Sunday

Faux Felt Shapes


Tutorial - ELEMENT: Faux felt shapes - (By Tracey Renemo 2006) -

*2017 - The link to the tutorial is no longer available - please see my notes below.



Note from Pat

Here are my step by step instructions - all credit goes to Tracey Renemo for originally writing the faux felt tutorial.

1) Open the felt-like pattern in your work space and minimize it.

2) Open a new canvas 6 inches by 6 inches at 300 pixels per inch transparent
3) Go to your materials palette background and select your felt-like pattern there, Scale 100 Angle 0
4) Go to your materials palette foreground and choose your colour
5) Flood fill your canvas with your colour
6) Add a new Raster Layer, swap your materials to your felt-like material and flood fill
7) Your Material layer should be the one on top and colour on the layer underneath
8) Change the Opacity on the material layer to Luminance
9) If you don't like the colour go back to your bottom layer and change it
10) When you are happy with your colour Merge Visible layers.
11) Add a new Raster Layer
12) Choose the shape you want to use and draw it on the new layer - if it is a vector convert to raster

*Before converting to a raster layer you could add stitching around the edge using your vector tube script and stitches tubes

13) When your shape is converted to Raster -
Click on the magic wand - change the Feather setting to about 5
14) Click on the outside of your shape then go to your bottom layer and delete the selection
15) Close the top layer with the drawn shape and see your felt shape
16) Use the undo button whenever you want to and repeat steps until you are satisfied.
17) Happy with your result? Delete the layers you don't need and then save your new felt shape
18) Selections / Select All / Selections / Float / Selections / Defloat
19) Image / Crop to Selection
20) Save as .png

If you have any problems with this tutorial please contact me and I will do my best to assist you.


Saturday

Paper Piecing





Simply draw out different colour preset shapes and rotate them to suit what you want, add textures, slight bevels and shadows - do your own thing!


Wednesday

First Layout

First Layout


Note from Pat

First decide which image or photo you want to use in your layout.
Then you can use it as a guide as to the colours and journaling that you want to put into your layout.

Make your layout similar to mine above if you wish.

You could use your own - Glitter Elements from Lesson 36 - Charms from Lesson 4 - and any Ribbons or Papers or other Elements that you have already made yourself!

I am using my poem "A Mother's Love" for the journaling and an image of my Grandmother.
Resized Preview is 600 x 600 pixels at 78 pixels per inch smart size


Text on a path

Text on a Path

https://scrapbookcampus.com/2016/07/text-on-path-in-paintshop-pro/


Tutorial Note from Pat
If your text is not moving along your line enough, add spacing at the beginning to push it along the curve.


Tuesday

Metal Charm Elements

Metal Charm Elements

Creating a Metal Charm (by Bruticia) * 2017 - tutorial link no longer available - see my notes below.


Notes from Pat

Try different shapes, and sizes - also test different line widths from 5 to 10, try adding gems or other decoration.

Save the finished charms in .png format like the heart above. Eventually try different sculptures and metal or other effects.

......Go to Effects~Texture Effects~Sculpture
Presets~Gold and click ok......
This is the plain gold that should be available and should be visible in your Sculpture pattern window.

If you do not have it then save this Gold.bmp to your Paint Shop Pro pattern folder.

When you click on Presets - and your Sculpture options box pops up
click on the bent back arrow to restore to default
then click on the menu arrow there and scroll down to find Gold and accept the settings. OK

The Gold default settings should be
Size 100 Smoothness 10 Depth 3 Ambience 0 Shininess 46
Angle 315 Intensity 30 Elevation 56 Colour White

When creating your charm for some shapes you might want to make your line width thinner or thicker - it also depends on how large your charm is.

Also where the dark colour is - the sculpture goes inward and where the light colour is the sculpture comes outward.



The thing with scrapping is you can make the same or similar things over and over again for use in different layouts and themes - so let your imaginations run wild.

Find New Shapes at Scrap Stuff With PSP while they are still available!

Monday

Glass stones

Glass Stones

Tutorial - Glass Stones (originally by Lori J. Davis) - As with many tutorials that have been on line for many years, the links become unavailable! * Read notes below and you should be able to achieve a result.




Here I played with shapes and the warp tool and different colours to create the shapes underneath my stones.

Tutorial Note

Open new canvas 400 pixels x 400 pixels
Click on Effects / Artistic effects / Balls and Bubbles
Click on last used and select ljd_GlassStone preset,
Lower the zoom to about 22 so you can see the whole bubble
then you will see will see a little deformation bounding block
push the corners inwards to lower the size of your bubble slightly.

Extra Note for those who cannot use or do not have the ljd_GlassStone preset
here are the Manual Settings in Artistic Effects / Balls and Bubbles

Shape - single ball or bubble
Surface - colour #ffffff Opacity 15 Shininess 50 Gloss 80
Maps - none
Illumination - Maximum 15 minimum 0 Lights 1 colour #ffffff highlight size 28
Save as GlassStone preset

Follow tutorial and then these are her shadow settings

Shadow Horizontal and Vertical 6
Opacity 70 Blur 37 Colour #000000
Save as GlassStone shadow

Choosing the Right Mat Colour

Choosing the Right Mat Colour



Using any image of your choice - use your colour picker to choose a complimentary or contrasting colour that suits your image to make your frames and mats.

I chose to images from Public Domain

Note from Pat

Add a texture and slight inner bevel and drop shadow.
You could save your mat frame separately as a .psp image or .png image for future use.

My results for posting - merged all layers and resized to 78 pixels per inch and 600 pixels on the largest side, smart size. Saved AS mymatname.jpg

After doing this exercise, you might also want to go to "2 create your own colour palettes" and make your image mats or frames, by choosing from the palette colours.


Sunday

Colour Palette and Theme

Colour Palette and Theme

Create your Colour Palette/Choose Your Theme

Tutorial Notes by pat/PCArt
Before you can create your "kit" you need to have a few ideas to plan what you want to accomplish.

We need to Think about these things when creating our kit.

What do you want to make - Are you making a whole kit, a quick page, or a Greeting Card. Is it a series of papers and elements, ribbons, tags, brads and all?
Keep a little note book nearby. Perhaps you could make quick mini sketches of your ideas on a piece of paper, this will help you to create your layout ideas. Write down any ideas you have to help you construct your kit. Write down anything you don't want to forget.
Image/Photo - decide which image/s or photo/s to concentrate on.
Colour/Palette - Then you need to choose your colours. This is where you decide what colours your frames, papers, ribbons and so on are going to be. Use this as a quick reference while creating your kit.
Occasion/Reason - Birthday, Love, Wedding, Season, Holiday, Children, Someone special, Pet?
This will help you decide what kind of elements or patterns you want to use.
What is it going to be used for? Is it for own personal use, is it for Printing, or for Giving away as a Freebie, or for the web, do you want to sell it on your Blog?
If it is for Printing or giving away as a Freebie or Selling on your Blog - you need to think about size!

Read this Article Print Design vs. Web Design
so that you can understand more about where we are going. It is very important to make sure that your sizing is appropriate for the use. Remember you can size down fairly easily but sizing up really is not an option.

Creating graphics for the web or your e-mails does not use a lot of memory, but creating "professionally" at the size and dpi or ppi required for quality printing does!
Unless you have an mega powerful computer, you need to be prepared to work a little slower as large images take time and patience.

When giving away or sharing
1) Always state on your work what it is to be used for and in what format it is saved.
For example "Papers are for 12" x 12" layouts and created in 300dpi .jpg format"
This tells your guest/customer exactly what they are getting.
It could be that "Images are created for use on the web or in e-mails and are 72dpi .jpg format"
or "Elements are created for printing on 12" x 12" layouts and are 300dpi in .png format"
2) Always state your Terms of Use!

TUTORIAL Create your Colour Palette
(by PCArt)
Open the image you want to use for your colours - duplicate it - close the original.

Go to Image / Decreased Colour Depth / 16 Colours
Settings Palette - optimised median cut and Reduction - Nearest Colour / OK
Now look at your colour palette in Paint Shop Pro - it shows you only 16 colours.
Open a new image 300 pixels x 50 pixels
paintbrush click on presets and click on the little bent arrow to get to your brush default setting then change your settings to Square - Size 50 - and Hardness,Density,Opacity all at 100
Use your dropper tool to choose your colours from your 16 colour palette in Paint Shop Pro.
Paint your palette choosing the 6 colours you want to use.

You need to click back and forth from your decreased colour image to pick your colours from the palette in Paint Shop Pro and then go back to your new image to paint the squares.
Add a thin border if you wish and name your palette.
Save as .jpg

Here is my result
I used the 6 middle colours on the left side of my 16 colour palette


Here is a blank palette for you


Just open it in your workspace copy it and close the original

Now as you choose your colours you can flood them into your blocks.
Save your colour palettes as .jpg images and save them in your work in progress (kit) folder or class folder - you can then open your palette up in your psp work space and use it to refer back to while you are working on creating your kit.
I hope this is helpful to you

Now there are many ways to do something if you know how and following my post today I have had a few interesting alternatives to test.

Thankyou Patrick for sharing this interesting link http://whatsitscolor.com/- this was way too much fun!


I never imagined that one of my favourite shades of blue
was the complimentary colour to this little image that I have been testing
with all the colour palette tricks today!

This is really a fun way to quickly sort colours for a kit!
Complimentary Dominant average colour on frame #92a2d7
Dominant average colour this page background #d8c892
Top 10 of 94 unique colours in the little image are in the patterned background.

Another way to create your colour palette using Toadies - Thank you TM
Here I used the image again from above.


Made a copy and closed the original
Effects/ Plugins / Toadies / Plain Mosaic 2 / Cell Width and Height both to 61 / Alpha Threshold 0 /Edge/Hard/Soft/Off 0
I hand picked the colours I fancied with the magic wand,
and copied and pasted them onto my palette.




Friday

Ribbons and Bows

Ribbons and Bows


Try Shawna's Suede Ribbon too

Now you have had fun making ribbons flat and curled - how about trying your hand at making bows?
Look at bows see how they are constructed then make a copy of your ribbon and cut and paste your pieces into position.

Use the warp tool and or warp brush to bend and push the ribbons into shape
Use your curls for the ribbons hanging down.

Remember to practice and experiment cut them, paste them, twist them, warp them, and colourize them!!




Use the warp tool to bend the ribbons hanging down. Remember practice makes for improvement.

Thursday

DLL files needed

DLL Files Needed

Sometimes we add plugins or filters to our graphics program and they just don't seem to be there.

There are 5 different DLL files needed to run most filter/plugins/add ons with your Paintshop Pro graphics program that are NOT always installed or are not located in the proper folder for your operating system.

I am uploading them to our files section so you can get the ones you do not have.
I have scanned them with AVG and they are clean but always scan things yourself for peace of mind!

MSVCRT10.DLL
msvcrt20.dll
Msvcrt40.dll
msvcrt.dll
plugin.dll

If after installing a plugin/filter AND once you have restarted your graphics program you get a message saying your program is unable to load it, place the above listed DLL's from the zip file as follows:

Windows98: All DLL's go in C:\Windows\System

WindowsME: Plugin.dll goes in your C:\Windows folder AND into your graphics program plugins folder. Msvcrt10.dll goes in your C:\Windows\System folder.

Windows2000: All DLL's go in C:\WINNT\System32

WindowsXP: All DLL's go in C:\Windows\System32

Vista - All DLL's go in C:\Windows\System32

They apparently cannot do any damage - if you put them in the wrong place they will not work.
If they are in the right place they work immediately.