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Digitals - Digital Scrapbooking

Sunday, May 4, 8 pm EST

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Chat at Digitals

May 4 8 pm EST

Digitals - Digital Scrapbooking

Digitals - Digital Scrapbooking

Sunday May 4

8 pm EST

DivineDigital Forums 

April 19, 8 pm EST.

Well, if you’ve been following my series on using brushes in Photo Editor then you’ve been playing with making brushes from simple shapes and converting your ABR files from other software programs.  Let’s do something a little more creative and make a brush from one of our own photos.  The beauty of this technique is that you can make a totally fabulous brush from a not so great photo. 

So the first thing you want to do is choose a photo.  You’re going to be doing an extraction so find one where the background isn’t too complicated or with some simple outlines for the subject.  Here’s a great tutorial for doing an extraction.  I like to use the polygon lasso tool.

After you’ve cleared out the background and cropped your subject you’ll need to make three adjustments to your picture. 

1. Convert it to gray scale by going to Adjustments|Color|Gray Scale. 

2. Increase the contrast.  You might also want to increase or decrease the brightness depending on the photo.  Go to Adjustment|Light|Brightness/Contrast and adjust the sliders to that you have a crisp picture without losing too much detail.  See how much clearer the differences between the highlights and shadows look before and after my adjustments? 

3. The last adjustment is called Posterize and you can find it under Adjustments|Color|Posterize.  Set your posterize adjustment to 5 or 6 levels and click OK.  Now you’re ready for the magic!  We’re going to do our 3-step process on your newly adjusted extraction so select your paintbrush tool and let’s go!

1. Double-click on the thumbnail in the object palette

2. CTRL-A to select all (or use the menu option Image|Selection|Select All Pixels.)

3. click on Saved Brushes|open the fly-out menu|Define Brush.  Grab yourself an empty canvas, choose a paint color, and have fun playing with your new photo brush!  Here are some layouts I created using my photo brushes:

So your Thursday challenge is to create a brush from a photo and then post a layout using your brush.  I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Artwork credits for Viva Las Vegas: paper by Deanna Tafoya; alpha by Tamara Burwick and for Stitches: Paper, chain, and gems by Gisella; glass frame by Liz Pike; glass bubble by Jennilyn; and antique textiles by myself.

Chat with the ACDSee Team at DivineDigital.com

Feb. 26 9 pm est

Well, I’ve been having fun discovering lots of creative tools in Photo Editor and I thought I’d show you how to create your own brushes.  So let’s get started!  The first thing you need is a png file you would like to turn into a brush.  I have a simple heart shape open in photo editor and I’ve selected my brush tool in the toolbar.

1. In your object palette, double click on the thumbnail of your image.

2. Select the entire layer using CTRL-A or go to Image|Selection|Select all Pixels.  You should now have ‘marching ants’ around your image and crop marks in the corners.

3. Click on the Saved Brushes button on the toolbar for the paintbrush tool.  Notice the small menu button on the right side?  Click on that to find the brush menu.

4. Choose Define brush from the fly-out menu.

You can now make, save, load, and delete brushes. 

You can always return to the default set that came pre-loaded by choosing ‘Reset Brushes’. 

One important note: you can only use the ‘load brushes’ feature with .abr files created in Photo Editor.  Not to worry, though…we’ll cover how to convert your other .abr files next!

I’ve had a lot of requests to explain my speed tagging system and include screenshots so here it is. Of course, all the credit goes to Heidi and Connie for providing this site where I learned all these tips and tricks…this is just how I’ve combined them to make organizing my digi supplies a fast and fun process.

Step 1. Select a range of folders in your file list. Try not to bite off more than you can do in one sitting. In order to include sub-folders you need to expand your file tree…highlight the parent folder above the ones you want to work on and use the asterisk * key to open all of the sub-folders at once…hit it again if you still have plus + signs showing. If you have alphas mixed in with other files, separate them into their own folders first.

Step 2. In the center pane just above your thumbnails click the drop-down boxes to Group by ‘File Type’ and then Sort by ‘File Size’. This places JPEG’s together, previews on top, paper below. The next group is PNG’s and small files like staples are on top while the largest ones, usually quick-pages and overlays, are near the bottom of the group. Layered PSD files are in a separate group as are ABR files. Be careful when you’re ready to work through your PNG’s, to select kit folders but skip the alpha folders.

Step 3. You can tag by selecting multiple thumbnails such as all the quick-pages and dragging the thumbnails to the category in the Organize pane, the category to one of the selected thumbs, or by checking the box next to the category in the Properties pane (make sure it’s on the Database tab)

Step 4. Highlight only one designer’s folders, click inside the center pane and use Ctrl I to select all images, then assign the designer’s name to the Author field. Select only the folders belonging to a particular kit and use Ctrl I again then add the kit name under Caption. You can see that I changed my ACDSee thumbnail display options to show author and caption instead of filename. I can also choose for the Generate File Listing function to include these fields and easily handle credits.

I had several starts using several types of organizing systems and this is what ended up fitting my style. There are many ways to use ACDSee Photo Manager and it’s flexibility is part of what makes it such a powerful tool for digital scrapbookers, professional photographers, or anyone with a lot of media files to organize.

The yummy kits featured in this tutorial are from the 4 Seasons CD which is only available with the purchase of ACDSee Photo Manager and/or Photo Editor
And be sure to grab the 20% off discount code on our Birthday Celebration page here at DSI! Happy Tagging everyone!

DigiScrapInfo is turning One and we want to invite all of our friends to come and celebrate with us! We will be hosting several chats during these two weeks. Chats will be held at the newly unveiled chatroom at Digiscrapinfo.

DigiScrapInfo ChatRoom

Chat schedule:

• Thursday, January 17th at 8pm EST join us in our text chat room for a Photo Editor chat. Have questions about using Photo Editor or just thinking about trying it out? Come on by and talk to the ACDSee Team and pick up some tips for using ACDSee’s Photo Editor software for designing your scrapbook layouts!
• Saturday, January 19th at 10am EST join Connie, Petra, and Liz for a Photo Manager Pro 2 chat. Learn about the expanded features offered by Pro such as RAW photo processing.
• Saturday night at 8pm EST come to our Video Chat to see Photo Editor in action! Mark your calendars…this is your chance to see Heidi in action!
• Wednesday, January 23rd we will have a special Photo Manager chat at 8pm EST in our chat room. Let’s talk about getting organized and have some fun!
• Saturday, January 26th at 8pm EST we’ll talk about Photo Manager Pro 2 again with Connie, Heidi, Elizabeth and Liz followed by a Bingo game chat at 9pm EST! Relax and get to know the team while we play bingo and hand out prizes!
• Sunday, January 27 ACDSee Photo Manager Video Chat 8pm EST  We will again have a video conference chat where we can watch Heidi feature digital scrapbooking’s premier organizing software, ACDSee Photo Manager 10!
• One last chat about Photo Editor is set for Thursday, January 31st at 10am EST. Join us for the grand finale with lots of fun and prizes!

We look forward to talking to everyone during our First Birthday Celebration chats in the next two weeks! Be sure and check back here for updates or schedule changes.

As if all of those chats are not enough, we have tons of activities and challenges planned for the Forum.

Two of our special activities are a Battleship Game and a Name that Designer Challenge. The Battleship game will be an online activity and will be held on Friday, January 18, at 8 PM EST in the DSI Birthday Forum.

We will also be holding a Website Scavenger Hunt to look for hidden boxes of Photo Editor and Photo Manager. Look carefully, because the prize is going to be $10 Gift Certificates.

And that is not all- the ACDSee Team has much more in store for you, including a Photo Editor Challenge and a Photo Manager Scavenger Hunt Layout Challenge. And for even more fun, there will be games, mini-challenges, an opportunity to meet the ACDSee team, and win some prizes!

For more information on the party events, visit our Birthday Celebration Headquarters. Stop at the forum every day and keep your eyes open. You never know what surprises we have in store!

What can you win if you join our celebration?  Here is a list of current prizes and a few more might be added before we are done!

• ACDSee Software
  • Multiple copies of ACDSee Photo Manager 10, ACDSee Photo Editor and ACDSee Pro 2 will be given away at our chats!
• Gift certificates to:
  •  Viovio.com
  •  Weeds & Wildflowers
  • Sweet Shoppe Designs
  • Blue Flombingo, the home of digital scrapbook designs by Karah Fredricks
  • Tangie Baxter Designs
  • Jill D-Zine’s
  • Sarah Ellis @ Gotta Pixel
  • Merkeley Designs
  • Dragonflaire Studios
  • Elizabeth Lane
  • Deanne Tafoya at Plain Digital Wrapper
  • Pixel Gypsy Designs
  • NinaScraps at OScraps.com
  • Amy Teets at OScraps.com
  • the DigiChick
  • Lie Fhung of Ztampf
  • Traci Sims at Your Digital Dream!
• along with a few discount coupons!