Scrapbooking With Your Computer : Opening, Recoloring, Adding To A Photo, Loading Brushes

Welcome to Day Three of my week-long series on Scrapbooking With Your Computer.

I had initially planned to write about hybrid elements today but ended up going in a bit of a different direction based on what I have covered so far. Today I am going to walk you through four processes: opening, recoloring, adding a .png to a photo, and loading brushes in Photoshop Elements.

To help all those visual learners out there I have recorded a video tutorial that walks you through each of these steps. I have also included written instructions below. To view this almost-20 minute video tutorial much larger click here.




AE Digital Scrapbooking Tutorial : Opening, Recoloring, Adding To A Photo, Loading Brushes from Ali Edwards on Vimeo.

OPENING DIGITAL PRODUCTS IN ELEMENTS & WORD
After downloading and unzipping your digital products you are ready to start using them in your photo-editing program. Here's how to open .png files in Elements and Word:

ELEMENTS
1. Open Elements.
2. Go to File/Open. (The use of "/" means that the Open option is listed under the File menu). From there you will navigate to wherever you chose to store your digital elements. Select the element you would like to open.

WORD
1. Open Word.
2. Go to Insert/Picture/From File. From there you will navigate to wherever you chose to store your digital elements. Select the element you would like to open.

RECOLORING .PNG FILES
Two of my favorite products to create and work with are brushes/stamps and overlays. When you purchase these products they come in the default color black. Here's how to recolor single-color .png files:

ELEMENTS
1. Go to File/Open to select the .png file.
2. Go to Edit/Fill Layer. Choose a color (a drop-down menu gives you options for color, foreground color, background color, etc). Make sure that Preserve Transparency is checked to recolor just the element rather than the entire layer.

WORD
1. Go to Insert/Picture/From File to open the .png file.
2. With the element selected go to Format/Picture. From the menu on the left select Picture. Find the drop-down menu called Recolor under Image Control. Select the color you want and click ok.

If you are interested in learning other ways to recolor elements go here.

ADDING WORD ART TO YOUR PHOTO IN ELEMENTS
One of the simplest ways to start using digital elements is to add them to your photos before uploading to your photo developer or printing at home. Here's the basic steps for adding a .png file to your photos:

1. Open the .png word art file in Elements (the free element available in yesterday's post will work great for this).
2. Go to File/Open and navigate to your photos. Select a photo to open.
3. With the .png window active (click on it to make it active), select the Move Tool (the black arrow). Click & hold on the .png image and drag onto your photo. This will create a new layer on top of your photo layer.
4. To resize the word art click on the bottom corner (make sure the word art layer is selected in the layers palette) and drag. In Elements (at least in Elements 6) you do not need to hold down the shift key while resizing to keep the proportions correct.
5. If you want to recolor the word art follow the instructions listed above regarding recoloring .png files.

LOADING BRUSHES INTO ELEMENTS

AE_LoadBrushes
1. Open Elements.
2. Select the Brush Tool from the tool palette. Look towards the top of the window and you will see a few different drop down options related to brushes.
3. From the drop down menu of brushes click on the small double arrows on the right. When you click on these arrows a new drop down menu (also called a flyout) will appear.
4. From the flyout menu select Load Brushes. Navigate to your downloaded .abr file to load. When you re-open your brush window the new brushes will be at the bottom of the list.

AE_StitchedLine
MORE COMING LATER TODAY

Check back later today (or subscribe here to get my posts sent to your email or other reader) for a second post focused on basic product definitions and suggestions for choosing digital products to help you get your stories told.

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37 thoughts

  1. Ali Edwards says…
    01/20/2010

    I bet there is a way to upload a folder - I have not used the PS Organizer before :). If you just navigate to a folder (vs. an individual photo) does it let you select it?

    Reply 0 Replies
  2. ginika says…
    01/20/2010

    I did it!!! This is so exiting. Have fun wrapping presents and Happy Birthday to Simmon! Thanks again.

    Reply 0 Replies
  3. Esther says…
    01/20/2010

    I love these lessons! I'm forwarding the link of your blog to everyone that wanted me to teach them digital scrapbooking, LOL!
    Just one question, I use Paint Shop Pro X2. What is the difference between that and Photoshop? (Except the price ofcourse! ;) )

    Reply 0 Replies
  4. Jen C says…
    01/21/2010

    Wow - thank you so much for this week's lessons. With a couple of kiddos feeling under the weather I haven't been able to really dive in, but I can't wait to set aside some time to give all this a try. Thanks so much - looks like this was a ton of work to put together.

    Reply 0 Replies
  5. elizabeth says…
    01/21/2010

    Thanks for taking the time to do such a detailed week of teaching you are opening doors for me, enabling me to learn new skills and be happy :-)

    Reply 0 Replies
  6. Lois says…
    02/06/2011

    Hi Ali, I can't seem to find the phrase capture the moments to download, can you help? Great tutorials, you explain everything so easily!

    Reply 0 Replies
  7. Kathy Farnsworth says…
    07/03/2011

    Just starting this tutorial today with one problem. When I dragged the word art onto my picture, I was unable to resize it because photoshop said my photo layer was locked. Tried clicking on the lock icon in the layer section - but it didn't help.
    What did I do wrong?
    (thank you...)

    Reply 0 Replies
  8. ChezLou says…
    01/05/2012

    Great details on how to load / use your brushes.
    Do you know if these work with Pages (Mac)?
    Would love to know as I am putting together some PL accessories - and brushes are on sale right now :)

    Reply 0 Replies
  9. Nadine says…
    09/26/2012

    Wow - I have googled and tried several different tutorials trying to change the color & finally a friend showed me how to do it via the paint bucket way - BUT your tutorial and explanation is by far the easiest I've come across!!! Thanks!
    Nadine

    Reply 0 Replies
  10. Christine says…
    11/19/2012

    Thank you SO much for this tutorial. So extremely helpful as I'm just getting into the "digital" world and I LOVE all your files. Thank you again :)

    Reply 0 Replies
  11. Carla says…
    12/02/2012

    Love this! Is there a way to resize it for a 6x8 or a square? Thanks!

    Reply 0 Replies
  12. Karen says…
    01/07/2013

    Hi Ali, I'm running windows 7 on a PC and I cannot reformat the picture file (a png file). I'm having major dramas (aaauuuggghh!!) and I don't know why...I've followed all the instructions to the letterand watched the video several time without any joy so far. Is it possible just to post the images in their different file types including one as a word document maybe? I'm ignorant about the process involved in doing so, so forgive me if that is to you and more technically minded people than I, a ridiculous request!
    Thanks.....

    Reply 0 Replies

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