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Windows XP

Created especially for my
scrapbooking group Sweetz!



How to get started
creating a scrap kit?

And how to pull the colors and theme together!



Easy Access to Categories

Clicking on categories below will take you
to the section where that subject is explained!


Materials
Presets
Brushes
Categorizing Fonts
Searching Fonts
Folders
Pulling Theme and Color Together
Snagging Selections
Which Format?
Why The Rush?

This tut is for people who are familiar with
Paint Shop Pro but are new to digital scrapbooking!
I use PSPX

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Getting Started

The way I do it! :)



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You will need to think of a theme, gather your materials
and organize! :) I think this is the most important
part of creating your kit.

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Materials

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The materials I use are brushes, preset shapes, picture fonts, and an occasional picture tube. Locating these items is pretty easy if you use one of the search engines, like google, (www.google.com) or yahoo search!(www.yahoo.com)

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Presets

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I would also search for presets for the version of PSP you are currently using.
Create a new folder, call it Presets, and install or unzip the new presets to that folder.
Then you will need to point PSP to the folder. To get the presets to work for you, go to:

File
Preferences
File locations
Click on presets in the left pane, and in the right pane,
click add. "Browse to Folder" will come up so browse to where
the folder is, :) then click ok!


Adding folders


Effects
3D Effects
Drop Shadow
and click on presets up at the top of the drop shadow window


drop shadow presets

And there they all are just waiting
for you to use them! :)

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Brushes

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In order to use brushes, you must first
install or unzip them to a folder.
(I use a folder on my desktop for this purpose)

Inside of PSP

Go to:

File
Import
Custom Brush

open brush

Click on Open, then browse to the
folder you unzipped the brushes to!

Open folder
Highlight all
Click open



Add all!

Click the add all button and the brushes
will transfer to the right pane!

adding brushes

Click ok

Your brushes are now imported! The next time you want to use a
brush, open new image so the tools will be highlighted and
click on paintbrush, click the arrow and begin to look
for that perfect brush to use!

findind brushes

Once you have imported the brushes to your brushes
folder, you may then delete the contents of the folder
you created for the purpose of importing them!

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Categorizing Fonts

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I have all my fonts on a separate hard drive and they are categorized to the max! :)
This is only a small portion of how I organize. I categorize by
theme, designer, collections, and personal favorites, etc!
This is just a suggestion, do what works best for you!

My fonts

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Searching For Fonts

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There is a pretty good search engine on the start menu which
will find all the picture fonts according to theme on your hard drive.

location

Let's say you have an idea for a scrap kit, and you would like to create something with flowers in it.
It would be great if your regular fonts were separated from the picture fonts. It would be easier to
find just what you need because Windows Search will find both picture fonts and regular fonts and you
will have to do a lot of deleting, depending on how many it finds.

Ok, Go to Start, Search, Click on all files and folders,
type "Flowers" in the box provided, then click the arrow where it
says "look in" and go to the bottom where it says browse.
Browse

Browse to where your picture fonts are located on your hard drive. Click on your picture fonts folder,
and then click "Search Now!" You can also search for specific flowers like roses, or daisies or even garden etc.

Note: if you don't have a lot of picture fonts, here are a number of really cool
places to get picture fonts to get you started!
Normally we do not share fonts at Sweetz, but I can't show you how to do this without sharing a
link or two for picture fonts

http://www.momscorner4kids.com/fonts/dings.htm
http://www.houseoflime.com/
http://www.katsfunfonts.com/

Hint:

Do not keep all your fonts in your windows/fonts directory, it can cause your computer to
bog down or crash windows! If you do not have another hard drive for storage, then create another folder
just for fonts. The windows fonts folder should have max 200 fonts in it, actually less would be much better!
If you have decided to delete a lot of fonts in the windows font folder, be very careful you don't delete
Windows fonts. Go online and make sure you have a list of necessary Windows fonts before you go deleting
any fonts in the windows/fonts folder!




Once search finds all your picture fonts related to the theme you have chosen, you will highlight all, copy,
then paste them into a working folder called flowers under a folder called "Scrapart Fonts" or "whatever".

Now I would suggest a wonderful font viewer! it's called "The Font Thing" by Sue Fisher! It's simple to use, and free!
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html

There are many font viewers available on the net, but most are pretty expensive. Open "The Font Thing",
and browse through your working folder for just the right font! Once you find a font you would like to use..
highlight it in "The Font Thing" and it will show up in your list of psp fonts. Pretty cool huh? You can also
go to your font folder and click on the font, minimize it to the system tray and it will do the same thing!

You will have to have all your brushes categorized as well

Organized

Open a new image, so your tools will
show up in psp. Click on paint brush

Psp tool

brushes

The brushes that have high contrast of black and white manipulate pretty easily..
Browse through your brushes located at the top of psp in a toolbar to find one you want to use!
Please notice the settings to the right of the flower brush that shows through the window where
the cursor is pointing. You may change the:

  • Size ? determines the pixel size of the brush. Smaller only, as larger will pixelate the brush
  • Step ? determines the distance between applications of paint during a single, continuous paint stroke.
    Lower values produce a smoother, more continuous appearance; higher values create a choppier appearance.
  • Density ? determines the coverage of the brush stroke
  • Rotation is pretty cool, if you have a vertical border, just change the rotation to 90 and now it's horizontal:)
  • Opacity ? determines how well the paint covers the image surface. At 100% opacity, the paint covers everything.
    At 1% opacity, the paint is almost completely transparent.
  • Blend mode ? determines how painted pixels are blended with pixels on underlying layers

There are more of course, but these are all I change when creating!

Your Preset Shapes should also be categorized so
finding just the right one is an easy task.

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Folders

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Once I start creating, I create folders for
each type of images, for instance,

  1. Scrapkit Name               
  2. Alphas (if I create some)
  3. Elements                       
  4. Papers                          
  5. Previews                      
  6. Wordart                       

This way you have folders already set up to
receive the images you create!

Now that you have the general idea of how to get
started, on to pulling the theme together!



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Pulling Theme and Color Together

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I believe that the scrap kit must "pull together", the same theme, colors and overall look of it! For this kit I used pink, green, yellow and white, and didn't stray too far from those 4 colors

Once you have a font or a brush chosen, use your magic wand to select areas you would like to flood fill with either a gradient, pattern or a color, and don't forget inner bevel and drop shadow which will create a 3D look!

For instance, I created this flower out of a brush

first element

Out of this brush, I created a ribbon

row of flowers

A Paper

wavy flowers

A Tag

Garden Tag

I also created this flower out of the same brush! (Notice, I put this little yellow flower on the tag too :)

Yellow Flower

A Button

flower button

A garden stake and a paperclip

Garden Stake   Paper Clip

All out of one flower brush! :)

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Snagging Selections

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I was told a long time ago not to use tubes to create your scrap kits. I believe it is because of the copyright of the original art! (I'm sorry, but I am not too worried about tubers) unless of course it's their artwork! I do however appreciate their hard work in creating the tube! If you ever intend to sell your kits, you will run into huge problems if you use images cut out from orignal artwork! But I hardly ever use a tube, notice the word hardly! :) (my kits are free so I don't worry about it) but what I do is "snag" an occasional selection.

Bring up the tube you would like to snag the selection from and go to Selections, Select all,

how to snag

Selections, float
Selections, defloat,
Layers, Merge. merge visible,
Hit the delete key

This leaves you with just the selection! The snail below was created from a selection. Didn't do much to it but I think you can tell it's a snail. I flood filled the snail with a gradient of yellow and green, used inner bevel, and even pasted the yellow flowers on it to "cute" it up some. lol

Cute Snail

So do you see what I mean about pulling
colors and theme together? :)

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Which Format?

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Just how do I save the items I have created? If you save them as psp or pspimages, then not everyone will be able to use the items or open them. The format I use and find to be good for everyone, is png! (Portable Network Graphic) A png image will save the transparencies, however, you will lose the layers! There is a workaround for this, by saving everything separately. If you think this is more trouble then it might be worth, write to me after you get dozens of emails from people "who just love your kits and can't get them, and would you mind changing the format?" :) I had 20 kits created at this time, and did just that!

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Why The Rush?

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One more thing I would like to comment on, that is.. why the rush? there is no time limit, if you have a great kit started, and you stop after creating just a few elements, papers, ribbons and wordart! Why not put it together and call it a quickpage? If you have a good thing going, give the scrappers a choice of what they want to use from the kit! There is no time clock, so keep at it and see how cool you can make it. :)

~~End Tut~~

If I left anything out, please let me know, as the one thing I hate above all things where tuts are concerned, is finding a tut and the tut writer has left steps out!

So How did you like the tut? hugs Rainy

This tut is the sole property, hard work
and concept of Rainy! If you would like to
share it in your group, you may contact me.
hugs Rainy

Email: love_sweetz@comcast.net

June 20, 2007