Adobe Lesson 3
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4
Preparation for Adobe Lesson 3
If you don't have a photo or a scanner to scan one you are welcome to use my photo for this class and your personal use only. You can copy if from (see photo 3) or I can send you a copy that isn't cropped and reduced like this one.
If you are investing in the software, I highly recommend this book (for your software version) if you have Elements.
Mommydearest posted this site to download a free 30 day trial but you will want to wait until we know for sure when I'll be posting the class details so your trial doesn't run out before you have a chance to play. I wouldn't buy from that site, their prices were very high.There is an excellent on-line video tutorial on layers on this site that I recommend if you've never worked with them. Scroll down to the image of the tiger. This is listed under PE3 but it applies to all PE versions. I'll assume you understand that. It may also help to go through the scrap booking one as well.Txbarbire posted this site for a freeware package that should work for this project. My screen shots won't match exactly but if you don't want to buy or already have the Adobe software this is a good alternative.Before class:Get your software and install it. Play around with it some on your own.Go through the on-line tutorials I pointed out.PM me if you have any questions on things before class starts.Find a photo. It's spring you should be able to go out and take lots of fun photos of blossoming tree branches, flowers etc. It will be more fun if everyone has there own photo, uses their own colors etc and posts their project afterwards.Basic TipsConvert your photo to a format other than .jpg when you save it. If your working with adobe products it will be saved as a .psd until you ask it to save to another format. Every time you save as a .jpg you loose a little quality. I recommend .png or .tiff for Adobe products others may support .gif which is fine too. For many web sites you need to save as .jpg or .gif and there you don't care as much for quality. If you save for the web to share, always save as a copy. Do NOT replace the original or it will not be printable and the quality lost for good. The Elements has a "save for web" feature which is really nice.
PE2 users. The layers tablet is on the top right hand corner as one of the tabs. Click on the tab to open. Initially it may come up to small. You can enlarge the pallet by clicking on the lower right hand corner of the pallet and dragging it.PE3 and 4 users, the layers pallet is open by default when you enter standard edit. Photoshop users, I believe this is also the default and you don't have to worry about the different edit modes, you only have 1.
I'm about 1/2 way through the book. I found it very useful. The funny thing is that I would learn one way and make all these updates, get further through the book and learn something that was even better.The book got me around a known program bug when using the lassos and wonderful tricks with doing the selections I wouldn't have figured out on my own. I'll cover some of this in my class because you have to make selections for parts of it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions before class and I'll try to help you out.
You really should go through the book and follow things step by step. I was tempted to skip sections and then read them anyway and I'm glad I'm going through it from start to finish. I would have missed a lot of tips and shortcuts. PE3 will be great for you to organizer you graphics and make them easy to find. I have a separate catalog that I created just for crafting because I can find and resize craft patterns so much easier.Always start out with the best resolution possible and if you need to resize smaller, save the changes as a copy. I usually save it as ImageXYZ_5x7 or ImageXYZ_4x6 so I know what it is resized for. Did you know you can crop to a specific size ratio? This would be perfect for the glass blocks. There are also really nice text effects you can do if you do words. PE doesn't support windows meta files but I found a way around that using irfanview to convert the file format. I used it for the scrapbook page I did. When finding clip art .TIFFs are easier to use because they are supported directly.
I really like this, standard to most editors if you can find it. If you select "Fixed Aspect Ratio" for the mode you can type in whatever you want. To make a 6x4 a 4x6, click on the arrow between them. Since most glass blocks are square you could really type in anything 4x4, 2x2 etc. This allows you to crop an image before printing so you know exactly what it will look like and don't waste ink printing off parts you don't want. When you drag the cursor from top left to low right it will keep the ratio. I'm trying to find where you can switch to center out but cannot find where it said that. Most digital cameras do not take standard 4x6 format so if you don't crop them your self your at the mercy of the store to do it right for you. This is important for card makers to if they want to match the picture size for a specific card demension.If you don't want anything cropped you can cheat by adding canvas and then cropping with the ratio. When your prints come back just trim off the extra white space. These are tips you won't find in the book but if you understand the system and tools it isn't hard to figure out. See photo 4.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 1 is offered on this site free of charge. It is also useful to go through some of the others. If you are interested in my twirls class, I also recommend the "Change color" tutorial on this site. I have one more that I wanted to do on tools for cropping which which will be useful for anyone with a digital camera who sends photos off to be printed and anyone using graphics for glass blocks etc.The best way to learn any tool is to use it. I read a section of the book, play with the concepts, read another section play some more etc. I want you to have time to really use it before presenting to much. Although some of you already know the basics and are looking for the fun stuff. If youu already feel comfortable using the tool, I found another on-line tutorial that I haven't had a chance to try yet but it looks like a lot of fun. It is written for photoshop for I believe it can be done with at least the later versions of elements. If anyone trys this before me I'd love to see your snow globe. So by breaking this down into smaller parts is once a week a good pace? Are you ready for cropping this week?
If you are investing in the software, I highly recommend this book (for your software version) if you have Elements.
Mommydearest posted this site to download a free 30 day trial but you will want to wait until we know for sure when I'll be posting the class details so your trial doesn't run out before you have a chance to play. I wouldn't buy from that site, their prices were very high.There is an excellent on-line video tutorial on layers on this site that I recommend if you've never worked with them. Scroll down to the image of the tiger. This is listed under PE3 but it applies to all PE versions. I'll assume you understand that. It may also help to go through the scrap booking one as well.Txbarbire posted this site for a freeware package that should work for this project. My screen shots won't match exactly but if you don't want to buy or already have the Adobe software this is a good alternative.Before class:Get your software and install it. Play around with it some on your own.Go through the on-line tutorials I pointed out.PM me if you have any questions on things before class starts.Find a photo. It's spring you should be able to go out and take lots of fun photos of blossoming tree branches, flowers etc. It will be more fun if everyone has there own photo, uses their own colors etc and posts their project afterwards.Basic TipsConvert your photo to a format other than .jpg when you save it. If your working with adobe products it will be saved as a .psd until you ask it to save to another format. Every time you save as a .jpg you loose a little quality. I recommend .png or .tiff for Adobe products others may support .gif which is fine too. For many web sites you need to save as .jpg or .gif and there you don't care as much for quality. If you save for the web to share, always save as a copy. Do NOT replace the original or it will not be printable and the quality lost for good. The Elements has a "save for web" feature which is really nice.
PE2 users. The layers tablet is on the top right hand corner as one of the tabs. Click on the tab to open. Initially it may come up to small. You can enlarge the pallet by clicking on the lower right hand corner of the pallet and dragging it.PE3 and 4 users, the layers pallet is open by default when you enter standard edit. Photoshop users, I believe this is also the default and you don't have to worry about the different edit modes, you only have 1.
I'm about 1/2 way through the book. I found it very useful. The funny thing is that I would learn one way and make all these updates, get further through the book and learn something that was even better.The book got me around a known program bug when using the lassos and wonderful tricks with doing the selections I wouldn't have figured out on my own. I'll cover some of this in my class because you have to make selections for parts of it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions before class and I'll try to help you out.
You really should go through the book and follow things step by step. I was tempted to skip sections and then read them anyway and I'm glad I'm going through it from start to finish. I would have missed a lot of tips and shortcuts. PE3 will be great for you to organizer you graphics and make them easy to find. I have a separate catalog that I created just for crafting because I can find and resize craft patterns so much easier.Always start out with the best resolution possible and if you need to resize smaller, save the changes as a copy. I usually save it as ImageXYZ_5x7 or ImageXYZ_4x6 so I know what it is resized for. Did you know you can crop to a specific size ratio? This would be perfect for the glass blocks. There are also really nice text effects you can do if you do words. PE doesn't support windows meta files but I found a way around that using irfanview to convert the file format. I used it for the scrapbook page I did. When finding clip art .TIFFs are easier to use because they are supported directly.
I really like this, standard to most editors if you can find it. If you select "Fixed Aspect Ratio" for the mode you can type in whatever you want. To make a 6x4 a 4x6, click on the arrow between them. Since most glass blocks are square you could really type in anything 4x4, 2x2 etc. This allows you to crop an image before printing so you know exactly what it will look like and don't waste ink printing off parts you don't want. When you drag the cursor from top left to low right it will keep the ratio. I'm trying to find where you can switch to center out but cannot find where it said that. Most digital cameras do not take standard 4x6 format so if you don't crop them your self your at the mercy of the store to do it right for you. This is important for card makers to if they want to match the picture size for a specific card demension.If you don't want anything cropped you can cheat by adding canvas and then cropping with the ratio. When your prints come back just trim off the extra white space. These are tips you won't find in the book but if you understand the system and tools it isn't hard to figure out. See photo 4.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 1 is offered on this site free of charge. It is also useful to go through some of the others. If you are interested in my twirls class, I also recommend the "Change color" tutorial on this site. I have one more that I wanted to do on tools for cropping which which will be useful for anyone with a digital camera who sends photos off to be printed and anyone using graphics for glass blocks etc.The best way to learn any tool is to use it. I read a section of the book, play with the concepts, read another section play some more etc. I want you to have time to really use it before presenting to much. Although some of you already know the basics and are looking for the fun stuff. If youu already feel comfortable using the tool, I found another on-line tutorial that I haven't had a chance to try yet but it looks like a lot of fun. It is written for photoshop for I believe it can be done with at least the later versions of elements. If anyone trys this before me I'd love to see your snow globe. So by breaking this down into smaller parts is once a week a good pace? Are you ready for cropping this week?
Hacrafter
Author's craft samples:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/craft2decor8/index_frame.html
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v688/hacrafter/Crafts/
