Friday, June 15, 2007

More Ideas for Creating A Digital Kit from Scratch with freebie!


Creating a Digital Scrapbooking Kit with CS2

by Sue Kristoff, Creative Team Member


Creating a digital kit is a fun way to personalize your layouts. I've made a few digital elements, but I've never make a full kit before. So, I'm documenting my process to share with the readers of the EDS blog. For software, I use Adobe Photoshop CS2, thought the general concepts can be applied using any software package.



Step 1: Choose an Inspiration or Theme

I was inspired by a shorts/t-shirt set that belongs to my younger son. It contains a bright blue and bright orange color combination, which is very vibrant and striking. I decided to create my kit around those colors.

Step 2: Choose a Color Palette

Because my inspiration was based on a color scheme, choosing my color palette was easy. Blue and orange are complimentary colors on the color wheel, so they create a natural color combination.

Step 3: Sketch Ideas for Paper and Embellishments

I wanted to have a playful and kid-like kit, to match my two young boys. I decided to go with a hand-drawn star motif as my major design element. I digitally drew stars until I created one I liked, that wasn't too perfect, but not too messy either. I saved the basic star as a brush, so I could use it in creating additional elements.

Step 4: Creating and Saving Papers

All of my papers and elements were created at 300dpi.

I started my kit by creating the papers, since they would form the base of my layouts. I picked a vibrant blue for the base, then gave it a texture using the "Blending Options" for that layer. I then used my star brush to "stamp" stars onto my paper using a slightly lighter blue. I scattered the stars around the paper until it was uniformly filled. I then "distressed" the edges of the background layer so that the edges of the paper were slightly lighter. I did this by adding an "Inner Glow" under the "Blending Options" for that layer, then playing with the variables until I was happy with the look. I saved my paper as a .jpg, then I altered the colors to create a darker blue paper. I saved that paper also as a .jpg, and did this two more times to create two orange papers.

Step 5: Creating and Saving Embellishments

I used my star brush that I created in Step 3 to create a star element, that I saved as a .png file. Saving elements as .png files allows you to preserve the transparency of the element. I used the color picker to match the color of my stars to the papers I had created, so I had an assortment of stars in coordinating colors. I took one of the blue stars, filled it with a contrasting orange, then applied a chipboard action by Atomic Cupcake to the star so it would look like a distressed chipboard accent. Finally, I created a frame and a border using the star brush. I saved all of these elements as .png files.

Step 6: Packaging Your Kit

Once you have created a complete kit, you may want to package it to share with others! Create a terms of use file, and a preview image, then zip all the items together into one zip file. You can then upload the zip file to a free file sharing site, and share your kit with your friends! When I created my terms of use file, I looked at TOUs from other digital kits I had, then modified one to fit my own needs.

Now that you've seen how I made my kit, go out and try one of your own! If you would like to download my kit, please click this link: http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/4/23/1010244/stars_sbk_kit.zip Please leave a comment here if you download my kit!

Stay tuned later in June for a mini-album created using this kit!

Please leave feedback for Sue!

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17 comments:

Shell said...

Great tutorial. When you save a preview, do you just save it like you would a layout to upload to a gallery? Thanks

Anonymous said...

My first time here! Thank you for sharing the kit and the tutorial. I will try the tutorial sometime soon. Cool blog!

Sue K. said...

yes, the preview I created was a .jpg file that incorporated several elements plus the title and description text. I saved that file at 72 dpi so that it was a smaller file, and better viewed on your monitor.

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial and love the kit!! Thanks so much!!

Heather said...

Thank you so much.

Cherry47 said...

Thanks so much for the freebie. I've never designed a kit but I'll try.

Carrie Nichols said...

Thank you so much for the free kit and for sharing how to make my own! I may now have the courage to tackle such a project.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the freebie kit .... I used it on this
http://twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com/pg.asp?gallery=1&cmd=display&layout_id=1175144

Hopefully I'll be able to design a kit some day.

M u s s said...

Thank you!!
{{{hugs}}}

Steph said...

Thanks so much for the tutorial and the freebie! They're both great!

HeatherB said...

I was just directed here by another blog, and this tutorial is wonderful! Thank you for sharing your steps with us, this is really great. :-)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this great tutorial. Seems easy enough ;) (Just kidding)Would really like to give it a go. Love this!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the great tutorial and kit ;)

Anonymous said...

Stars are one of my favorites and blue - who could go wrong - thank you!

Isabel said...

Thank you, great tutorial! love the kit. I will try the tutorial

Anonymous said...

great for my grandson

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tutorial and the fun kit.