Hello everyone! I’m back with one of my favourite topics — using word art. As the name suggests, “word art” is an artistic representation of a phrase… or simply a set of words. But… they can be much, much more. When I started thinking about this, I went back and looked at some of my pages to get some ideas to share here today about how to use these digital scrapbooking items creatively to enhance your layouts.

A big, bold piece of word art is what attracts me most when I am shopping for kits to work with… and I often use them front-and-center on my pages. If you think about it, they can be really versatile; you can use them as a title, you can use them as a primary design element, or you can even replace or support your journaling to explain the story you’re telling on your layout.

Today, the layout I’ll be showing as an example uses the fabulous kit Eternal by MEG Designs (and a template from her coordinating Eternal Templates set)…

“CUT ALONG” TECHNIQUE

The first technique I’ll share is one that I saw used in the galleries in my early days of scrapping… and I then reverse-engineered my own method to do it. It uses the word art as a design element, and adds so much interest to the layout.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I have selected a piece of word art and placed it on top of my photo… and now I want to cut out the photo along the lines of the word art. Before I begin, though, I should mention that I am using a rounded brush tool to draw curved lines so that the word art is continuous…

 

Using the magnetic lasso, I trace along the lines of the word art (and then, over the rest of the photo to make a closed loop). Marching ants appear as soon as I complete this step, highlighting the area I have selected (see above).

Now I select the photo layer in the layers panel… and cut away the selection shown by the marching ants…

Hide or delete this cut-out portion, and using a soft round brush — erase any other unwanted parts of the photo to get clean edges. I also added a small shadow to the piece of word art, to add dimension.

Voila! The layout has quite a dramatic detail on it now!

 

“CREATE A BACKGROUND” TECHNIQUE

In this technique, I use a few pieces of word art — as well as a few other elements — to create a background that is unique, and yet adds to the sentiment found in the layout.

I have used a mask to crop the big photo to make some space for this. Then I have scattered the word arts and some other stamps on the background paper to give a graffiti effect (see upper-right corner of the layout)…

 

You can re-size, re-color, or reduce the opacity of the repeated word art bits as desired, in order to get a much more realistic and interesting look.

 

“WORD ART AS STICKER” TECHNIQUE

In this instance, I am using the same word art piece I used in my first example, above… but this time, I add a white stroke and a shadow to turn it into a sticker…

 

See the settings in the screenshot, above, for an example of what you might do. You can, of course, play with your own settings to achieve your own desired results.

To give it an even more realistic look, you can even try using the wave shadowing technique that was found in a previous tutorial post here at The Digital Press (found here).

 

So that’s it… just a few examples of some pretty crafty stuff that you can do with your word art pieces!

I’m sure you have your own ideas and tricks, too, so please share them in the comments, below… and if you’ve liked any of the techniques shared here, I’d love to see the results when you try them out!

Until next time, then… happy scrapping!

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About the Author  Shivani Sohal is a donner of many alter-egos. A finance professional by day in busy London, she morphs into a seemingly normal mum of two in the evenings and weekends. She is constantly found with her fingers in too many pies and juggling the metaphorical balls. That is living on the edge for her; aided by the two ankle biters and a darling hubby who define the warm and mushy for her. She is ferociously dedicated to memory keeping – almost immune to any nay-sayers (or equally disruptive crying children or annoying house fires!!!); keeping her head down and forging ahead at all times.

 

I love using journal cards on my digital scrapbooking layouts. I don’t pocket scrap very often, but I do love to tuck a journal card in behind my photo or behind clusters of elements. A few days ago, I was working on a layout when I thought, “I would love to be able to add a card with my name on this layout…” and there it was — my idea for this Tutorial Tuesday blog post! Today I’ll be teaching you how to create a cut-out card for an extra fun twist.

I created a card template for the purposes of this tutorial, and you can download yours HERE. The zip file contains PSD, TIFF & PNG versions of the template. I will be using the layered PSD file in the examples shown below.

We will also need a few fonts. I am going to use bold fonts for this tutorial, and I found a few freebie fonts which I thought you’d also like: Axis Extrabold, Bohemia Slab Serif, CastIron Condensed & Intro. Follow the links and you will be able to download the fonts (I think that you have to enter your email address with one of those; if you don’t want to do that… just skip it and use a bold font that you already have in your collection, instead).

And now that we have everything we need… let’s start!

First, open the card template.

Go to the type tool. I chose the horizontal but you can always chose the vertical option, if you prefer.

Type something. I am going to type my name. I chose the Intro font, size 60. As you can see… my name doesn’t fit on the card.

I don’t want to re-size it, so I decided to rotate the text (if your text does fit, you can skip the following steps for rotating the text). Select the move tool. I have auto select on, layer and also show transform controls.

Now, click on the text. When you click on the text… you can see the transform boxes around the text. Hold the shift-button and hover next to one of the transform boxes. You will see a bowed arrow (I cannot get a screenshot of this, so sorry). Continue holding down the shift-button and rotate the text. My text is now vertical… but I feel it’s a bit too big so I am going to change the font size from 60 to 56. After doing that, it looks perfect now!

I want my text to be centered. That’s easy to do. While you have the move tool selected, click CTRL-A. This will select the text (make sure you have your text layer selected). Click “align vertical centers” and your text is perfectly in the center.

Next, click CTRL-D to de-select the layer.

Now select the Magic Wand Tool. In the following screenshot (at the top) you can see my settings…

Select your text layer and while holding the shift-key, select all of the letters.

Select the card layer and hit the delete button. The CTRL-D to de-select. Now make your text layer invisible. Just click on the eye that’s in your text layer.

You can now see on the card layer (layer 1 in the template) that the text you typed is cut out… but this is still a little boring. So let’s add a paper to the card and make it a little bit more fun. I have used a paper from The Digital Press’s June shop collaboration collection, Family Man. I am addicted to stripes, so I chose a cute stripey paper.

Select the paper (CTRL-A), copy the paper (CTRL-C) and go back to your card template and paste (CTRL-P) the paper above your card layer.

The paper now sits above the card layer. If you click CTRL-ALT-G (I love my shortcuts!)… you are creating a clipping mask with this shortcut. You can also right-click on the paper layer and choose “Create Clipping Mask.” Either method works.

I’ve added a white background so you can see what happens when you play around with shadows on the card layer (layer 1).

It will make the cut-out text from your card stand out more. Also adding another background (as you will have on your layout) enhances the effect. I played around with the paper size that’s on top of the card and added a cute background and this is what you’ll see….

I thought I was done with my card (and this tutorial), but then I realized… I still have to save the card! When you’re happy with your card, first save it as a layered PSD. I always do that so I can customize the card again whenever I like. Don’t forget to use the “save as” option… otherwise you will over-write your original template file. So you want to “save as” and change the file name. After you’ve saved your card as a PSD… go again to the “file” menu, click “save as” once again, and save your card as either a JPG or a PNG (JPG if it’s a solid card, and PNG if it has any transparency). Give your card any name you’d like.

And here’s a look at the final result…

One last tip/trick… you can change the effect of the cut-out by adding a stroke instead of a shadow, in order to achieve a totally different look to the card (for myself, I actually like the stroke effect better on this card).

To do this, I opened my saved PSD (layered) file of my card. Then I clicked on the arrow next to the “fx” on layer 1…

Next, I double-clicked on “effects” and the effect panel will opened. I chose stroke, and used the following settings (to change the color of the stroke, I first had to click on the box next to color)…

This is what I ended up with after saving this new version of my card…

This effect makes the text pop even more, so I like this version better than the shadowed version, for my own purposes. For yourself, now you have two options to use with your custom-made cut-out journal cards!

I hope this tutorial was useful, and that you are excited to create your own cards from time to time! If you do… definitely link me up in the comments, below, to layouts in the gallery that use your new cards. 🙂

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About the Author  Biancka is a creative team member here at The Digital Press. She is a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), a wife to Edwin, and mom to Jasper. She lives in the east of The Netherlands (about 30 minutes from the German border). She is addicted to scrapping, but also enjoys baking, reading books (mostly thrillers), watching her favorite TV shows, and photography.

 

I often say that Photoshop is like our brain: we only use 10% of it. Well, “save for web” is probably one of those features that we don’t put to as good of a use as we should! It’s a simple tip… yet it can change the way you share your pages online!

As is often the case with Photoshop, there are several ways to get to the same end result… so I will simply share my own process (I use PS CS6), but keep in mind it’s definitely not the only process.

First, I always save 3 versions of the same file:

1. My original layered file. I used to save it in .PSD format, but I’ve recently switched to .TIF format as they are non-proprietary (hence readable by software other than PS), smaller in file size, and can be previewed in my windows folders.
2. The high definition .JPG file. This is the file that I use for printing (at 300dpi).
3. The web version. This is a low-resolution .JPG file (72dpi), but it’s still nice and crisp.

When my layout is finished, I save the .TIF file first. Then I flatten it and save the high-resolution .JPG file. Then, I start my “save for web” process.

 

Here are my “save for web” steps

First, I go to  Image>Image size  or  Alt+Ctl+I  and change the resolution to 72 dpi (from the printing resolution of 300 dpi) for screen use, and I re-size the file. The file size/image size settings that I need are different from one gallery to another. The Digital Press gallery allows layouts from 600px to 900px in size (900px preferred), so when I re-size my layout I switch to 900px (because I scrap square layouts, I re-size my file to 900px x 900px). If your page isn’t square, just keep the proportions of your original but make sure the longest side is set to 900px.

Next, to ensure that my layout looks fantastic when displayed online, my file often needs to be sharpened. Now is the time! Again, there are various ways to do it. I simply use Filter>Sharpen>Accentuation (you could also use Smart Sharpen or a Highpass filter). Here are my settings when I sharpen — but pick whatever suits your own taste and your page, using the preview window to help you…

Here’s a small comparison of the before and after of my layout; it’s a subtle difference, but it gives my page a really nice oomph (you can really tell the difference if you look at the string frame… look how nice and sharp it is on the right side)!

 

Next, I will save this web version using… wait for it… “save for web” (in the File menu)! Ha! The shortcut in my version of Photoshop is Ctrl+Alt+Caps+S. Then I use the following settings…

I make sure to set a file size limit using the “optimize for image size” option. Here’s where the menu is located, in the top right corner (click the little 3-lines/arrow icon at top right, and you’ll get the following drop-down menu)…

A pop-up window allows me to pick the maximum file size I wish to allow, which I choose according to the online gallery’s requirements/guidelines. In The Digital Press’s case, the max size allowed is 400kb — so I could increase the 350 you see in the following image to 400…

The quality level of the layout will automatically adjust to fit within this size limit you just set. Use the preview window to make sure it still looks good, then click “save”.

This tip is super simple, but it will help your layouts take up less space online (including helping you adhere to different gallery limits/requirements), while still looking nice, beautiful and sharp! You can even create an action to record the steps you end up using to do this… and make it even quicker/easier! I hope this info will help you out; don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

 

In case you’re wondering the layout I used for the examples in this tutorial, above, was made using several items from the new June 2016 Special Edition that launched this past weekend!

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About the author  Chloé is in charge of PR and communication for her small town by day, is a digiscrapper “by night,” and a photographer whenever the light is beautiful. She lives with her man and fur-babies in a small town of Alsace (in the northeast of France), where she loves to read, watch good TV shows (TWD being her absolute favorite), and just hang out with her friends — no matter if they are close by, online, or away in her Swiss hometown.