See How Easily You Can Create Your Own Holiday Ornament Digital Art Embellishment

Creating Digital Glass Ball Ornaments

in Adobe Photoshop CS2
by Sue Kristoff, Creative Team Member

Creating a digital glass ball ornament is a fun way to play around with lighting effects in Adobe Photoshop CS2 and an easy way to learn about Photoshop filters.


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This glass ball ornament consists of three shapes: a filled circle, a crown and a ring. The filled circle I drew using the circle tool, and the crown and ring were shapes from the Custom Shapes palette.

• Start with the circle representing the ornament. Draw a circle to the size you desire, then fill with your color of choice.
  
• You will be applying two different filters to this shape to get the effect of a shiny sphere. The first filter is Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.
  
• For my example, I chose the Omni light source from the drop down menu.
  
• Then adjust the location and size of the reflection.
  
• I also moved the sliders for Gloss and Material to the far right to represent a shiny metallic surface.

The second filter is Filter>Distort>Spherize. This filter will give your shape more of a three dimensional look.

• The next step is to create the top of the ornament.
  
• I first created a crown shape from the custom shape palette and rotated it 180 degrees.
• I chose a bright gold color to fill the shape, then I applied the same Lighting Effects filter that I used on the main part of the ornament.
  
• I then moved the crown shape into place at the top of the ornament.
  
• Finally, I created the ring at the top of the ornament by using a filled ring shape from the custom shape palette, filling it with the same gold color I used for the crown, then applying the Lighting Effects filter to the ring.
  
• I then moved the ring into place, and now I have a complete ornament!

If you save this image as a .png file, you now have a digital element you can add to your holiday layouts.


Layout Credits: November Sponsor April Staker Jolly Holiday kit

Discover the Joy of Creating Your Own Digital Charms

Charming Christmas Charms

Featuring November Sponsor April Staker
By Beth Price, Creative Team Member

One of my favorite things to do is play around with Photoshop Elements 5 filters and styles and see what I can do on my own. So for this holiday layout, I had seen some metal snowflakes in my local scrapbook store, and I wondered if I could add them digitally.
Here is my page with the metal snowflake charm.


Steps to create the charm:

• I first opened a new file, with transparent background.

• Then selected a brush I had already purchased earlier, Snowflake Brush kit by Michele Coleman.

• Open a new layer and create a snowflake, filling with gray.

• I duplicated the snowflake layer

• I went to Effects – Styles – Wow Plastic and chose gray plastic style.

• Then I went to Effects – Styles – Wow Chrome and chose Shiny Edge style.

• I played around with the settings a little, but clicking on the sunshine icon in the right side of the layer palette next to the snowflake layer.

When I was happy with the effect, I deleted the unused layers and flattened the image, then saved as a .png file for use at any time.

Kit used: April Staker's Jolly Holiday

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How to Create A Fabulous Photo-Realistic Flower Button For Digital Scrapbooking

Creating a Realistic Flower Embellishment

from a Photo

by Amy Duquette, Creative Team Member

I took some photos of some flowers from my SIL's garden and I thought it would make a GREAT embellishment. With a little help from Photoshop I was able to turn it into a flower button.

1. Open up the photo in Photoshop (or whatever program you prefer)

2. Delete the background and extract the flower from the photo. (I am not going to go into details on HOW to do this step because that is a whole other tutorial)

3. Crop your photo to get rid of the extra white space.

4. Next go to FILTER>SHARPEN>UNSHARP MASK and adjust the settings to improve the detail in the photo without going overboard.

5. Add a button or center of some kind to the flower.

6. Now all you need to do is save it and then add it to your layout!

Credits:

November Rain Kit - Digi-Mac Designs (Amy Duquette)

Font - You are Loved

Note: If you found interest in any of our recent tutorials, please take a moment to be kind and leave a comment. It really makes our day! Thanks!!!



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Creating a Realistic Digital Embellishment is Just a Few Clicks Away

Creating A Realistic Embellishment is

Just a Few Clicks Away with Actions

How To By Maggie Lamarre,

Creative Team Member

Supplies Used
Tracy King Buttons Action @Dragonflairestudios.com
(These actions are for Photoshop only- not valid for other software)


What I love about Tracy King’s actions is the ability to modify the elements as you are creating them, such the bevel and the shadows to your preferences..

Let’s begin

• Download the action and install into a folder.
• In Photoshop go to windows select actions
• Then on the action fly out menu click on the triangle, select load action and select the folder the Tracykingbutton ATN action.
• Open the paper you want to use for the button, then select the action and select play.
• During the action it will pause and let you modify the bevel.
• Then next is to modify the shadow.
• I usually create my shadows manually with a paint brush for a more realistic shadow..
  

Voila you are done..

This button was included in the EDS Blog Birthday Bash Kit from October 7th EDS Newsletter.

Have fun, create your ART
from Maggie Lamarre



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How to Create an Epoxy Bubble Sticker or Plastic Charm as Digital Art

Realistic Elements for Digital Scrapbooking

Using Photoshop Elements

by Beth Price, Creative Team Member

Creating an epoxy dragonfly from a child’s hair clip

(Note from Editor: If this is something you crafted, you may use it to create and sell digital elements. However if it is store-bought, copyright prevents you from using it for sale or re-sale - you may use it only for personal use once you make it into a digital element. The exception would be vintage items older than 25 years as the copyright expires.)

I saw this hair clip and thought it would be so cute in a layout along with my daughter actually wearing it. So I am going to make it into an embellishment – I’ll give you two looks. I’ll show you how you can create an epoxy bubble sticker, or just create a dimensional-looking charm.

First get an image to work with. This was small, so I scanned it. You could also take a high resolution photo on a white background.


1.Scan the hair clip at 600 dpi
2.import into PSE5
3.use magnetic lasso to select the image and copy to a new document with transparent background (feather set at 10)


4.copy and paste into a new document with transparent background
5.You may want to sharpen the image if the copy and paste left it a little fuzzy around the edges. To do this, at the top tool bar, select Enhance / Adjust Sharpness



To create an epoxy bubble sticker:
1.Select the shape tool, and draw a circle layer underneath the dragonfly


2.Apply these layer style effects:
1.Bevel – Simple Sharp Outer
2.Translucent Glass
3.Wow Plastic – clear


You should have a bubble looking sticker now. Save as a .png or .jpg file to use with any digital project.

To create a plastic charm:
Apply these Layer Style Effects
1.Select Layer Style / Emboss / Simple Emboss. Adjust the size and distance until you’re satisfied with the effect.

2.Add a drop shadow to increase the 3-D effect. Adjust the size and distance until you’re satisfied.

3. Save as a .png or .jpg and use on your next digital project





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How to Make Your Own Flower Accent for Digital and Hybrid Scrapbooking

Creating a Realistic Crochet Flower

Digital Scrapbooking Tutorial

by Sarah B. Meyer, Creative Team Member

My girls both have a special sweater with cute little crocheted flowers on the front. I thought these flowers would make a fun layout embellishment! Here's the sweater:
{Note from the Editor: If you knit and crochet, and have made your own crochet flowers - you are free to create and sell them once you make them into digital files. However, if it is a store bought item that is new, you can only use the flower for personal use - not to be sold. The exception is vintage items that are older than 25 years old.}

1. With my camera set to the Macro/closeup setting I took a picture of a single flower, making sure to take the picture from directly above the flower and and the same level.


2. I cropped the image closely in Photoshop and duplicated the layer so I have an unaltered copy of the image handy. I added an extra layer in between the two flower copies and filled it will black (D and Alt+Delete). Add a layer mask to the upper flower layer (button at the bottom of the layer palette with a circle in a rectangle). Click on the layer mask and use a large round brush to roughly mask any area of the photo you don't wish to keep.



3. Using a smaller brush (I used hard round 5px or smaller for really tight corners) carefully continue to mask the extra portions of the photo. Take care to fill in only short segments at a time so if you make a big mistake you won't lose a lot of work by undoing (Ctrl+Alt+Z). For small mistakes, just unmask by switching to white. Continue until only the flower remains.


4. To ensure that I haven't left behind any stray pixels, I apply a bright red outer stroke to the masked layer--this will highlight any areas I missed. As you can see from the second screenshot below, I missed a small area at the top of the image. Using the brush tool again, mask this spot. Once you are satisfied, clear the effect by right clicking on the layer and selecting "clear layer style."



5. Hide the original flower image and the solid background layer. This will leave a transparent background. From the Image menu, select Trim (Based on Transparent Pixels, Trim Away Top, Left, Bottom and Right).



6. Save your new embellishment as a png file to preserve the transparency.


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Did you learn anything today from Sarah's tutorial? I sure did! Please leave our Creative Team a note if you appreciate their hard work and dedication.
Thanks~!
JA