Simple Memory Pages

[Kathy]

I made a few simple pages for a friend of mine who recently had a baby and sent me her pictures through the Yahoo albums. No frou-frou or wild backgrounds. It would have been nice I think to add some drop shadows to the individual pictures or a bevel on the single picture so that it appears matted, but therein I encountered a problem.

In using light, simple backgounds, the shadows and bevels are way too dark or shall I say intense. I know I can change shadow distance, bevel width and direction , but is there a SIMPLE way to lighten only the drop shadow or the bevel?

Now to the embarrassing part ...... I suppose I have to post. I hope I interpreted Wendy's instructions correctly.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1qTDx4q9tcJjBgOqyGDBBcNk86zpw

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1UI9SrbLl9Kn8pZkpZ3IW7zGA308

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1jB7l6QyJmtlrfwwtnvwe3GlcRsYl0

All comments appreciated.
Thank You!
Kathy

[Mary]

Kathy - those are GORGEOUS! I don't know what instructions you were following but I would say you excelled!

[Wendy]

Kathy,

They are lovely ... congratulations on a job well done :) :)

My favourite is the last one :)

Well you can't lighten a bevel and I can't think of a workaround to that one ... but I'll have a think about it :)

Drop shadows ... for a much more adjustable drop shadow try this:

Say you have added photo to a montage and its that you want the drop shadow on.

Duplicate the added photo layer call it shadow
Move the shadow layer below the added photo layer
Select the shadow (layers palette Control Click on the thumbnail)
Edit>Fill Selection>Black

... Now this is your drop shadow so move it into place using the move tool.
Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur to soften the edges
Lower the opacity to give a lighter shadow.

Hope this helps :)

Wendy

[DanielleL]

what a cutie! Top right pic in #2 made me smile.


Danielle

[Kathy]

Thank you Mary and Wendy for the kind comments .

Thank you Wendy for the helpful instructions. I'll give it a try. Wendy .... I thought you said your mother was coming to visit ... how do you find the time to be so helpful. Much appreciated.

Kathy

[Wendy]

Kathy,

We collected her this morning and she decided to take a nap before dinner ... so I sneaked off to visit the forum :)

Now I really do have to go to prepare dinner.


Wendy

[SarahMB]

Very Beautiful Kathy. I love simple layouts.
SarahMB

[slophotos]

These are "simply" beautiful! Have you considered submitting them (particularly #2) to Simple Scrapbooks as they have a small digital section now?

What instructions of Wendy's did you follow?

One always says of course that their baby is the most beautiful, but Riley sure runs a competetive second! What blessed parents (and doubly to have such a sweet friend as you).

Slo

[Wendy]

hi Slo,

I think that Kathy meant my instructions on how to post to Pixentral :)

Wendy

[Kathy]

Wendy,

I tried your technique and it worked wonderfully. Thank you! I have used drop shadows before where I thought they were a little too intense . This is a great work around! I tried it on the "8 Weeks" page, but I think I still prefer the original. It will definitely be a technique that I will keep in my back pocket.

Slo,

Thank you for the very nice comments. I have not heard of Simple Scrapbooks. I am pretty shy about submitting my stuff for public display.

And Wendy had it right ... I was referring to How to Post to Pixentral.

Sarah,

Thank you.

I see that you are a fellow Canadian.

Kathy

[Wendy]

Kathy,

I much prefer that way of going drop shadows ... you get so much more control. Plus you can have drop shadows in other colours :)

Wendy

[Kathy]

Wendy,

I hadn't thought of the other colour thing. That's just great!!!!! More endless possibilities. :D

Kathy

[scrap happy]

I love these pages! I just got PSE and a new printer and I am trying to create 12X12 digital scrapbook pages. Can you tell me how you created these? I am trying to put pics on top of a 12X12 pic....

thanks!

[Wendy]

Hi there,

.... and welcome to the forum :)

Well first start off by opening the image you want as a background and also the one you want to add to it.

Click on the one you want to add and do Select>All then Edit>Copy
Now click on your background image and do Edit>Paste
You will now have the two images in the same file.

Click on the move tool and you will be able to position them on the page
Click in the corner of the bounding box and you will be able to resize them.

Do let us know how you go on :)


Wendy

[Kathy]

Hi scrap happy,

Wendy's way is probably easier, but if I remember correctly, the way I did it was this:

1. Create new document in white ..... size 12 by 12 or whatever you want your page to be.

2. Open the photo you want as your background. Open both files in the same window by clicking on the little icon in the top right corner that looks like four pages. Click on the move tool .... select the photo and drag to the whitebackground. Use the handles on the bounding box to drag out the photo to fit the white background. Lower the opacity of the photo layer.

3. Open the photos you want on top and use same method to drag to the background. You can resize these photos using the move tool and change opacity as you wish .

This is probably clear as mud :? , but feel free to ask for clarifications and I will try to remember what I did. Isn't getting older grand .... :roll:

Kathy

[bayhli]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and having been enjoying the work you did with the baby pages; they are really lovely!

I hope you don't mind a question .....how did you get that nice thin (blue) border around the page you show in the second picture?

I haven't been able to figure out how to get a simple thin border.

Thanks for the advice ... / Pat

[Wendy]

Hi Bayhli ...

An easy way to do a thin line on your image is to:

Create a new layer above your image
Use the rectangular marquee and drag out the size and shape you want
Make the colour you want to apply your foreground colour
Now do Edit>Stroke Outline Selection
... you will have to experiment with the number of pixels.

Hope this helps :)


Wendy

[bayhli]

Thank you so much Wendy ....you have saved me so much work!

To get a thin line (frame if you will) around my pics I've been enlarging the canvas in the colour I wanted - so much work I can't tell you! This is like an instant compared to what I have been doing. And of course I couldn't frame inside the photo.

I stayed up much too late last night playing with it - perfect!! I have lots to learn after seeing what you talented ladies are doing with scrapbooking.

Thanks again / Pat B.

[Wendy]

Hi Pat ...

Doing it that way is so much simpler and easier but I have to confess that I still do it the long way round as I find it more flexible ...

To make the line inside ... what I do is:

Copy the image into the clipboard
Crop the image down
Enlarge the canvas for the line
Enlarge the canvas and copy the original image back into it.

Does take me a while but I have got used to doing it that way :lol: :lol: :lol:

Glad to have helped ... do let us see some of your images when you have the chance to :)


Wendy

[bayhli]

Hi Wendy - just wanted to let you know that I've been practicing the borders we talked about and it's super. Thank you so much.

I'm combining the methods sometimes too - enlarging the canvas and then adding the thin lined border as you instructed. Works great. I too am more comfortable with enlarging the canvas because at least I know what I'm doing that way.

I also discovered that after I drag in a small photo onto a new background, I select it with the move tool which puts the bounding box around it; then I just select the "stroke" and it frames it right off, quick and easy, right on the background. I won't even go into how long it used to take me to do that.

I'm having other problems now as I'm sure you've seen by my cry for help on the beginner's forum. As soon as I get this horrid little project done I'm going to get more serious about scrapbooking and be more involved with this area of the forum. Sure a great way to learn Photoshop isn't it.

My young granddaughter spends a month with us in the summer and we do lots and take tons of photos that I send home with her. This year she expressed an interest in scrapbooking so we decided a scrapbook was a much nicer keepsake instead of just photos. This is where my interest in doing it with Photo Elements has come from. Anway, we winged it and she went home with pages and pages of photos and a small bit of creativity - I had no clue about scrapbooking and I just got the photos combined and arranged on photosheets for her, and she added and decorated the pages by hand so she could take part as well. I really enjoyed it with her and want to continue it for myself now. Just too busy as yet.

Now that I've been on this forum I can sure see where it can go - what I did was so amateur. I also discovered here that I am hardly using the capabilities of Photo Elements - I've learned tons just by reading the posts. Doing is better and as soon as I free up a bit more I can't wait to delve in.

Thanks again Wendy .....you're a gem on this forum obviously!
Pat

[Wendy]

Hi Pat ..

It sounds like you are really having fun with Elements :) ... there are lots of things you can do with it and endless opportunites for experimenting. I like to play around and just see what different things do to an image.

By next summer you will be able to amaze your granddaughter with all the brilliant things you are able to do ... in fact, why not design a few of your own cards using the images you took this year?

Wendy