Scraps-n-Pieces Photoshop Techniques Class Week 6

This week's lesson is one every photo editor or scrapbooker needs to know...how to clone, heal, and dodge/burn.  This is how you fix photos, how you repair tears, remove scratches, lighten or darken areas, create depth, shadows, and highlights.  Tons to absorb this week but the kind of stuff I love to do.  And let me tell you I am hooked on Photoshop and how easy it is to do these things with PSE.

Our assignment was to "fix" a photo by either removing clutter or repairing a damaged place.  I used it to remove the clutter and replace it with blanket to make this picture of my granddaughter more pleasing for scrapbooking.

I cloned the blanket to fill in the background and hide the clutter, fixed the redeye, and adjusted the levels to brighten the picture.

Here is the layout I created using the after photo.  This is a great technique for all those cute pictures you have that are overly cluttered or have unpleasant things in the background.  I think I need to go find all those pictures that would have been great photos if only someone didn't have someone else's fingers making rabbit ears behind them or a tree growing out of their head!

I used Wendy Tunison's Pride and Prejudice Bundle for this layout.  (I love this kit.)  This is my granddaughter who was a preemie.

Scraps-n-Pieces Photoshop Techniques Class Week 5

A busy week, learning so much.  This time we are learning about blending things together.  We were to pick 2 papers (I actually used 3) and blend them together into one, then to use that newly created paper to complete a full layout.

I created the music paper for the background and the front layers.  And I jumped the gun (I know we are going to learn this later) and extracted the rubber ducky from another photo for my embellishment.  I love how this page turned out....and how the duck looks like Nate is choking him to death!  Too cute.

I find that even when my assignment is done I am spending most of my free time "playing" with Photoshop Elements!  This is addictive and sooooo much fun.  I have played with manipulating digital art for years but never knew how easy and fun it could be with the right tools.  

People always tell you Photoshop is too hard to learn. NOT!  It just has so many features that it is overwhelming at first, but once you learn what all those things can do your realize that they save you so much time and tedious work.  Bethany asked if I thought I might like to be a designer and I am thinking I really might!  I do a lot of that already in my mixed media art so why not entertain the idea? :-)

Items Used:

Blended Paper: SnP Heidi Ho brown paper, 
SnP Bohemium Rhapsody Music paper

Other elements all from SnP Heidi Ho and 
Bohemian Rhapsody, except for the tag paper - 
it is SnP In The Kitchen byN2N

More Digital Scrapbook Pages

This first layout is one of the first digital pages that I ever did.  It was for a challenge to celebrate Digital Scrapbook Day.  I like how it turned out and especially the cool wintery look...especially since we were having a lot of snow when I made it a few months back.

This page is one I made for my youngest brother who passed away suddenly and is sorely missed by everyone who knew him.  No one ever expects the youngest to go first and it was such a shock to lose him.

The picture of us by the fence is of us three youngest kids...Hal, me, and Ronnie....and our pet dog Lady.  I really like how this page turned out.  It was a quick page that I added my own elements to and adjusted things a bit to make it accommodate these two favorite childhood photos.  I should have written down which kits I used for these...but maybe I can figure it out and update later.

Scraps-n-Pieces Photoshop Techniques Class Week 4

A new week a new technique.  This time we are learning to "align and distribute".  Learning to do this technique will save you so many headaches. I always hated using Alphabets because you had to measure and align each letter and sometimes they still came out crooked.  But no more.

See how nicely those brads and the letters are lined up?  Lovin' it!

Distributing only works really well if all of your alpha letters are the same width, so you still have to manually adjust the space between letters if they are of varying widths, but using a grid can really help with that once you have them on a plane.   I know I will be adding way more titles now that I know how to do it in PSE!

Kits used:
SNP_Karen Diamond Use It All
SNP_ Heidi Ho _ heart
SNP_ Heidi Ho _ button gray
SNP_Wendy Tunison Simplicity _ pink leaf 1
SNP_Bohemian Rhapsody Collab _ alphabet