[Most of the people who will see this have a lot more design experience than me, but please bear with this rather long-winded explanation of how I altered Annette's flower. I'm fully explaining everything in case a beginner designer reads this thread.]
Please disregard the black background on the PNG files; I didn't realise until I posted this, and I didn't feel like resaving everything as JPGs with a white background, and then re-uploading them.
Here is the original flower that Annette Marie gave us:
The first thing I did was to make the flower into a desaturated template. I don't know how anyone else does this, but here's how I do it, using Photoshop Elements 15 or 2023:
1. Open the flower in Elements
Image > Mode > Grayscale
File > Save As > PNG
Close the file
2. Open the grayscale flower in Elements
Image > Mode > RGB Color
File > Save As > PNG
Close the file
3. Open the desaturated RGB flower in Elements
I adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image
Brightness [-28]
Contrast [+10]
This is what the image looks like now:
Now to recolour the flower.
[Note that my method probably isn't the way a lot of people recolour, but I like it, and it works for me, so I guess that's all that matters.]
Firstly I duplicate the desaturated flower layer, then I either
(A) Create a new layer in between those two layers and fill it with the desired colour, OR
(B) File > Place an existing paper between the two template layers
In this case, I File > Placed a gradient paper from a kit I'm currently working on. [I like to make my papers first, so that I can use them when creating elements; that way I can be sure that the whole kit goes together.]
Here's the flat [untextured] paper I used:
I then clipped the paper to the bottom template layer. Here's where I play around with the blend modes of the top template layer. [Or, in this case, layers, because I duplicated the template layer twice, and the clipped paper layer once, to give me the colours and detail I wanted in the recoloured flower. Hopefully, you can see the settings I used in the screenshot below:
I then decided to resize the flower to 3x3 inches. I opened a 3x3 inch blank canvas, then used File > Place to place the coloured flower onto it. I then resaved the flower as a PNG, with a different file name, because I wanted to keep the original size image intact. I closed that file.
So here's the recoloured and resized flower:
Next I thought I would make a patterned paper overlay with the flower. If I'd been making a patterned paper template, I would have used the desaturated RGB flower, but in this case I was making a coloured overlay, so I used the 3x3 recoloured flower. I just wanted a simple pattern, so I opened my template DTD_PaperTemplatePatternGuide_01_OneInchGrid_CU, which has a white background and guides in, you guessed it, one inch intervals. [I've also made templates with half-inch, quarter-inch and two-inch guides, so that I can easily make patterns with those spacings.] If anyone would like these template guides, just let me know, and I'll be more than happy to get them to you.
Once again, I used File > Place to place the flower on my template grid. Of course, 3x3 was far too big, so I resized it to the size I wanted it, then duplicated the flower layer across the page for Row 01, then copied the flower onto Row 02, duplicating it across the page in the same way as for the first row. What I do then is to fine-tune the placement of each flower in those two rows by zooming right in 300 or 400 percent, depending on the item I'm moving. [This is what the guides are for.]
Once I have all the flowers in the first row placed correctly, I merge those layers, and name the layer 'Row 01'. I do the same with the flowers in the second row, naming it 'Row 02'. I then duplicate those two rows until I have filled the page, finishing with another copy of the first row. Then, when all the rows are correct, I merge all those layers together, turn off the white background layer, and File > Save As a PNG to create my overlay.
Now to add coloured backgrounds and textures. The very first thing I do when I make a new kit is to make flat solid papers in the palette colours. I keep the layered PSD file intact, so that I can easily add textures and overlays to all the background colours [This is the same as Annette's stacked papers from the Day 2 Scraptorial of the Make-A-Kit Extravaganza.] I also save a JPG of each coloured paper, so that I can use them with different textures, templates and overlays. It saves a LOT of time.
Here are the two textured patterned papers I made; one has a Parchment coloured background, and the other has a Peach coloured background [these two colours are in the same palette that I made the gradient paper for, above.]
I used the following textures, with these blend mode settings:
I then thought that I would like to make a paper with the flower covering the whole page, so I opened a new 12x12 inch file and used File > Place to place the larger coloured flower onto the page. I enlarged the flower so that it went well over the edges of the paper, then moved it around until I was happy with the placement, and saved it as a JPG:
I added the same textures to the flower paper that I had used on the textured patterned papers , but I lowered the opacity on the Canvas texture:
I then renamed the file, and saved it as a JPG. Here is the textured paper:
I often play around with papers in various Jixipix programs, and usually try their Watercolor Studio Pro first, as I love the watercolour look. Here is the paper as a watercolour:
Program Used: Jixipix Watercolor Studio Pro
Preset Used: "Wet" Liquid Color 02
Although it looks quite pretty, I wasn't really happy with this one, though, as I felt it changed the colours too much, so I tried two other Jixipix programs, Impresso Pro and Pastello Pro. Here are the results from these programs:
Program Used: Jixipix Impresso Pro
Preset Used: #5 Fairy Lights
Program Used: Jixipix Impresso Pro
Preset Used: #20 Tache Of Light
Program Used: Jixipix Pastello Pro
Preset Used: "Pastel" Pastel 07
You can create infinite variations of the presets in Jixipix programs, as they have a lot of settings that you can alter to get just the look you want. I have purchased quite a few of their programs over the years, and I love them! If anyone is interested in having a look at the programs on offer, here's the Jixipix link: Jixipix
At the risk of sounding like a Jixipix salesperson, the programs can be used as standalone programs or apps, or as plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom and Paintshop Pro, and if you keep an eye out for sales, you can save a bit of money that way.
I also use a free program called FotoSketcher, which has a lot of different painting effects in the one program [oil, watercolour, etc, and different sketching effects.] It's another good program to try out [and did I mention it's FREE?]
Oh, before I forget, @Annette, do I have your permission to use your extracted flower in the bundle I'm working on? It will be a CU bundle that I will be offering on my blog. [For free, of course.] I would credit both you and the original Pixabay photographer in my Credits document that I include with every kit. If you don't feel comfortable with that, it's not a problem; I can just duplicate what I've done here with another flower that I've extracted myself. So, just say no, if you don't want to
Thanks, Tricia! You chose nice colors too. The center has a good pop to it. I resized mine as well. You only need a flower that big if you're making a paper. lol
Ahh, I see. I rarely look in the filter tab. I really should check it out better to see what's offered compared to PSP. PSP has a slew of preset filters. Plus that's where I have Eye Candy installed.
My entry for the January 2023 Show & Tell Designer Challenge
I used CPD's "Tie Dye Fabric Styles" (#12.) The set is available here.
I also used Mommyish's Dynamic Glitter Brush to make the scattered glitter edge. They are for sale here.
The style I used on the glitter edge is by CPD again and is called "BLING! Holographic Glitter Styles" and you can find them at this link.
And I will just admit right now that I am a terrible person. I ended up with about ten layers with these styles applied to many of them and set to different blending modes. Did I keep track? Nope. Forgive me.
Robyn, you are free to use the flower as allowed by Pixabay. You do not need to credit me in any way. I really did nothing but run a smoothing filter on the outside edge and I don't even know that it did much at all. Just credit the original photographer, but thanks so much for asking.
Scroll through all the entries and note the entry number given to your favorite.
Tick that same number on the poll and click "vote."
Good luck to everyone who entered.
Each and every entry was FABULOUS!
I just realized I didn't give a description of how I created my flowers. Whoops! lol
When I was trying to figure out how to do glitter around edges, I thought to use Marisa's Making a Random Scatter tutorial. It's the same concept as a dynamic brush, so it works if anyone doesn't want to buy (or can't afford to buy) a dynamic brush. When you're done, just clip a glitter paper to it or use a glitter style. With that said, I do have a free dynamic brush, though it's much more limiting in regards to shapes and ease of adding more than one color than the one Annette posted a link to (which clearly I have to buy now since she twisted my arm about it. LOL). I'm pretty sure I got it from brusheezy.com. I'll come back and edit this post when PS finally loads so I can look at the exact file name.
EDIT: Okay, it wasn't brusheezy.com. It's photoshopsupply.com. Here's a link to the free dynamic glitter brush: Click me!
Christina, no worries about telling us how you made your entries. I love it, if peeps have the time or inclination, but it is perfectly fine if you don't have time or forget to keep track of the process like some silly people who shall remain nameless. *ahem* And bless your generous heart for mentioning a free way to get those glittered edges. I do LOVE free ways to make cool things! I also spend lots of money on goodies, but don't tell my husband! That dynamic brush set by Mommyish is really fun . . . lots of different shapes and sizes and then so many ways to adjust it and a bazillion ways to decorate it with styles and colors and clipping . . . wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Buy it! Buy it!
And no worries about posting your responses to The Commons either! That is perfectly fine whenever you want to do it. I didn't know you'd found time to make entries so it was a really fun surprise when I was checking out the latest shares there the other day.
Now, have you voted? Off to try to drum up some interest in other forums.
I promise to do better in the future with explaining how I make something. lol I usually only write down techniques when I have a happy accident and discover a better, easier way of doing something, a cool effect, or just something I'd definitely use/do again. I bookmarked the Mommyish brush--I need to check my finances for the rest of the month. It definitely has WAY more options than the free brush I posted. If only I could figure out how to create brushes in PS... I can't even add a black png as a brush. I want to transfer some of the ones I made in PSP to PS, but it doesn't want to work. lol
And, yes, I voted...for YOUR entry. hahaha Mariana's #2 was in the lead, for me, until you posted yours.
Hey, you won't find me giving you grief about not noting how you made something. I am the worst about not paying attention and then not being able to explain it to others OR do it again myself! I am just such an ADHD child when I am pushing buttons and trying out filters/styles/blending modes. I admire those among us who can control themselves and write it down!
*happy blush* Thanks so much for giving me a vote, Christina! You are too, too kind, but don't I love ya for it? YES!
Let me check out how to make brushes . . . that is something I have never done. I haven't Scraptorialed yet today . . . maybe that is what I need to post about. Thanks for the idea!
I didn't make the votes visible because I wanted the winner to be a surprise, Robyn, but maybe I should change that for next time. LMK what you think about that. I can look as the administrator of the poll. I am showing six votes so far. I posted in the Chit-Chat thread and The Commons thread to try to rally some more voters. Not sure what else to do. Hate to spam all the forums asking for votes.
I planned to leave the poll open for a week. Post the winner next Tuesday. Sound good? The rules aren't written in stone so if anyone has a better idea how to do this challenge/voting, just speak your mind. I am always open to a better/different way of doing things.
And yes, very fun to see all the different ways people decorated the same asset. I can only hope more people will join us as we go through the year, month-by-month, too, but I am greedy that way.
Oh, %$#!@, Gail! I am using Chrome and it is showing up just fine. If you truly can't get it to work, you can send me your vote by site mail and I can have my husband or daughter vote for you. Dang it. I am sorry it is being difficult for you.
Ya know, years ago I'd write everything down, especially when I was designing all of my own elements (ribbons, flowers, bows, all sorts of fasteners, leaves, buttons, etc.) rather than using extracted real ones. I'd get them to the way I wanted them to look, then, following the directions I wrote down, turn them into scripts. Scripts are PSP's counterpart to PS's actions. Definitely a time-saver! Unfortunately, none of them work any longer because they use older versions of Eye Candy and other older filters no longer supported that are incompatible with newer versions of PSP.
Your flower deserves to win, in my opinion. It's simply gorgeous! I like that tye-dye look. I'd probably buy the style too if it weren't for the fact I can't choose my own colors. lol
I figured out how to create a brush! I was doing it wrong. hahaha I was trying to add a brush from the Brush Settings/Brush panels. Instead, you click "Edit" and scroll down to "Define Brush Preset". Name it and click ok. Sorry for ruining your idea...
Aha! That answers my question in the chit-chat post. I was wondering why I couldn't see the results. Now I know! lol I understand wanting the winner to be completely surprised. But polls can change rapidly depending on how many people vote. Either way you (and others) want to do it in the future is fine by me. Pros and cons for showing and not showing the results. A week is good amount of time. By the way, as a moderator, you don't have access to creating a poll on here?
"Boo" on your scripts not working anymore! I like that things change and improve, but I hate it, too. I have trouble dealing with change. I am still mourning a freebie filter I had for CS2 (oooooooold PS version) called "Beautify." Used it all the time and then when I upgraded to CS6, it quit working and since it was a freebie, the manufacturer never did update it. I kept CS2 loaded for a long time so I could make my stuff in CS6 and then open it up in CS2 JUST to use that one filter on it. Sometimes my rut is so deep, I can't see out of it! LOL
Thank you, Christina. I am thrilled you like my tie-dye flower. You can use your own colors to some extent. Apply the colorful tie-dye style, desaturate it and rasterize it, then add a color overlay or use a brush (set to color) on a new layer (set to overlay, maybe) to make your own tie dye colors on top of the desaturated layer.
I re-colored the style to get a deeper, more defined blue than what the style gave me out of the box. I adjust styles a lot from what they "one-click" give me, but I hear you. Some styles are easier to adjust than others. I often wonder at the million and one style sets for sale/download that are every color of glitter known to man, though. I really only need one glitter style and I can desat it, and put an overlay on it in whatever color of glitter I want, right? I can adjust the scale to make it micro-shimmer or big, chunky glitter, too.
No worries again. A scraptorial on making brushes was fun to do and I finally made some brushes of my own, so win/WIN! And I hope maybe some more peeps like myself who had never looked into it before, will give it a go. I really thought it was much more complicated than it ended up being. I do need to do a bit more research on making them dynamic though. Really like dynamic brushes when I am playing with brushes.
I looked up the forum code for making a poll since I knew Marisa had shared one a long time ago about our favorite color. Didn't work when I previewed it here in an entry, so I assume they don't have that code or model or whatever it is activated for some reason. I even looked up the poll Marisa had posted and looked at the source code and it was actual CODE . . . like Jordan wrote it. Couldn't figure out how to steal it from there, so I Googled and found "pollcode.com." I'd prefer it was in the forum, but I didn't want to bother Marisa and Jordan about seeing if it could be added/allowed.
I posted around to try to drum up more voters, but only 8 peeps have voted so far. With so many entries, and so few voters, we might not have anyone get even TWO votes to "win." Best laid plans . . . I don't know where to find more voters, or how to force/encourage people to help us out by voting.
That's exactly what I'm talking about: old filters that the authors never bothered to upgrade. I had some incredibly useful filters for designing elements back in the 2000s and early 2010s. SuperBlade Pro was my absolute favorite! Awesome for text (writing, not texture! lol) styles and frames and whatever else you could dream up. To me, even though it's unavailable now, it still puts PS styles (for text and frames) and Eye Candy to shame... I had a page curling filter, which was great for creating bows or curled ribbon quickly. So many more I could talk about. Shame none of them can be used today.
Yeah, I thought about possibly getting the tie-dye filter and desaturating the item, but I'm assuming it wouldn't give you the same look using multi-colors. I think it would be pretty time consuming to to change every little nook and cranny of color. I'm going to grab the the dynamic glitter brush that you posted today. That one I definitely want! lol
I'm sure creating a dynamic brush is a little more detailed. I haven't watched those videos yet, but I will. Gail figured it out with her scatters. They work very well and look great (I tested them yesterday)!
[Most of the people who will see this have a lot more design experience than me, but please bear with this rather long-winded explanation of how I altered Annette's flower. I'm fully explaining everything in case a beginner designer reads this thread.]
Please disregard the black background on the PNG files; I didn't realise until I posted this, and I didn't feel like resaving everything as JPGs with a white background, and then re-uploading them.
Here is the original flower that Annette Marie gave us:
The first thing I did was to make the flower into a desaturated template. I don't know how anyone else does this, but here's how I do it, using Photoshop Elements 15 or 2023:
1. Open the flower in Elements
Image > Mode > Grayscale
File > Save As > PNG
Close the file
2. Open the grayscale flower in Elements
Image > Mode > RGB Color
File > Save As > PNG
Close the file
3. Open the desaturated RGB flower in Elements
I adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image
Brightness [-28]
Contrast [+10]
This is what the image looks like now:
Now to recolour the flower.
[Note that my method probably isn't the way a lot of people recolour, but I like it, and it works for me, so I guess that's all that matters.]
Firstly I duplicate the desaturated flower layer, then I either
(A) Create a new layer in between those two layers and fill it with the desired colour, OR
(B) File > Place an existing paper between the two template layers
In this case, I File > Placed a gradient paper from a kit I'm currently working on. [I like to make my papers first, so that I can use them when creating elements; that way I can be sure that the whole kit goes together.]
Here's the flat [untextured] paper I used:
I then clipped the paper to the bottom template layer. Here's where I play around with the blend modes of the top template layer. [Or, in this case, layers, because I duplicated the template layer twice, and the clipped paper layer once, to give me the colours and detail I wanted in the recoloured flower. Hopefully, you can see the settings I used in the screenshot below:
I then decided to resize the flower to 3x3 inches. I opened a 3x3 inch blank canvas, then used File > Place to place the coloured flower onto it. I then resaved the flower as a PNG, with a different file name, because I wanted to keep the original size image intact. I closed that file.
So here's the recoloured and resized flower:
Next I thought I would make a patterned paper overlay with the flower. If I'd been making a patterned paper template, I would have used the desaturated RGB flower, but in this case I was making a coloured overlay, so I used the 3x3 recoloured flower. I just wanted a simple pattern, so I opened my template DTD_PaperTemplatePatternGuide_01_OneInchGrid_CU, which has a white background and guides in, you guessed it, one inch intervals. [I've also made templates with half-inch, quarter-inch and two-inch guides, so that I can easily make patterns with those spacings.] If anyone would like these template guides, just let me know, and I'll be more than happy to get them to you.
Once again, I used File > Place to place the flower on my template grid. Of course, 3x3 was far too big, so I resized it to the size I wanted it, then duplicated the flower layer across the page for Row 01, then copied the flower onto Row 02, duplicating it across the page in the same way as for the first row. What I do then is to fine-tune the placement of each flower in those two rows by zooming right in 300 or 400 percent, depending on the item I'm moving. [This is what the guides are for.]
Once I have all the flowers in the first row placed correctly, I merge those layers, and name the layer 'Row 01'. I do the same with the flowers in the second row, naming it 'Row 02'. I then duplicate those two rows until I have filled the page, finishing with another copy of the first row. Then, when all the rows are correct, I merge all those layers together, turn off the white background layer, and File > Save As a PNG to create my overlay.
Now to add coloured backgrounds and textures. The very first thing I do when I make a new kit is to make flat solid papers in the palette colours. I keep the layered PSD file intact, so that I can easily add textures and overlays to all the background colours [This is the same as Annette's stacked papers from the Day 2 Scraptorial of the Make-A-Kit Extravaganza.] I also save a JPG of each coloured paper, so that I can use them with different textures, templates and overlays. It saves a LOT of time.
Here are the two textured patterned papers I made; one has a Parchment coloured background, and the other has a Peach coloured background [these two colours are in the same palette that I made the gradient paper for, above.]
I used the following textures, with these blend mode settings:
PSE 2023 Graphics Background Canvas [desaturated] [Soft Light 100%]
DTD_TX012_Blur_01_CU [Soft Light 53%]
I then thought that I would like to make a paper with the flower covering the whole page, so I opened a new 12x12 inch file and used File > Place to place the larger coloured flower onto the page. I enlarged the flower so that it went well over the edges of the paper, then moved it around until I was happy with the placement, and saved it as a JPG:
I added the same textures to the flower paper that I had used on the textured patterned papers , but I lowered the opacity on the Canvas texture:
PSE 2023 Graphics Background Canvas [desaturated] [Soft Light 47%]
DTD_TX012_Blur_01_CU [Soft Light 53%]
I then renamed the file, and saved it as a JPG. Here is the textured paper:
I often play around with papers in various Jixipix programs, and usually try their Watercolor Studio Pro first, as I love the watercolour look. Here is the paper as a watercolour:
Program Used: Jixipix Watercolor Studio Pro
Preset Used: "Wet" Liquid Color 02
Although it looks quite pretty, I wasn't really happy with this one, though, as I felt it changed the colours too much, so I tried two other Jixipix programs, Impresso Pro and Pastello Pro. Here are the results from these programs:
Program Used: Jixipix Impresso Pro
Preset Used: #5 Fairy Lights
Program Used: Jixipix Impresso Pro
Preset Used: #20 Tache Of Light
Program Used: Jixipix Pastello Pro
Preset Used: "Pastel" Pastel 07
You can create infinite variations of the presets in Jixipix programs, as they have a lot of settings that you can alter to get just the look you want. I have purchased quite a few of their programs over the years, and I love them! If anyone is interested in having a look at the programs on offer, here's the Jixipix link: Jixipix
At the risk of sounding like a Jixipix salesperson, the programs can be used as standalone programs or apps, or as plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom and Paintshop Pro, and if you keep an eye out for sales, you can save a bit of money that way.
I also use a free program called FotoSketcher, which has a lot of different painting effects in the one program [oil, watercolour, etc, and different sketching effects.] It's another good program to try out [and did I mention it's FREE?]
And here's the FotoSketcher link: FotoSketcher
So, that's it from me...
Oh, before I forget, @Annette, do I have your permission to use your extracted flower in the bundle I'm working on? It will be a CU bundle that I will be offering on my blog. [For free, of course.] I would credit both you and the original Pixabay photographer in my Credits document that I include with every kit. If you don't feel comfortable with that, it's not a problem; I can just duplicate what I've done here with another flower that I've extracted myself. So, just say no, if you don't want to
Hi Robyn. Love the flower and paper. Thanks for the recoloring method. I have a very long and tedious method. Going to try your method.
Thanks, Tricia! You chose nice colors too. The center has a good pop to it. I resized mine as well. You only need a flower that big if you're making a paper. lol
Ahh, I see. I rarely look in the filter tab. I really should check it out better to see what's offered compared to PSP. PSP has a slew of preset filters. Plus that's where I have Eye Candy installed.
Robyn: My favorite is the watercolor paper.
Wow Robyn, great tutorial. I love the gradient you picked. Your Fairy Lights paper is my favorite because of its great texture.
awesome tutorial!
@Robyn: Great Papers!!
My entry for the January 2023 Show & Tell Designer Challenge
I used CPD's "Tie Dye Fabric Styles" (#12.) The set is available here.
I also used Mommyish's Dynamic Glitter Brush to make the scattered glitter edge. They are for sale here.
The style I used on the glitter edge is by CPD again and is called "BLING! Holographic Glitter Styles" and you can find them at this link.
And I will just admit right now that I am a terrible person. I ended up with about ten layers with these styles applied to many of them and set to different blending modes. Did I keep track? Nope. Forgive me.
Robyn, you are free to use the flower as allowed by Pixabay. You do not need to credit me in any way. I really did nothing but run a smoothing filter on the outside edge and I don't even know that it did much at all. Just credit the original photographer, but thanks so much for asking.
I have given all the entries an entry number and I am off to make the "Best of Show" poll.
You are welcome to still share more responses to this challenge, but the contest portion is now officially over except for the voting.
Scroll through all the entries and note the entry number given to your favorite.
Tick that same number on the poll and click "vote."
Good luck to everyone who entered.
Each and every entry was FABULOUS!
I just realized I didn't give a description of how I created my flowers. Whoops! lol
When I was trying to figure out how to do glitter around edges, I thought to use Marisa's Making a Random Scatter tutorial. It's the same concept as a dynamic brush, so it works if anyone doesn't want to buy (or can't afford to buy) a dynamic brush. When you're done, just clip a glitter paper to it or use a glitter style. With that said, I do have a free dynamic brush, though it's much more limiting in regards to shapes and ease of adding more than one color than the one Annette posted a link to (which clearly I have to buy now since she twisted my arm about it. LOL). I'm pretty sure I got it from brusheezy.com. I'll come back and edit this post when PS finally loads so I can look at the exact file name.
EDIT: Okay, it wasn't brusheezy.com. It's photoshopsupply.com. Here's a link to the free dynamic glitter brush: Click me!
Christina, no worries about telling us how you made your entries. I love it, if peeps have the time or inclination, but it is perfectly fine if you don't have time or forget to keep track of the process like some silly people who shall remain nameless. *ahem* And bless your generous heart for mentioning a free way to get those glittered edges. I do LOVE free ways to make cool things! I also spend lots of money on goodies, but don't tell my husband!
That dynamic brush set by Mommyish is really fun . . . lots of different shapes and sizes and then so many ways to adjust it and a bazillion ways to decorate it with styles and colors and clipping . . . wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Buy it! Buy it! 
And no worries about posting your responses to The Commons either! That is perfectly fine whenever you want to do it. I didn't know you'd found time to make entries so it was a really fun surprise when I was checking out the latest shares there the other day.
Now, have you voted? Off to try to drum up some interest in other forums.
I promise to do better in the future with explaining how I make something. lol I usually only write down techniques when I have a happy accident and discover a better, easier way of doing something, a cool effect, or just something I'd definitely use/do again. I bookmarked the Mommyish brush--I need to check my finances for the rest of the month. It definitely has WAY more options than the free brush I posted. If only I could figure out how to create brushes in PS... I can't even add a black png as a brush. I want to transfer some of the ones I made in PSP to PS, but it doesn't want to work. lol
And, yes, I voted...for YOUR entry. hahaha Mariana's #2 was in the lead, for me, until you posted yours.
Hey, you won't find me giving you grief about not noting how you made something. I am the worst about not paying attention and then not being able to explain it to others OR do it again myself! I am just such an ADHD child when I am pushing buttons and trying out filters/styles/blending modes. I admire those among us who can control themselves and write it down!
*happy blush* Thanks so much for giving me a vote, Christina! You are too, too kind, but don't I love ya for it? YES!
Let me check out how to make brushes . . . that is something I have never done. I haven't Scraptorialed yet today . . . maybe that is what I need to post about. Thanks for the idea!
Is there a way to tell how many people have voted now? And when are the votes closing?
It has been so interesting to see the different ideas everyone has had for using this one flower!
I didn't make the votes visible because I wanted the winner to be a surprise, Robyn, but maybe I should change that for next time. LMK what you think about that. I can look as the administrator of the poll. I am showing six votes so far. I posted in the Chit-Chat thread and The Commons thread to try to rally some more voters. Not sure what else to do. Hate to spam all the forums asking for votes.
I planned to leave the poll open for a week. Post the winner next Tuesday. Sound good? The rules aren't written in stone so if anyone has a better idea how to do this challenge/voting, just speak your mind. I am always open to a better/different way of doing things.
And yes, very fun to see all the different ways people decorated the same asset. I can only hope more people will join us as we go through the year, month-by-month, too, but I am greedy that way.
Hi Annette. When I click on this link for the vote, I get an error message.
Gail, have you tried using a different browser to the one you usually use?
Sounds good, Annette!
Oh, %$#!@, Gail! I am using Chrome and it is showing up just fine. If you truly can't get it to work, you can send me your vote by site mail and I can have my husband or daughter vote for you. Dang it. I am sorry it is being difficult for you.
Ya know, years ago I'd write everything down, especially when I was designing all of my own elements (ribbons, flowers, bows, all sorts of fasteners, leaves, buttons, etc.) rather than using extracted real ones. I'd get them to the way I wanted them to look, then, following the directions I wrote down, turn them into scripts. Scripts are PSP's counterpart to PS's actions. Definitely a time-saver! Unfortunately, none of them work any longer because they use older versions of Eye Candy and other older filters no longer supported that are incompatible with newer versions of PSP.
Your flower deserves to win, in my opinion. It's simply gorgeous! I like that tye-dye look. I'd probably buy the style too if it weren't for the fact I can't choose my own colors. lol
I figured out how to create a brush!
I was doing it wrong. hahaha I was trying to add a brush from the Brush Settings/Brush panels. Instead, you click "Edit" and scroll down to "Define Brush Preset". Name it and click ok. Sorry for ruining your idea...
Aha! That answers my question in the chit-chat post. I was wondering why I couldn't see the results. Now I know! lol I understand wanting the winner to be completely surprised. But polls can change rapidly depending on how many people vote. Either way you (and others) want to do it in the future is fine by me. Pros and cons for showing and not showing the results. A week is good amount of time. By the way, as a moderator, you don't have access to creating a poll on here?
I use Firefox and I didn't have trouble voting!
"Boo" on your scripts not working anymore! I like that things change and improve, but I hate it, too. I have trouble dealing with change. I am still mourning a freebie filter I had for CS2 (oooooooold PS version) called "Beautify." Used it all the time and then when I upgraded to CS6, it quit working and since it was a freebie, the manufacturer never did update it. I kept CS2 loaded for a long time so I could make my stuff in CS6 and then open it up in CS2 JUST to use that one filter on it. Sometimes my rut is so deep, I can't see out of it! LOL
Thank you, Christina. I am thrilled you like my tie-dye flower. You can use your own colors to some extent. Apply the colorful tie-dye style, desaturate it and rasterize it, then add a color overlay or use a brush (set to color) on a new layer (set to overlay, maybe) to make your own tie dye colors on top of the desaturated layer.
I re-colored the style to get a deeper, more defined blue than what the style gave me out of the box. I adjust styles a lot from what they "one-click" give me, but I hear you. Some styles are easier to adjust than others. I often wonder at the million and one style sets for sale/download that are every color of glitter known to man, though. I really only need one glitter style and I can desat it, and put an overlay on it in whatever color of glitter I want, right? I can adjust the scale to make it micro-shimmer or big, chunky glitter, too.
No worries again. A scraptorial on making brushes was fun to do and I finally made some brushes of my own, so win/WIN! And I hope maybe some more peeps like myself who had never looked into it before, will give it a go. I really thought it was much more complicated than it ended up being. I do need to do a bit more research on making them dynamic though. Really like dynamic brushes when I am playing with brushes.
I looked up the forum code for making a poll since I knew Marisa had shared one a long time ago about our favorite color. Didn't work when I previewed it here in an entry, so I assume they don't have that code or model or whatever it is activated for some reason. I even looked up the poll Marisa had posted and looked at the source code and it was actual CODE . . . like Jordan wrote it. Couldn't figure out how to steal it from there, so I Googled and found "pollcode.com." I'd prefer it was in the forum, but I didn't want to bother Marisa and Jordan about seeing if it could be added/allowed.
I posted around to try to drum up more voters, but only 8 peeps have voted so far. With so many entries, and so few voters, we might not have anyone get even TWO votes to "win." Best laid plans . . .
I don't know where to find more voters, or how to force/encourage people to help us out by voting.
That is good to know, Sarah. And thanks for voting!
Lovely entries everyone, good luck!
That's exactly what I'm talking about: old filters that the authors never bothered to upgrade. I had some incredibly useful filters for designing elements back in the 2000s and early 2010s. SuperBlade Pro was my absolute favorite! Awesome for text (writing, not texture! lol) styles and frames and whatever else you could dream up. To me, even though it's unavailable now, it still puts PS styles (for text and frames) and Eye Candy to shame... I had a page curling filter, which was great for creating bows or curled ribbon quickly. So many more I could talk about. Shame none of them can be used today.
Yeah, I thought about possibly getting the tie-dye filter and desaturating the item, but I'm assuming it wouldn't give you the same look using multi-colors. I think it would be pretty time consuming to to change every little nook and cranny of color. I'm going to grab the the dynamic glitter brush that you posted today. That one I definitely want! lol
I'm sure creating a dynamic brush is a little more detailed. I haven't watched those videos yet, but I will. Gail figured it out with her scatters. They work very well and look great (I tested them yesterday)!
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