Monday, October 08, 2007

How to Create Your Own Digital Scrapbooking Embellishments



Creating a Digital Element from a Photograph

by Sue Kristoff - Creative Team Member

You don't have to be an artist to create fabulous digital elements. Often times the building blocks for textures, flourishes and details are all around you. For example, we recently were given this clock from a family member. It's about 100 years old, and I just love the gold flourish on the front, and I decided it would be perfect to turn into a digital element.

The first thing I did was to take a picture of the clock. I tried to make the photo clear, with lots of contrast so that I would be able to "remove" the flourish from the background.


I opened the photo in Adobe Photoshop CS2, and cropped out the background so the flourish filled the canvas. Then, I used the Magic Wand tool to select all of the parts of the flourish.




Once I had selected all of the parts, I copied the selection to the clipboard (Ctrl-C on a PC), then opened a new document based on the clipboard with a transparent background. I then pasted the flourish into the new document and saved it as a PNG file to preserve the transparent background.


Now I have a fun digital element that I can add to my layouts. Take a look around you and see what you can turn into an element for your layouts!




Layout credits:

Background paper, ribbons, tree and journaling tag: Tia Bennett New Growth Kit
Gold flourish - Sue Kristoff
Font - Problem Secretary

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2 comments:

grambie said...

So nice to visit you and read the interesting tutorial regarding elements from objects. So beautiful indeed. I have removed grunge elements from photos but never thought to look for the more intricate free element to select. A wonderful idea indeed. I don't have a camera and my family normally gives me photos. But I will definitely get a headsup on this wonderful artistic accomplishment. It really adds that extra touch to your layout. Thanks again for your informative and interesting tutorial.

Unknown said...

Wow, gr8 idea!! And it looks stunning!