow -
  81% - 30 px Distance - 11% Spread - 18px Size (remember use your own eye)

Next I created another new Document of 245px x 90px (this will be the metal plate layer) to do this I filled to whole thing in with a gradient fill (Metal Bar) then added noise to the layer using the Noise Filter of 14% then added a filter - Motion Blur to give it the brushed metal effect. I then did a select all and then used Edit-Copy to copy it all.

Now back to the first image and added a new layer using Ctrl-Shift-N and then Edit-Paste to add the Metal Plate onto that image - I centered it onto the mesh where I wanted it and added the following layer styles:

• Stroke -
  Gradient Fill (Silver) - 3 px size

And the final layer was using the Text Tool with Dark Grey Text to add the Name DigitalAlan using the following layer Styles -

• Inner Shadow -
  Distance 1px - Choke 65% - Size 1px
• Bevel -
  Pillow Emboss - Chisel Soft - 11% Depth - 1 px size - 0 px Soften
• Pattern Overlay -
  Normal - 53% Opacity -Patter Chrome Mesh at 30% Size to match the bottom layer

And that was it That is how I created the Metal Badge for DigitalAlan
And Don’t forget to Visit the Mesh Pack’s Creators Blog @  http://www.axertion.com/ - Looks like this will be a great resource for all to use…

Technorati Tags: Photoshop, Tutoral, How, To, How+to, Digital, Scrapbook, Digital+Scrapbook, Scrapbooking, Metal, Mesh, Metal, Layer, motion, blur, brushed+Metal, Brushed

Vintage Grunge Textures by -Princess-of-Shadows- This can be used for so many different uses. From Page Backgrounds to photo borders and photo mats to being cut into shapes to have the new shapes come to life on the page.

Below is an example of what I did to make a word out of the Vintage Grunge Texture.

The Grunge Text was Created using Multiple Layers and using a Layer Clip (Sounds more complicated then it really is)  to get the words to fill with the texture. You can used this technique with any photo or texture you find. Directions at Photoshop Essentials.

The Scrapbook Pro

Technorati Tags: Grunge, Paper, Vintage, Olde, Parchment, Parchment+Paper, Paper, Text, Effects, Photoshop

Today, I will be pointing you to a few free brushes to use with Photoshop (Elements and Original). I used these today to create the sample page below.
1) To create this page I started out with an 8.5 x 11 blank sheet and added a gradient of burgundy to black over the layer.

2) Next using the special effects I added a texture of mesh over top of it.

3) This is where I started adding some flair to the background with the Swirly brushes.

The two sets of brushes I used to add the swirls are: Grunge Swirls by Scully and Swirl Brushes from EasyElements. I adjusted the sizes and set the brush to only 19% opacity to just lightly change the background.

4) After adding the brush elements I added another layer and drew a rounded corner box.

This box layer I set the opacity to 35%.

5) Now I added the Negatives to the Layer using the Film Brushes also by Scully.

6) To highlight the filmstrips I used I added using the special effects a satin finish to it to give it some body and added a small drop shadow.

7) On top of the Film Strip I added my Photos I have of Mystic.

Now, I used a script font I had in my collection. I will post a link when I find where I downloaded it from. I made the font the same color as the background and used a outer glow to highlight the wording.

9) I then made another layer for the text box - I used another rounded box and added a parchment texture to it before adding the layer of text using a handwriting font I bought online called swirls.

Below is the finished product.

Technorati Tags: Digital, Scrapbook, Scrapbooking, Scrapping, escrapping, escrap, how, to, free, brushes, photoshop, guide

I had a few people write in and ask about how I print my scrapbook pages. Well, I believe I do my pages slightly differently then a lot of people. I never liked the 12×12 size pages. First, they are really hard to store and I don’t have a printer that will print 12×12 pages - I know a few of you use the 8×8 printing on home printers. But one time I was at the local craft store they had a really nice 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbooking binders for digital scrabooking (Similar to this on Amazon) and Refills Here.

I do all my printing on a Canon Pixima MP520 Printer - I love this printer as it does a fantasitc job scanning and printing. This printer uses archival inks when used with Canon’s Paper  and each color is a seperate tank. Using seperate tanks are a hugh advantage as you don’t need to buy a new ink tank when only one color is used up. So, if you used alot of red - you only have to replace the red. Briliant! And as far as paper - I use the one I linked above. I think the matte finish is the best looking color this printer can produce. Since you are going to be storing this in a glossy sheet holder not having a glossy surface really doesn’t make a difference at all and did I mention that colors look great on the matte finish?

The last product I use is using the rollabind system to make my own albums and covers. Thes only require the rollabind hole punch and rollabind discs.  These are a really nice

Technorati Tags: scrapbook, digital, binder, album, archival, canon, printer, pixima, digital+scrapbooking, pioneer, paper, photo, photoshop,

I would like to tell you about a great digital scrapbook kit offered by Shabby Princess - It is called “Harvest Spice” - But don’t let that name fool you. You can definitely use this for more then just Fall or Autumn Scrapbook Pages.

This digital scrabook kit contains quite a bit of free items: 8 Different Digital Papers, 20 Different Elements, and Harvest Spice lowercase Character Set. And Remember this kit is free for personal use only.

I loved playing with this kit: As the Shabby Princess describes this set: Rich, Earthy, and Textured.

Below is a page that I created with this kit: This page is a sample page that I was playing around with a couple of photos of my cat.

Technorati Tags: Free, Digital, Scrapbook, kit, Digital+Scrapbook, Photoshop, Scrapbooking, DIY, How-To, How, To, Paper, Digital+Paper, Scrapbook+Kit