2008 February | Scraps Of Mind

Archive for February, 2008

Posted by karooch on

February 13, 2008

Photoshop Elements 6 The Missing Manual - Review

Welcome to Scraps of Mind. I'm delighted to see you. Why not check out the site, you'll find a bunch of great scrapbooking and blogging articles, tips and tutorials on the Articles Page. And if you enjoy this or any other articles on Scraps of Mind, I'd really appreciate you giving them a thumbs up on StumbleUpon to share them with other Scrapbookers. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing more of you.

Review of Barbara Brundage’s Photoshop Elements 6 The Missing Manual

Before we get started on this Book Review let me make one thing plain:

I don’t do Manuals!!!

As soon as I start reading technical instructions my eyes start to glaze over and roll back in my head.

Which is why I was surprised that a book titled Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual was so easy to read.

Now this isn’t a book which you necessarily need to read from cover to cover. Although you should at least read the comprehensive introduction section which gives a good overview of Photoshop Elements and explains how the book is set up so you can get the best value from it.

Oh, and by the way, I am doing this review from the perspective of a Digital Scrapbooker Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by karooch on

February 12, 2008

Gimp Installation Guide - Step by Step

Thank you to Olga as the latest Guest Writer on Scraps of Mind. And don’t forget, the invitation to become a Guest Writer on Scraps of Mind is always open.

Olga digitally scrapbooks using the Gimp software which is an OpenSource (therefore FREE) graphics editing program which has much of the functionality of Photoshop.Gimp is probably not well known in the Scrapbooking world so this is a great opportunity to learn more about it. In this tutorial Olga will walk you step by step through the downloading and installation process for Gimp (which can be more complex than we’re used to with packaged products).And when you’ve enjoyed her article, why not click over and check out Olga’s blog 9990 Ways of Scrapbooking?

Gimp, the Free Graphics Editing Program

Gimp is what is called an Open Source program.

That means that the program has been created and developed by many people and if you have the right coding experience you can participate in the project and add more functionality to it. As it is also licensed under the GPL, you have access to the code and you can change it and even distribute the changes you have made without a problem.

It is also a free program and nowadays it is considered to have almost at the same level of Photoshop CS. It does not have all the features as Photoshop but it does have most of them and with a bit of effort you can get to do everything that you can do in Photoshop.

Gimp was first developed in the Linux environment, and for sometime it had a way of installing it that was a bit complicated and strange compared to other programs you install in Windows. Even though that has been made easier in the latest release of Gimp, 2.4, it continues to have some rules that are important to follow to get the most it.

If you are thinking of installing Gimp in your system, in my opinion, the best thing to do is to first download and organise all the pieces in a folder before starting to install anything.

Because the project is developed by a community of software developers and not a company you might have a problem finding drivers to print directly from Gimp (in my experience some Lexmark printers won’t recognise any output from Gimp, so trying to print directly from Gimp with some Lexmark printers won’t be possible). But that can be easily solved saving your work and opening your printer program and printing your jpg, or any other compatible file from it.

So without going into more technical details, here are links for all the main parts of the program follow by the steps in the installation.

Click on the thumbnails for larger screenshots. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by karooch on

February 11, 2008

Annual Festival of the Sun 2008

Celebrating 30 Years of Partying

It’s not every party that gets to celebrate its 30th Anniversary. but on 9 February 2008, the Annual Festival of the Sun claimed that distinction.

I’m usually the designated driver for our particular little party-going group; the Thatchers being in charge of the Cuisine Department. But this year Allan surprised me by hiring a car and chauffeur to pick us up and take us home. I really appreciated the chance to relax and enjoy myself without having to think about the driving.

As usual, the Thatchers provided a wonderful meal:

Cheese, biscuits and nibblies
marinated lamb kebabs in Turkish bread with salad
home made chocolate ice cream with a delicious frangelica and toblerone cream.
All washed down with some very tasty champagne (Taylor Ferguson) I discovered at my wine merchant’s and a warming drop of Glenfidich scotch.

Yep. Life’s pretty good.

Once again Rob and Doreen and the Party Committee put on another fantastic night. And this year’s Party Poster was a magnificent Treasure hunt for the previous 29 posters scattered throughout an Escher drawing; a superb piece of Photoshopping.

Naturally Jack Rabbit and the Pubic Hares provided the musical entertainment as they have always done. To mark the auspicious occasion they reprised some of the songs they had played at the first party, before Jack started writing their own material. At various points of the night they also reprised some of their old costumes, ahem…’nuff said.

Allan got into the spirit of the occasion by digging out an old suit from the 70’s and wearing the jacket. Scary. All I can say is: Thank God the pants didn’t fit!!

I wanted to create a scrapbook layout for this AFoTS Celebration that reflected the excitement and party atmosphere of the night. So I decided on an animated layout as the best way to do that. By the way, the elements used in this layout are from the Jeans Extravaganza and 1984 kits from Digital Arts Cafe.

Using techniques from my Scrapbook Edge Digital Scrapbook Tutorial I created this layout as a Tribute to 30 Years of the AFoTS.

Bring on the next 30 Years!

Saturday Scrapbooking Ideas

I thought I would start a series of quick scrapbooking tips and see how you like it.

Let me know if you think it’s a good idea and if I should continue it.

Saturday Scrapbooking Idea #1

Add a different perspective to your next scrapbooking layout.

Begin your layout design with a bold embellishment rather than a photo.

Use this as the focal point and create your layout design around it.

Add the photo in later, as part of the design.

Get more mileage out of your digital scrapbooking kits.

The Scrapbooking Edge Video Tutorials will show you how.

**********

Top 10 Scrapbook Ideas to rekindle your Inspiration

Posted by karooch on

February 8, 2008

Five Freebies on Friday 8 February 2008

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. So all the scrapbooking freebies in this week’s Five Freebies on Friday celebrate the Love Theme.

And speaking of Love, always remember to leave some love when you download your freebie. After all a thank you comment costs you nothing and means a lot to the designer who will have put a lot of time and effort into creating your freebie.

Check out the cute little Kiss frame at Philsboo’s Our Little Scrap World. Perfect for your Valentine’s Day scrapbook layout.
How about sending a free digital Valentine’s Day Card to your Special Someone? Digital Scrapbooking by BlushButter has a very cute little online cardmaker thingy which let’s you create your card from her designs in moments.
And for a cute little Valentine’s Day mini kit, go check out Bohemian Art.
A Little Scrap of Me has a freebie scrapbooking kit called Fall in Grunge. But despite it’s strange name, I think its a perfect kit for Valentine’s Day.
And finally , remember those lollies/candies/sweeties called Conversation Hearts? Well Nores’ Niceities have now turned them into digital scrapbooking elements.

Digital Scrapbooking Tutorials - Manipulating the Color in your Photos

Here’s another short digital scrapbooking tutorial video I made for you.

This one looks at a couple of techniques you can use to alter the colour of your photos to suit the mood or style of the scrapbook layout you want to create.

I use Photoshop Elements to make the photo adjustments but the method is good for any of the photo editing software programs. Just remember the names of tools and their location maybe different in different programs.

If you have a reasonable Internet connection I recommend you

Click Here and view the larger sized, High Resolution version which is a much better viewing experience.

The elements used in this tutorial are out of the enormous Refresh Collection from Scrap Girls. This kit is a freebie when you register with the Scrap Girls site.

And if you like the style of this tutorial you might like to take a look at my longer, more detailed Scrapbooking Edge Video Tutorials at Digital Arts Cafe, which come with all the layout elements included with the tutorial.

By the way, you think this is useful, please share this digital scrapbooking tutorial with others by voting for it on Stumble and bookmarking it in Delicious.

How to Use Word Art

Get this Blinkie. See below.

Anyone who reads Scraps of Mind on a regular basis will know that I’ve been making a lot of Wort Art recently to give away to my readers through the Scraps of Mind Weekly Word Art Newsletter.

But how should you use it?

If you’ve been subscribing to the Newsletter for a few weeks now you should be building up a healthy looking collection of Word Art elements. And this is not just a collection of pretty text, there are many ways you can use your Word Art.

Scrapbook Layout Titles

This is the obvious one that leaps to mind. Some of the Word Art pieces can make great titles for your scrapbook layouts.

If you’re a paper scrapbooker just resize the file in your editing program or open it into Word and resize, and then print it on photo quality paper and cut it out. Ta-da…instant title. Mount it on foam tape for a bit of dimension and you’re in business.

For digital scrapbookers it’s even easier. Just drag the PNG file onto your digital scrapbook layout, and use your move tool to drag the corners in and make it the size you want. You can even play with the colour using your colour editing tools. Read the rest of this entry »