Spooky

I got to dress up for a potluck luncheon at our office on Friday, this is what I looked like sans the spiders on my face.  I looked everywhere and couldn't find any small enough to wear.

Haughted Dreams by Raspberry Road Designs available at Raspberry Road http://www.raspberryroaddesigns.net/shoppe/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16&products_id=1241;  Fonts: Guevara

So You

Artsy Layered Template #35 by Anna Aspens available at Oscraps https://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=28802; ArtPlay Crush by Anna Aspnes available at Oscraps ;  Fonts: ArialNarrow,BlackoakStd

Played Out

We got to watch Eli for a couple of hours yesterday!  He is such a bundle of energy, he definately wore us out.

Lift of liahra's page http://ozone.oscraps.com/gallery/sho...flies&cat=1351 ; FotoBlendz 7 by Anna Aspnes available at Oscraps ; Artplay Pumpkin Patch by Anna Aspens available at Oscraps https://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=28808; Autumnal 2 by Anna Aspnes available at Oscraps https://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=28663; Artplay Concerto by Anna Aspnes available at Oscraps https://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=28634&cat=383&page=1; Fonts: JellykaSaint-AndrewsQueen,OldgateLaneOutline,JustActCasual

Sit with me

Pumpkin Hollow by Raspberry Road Designs available at Raspberry Road http://www.raspberryroaddesigns.net/shoppe/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=1595;

The Pumpkin Patch

My Granddaughter Sydney...

Pumpkin Patch by Rosey Posey available at Scrapbookgraphics http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/Pumpkin-Patch-CT.html;

Pixie Dust

YOu've seen me as a witch, now I'm a pixie!

Under dappled shadows (with everything in it) by Lorie Davison available at Scrapboographics http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/Under-Dappled-Shadows-with-everything-in-it.html;  by  available at  ; Painters Faeries by Lorie Davison available at Scrapbookgraphics ; Enchanted Forest by sussieM available at Scrapbookgraphics http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/CF-OUAT-Enchanted-Forest.html;

Something Wicked Tutorial

Something Wicked Tutorial using CS5

Thanks for coming by and checking out my lastest tutorial, thought you would enjoy a creepy freaky Halloween one....let me know what you think!

STEP ONE: Open image you want to work with, duplicate image.

STEP TWO: Click on your Background copy layer in the layers panel to make it your active layer. Press Ctrl-L to bring up the Levels dialog. Move the Shadow Input adjustment slider (the black one on the left side) toward the right to darken the shadows then click and drag the Midtone Input (the gray slider in the center) a little to the right to darken the midtones. Move the Highlight Output adjustment slider (the white one on the bottom right) toward the left to slightly darken the highlight areas. Click OK.

STEP THREE: Desaturate the image by pressing Ctrl-shift U, then press Ctrl U to bring up the Hue / Saturation dialog. Turn on the Colorize checkbox, enter Hue (85), Saturation (35), Lightness (-52), and click OK.

Note: The above settings are what I used for my photo, you may have to tweak yours to get just the right shade of color and saturation you prefer. Just play around with the settings until you get what you want.

STEP FOUR: Because the eyes look so washed out I want to give them a little pop at this point. Duplicate your layer, choose your dodge tool, set exposure to 30% and use a soft brush small enough to work your area. Brush over what used to be the white area of the eyes to lighten them up a bit. Also brush the catch lights in pupil of the eye, making them brighter. Make your brush slightly bigger to fit the iris of the eye, this will brighten them slightly. Now choose your burn tool, I want to darken a few areas of the eye just slightly. Keep the soft brush and set your exposure to about 10%. With a smaller size brush ( I used 5 for this picture) outline the dark outline of the iris and outline the lash area (sorta like putting on eye liner). Now for the finishing step, choose your sharpen tool set the strength to about 50%, brush around the iris and pupil once. This will help make the eyes pop a bit more…..

 Note: You can skip step four if you so choose. I only did this step because my picture quality was lacking and I wanted the eyes to stand out a bit more.

STEP FIVE: Duplicate layer, choose the Burn tool. Go to the Options bar, choose Midtones for Range, and enter 30% for Exposure, Using a large, soft-edged brush (I used 75 for the top of eye area and decreased the size to 35 for under the eye area. Just play around with the sizes to see what works for you), darken the areas around the eyes, cheeks and side of nose and any other areas you may wanted to darken. Some areas I went over a second time to darken more. For the last step I changed my mode to Shadow and used brush size to 25 and did a quick sweep around the eye area to give a darker smoky look. Again just play around with it to get it to look the way you want.

STEP SIX: Duplicate layer, choose the Dodge tool. In the Options Bar, choose Midtones for Range, and enter 30% for Exposure. Use a large, soft-edged brush to lighten the cheek nose and lip highlights.

STEP SEVEN: Add new layer, choose a lip color, I choose orange. Use a small, soft-edged brush at about a 26 Opacity to add color to lips. You just want the color to barely show up. Lower the opacity even more on your layers pallet if it still is too strong. On the layer below your new layer, choose the Burn tool, change the range to Shadows, Exposure 13% and use a soft brush size 10. Add just a smidge of a shadow to the area below the upper lip to define the area a bit more.

STEP EIGHT: Open up a peeling paint image, drag it onto your image. Rotate it 90 degrees.

STEP NINE: Ctrl – shift – U to desaturate the peeling paint and change blend mode to Multiply. Now, press Ctrl L to bring up your Levels dialog. Drag the Highlight input Levels slider toward the left until it reads 202, Click OK.

Note: If you want to cover more space on your image, duplicate layer and move to another area you might want to cover. Here is an image of 4 sections, merge these layers together before changing your Levels.

STEP TEN: Click on Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel. Choose the brush tool and use a small, soft-edged brush to mask out the hard edges and take out any areas you don’t want the cracks on, especially in the inside of the eye area.

STEP ELEVEN: To intensify the appearance of the cracks, duplicate Layer (peeling paint layer) and lower the opacity until you like what you see…..

Your Done!

Get your free peeling paint texture Urban Dirty Free texture stock photography!

Digital Painting Tutorial

A couple of my fellow scrappers were asking how to achieve a "Lighting Effect" they had seen on several layouts.  I started playing with a tutorial by Corey Barker called Illustration Effect on Photos, I used parts of it and modified it to fit my own scrapping needs.  This is what I came up with.

STEP ONE: Begin by opening a new 12 X 12 page insert photo you want to work with try and use a image that has a simple background. I’m using a photo of my grand-daughter Sydney at the pumpkin patch last year (not such a simple background). It really is best if you use a more uncluttered photo for better results.

STEP TWO: Activate your photo layer by clicking on it. Choose Edit>Define Pattern in the dialog box that comes up and click OK to save this image as a stamp, we will use it later.

STEP THREE: In the Layers panel, click and drag Layer 2 (photo) onto the Create a New Layer icon to create a duplicate layer, this is your Layer 2 copy. Then go under the Filter menu, under Stylize, and select Find Edges. This will give you a quick line drawing effect that we will use to build our painting.

STEP FOUR: Click on Layer 2 copy “Eye Icon” to hide this image. Choose what color you want for your background, sometimes it’s good to just sample a color from your original picture. Click on Layer 1, Press Option-Delete (PC:Alt-Backspace) to fill this layer with the Foreground color you chose. Move this layer under Layer 2 copy.

STEP FIVE: With Layer 1 still selected, go under the Filter menu, under Texture, and choose Texturizer. Set the Texture type to Canvas, Scaling to 100%, Relief to 3, and the Light source to Top. Click OK.

STEP SIX: Click the empty box to the left of the Layer 2 to turn on the visibility, then click the layer to select it in the Layers panel, change the blend mode to Multiply. This will render the white invisible and blend the black line drawing with the colored background.

STEP SEVEN: This is the FUN part. Press and hold the command (PC Ctrl) key and click the Create a New Layer icon to place a new layer (Layer 3) beneath the Layer 2 copy. Change the blend mode of this layer to Hard Light.

STEP EIGHT: Choose the Pattern Stamp Tool, which is nested under the Clone Stamp tool in the Toolbox. In the Options Bar, click the Pattern Picker to open the menu. Locate the image you defined in Step One (It should be on the bottom of the list) and select it. Move the other end of the Options Bar and choose a small, soft-edged brush.

STEP NINE: Now start painting the image. It should be aligned because you’re in the same working document. Paint the areas that you want to look painted and you’ll notice immediately that it does look painted. This is because of the way the Pattern Stamp tool is blending with each layer through the blend modes: Keep painting but leave some lines from the Find Edges filter in a few areas so the image has a unfinished look to it. If you paint to much in an area you can use your eraser to clean it up some and return the line work as needed to increase the painterly look. Since this one is a particularly busy line picture I went to my Layer 2 copy and erased the lines I didn’t want to show. I softened the straight edges by using a brush and erasing the edge lines. I didn’t like the bold look of the lines so I erased most of them and decreased the opacity a bit to fade them out. I’m sure it will depend on what kind of picture you used. That is why less is better in your picture choice. In this example I left part of the bottom half unpainted showing some of the line work.

STEP TEN: Now let’s fade the drawing at the bottom with a quick layer mask. Select the Layer 2 copy and click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Grab the Gradient tool and press X to set the Foreground color to black. In the Options Bar, click the Gradient Editor and select the Foreground to Transparent gradient and the Linear gradient. Starting at the bottom of the image, click and drag the gradient upward. This will give you a nice fade without erasing any data.

STEP ELEVEN: The last thing you want to do is add a little subtle highlight effect to make your background pop a little. Click the Create a New Layer icon and place the new layer (Layer 4) between Layer 1 and Layer 3. Set the layer blend mode to Screen. With the Gradient tool selected, go to the Options Bar and choose the Radial Gradient. Beginning in the center of the painting, click and drag the gradient upward going a little past the image. As you can see you have a glow behind your subject, the image itself is also lighted a bit because it is slightly transport. If you think you want it a little lighter just dublicate the layer. Finally add any wordart, title work, elements, special effects to your layout and call it done.

STEP TWELVE – for one of the effects I did use a brush to paint a texture behind the subject (I also used this to do some of my erasing on the bottom of the photo). Create new layer (Layer 5) insert it above Layer 4. I used a brush from Sydnee Nuckles called Painted. Chose a light buff color and added the stroke to add a bit more texture.

STEP THIRTEEN: Optional – if you think your linework that is showing is too strong you can lower the opacity. Click on Layer 2 copy sketch, lower the Opacity, this will soften the lines and even brighten your photo a bit.

Finished Layout using this painting technique a little bit different then the samples because I painted all areas and didn't leave the bottom unpainted!

I would love to get some feedback on this, please leave me a comment.  Thanks for looking!