Learning how to use your actions

 

Well, now that you know how to download the actions, let’s learn how to use them properly!!! First, I need you to download one more action if you have not already. This Action is Called Baby Powder Room and it is from the Coffee Shop Blog.  This action is a retouching action and it will allow you to smooth out blemishes and unwanted redness in the skin as well as give that sweet baby skin and nice soft look! You can find here:

http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com/2009/11/coffeeshop-baby-powderroom-free-pspse.html

You will need to scroll almost all the way down the page to find the download link! If you noticed as you were scrolling along, The Coffee Shop Blog has given you word for word instructions on how to use this action as she does with many of her actions! You can use her instructions or the one’s I have written on here as well.  If you have never used a layer mask or action before you might want to follow along for a little bit longer on here just until you understand exactly what they do and then you can follow her instructions for her action if you want : )

Okay…once you have your action downloaded open up Photoshop Elements and you should find it with the rest of your actions.  Now, Open a portrait picture (the original)….something of only one person and fairly close up to make this tutorial the easiest to follow.  I have chosen to use this picture of my daughter Olivia:

This is the original straight from my camera….It was a little cloudy that day so the picture is quite dull, but we will fix that up in a bit! : ) First though we are going to make this picture perfect!

As you notice in your Layers box to the right, you will see a thumbnail of your picture labeled “Background” and just above that, you will see all of your actions.  If you do not see your actions then click on the thumbnail at the top of the box labeled photo effects:

Once you have your actions up, locate the Baby Powder Room Action and double click on it. Click Continue in the box that pops up.   You will see lots of stuff going on down in your layers box.  Let it finish and then we will work on adjusting the layers.  It should now look like this:

 

Okay, notice that in each different layer there are two boxes. The layers on the right are called Layer Masks.  Layer masks allow you to make changes to a photo without ruining them.  You can fix any mistake that you make while editing! Layer masks are “painted on” by using your paint brush tool. 

THE THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER WITH LAYER MASKS!

1. A White Layer Mask Shows that the effect has already been done to the photo and in order to remove that effect from the photo you will need to use a black brush to “mask” the effect off of the picture.  If you mess up and you take away too much of the effect, you can just switch your brush back to white and repaint the effect back over the spot you wanted to add the effect back to. 

2. A Black Layer Mask Shows that the Effect has not yet been applied and when you paint over the area with WHITE you will be ADDING the effect to the photo. The opposite applies here if you make a mistake.  Just switch your brush to black and you can brush over the area you messed up on and all will be cured!

3. MODERATION IS KEY!! Most of the time you will not paint with your brush at 100%….when retouching a photo with Layer Masks….We are going for natural not overdone.

Okay so let’s get started!

The first layer starting from the bottom is called “Red Skin Repair”.  This one is a little different than most of the layers as you will first paint on the Transparent Layer on the Left and then adjust with the Layer Mask. Let me show you what I mean:

First, Click on the box in the “Red Skin Repair” layer that looks like a million little checkered boxes. It will be the left hand box.  The checkered boxed layer represents a transparent or “see through layer” this allows you to put the effects on a separate layer instead of painting directly onto your background layer (the original photo). 

Now, I like shortcuts and so the short cut to “grab” the eyedropper tool is the letter I. Click on the “I” on your keyboard and you will notice that your tool will now look like a small eye dropper. 

This layer that we are working on reduces or removes blemishes, red spots and imperfections in the skin.  Notice that in my photo, Olivia’s cheeks are a little broke out (she has eczema). We are going to repair this!

Make sure you are still clicked on the Transparent Layer Box and that your eye dropper tool is still selected. Now, click on a part of the skin that is not effected by the imperfection. It can be easier if you zoom in a bit.

Now, Notice that the color of of your brush has now changed to some sort of shade of mauve or pink. Now, click on your brush tool or just simply click “B” for brush.  Be sure to check at the top of your screen to make sure that your regular brush is selected and not one of the effects brushes. It should look like this directly above your photo:

Now, we are going to select a different Opacity for the brush. You can find this directly above the photo. We are going to set it to about 25-50% Try it at whatever you would like…I find it best to start small and keep reapplying to the area until you have the desired affect.  I am going to start at 30%. Once you start brushing over the imperfection, as long as you keep your mouse clicked down you can go over the same spot over and over and it will not change the opacity.  However; if you let go and then click again, it will add another 30% brush stroke to the area.  This is what I meant by reapplying the area if needed.  Also, You can change the size of your brush by using the left and right brackets on your keyboard.

Okay, start going over the area….I will do one cheek and leave the other so that you can see the differences in my photo:

I ended up having to reapply 3 times in order to achieve this affect.  Now, go ahead and finish repairing the skin. MAKE SURE YOUR TRANSPARENT BOX IS STILL SELECTED!!  Here is my photo with imperfections completely repaired:

Now, the effect is pretty apparent so we are going to “tone” it down a bit. We are now going to click on the right hand box next to the Transparent box. Now, go to the top of the layers box and change the opacity of this layer mask from 100% to whatever you feel gives the photo a nice “natural” Look.  I set mine to 75%

Yay!! We just got through the first part of adjusting this action!! haahaha It seems like it takes a long time to do it now, but once you get the hang of it, it will go much faster and not all of the actions take as long as repair actions do!

Okay So let’s move up to the next layer in the Layers Box; “Smooth Skin”.  On this Layer, and all of the layers from here on out, we are going to click on the black layer mask boxes to the right.  So, go ahead and select that box. Make sure that you still have your brush tool selected and make sure that the color of your brush is white on top and black on the bottom. If they are the opposite, you can click on the little arrows next to the color squares and it will switch them around! Now we are just going to paint over the skin avoiding the eyes, nostrils and lips.  Make sure your brush is set to an opacity around 20-30%. Remember, if you make a mistake, just paint back over it with black!

Now we are going to do the same thing we did before in our layers box….we are going to adjust the smooth skin layer mask so that the opacity is maybe 70-80%.  If you feel like the effect is still too much then keep lessening the opacity until you feel it looks the best. I put mine at 71%.

Layer 3: “Lighten Skin”. You do not HAVE to do anything to this layer if you feel that the effect is just too much.  This layer will give the skin a soft look….like it has been lightly powdered.   Remember to make sure that the black layer box is selected and paint with a nice low opacity white brush. About 10-20% for this one. You can also do the same as before if you feel the effect is too much.  Simply lower the opacity of the layer mask in the layers box.  Mine is done at brush opacity of 15% and a layer mask opacity of 85%

On the skin glow do the same as the previous ones. Low opacity brush, adjust layer to liking. Mine is set at a 25% opacity brush and I left the layer mask at 100%

The next layer is the eye define. Use a small brush at about 50-100% opacity and paint over the eyelashes only. 

On the bright eyes layer, we are just going to paint the iris of the eye. Avoid the pupil and the whites of the eye.  Use a brush at about 10-20% opacity. This will give the eyes a nice bright look. Zoom in if you need to to avoid painting unwanted areas.

Viola! Your final result!!! After you have achieved the look you were aiming for, right click on the background layer in the layers box and click on flatten image.  You always want to flatten the image before you save it. I am going to go one more step and show you that after flattening or merging the layers together you can also add more actions to the photo. I said earlier that I thought my photo was a little dull, so I am going to use another action and perk it up a bit.  Once your image has been flattened, your layers box should look like this:

I am going to first “boost” my colors by using a action called “Boost” from the Pioneer Woman website that I gave you in the first tutorial.

and now I am going to flatten my image again and use an action called Creamy Toffee Latte from The Coffee Shop Blog:

I clicked on the Creamy Toffee Latte Layer and adjusted the opacity to about 70% and then I clicked on the White layer Mask below it and using a black brush at about 20% opacity, I removed the toffee effect from the eyes and lips.

Flatten your image and SAVE!!!

3…2…1…ACTIONS!!!!!

Okay, so...we did the selective colorization the other day and now I am going to show you how to give your photos a cool new look! Whether you just want to give your photo a little perk or completely overhaul it by giving it a vintage look or a soft faded look there is an action for that!!!

Actions are basically a series of processes that you could take the time to do to a photo or…you could use the action and have your photo tweaked to your liking in just seconds to minutes!!!

First of all, here is an example of what I mean:

            Before                                                     After

The differences are just slight in these pictures. This action is called “Boost” but it gives your colors are nice little well, Boost!!   You can also go a little more extreme by giving your photo a little Creamy Texture like the one on the right called “Creamy Toffee Latte” or you can go even more and give it a more vintage look like the one on the left called “Seventies”.

Most actions are all 100% adjustable so that if maybe you don’t want so much creaminess or the boost is little too much for you, you can adjust the actions by using the layer masks.  Let’s just get the actions loaded and then I will show you how to use the layer masks to adjust them!  

 

Okay, so all of the actions that I have shown you today are free actions. Most of the free actions work great, but I have had a few that just made my pictures really grainy so make sure to watch out for this!

You can also purchase them and personally I think they are much better than the free one’s, but I own several of both and use them all quite often!!

Here are a couple of websites that I have found that have good free actions!

The Pioneer Woman Action Sets:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/2010/03/actions-update-2/

The Coffee Shop Blog:

http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com/p/coffeeshop-actions-and-presets.html

This website offers AMAZING Photoshop actions! However, they do not come for free! They are 50.00 a set and usually come with approx. 15-20 actions in a set and are worth every penny!! Sometimes you can catch them on sale!

http://www.purephotoshopactions.com/site/#/action-sets/

Okay! Go download away! They are really small files and should take only seconds to a minute to download.  

After you are done downloading, go to this website, scroll down…. and The Coffee Shop Blog will lead you through the process of installing your actions into Photoshop Elements and CS5!

http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com/2007/09/installing-coffeeshop-actions.html

MAKING A SLIDESHOW IN WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

I know this has nothing to do with Scrapbooks, but I made this for my Grandparents to help them learn how to use this program and this was the only way I could get it to them!

HOW TO CREAT A SLIDESHOW WITH WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER:

Step 1: Make sure you have Windows Live Movie Maker It looks like this:

Yours may look a little different across the top because I have recently downloaded the most current version..but they work exactly the same.

Step 2: We are going to Add some Pictures to our slideshow!

To do this, click on the button that says “Add Videos and Photos”. It should be one of the icons across the top of your screen. If you don’t see it there, you should be able to find it in the “File” Menu at the top of your screen.

Step 3: Selecting Pictures

Okay, now a pop window should come up that looks something like this:

This is your documents folder. Find the folder that contains your pictures that you want to add to the slideshow. This is what mine looks like:

If you can’t find your folder, make sure that on the left hand side, you have your pictures library selected and not another library like music or documents…unless of course, you keep your pictures in documents…then I would go there! J

Okay….let’s move on!

Step 4: Selecting Multiple Pictures

Since you are making a slideshow, I am assuming you would like to use more than one picture. So….we are going to select several pictures at one time. Click on your very first picture. Now, with that one highlighted, hold down your “CTRL” key and select another picture. Continue holding down your “CTRL” key until you have selected all the pictures that you want. You don’t know have to select them in sequence…you can skip some pictures if you want to. If you need to scroll down the page, simply let go of the “CTRL” key and scroll down until you get to more pictures that you would like to select. DON’T FORGET TO HOLD DOWN YOUR “CTRL” KEY AGAIN OR YOU WILL HAVE TO START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING!

This is what my screen looks like when everything has been highlighted:

Note: If you accidently select a picture that you did not want, just simply re-click on the picture (DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR CTRL KEY), and the blue highlighted border with go away.

After you have selected all of the pictures that you want, let go of the “CTRL” key and click on “Open” in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Now, your pictures should be in the storyboard of the slideshow program like this:

Step 5: Creating your slideshow: Okay, I am going to keep this pretty simple. You can add title pages and credit pages and music if you want to, however, for the sake of keeping this simple we are just going to make an Auto Movie with no sound or title pages. Feel free to play around with it if you want to though J

Alrighty, so……on my program, it give you on option at the top of the page, to just create an Auto Movie. This will already add different transitions to make your slideshow come to life. If you can’t find this at the top of your screen, try your menu tabs at the top, such as file, edit, tools…..it should be in one of those. I’m pretty sure that it is on your top screen though somewhere. ;)

Step 6: Preview your Movie: Notice that you have a small screen on the left-hand side of your storyboard. This will allow you to preview the movie you have made. Press Play and Make sure you like the movie! J

Step 7: Burning your movie to a DVD: Now, we are going to burn the dvd. There should be an option at the top of your screen that says DVD. If should be a in small window at the top of the screen next to what looks like a tv and there also may be a you tube option. Click on the DVD. It will prompt you to save your DVD, so go ahead and save it.

A pop-up window will appear and it will save your movie for you . Two more pop-ups should come up when you are done..it will ask you if you want to play the movie now or open the folder that it is in….you can just click close. Now, the next pop-up should be the DVD Burning program on your computer…Mine looks like this:

Click Next.

Here you can pick a Menu for your movie….just pick one that you like and then click burn..BE SURE YOU HAVE A DVD IN YOUR DRIVE!! J Wait for you drive to pop open on its own and then your DVD should be complete!! J GOOD LUCK!!!!!

So Sorry!!

I know that it has been a long time since I made in tutorials and I am so sorry.  The Holidays have kept me quite busy and we are preparing for a long trip back to Idaho where we are originally from.  I will try my hardest to get a new tutorial out just as soon as Christmas is over!! Thanks for understanding!

Lesson 3; Part 2 Making Templates

Okay, enough chit chat, let’s turn this template into a Super Awesome Page we can share!!

Open up your template. (File, Open, and find your template) It will be a PSE File.

It will probably bring up a window that says, some fonts are missing, jut hit okay. This just means that you do not have the font that is on the paper, but it will change it for you (or you can change it) when the time comes.

*Note: CTRL+G. THIS COMMAND WILL BE YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND! MEMORIZE IT! :)

Now, it’s time to add some papers!! In your layers window, we are going to select a layer. You can start with whatever layer you want, but I like to start with a background color first, so go down and select the Background Layer at the very bottom.

Now, we are going to select a paper to go into this layer. I have not chosen any specific kit for this lesson. Be creative and pick a kit that you think will work great for this Page! Or use several kits if you want!! :)

So, we are going to go File, Place and choose a paper. Now your screen should look like this:

For a page like this, I like to keep the background nice and simple, preferably a solid or a lightly patterned or textured piece. But this is just personal preference. :)

If you like the selection you have made, hit enter or click the green check mark. Adjust your paper to fit over the background layer if needed and then Press CTRL+G. You have just set your Paper INTO the background layer!! Try moving your paper now, it will only move inside the background layer!

LET’S DO MORE!!!

Same thing….choose a layer either by picking a layer on the page itself or by going to your layers box and choosing it. File, Place, Enter, Ctrl G! Let’s do the Accent Paper Layer (one up from the background) and then we will do a picture!

For this layer, you don’t need to worry about making the paper fit the Accent, No need to adjust really unless you have a paper with large artwork on it that you want to show up in the accent Layer. Hit Enter and then CTRL G and the Paper will just go into that layer for you!

Pretty Neat Huh?!! You can do this with Paper, Elements, Pictures and even Text!!!!

Let’s do a photo shall we? We are going to put our first photo in the top cut out of the flower. Find this layer and make sure it is selected. Now, File, Place your Picture.

You can do this one of two ways, you can adjust your picture and then CTRL G or you can CTRL G and then adjust the picture. I find CTRL G, then Adjust, to work the best for me.

When you are done, your picture should fit nicely in the top part of the flower.

Not all pictures are going to work in these spaces….I had a hard time getting all three girls in this one without cutting off little Bina’s head!

I think you get the picture, but I would like to go over the text part with you. So, double click on the text layer in the Workspace Area. You will probably get a message like this:

Hit Okay. It will change the text to a font you already have. Remember, you can go back and change your font to whatever you want so it doesn’t matter what it changes your font to. :)

I would like to change my Text to be a little bit Wider of Wording. So, Since it is already highlighted (and if it isn’t, go ahead and highlight it) and then select a different font and then type what you would like here. If you like the font you have already you can leave it!:) I also ended up having to change the size so that it would not run over onto my photos:

The reason I wanted to change my font to a thick, filled in font, was so that I could show you that you can also place papers into text!! You do this the exact same way as you would with any other part of the template.

File, Place, Ctrl G. With the wording you may want to scale down the paper, depending on if you are using solids or patterns so that you can see more of the pattern in the wording. This is what mine looks like after I place a paper, some Drop shadowing and a bevel:

*Note: When you add drop shadowing or beveling or any effect for that matter to a layer, you need to make sure that you have the actual Template Layer Selected and not the paper you placed into that layer.

Well, I think by now you get the picture, and if you have any questions at all you can always email me at liviesmommy2008@yahoo.com

Here is my final Page:

With Templates, use File Save As and then put in your scrapbook folder. Be careful not to save over the template with all of your layers put into it! :)

Multiple Windows and Using Templates!!!

Multiple Windows and Using Templates!!!

Now that you have gotten acquainted with your program and you know the basics of how to lay papers and elements, wording, drop shadows, and embellishments, I am going to show you something that will make it soo much easier for you to make really awesome pages!!

I only discovered Templates after I got PSE 9. Originally, I was using Gimp and if there was some way to use a template in Gimp, I had no idea how to do it! My wonderful friend Lisa showed me templates, along with pretty much everything else I know about Scrapbooking and Photoshop!

A template is a PSE file that basically is an already built page, but everything is all shaded grays (and sometimes colors) that allow you to “Place” your own papers into the template! I know, I know, it kind of sounds like cheating right? Well, that’s what I thought in the beginning too, but now that I have discovered them, it has given me so much more room to grow as an “artist” of scrapbooking! You may have a page that is already laid out for you, but the art of putting a well scrapped page together isn’t just about the layout. It is about creative thinking: Which papers go together well? How many Elements should I put on a page? Is my page too busy? And then there is the fact that you don’t nessacarilly have to use just one template! You can use several different Templates for One Scrapbook! Often, I will open a few different templates and then pick and choose what I would like to have my page look like, essentially building my own page in the end!

Before we get started with the template, I would first like to show you something you may or may not have discovered on your own. And that is, dragging something from one document and dropping it in to another. Once you have learned this, you will find that you will use it a lot!

I would like you to have the template ready to go so that when we get to that part, it will already be downloaded. Be sure to make a separate folder for your Templates!! :)

Here is the Link: http://freedigitalscrapbooking.com/digital_scrapbooking_scraplifters_challenge.html

You can download what you want, but we will be using the April Challenge Template for this lesson so make sure to grab that one too! It is close to the bottom of the page and looks like this:

Okay, let’s get started! Open up your program, go to your File Menu and go to “Open”. Select one your pictures and open it in PSE. I am going to throw in a little mini lesson here, on enhancing your photos because this is one of the most common reasons you would use this click and drag feature. Say you had a scrapbook page already started and you had a picture that needed to be cropped or enhanced. You will NOT be able to crop a picture that has been placed into your scrapbook without cropping the ENTIRE scrapbook! So, this is what you should have: Well, not exactly…but a picture of your own anyway! ;)

So, before I would put this on my page, I would want to make sure that it looked its best. This picture is a little dark, so we are going to try and enhance the coloring a bit!

In the upper right hand side of your Workspace Screen, there are three tabs, The first is Edit. Now, under Edit, there are three MORE tabs. The first is Full, the second is Quick, and the third is Guided(PSE 9 only). For the purpose of this, we are going to use the Full and Quick Edits.

Go over and click on the tab labeled Quick. This is what your screen will look like:

The easiest way to make sure your pics look good is to use the auto features of PSE. Occasionally you may have to go in and adjust some of the levels manually, but for the most part, the Autos do a pretty darn good job!

You have probably noticed a small window that runs along the bottom directly below your workspace. This is the Project Bin. It will show you a thumbnail for each project that you have opened. Currently, we only have one project open, but that will soon change and you will need to know this window! Okay, directly above the Project window on your left, is a drop down menu that will allow you to change the view of how you are looking at your edit screen. We are going to drop down and choose “Before and After Horizontal”.

There, now you can see what your picture looks like before and after changes! :) Okay, go over to your Edit window on the right side and select the word “Auto” next to “Smart fix” at the very top.

There! Now my picture is quite a bit brighter than before! You can play with the “Fix” slide bar if you want. It will just increase the enhancement, but if you go too far, your photo will just get blown out or look worse than what it started out as!

Now, click back over to the “Full” Option on the Edit Screen. We are going to Crop the Picture (if needed) so that I am “zoomed in” a bit more on the subject.

On your toolbar to your left, find the crop tool (hover over each until you find “crop”)

Now click and drag until you have the desired area selected. After you have let go of your mouse, you can click in the middle of the Crop and click and drag until you have what you want.

When you have your desired area selected, click on the green check mark or press Enter.

Great Job!! Now, let’s figure out this Click and Drag thingy I have been talking about!

Go back to the file menu and click on “Open”. Now, we are going to select a Paper from one of your kits. Any paper will do, this is just for demonstration of clicking and dragging.

Now, you should have a paper in your workspace and TWO thumbnails in your Project Bin at the bottom of your Workspace Screen!

Okay, this is really simple. Go down to your project Bin, Click on your picture and drag it up to your workspace on top of your paper.

TADA!!!!

Well, Now that we have learned that: Let’s move on to Lesson 3; part 2! TEMPLATES!!! SEE YOU THERE!!