Hello, and welcome to another edition of our Tutorial Tuesday series here on The Digital Press blog! Today, I am here to share information with you about creating diagonal flow when you are working on a scrapbook page.

In one of my previous tutorials here on the blog — Creating a Focal Point — I explained how to grab the viewer’s attention with an obvious focal point, and then to use visual hierarchy to guide the eye throughout a layout. In today’s tutorial, I will explain how to create a visual emphasis going from top left to bottom right (the way Westerners read)… or alternatively, going from top right to bottom left for variety.

Here’s a quick look at what I mean…

In that first example, the text stamp is the foundational element that I duplicated in order to place it on either side of the band of papers (at the top left and lower right corners). I would usually duplicate and horizontally flip an element to make it the perfect opposite; however, this would be immediately visible with text (as the text would be backwards on one side) and so that does not work. 🙂

The act of duplicating the stamp forms a frame, of sorts, bracketing the design so that the eye naturally joins these two halves together. This draws the eye from top left to bottom right.

As an extra layer, I have added the vellum heart (top left) and the small word art cluster (lower right) along the same diagonal line. Then, for fun, I have two heart scatters, but I placed them on the opposite (blue) line. A touch of tension is always a great idea: something that makes one look again, to see if anything is different or out of line. This re-enforces the diagonal.

Here’s another example…

In the second example, I used paper blocks and placed them at kitty corners to create the diagonal line (again, top left to lower right). This accentuates the angle at which my hubby is pointing the laser light, as well; when the subject of a photo is looking in a certain direction, the eye naturally follows the line to see what they are looking at. I tilted the title and journaling card slightly to fall on the diagonal, but not perfectly in line — again, to add a bit of tension, once again.

These are just a couple of ideas and examples for creating movement within a layout (especially one that uses a multiple photos), in order to help the viewer navigate their gaze through or across the page. Give it a try! I think you’ll find that creating this sort of flow within your next scrapbooking layout is easy and helpful!

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About the author Stefanie is a member of The Digital Press creative team and a stay at home mother of three older children living in Cape Town, South Africa with her hubby of 30 years, one of their three children, and 3 Siamese cats. She loves photography, traveling, and digital scrapbooking — documenting the good and the ordinary everyday.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of our Tutorial Tuesday series here on The Digital Press blog! Today, I’m here to show you how to create a torn paper edge look with any of the digital papers you can find in the wonderful kits available at The Digital Press!

I’ve had a lot of fun using this technique on layered papers to create a really cool look. The instructions you’ll find here have been created for Photoshop CC, but they’ll likely translate (maybe with a few tweaks?) to other photo-editing programs, as well.

First, here’s a look at my finished scrapbooking page to show you the effect that we’ll be learning here today…

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Download and install these Torn Paper Brushes to make this process much easier.

• I used the brushes available here.
• Once you download the file, unzip to get the .abr file.
• To install, in Photoshop choose Edit > Presets > Preset Manager
• Follow the prompts to find your download .abr file and install it in the brush folder of your choice.

Step 2: On your layout, place your paper.

Step 3: Add a Layer Mask

• In your layers palette, select the top layer of paper
• Then use the Add Layer Mask icon on the bottom of the layers panel to add a mask.

Step 4: Use a brush to start the torn edge look

• First select the Brush tool, then choose your favorite torn paper brush.
• Then make sure that your foreground color is black and that you have the mask selected on your top paper layer.
• Use the brush along the edge of the paper to create the torn edge.

 

 

Step 5: Duplicate your paper layer

• Right click on your paper layer and choose “Duplicate layer…” to duplicate the paper layer.
• Once you have two paper layers, hide the top one so you can work with the lower layer.

Step 6: Add a color overlay

• With the bottom paper layer selected, choose the fx icon from your layers panel.
• Because I wanted a white torn edge, I chose white for the color overlay with a 100% opacity.

 

Step 7: Add an inner glow

• With the bottom paper layer still selected and your effects panel open, now add an Inner Glow with the following settings:
  • Blend mode = multiply
  • Opacity = 10%
  • Noise = 0%
  • Change the color swatch to black
  • Size = 25px

Step 8: Add a drop shadow

• Keep that Layer Style panel open and now add a drop shadow with the following settings:
  • Blend mode = multiply
  • Opacity = 30%
  • Angle = 135
  • Distance = 10
  • Spread = 0
  • Size = 10

Step 9: Turn the top paper layer back on and use the Move tool (V) to move the layer up by 10 or so pixels so you can see the white torn paper below it.

Step 10: Use a smaller brush to paint away more of the edges

• First, make sure the mask of the top paper layer is selected. Then, I used the Rough Round brush (found it in the Legacy brushes folder) with a size of 50. Paint away more of the edges to give a rough look.

 

 

And you’re done!

Yes, it has a few steps, but it gives you a whole lot of flexibility to determine just how you want your torn paper to look.  The settings suggested here are just that – suggestions.  You can play around with brush sizes, drop shadow darkness, the edge itself… so much!

Hope you guys have fun!

 

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About the Author  Shannon has been completely addicted to digiscrapping since she began in early 2016 (though she’s been a scrapper since 2000). Her early morning ritual of a few quiet hours of scrapping while sipping a chai tea is her favorite part of each day. She is also the owner of a web design company, and when she’s not at the computer designing websites or digiscrap layouts, she’s probably hiking one of the local mountains in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. She is an avid reader and loves to travel to foreign countries.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of our always-popular Tutorial Tuesday series here on The Digital Press blog! Today, I’m here to share with you some practical tips for making your subject stand out more when taking photographs.

Whenever we take a photo, it’s usually much stronger if it has a subject (or a main subject, at least) that can be immediately identified. To make the subject of your photo stand out, you have several “tools” at your disposal. Today, I will show you how to use those tools… using a toy that was recently gifted to my newborn son (because it’s a toy and not a person, it was able to “stand still” for a loooong time while I took all the pictures to illustrate this tutorial, LOL — so it was the perfect subject for me!). Here’s a look…

As you can see in this first picture… it’s a cute stuffed animal, but there is a lot going on visually around the toy (let’s be honest and call it what it is… clutter!). Because of this, it’s not standing out as well as it could be; you cannot easily tell, in just a split second, what the subject of this photo is.

How can I change that without having to clean up the mess around it? Here are a few ideas…

Use Focus and Depth of Field

“Depth of Field” is the sharp area of your picture. If you use a shallow depth of field, that means that only a small “slice” of your image is in focus, the rest of it, in front and behind this “slice”, is blurry. This is a great technique to avoid distractions in the background and separate your subject from the background, even when it’s super messy (like my example here).

How to achieve this effect?

1. Use a wide aperture (small f/stop in manual mode, macro mode, “portrait” mode on some smartphones)
2. Zoom in
   …or…
3. Increase the distance between your subject and the background

You can also mix all of those steps/techniques for an even bigger effect. That’s what I did in the 2nd image, above, when compared to the first image above it. I moved the toy away from the background (closer to the camera), and switched to my “nifty fifty lens” to have a much wider aperture (f/1.8  vs  f/3.5-5.6 with my zoom lens that I had used in the first picture).

Want to read more about depth of field? Here’s an older tutorial from TDP’s blog all about focus and depth of field.

One other idea — you can also “fake” this technique after-the-fact, using your favorite photo-retouching software to blur your background, if your subject isn’t standing out to your liking.

Use the Rules of Composition

The rules of composition — such as the most famous “rule of thirds” — are great at helping guide the eye of the viewer towards the subject to make it immediately visible. There is a great tutorial on TDP’s blog about the most common composition rules.

To quickly recap the concepts that are covered in that previous blog post… here are some of the Rules of Composition to think about…

• Rule of Thirds
• Balance
• Leading Lines
• Viewpoint
• Background
• Symmetry and Pattern
• Depth
• Framing
• Cropping

We definitely recommend giving that old tutorial a quick read! Lots of great info.

No matter what rule you use (or if you decide to break them!)… what’s important is that you make a mindful, creative choice that’s dictated by your subject and what you want to convey. Isolating your subject is key — whether you do that through use of negative space or, on the opposite, by filling the frame completely with it. Each of these two composition choices work really well to eliminate distractions. When you use the “fill the frame” technique, don’t be afraid to crop part of your subject. To achieve these two techniques, you might have to move yourself around your subject… and sometimes move your subject itself, if it’s possible.

Here, I chose to focus on the toy’s face and fill the frame with it…

Use Color

Color can be a very powerful visual tool. Using complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel — for example, purple and yellow… or blue and orange… or green and red), or using contrast between bright and neutral colors, is a great way to add dynamism to your image.

If your subject is red, well… lucky you, because red is a color that stands out naturally! Watch out for red elements that are NOT your subject, however, because they will attract the viewer’s eye and distract from your subject. In this example I used the toy’s bright colors in contrast with the neutral background by photographing it from above…

If you need more color inspiration, there is an older tutorial on TDP’s blog about using colors in layouts …but those examples can perfectly apply to photographs, as well!

Change Your Perspective / Point of View

Try taking your time to work your subject… move around it… experiment various points of view… different angles, etc. Try shooting at your subject’s level, or above it (like I did for the image up above), or from below it (like this next example), or from the front or the side, or even from the back for a “faceless” portrait.

Use Light

Light is the photographer’s raw material (photography means “writing with light”)… and you can definitely use it to make your subject stand out. For example, you can use backlight (with subject between you and the light source); rim light (the light is on the side of your subject and defines it with a “glow”); or a pocket of light in an otherwise darker environment.

In this image, above, the light was actually a mix of backlight and rim light.

Focus on Details

Last but not least, sometimes you don’t have to see the “big picture” to tell a story through your photo. You can focus (no pun intended) on small parts of your subject and still evoke emotions and memories, and sometimes they will even be more powerful than an image of the whole subject.

Focusing on details can easily be “mixed” with the “filling the frame” technique I mentioned before. Here I decided to focus on the toy’s ears that are, to me, the cutest part of it. My hand got into the picture as a nice “prop” to help attract the eye to the part I wanted to highlight.

Hopefully all of these practical tips and tricks will help you get stronger photos by helping to ensure that your photos have a clear subject! Now it’s time to get out your camera, and start capturing the little Everyday things in your life from a new perspective!

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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 dog Kira 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. Right now she’s busy growing her baby boy that should be here in February.