I have to admit it – I am a font addict!

Until just recently, my fonts were a mess on my computer… and believe it or not, all 1600 were installed in the Windows font folder. This slowed down my machine when using text in any program. Oops! In the past, I had used “The Font Thing” to organize my fonts — but when it stopped operating with this newer computer, I was lost. Good news — I have found a fantastic little freeware program called NexusFont, which has proved to be a perfect replacement for me.

This program catalogs all of the fonts on your computer and then allows you to sort fonts into categories that you, yourself, can set up. For me, the best thing is that I can access any of my fonts… no matter where they are stored on my computer (and from any program, even though they are not actually installed). Fantastic!

To start out, you can download the NexusFont program HERE*.

*NOTE: this is a program that is only available for those who are using Windows as their operating system

 

Once you install the program, you will see under Library (left panel) that there is a folder called Installed. This folder contains all the fonts currently installed on your computer and located in the windows/font folder. Under this there will be a heading Collection but until you set up collections (ie categories for your fonts) this will be empty.

After organizing all my fonts, this is what my main screen looks like when I have one of my Collections (Typewriter fonts) highlighted.

 

So what do you do after you have installed the program?

1. First, add any font folders you have (of fonts not installed and located in your windows font folder) to the Library by right clicking on Library and selecting New Folder Group. I have created 2 folder groups – one for purchased fonts and one for free downloaded fonts. You can then right click on this new folder group and select Add Folder.  This will allow you to navigate to the relevant font storage folder on your computer so that you can add this to your Library.
2. Set up your Collections by right clicking on Collection and selecting New Collection. My collections include Serif, Sans Serif, Hand Printing, Hand Script, Typewriter, Wingdings, Grunge, Stencil or Stamp etc.
3. Type in a sentence into the display panel so that you can preview the fonts.
4. You can add fonts to Collections either using drag and drop to drag fonts from any folder in your Library to one or more of the collections or right clicking on a font and selecting the category (see following screenshot). And one of the best things is that you can put a font into more than one Collection! Note that if you have a large number of fonts as I did, this will take you a few days to complete.

 

 

Once everything is set up, it is much easier to search for types of fonts just by clicking on one of your Collections. It certainly saves time. On a recent page I was looking for a particular chalk font, so clicked on the CrayonChalk collection above and only had to search through 23 fonts rather than 1600. And best of all it so easy to compare fonts.

One of the other features of this program which I love are that it is easy to find duplicate fonts even though they may be named differently. Just go to Tools and select Find Duplicate Fonts. Easy! The program found over 50 in my folders which I then just deleted.

 

And a handy fact — remember earlier that I said that you do not have to install the fonts to be able to use them. All you have to do is open NexusFont before using the text tool in Photoshop and all fonts within the NexusFont Library will be available to you. This is so handy! You can install and uninstall fonts straight from the NexusFont program itself.

NexusFont would have to be one of the best programs for those of us who love fonts and who use Windows as our operating system. Why not download it and start rediscovering some of your lost fonts? 🙂

Postscript: In the latest Windows update, there were changes to font management and this slowed down the loading of fonts in NexusFont. The workaround, if this occurs for you, is to disable Windows Font Cache Service. I did this and NexusFont is now running as quickly as it was before the update.

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About the author  Carolyn lives with her partner, eldest daughter, and 3 rescue dogs on 5 acres of paradise in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Her camera, along with an assortment of lenses, is never out of sight. When not taking photos, she loves cooking and gardening and, of course, scrapbooking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the look of postage stamps on a scrapbook page. They add a nice little touch of interest to a page. Papers look great when they’re clipped to postage stamp shapes, but what I really love is the look of photos inside a postage stamp frames. You can get some great postage stamp frames in digi kits, but you can also easily create them on your own in just a few quick steps while you’re scrapping a page. Let me show you how.

 

When I create a postage stamp frame I usually create it right on my page as I’m creating it, but for ease of instruction I’m going to show you on a blank canvas. My instructions are for Photoshop CS6 but you can use the same basic instructions in Photoshop Elements and other versions of Photoshop as well.

 

1. Create a blank 5″ x 5″ canvas.

 

I’m going to create a 4 inch x 4 inch frame so I’m going to create it on a 5″ x 5″ canvas. (Again, you can easily create your frame directly on your scrapbook page as well.) Here’s how to create a 5″x5″ canvas:

 

File > New > Width: 5 inches, Height: 5 inches, Resolution: 300 pixels/inch

 

2. Create a new blank layer.

 

You can create a new blank layer several different ways. You can click on the Create a New Layer icon in the layers panel (it looks like a folded piece of paper) OR you can select Layer > New > Layer  OR you can press CMD+SHIFT+N and press OK.

 

3. Create the shape you want to turn into a postage stamp.

 

With the new layer active in the layers panel, use the Rectangular Marquee tool (hotkey M) and click and drag to create your shape. I’m going to create a square about 4″ x 4″, but you can create a rectangle as well. NOTE: If after you click and drag to create your shape you press the SHIFT key, you will get a perfect square.

 

 

4. Fill your shape with a color.

 

Since I’m working on a blank white canvas I’m going to fill my shape with a color. I like to fill my shape using the Paint Bucket tool (hotkey G). With the Paint Bucket tool active, simply click inside the marching ants of the shape you created in Step 3 and your shape will be filled with whatever color is in your foreground color picker.

 

 

5. Create the postage stamp edge.

 

Now comes the fun part – creating the postage stamp edge. Using the Eraser tool (hotkey E), choose a hard round brush. (Do not use a soft round brush.) For my example I used a 60 pixel hard round brush. You will also need to adjust the spacing of the brush in order for this to work. Click on the Brush Panel icon (it’s next to the brush size and looks like a file folder with paint brushes). Adjust your spacing to about 150%. As you change the spacing you can see the effect it will have in the brush tool.

 

 

Now that you’ve set your Eraser Brush settings, line the center of your brush shape up with one of the corner edges of the square shape that is going to become the postage stamp. I like to center the dot of the Eraser Brush right on the edge of the shape. (NOTE, as long as your Caps Lock is OFF you should be able to see the outline of your brush shape.) I like to start at the left and work around the square.

 

While holding down the Shift key (which will keep the line straight), click at the start and then again at the end of the top edge of your shape. The Eraser Brush will have erased a straight line of circles from your shape giving you a postage stamp effect on the first side of your shape.  Release the Shift key and your mouse and then do the same thing on the other sides of your shape. Continue until you’ve done the same to all four sides.

 

 

At this point you can mask a photo or a paper to this shape. You can also cut out the center and make it a frame.

 

6. Create the frame.

 

To create the frame effect you will want to cut out the center of the postage stamp shape you just created. With the postage stamp shape layer active in the layer panel, simply use the Rectangular Marquee tool (hotkey M) and click and drag to create a square over your newly created shape. When you’re happy with the area you want to cut out, simply press the Delete key.

 

 

NOTE: If you do not want to erase away part of your postage stamp shape, you can also create a new layer above the postage stamp shape and, using the Rectangular Marquee tool, create a new shape layer ABOVE your postage stamp shape (be sure to use a contrasting color so you can see the shape you added) and you can clip your photo to the new shape.

 

7. Embellish your new Postage Stamp Frame!

 

Voila! You’re done! You’ve created a quick postage stamp frame. Now you can embellish the heck out of it. here are some ideas:

• Add a drop shadow to your frame
• Clip a textured paper to the frame
• Clip some paints, etc. to the frame
• The possibilities are endless!

 

NOTE: I used River Rose Designs’ Sunday Morning kit to embellish my frame.

 

So what do you think? Did you know that you could create a postage stamp frame on your scrapbook pages so quickly?  Give these steps a try and please let us know if you’ve got any questions.

 

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About the Author |   Barbara is a member of the creative team here at The Digital Press. She lives in Minnesota, is married and has two awesome kids (a 19 year old boy and a 17 year old girl) as well as an adorable 10 year old Soft Coated Wheaton Terrier. In her free time she loves to take photos and play around in Photoshop. Life is good!

Hi there, scrappers!

My tutorial for you today is all about making your text look more realistic. When you write or type on real paper, what you see is a mixture of the ink and the texture and material of the paper. But, when we add a type layer on top of a digital paper, we don’t automatically get the same result. I’ll show you a couple quick steps that you can follow in order to make digital text look more like it is written on the paper instead of floating on top.

• First, type your text as you would like it to appear on your layout
• Right click on your type layer and choose Blending Options (or, you can also click the little ‘fx’ button at the bottom of your layer palette)

• When the Layer Style menu opens up, you will see two sliders. You want the bottom one, Underlying Layer
• Grab the left side of the bar and drag it to the right until the text starts to disappear
• Hold down the Option key and click on the little carrot you just dragged to the right so that it splits into two little arrows

• Drag the left of the two new arrows to the left until you like the way the text looks

• Tweak it as much as you like until your text looks just right!

 

Here is a look at the original text… and the blended text… so you can see the difference!

 

Isn’t that great? I hope you’ll give this technique a try. I find that it really gives that extra realistic look to my digital layouts.

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About the Author  Katie is a member of the creative team here at The Digital Press. She lives in Central Florida with her husband and their four sweet but crazy boys. When she’s not dodging Nerf bullets or trying to dig out from under the never-ending pile of laundry, she enjoys photography, cooking, going to Disney World with her family, and, of course, digital scrapbooking.