I'm considering doing my own digital scrapping version of the 100 Day Project next year, to help me get some pages done. I was curious whether anyone here has ever done something along this line, and had any suggestions on how to make this doable?
I'm hoping that this will also help me figure out how to get better at it, or that maybe I can at least finally figure out how to use templates and stuff like that without a lot of guesstimating and dragging around to get the sizes to match. (At least as far as I can. I'm fairly certain that my dinosaur PSE doesn't actually have clipping capability, or if it has, I can NOT find the instructions!)
I have never heard of this project, so I cannot help you there, and it's been years since I used PSE (7) but if I remember correctly, it did NOT have clipping masks (it's one f many reasons I upgraded to full PS).
Becky, which version of PSE are you using? I'm using 15 (the second-newest one), and I used to use 11. Both of these can clip. If you can't justify upgrading to a more recent version of PSE, perhaps the free Gimp would be worth downloading. I don't know if Gimp clips, though. I'll do a search, and see what I can find out for you.
Ok, I'm back.
I'm still not sure if you can clip a layer to another layer in Gimp, but I did find a very clear workaround tutorial from 2009. It's a written tutorial with screenshots, and you can find it HERE
If you want to try Gimp, you can download the program HERE
You can find Gimp tutorials HERE
Thanks for that, Robyn! I'm actually using PSE 5.0 (it's THAT old!!) I would like to upgrade at some point, but it's not going to happen for awhile due to some job difficulties in my family. So I'm definitely willing to try a new software, especially if it's free!
I often consider doing the 100 Days Projects, but I do some much creative work that I can't quite figure out how to make it work for me. I think it would work best to try out a new skill, but then I'd likely have to give up some of the other things I do, which is the tricky part.
Yeah, that's one of my main concerns. Part of me feels like I need to try this so I can get to the point where I stop spending so long trying to figure out how to do something that I don't get any pages done (though this is a LOT faster than paper scrapping for me!!), but I also have another pretty time-consuming creative hobby (sewing) that I don't want to give up entirely. Especially since that's the one I get twitchy if I don't do for awhile. So maybe my best bet for something like this would be to commit to 15 minutes a day instead of a page a day or something.
A time goal sounds like a great idea!
I jumped in with a group of people who were finishing up this year's 100 Day project, with maybe about a month left. I picked as my daily goal 15 minutes a day to work on a specific project (my 2017 PL album) and it worked super well! I usually would end up spending more than 15 minutes, but on days when I felt really pressed for time or wasn't in the mood I could tell myself, "It's just 15 minutes, just go do it" and I would, which was great! Something that helped me enormously was having support and accountability. I created an accountability thread and I would post in it each day, like "Day 23: Worked on September PL" and other group members would leave comments each day cheering me on. Knowing myself, I don't think I would have stuck with it so diligently without that aspect. Overall it was a tremendously helpful experience - I actually completed a yearly documenting project for the first time since 2011!
Thanks for sharing your experience, Violet! I'm glad to hear that you finished your project! The accountability sounds like it really helped a lot. Was this on a particular site or forum? I figure I can share my finished layouts here as I go, but the daily check in and cheering section would probably help me too.
We could certainly have a cheering section here if people were interested in giving it a go next time around.
Becky, I did my 100 Days project with a community called Simple Scrapper (which has a paid membership). I think it would be a great idea to do it here! If you can find a few other folks who want to do it at the same time, and then commit to cheering each other on, that would work well, I think. And if you wanted to fly solo I think that could also work well, I would just see if you can recruit some buddies here who will check in on your reports and give you that accountability and motivation-boosting encouragement. I find it tough to stay motivated for so long without knowing there's someone out there noticing my progress alongside me
I would love to be part of something like this. Not sure how it would be structured though. Just love the idea of a focused 100 days of working towards a goal, with accountability and cheering involved
@Shell- I'd be up for doing something on here! It looks like the official site doesn't have anything specifically listed for a 2019 project, just one that started back in April of this year, but it sounds like it can be pretty much whatever you want it to be as long as you do it for 100 days in a row. I think that for myself, my goal would be to finish one digital layout every 1-3 days, and hopefully work through some of the tutorials on here along the way so that I can get better at using the software effectively. I have enough of a backlog since my last round of printed photos for paper layouts that having enough material shouldn't be a problem.
Any idea what kind of goal you'd want to work towards?
@Violet- Thanks for the info!
April seems like a good time to do this, not a lot else going on
Remind me when the time comes around again and we can see about getting a little something going here.
@Marisa- Sounds great! I'll try to do that.
@Becky
I'd be interested in doing a 100 days project between now and April. I'm working on getting caught up on my scrap booking, which is WAAAY behind (working on 2007 at the moment)
My goal would be to do 25 pages in 100 days. I'm a very slow scrapper, and I tend to spend hours on each page so this would help me focus on getting them done and uploaded here for proof! If you want to keep each other accountable, I'm game. With the holidays coming up would you want to start after Christmas? Or get going on it soon? Let me know if you're interested
@Shell - I was originally thinking of starting after Christmas, since I'm currently working on finishing up getting all of my digital stuff tagged in my Photoshop organizer. Since I discovered this site and blog trains, I ended up with a lot more stuff, and what usually takes me the longest is just clicking through folders and finding the digital supplies that I want to use! So since I started tagging that, it has sped up my process quite a bit. Would it be easiest to make a start date of January 1 or something?
We do traditionally do our Layout Madness challenge in February, which may help you out if your trying to finish scrapbook layouts. I once finished 100 during the challenge. It's very helpful if you have a specific project you're trying to finish. It could definitely compliment any 100 days challenge you end up doing.
@Becky - It's on
January 1, 2019 will be here before you know it! I'll get my 100 days goals a little more focused before then. Does it make sense for us to start a new thread that we use to check in on each other? That way if others want to join in they can?
@Marisa - The February Layout Madness will definitely fuel this project. I sometimes struggle with design ideas for page layouts, so the creative prompts are always helpful.
Looking forward to making some progress on my albums.
i would be interested, though i am trying to finish up my traditional scrapbooks, i already have pictures printed and items purchased going back to 2012...starting with 2019 i am switching to only digital...so I would like to push to get as much done as possible as quickly as possible on 2012-18.
I think it might be easiest to start a new thread...possibly with a fool proof title along the lines of 100 Days of Scrap...Jan1st-Apr10th...2019
or something
@Shell - A new thread definitely makes sense. I can start one closer to the end of the year.
@Marisa - I didn't know there was a Layout Madness challenge! That sounds like fun!
@Gina - Please feel free to jump in! I have some more traditional/pocket pages that I still need to finish as well. I sort of gave up on scrapbooking most of the remaining photos from before I met my husband, but I do have one half-finished travel album I'd still like to wrap up, as well as several layouts from 2016. I usually print my photos in large batches, so after the last batch in 2016 was a really convenient place to switch to digital for me! So I may occasionally be able to throw in a very basic more traditional page (since at this point I just want to get those in the album so I don't want to take the time to make them fancy!)
Looks like the last several posts got lost in the crash. So just to reiterate, this is the official thread for the project, for anyone who wishes to participate!
I'm still at it! Been scrapping every day, between 1 and 3 hours so I'm getting quite a bit done. Pretty much just working and scrapping
Spending this evening uploading layouts to my gallery (I'm waaay behind). Hoping to get caught up this weekend so I can be uploading them as I'm finishing them from here on out.
Hope it's going well for everyone else. Keep on scrappin!
That's great that you're getting things done, Shell! I saw the 3 layouts you did upload, and they look great.
I've been keeping pretty steadily at it, for at least 20 minutes a day. I managed to finish 2 layouts yesterday, though one was a pictureless one of funny things my older boy said when he was 2 and it was already half done. So I didn't upload that one. And I got about halfway through another layout tonight, though I'm taking a break while I try to figure out what to do with circular template elements when my software won't clip. I can resize papers for rectangles, but this will take a little more thought!
I did some sleuthing and found this on an adobe forum not sure if it is the right thing because I never had that old of a version of PSE, [which I still use today (15)]
Can you CTRL and click a layer to form marching ants around it, say a paper photo frame? if so do that to whatever you are trying to clip to, then keep the marching ants and then click on the layer with the paper you want to clip to the frame, click and hit copy then paste in the edit menu. The shape should appear in the new paper pattern, then you can just delete the paper layer and the original frame layer and voila, you now have the old frame in the new patterned paper! Hope that makes sense and all things are possible in version 5.
and here is the other info I found:
*******C&P from another person's post these are not my words*********
You can find one explanation at Janee's tutorials: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/elements/elemask.htm
Since PSE does not support layer masks per se, the clipping group simulates a layer mask and hence Janee's name for it, "elemask" (cute, huh?)
Here are 2 examples:
In this example I wanted to blur the background leaving the flower in focus:
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1euavV1sDqzrEqqqierfc5dSEH9yI01
1. Duplicate the Background layer and apply a Gaussian blur to the new layer.
2. Add an adjustment layer below the blur layer (any kind of adjustment layer will do), but do not make any adjustment - just click OK.\
3. Group the blur layer with the adjustment layer. On the adjustment layer paint the subject with black
to mask out the blur, paint with white to restore the blur.
Of course you can use other tools on the adjustment layer besides the paint brush, e.g., make a selection and fill with the black or white. In some cases it might be easier to first fill the adjustment layer with black and then paint with white.
In this example (not actually a mask but still demonstrates a clipping group) I wanted to crop the picture into a leaf shape.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ys9Z7FspSwF8HHKGLrxjGVhbTodmF0
1. Use the leaf from the Custom Shape tool to draw out the leaf, creating a new layer.
2. Move the leaf layer below the picture layer.
3. Group the two layers.
Note that in order to move a layer below the Background layer you have to rename the Background layer to anything else (layer 0 in my example).
I'll have to give that a try and keep you posted. Thanks for looking into that, Rachel!
I did get another layout done today, which I plan to upload to the gallery in a moment. I'm going to have to put my project on pause, though, because my IT guy (aka my dad) wants to try something to restore a computer issue I had a few months ago, so I'll need to leave my computer with him for a few days.
I checked out the layouts you uploaded. Great work!
I love that you're adding journaling to your pages. It's always hard for me to come up with things to write. Right now I'm scrapping old photos and sadly I don't remember a lot of the details. The more caught up I get the easier it will be I suppose.
Just uploaded the final layout of 2008 - Lots of gold and sparkles
and I'm ready to start on 2009. Will need to do an hour or two of planning to decide which photos go on which pages. Back to work tomorrow so will be spending a little less time on it during the week, but I got a lot of organizing and uploading done this weekend.
Still at it, organizing and planning out my 2009 pages. Trying to stay focused on what's right in front of me so as not to get discouraged. I have *SO* far to go.
@Shell- it looks like you got so much done already, though! There's definitely a lot more layouts that I had to look at since I was last able to hop on here.
My computer is back (yay!) and I only lost 2 days, so I'll have to make that up at the end. I tried to make up for it a little tonight by doing a 2 page spread of a bunch of miscellaneous photos from January 2017. I think I'm also going to offload some of the more recent photos from my phone before I call it a night.
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