Every digiscrap designer seems to have a blog as part of her promotional strategy. Some are much better at it than others. Some are really entertaining, or have helpful tutorials. But going to most of these sites with dialup is absolutely painful.
A lot of these people have no idea how to resize and compress graphics for the web. Of course, if you have broadband, you will not know, or have forgotten, how long it takes a dialup connection to download a 1MB or larger preview or photograph that takes up half the screen. Even if all the viewer sees is a small image created within a widget, the whole file still has to be downloaded to see it. And if there are animated gifs, a huge graphic header or background, flash items, slide shows, etc., the site may never finish downloading even after numerous refreshes. The same thing happens in digishops that have the scrolling or blinking items along the side.
There are a few designers' blogs that I read on a regular basis, but I read them in the Sage feed reader (Firefox extension) or get the posts emailed through FeedBlitz. This means that I don't go to the actual blog, so I never comment. Reading them through the feed reader lets me see the posts without the extraneous items. Most of them still require a long download time, long enough to wash the dishes or put in a load of laundry. But they will finally finish downloading.
Stores that do not offer CD burning are also a problem for dialup users. I can download about 9MB per hour, but frequently the connection will break if the file is very large. Or the server will timeout on me. After several disappointing and time-consuming purchases that failed, I no longer buy at stores that do not offer the CD burning service. It is now the first thing I look for when I go into a store. Some of the designers I most admire sell at stores without this service. I sure save a lot of money.
If you have gotten this far, some of you are probably thinking that one old lady on dialup doesn't matter. You would probably be surprised at how many of us there are still using dialup. Broadband is not available everywhere and even the dialup is poor in some areas.
My connection speed on dialup is 24Kbs, even though I am using a 56K modem. The phone line here won't do more than that and the phone company doesn't give a hoot. They make their money in the cities, not out in the rural areas. Given a choice, they wouldn't even give us phone lines.
Even as satellite connections become more affordable, they don't work everywhere. They don't work when there are trees and a mountain between you and the satellite. Even if you are in a more open space, weather still can interfere.
I guess my vent is over. It was caused by another frustrating morning trying to surf in the digiscrap world. I don't expect to anything to change, but I feel better letting it all out. *grin*
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Did You Paint That?
Most photo editing software has some features for making your plain old photograph appear as if it were created in some other medium, such as watercolor or oil. Paint Shop Pro is no exception. I decided to play around with the phoebe photograph I took in June before I scrap it.
PSP has several artistic effects that can be created with scripts that were included with the program. One of my favorites is called Pointillist.
(Screenshots from PSPX; the process is the same in version 8 and up, but the user interface may be different.)
After I ran the Pointillist script on my phoebe photo, I decided it was a bit too light. To solve this, I right-clicked on the original background layer and duplicated it. This placed the new layer between the original layer and the scripted layer. I set the blend mode for this layer to multiply and adjusted the opacity until I liked the change.
This is the final result.
Another technique I have picked up along the way is to use the Sandstone Effect to make a photograph look like an oil painting.
This is the final result and the one I have decided to use in my layout. The larger image looks much better than this resized and compressed web version.
Sometimes some artistic effects work well on a photograph and sometimes they don't. The watercolor script did not work well on the phoebe. But it has worked well on other photographs. You just have to experiment with the different scripts and items in the effects menu. It's fun to play.
If you find one that turns out especially well, you might want to print it. There are specialty art papers, such as canvas and watercolor, that can be run through an inkjet printer. If you live in a large city with a good art store, they may carry these. If not, try Google. There are lots of places to buy these online.
PDF version
PSP has several artistic effects that can be created with scripts that were included with the program. One of my favorites is called Pointillist.
- First, make a copy of your original image and close the original. It is always a good idea to work on a copy rather than the original image. This keeps you from accidentally saving over the original and losing it.
- Next, make any necessary corrections to the photograph such as brightness, cropping, etc.
- Save your edited image and make a copy of it to use when you apply your artistic effects.
- Find the Pointillist script in the menu on the Script toolbar. If you do not have the Script toolbar open, go to View, Toolbars, and check Script.
- Click on the Run button on the Script toolbar.
(Screenshots from PSPX; the process is the same in version 8 and up, but the user interface may be different.)
- As a script runs, you can see what is happening by watching the status bar at the bottom of the PSP workspace. This particular script is quite fast, but others do take some time to run. The size of your image and the amount of RAM in your computer will also affect the time it takes.
After I ran the Pointillist script on my phoebe photo, I decided it was a bit too light. To solve this, I right-clicked on the original background layer and duplicated it. This placed the new layer between the original layer and the scripted layer. I set the blend mode for this layer to multiply and adjusted the opacity until I liked the change.
This is the final result.
Another technique I have picked up along the way is to use the Sandstone Effect to make a photograph look like an oil painting.
- Again, start with a copy of your edited photograph.
- Go to Effects, Texture Effects, Sandstone.
- Below are the settings that I used on my photograph. You may want to change these. I have found it best to start with the lowest number possible on the 3 settings under Relief and increase them until I like the result.
This is the final result and the one I have decided to use in my layout. The larger image looks much better than this resized and compressed web version.
Sometimes some artistic effects work well on a photograph and sometimes they don't. The watercolor script did not work well on the phoebe. But it has worked well on other photographs. You just have to experiment with the different scripts and items in the effects menu. It's fun to play.
If you find one that turns out especially well, you might want to print it. There are specialty art papers, such as canvas and watercolor, that can be run through an inkjet printer. If you live in a large city with a good art store, they may carry these. If not, try Google. There are lots of places to buy these online.
PDF version
I Am Playing Again
If things look a little strange, you will know I am fooling with the template again. What can I say? It's better than cleaning!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Butterflies on Zinnias
You can click on the photograph to see a larger copy.
It's hard to get any photo of these skippers because they move around so fast. Some butterflies will sit on a flower for a long time, but these don't. I was trying to show how many of them are on the zinnias at once. They love them. Two at once was the best I could do.
I like this little zinnia, too. It doesn't get very tall and several plants close together will form a nice little mound. I have some orange ones in another part of the yard. This is the first year I have found pink ones. I love the way they fade in streaks over a few days. They look bleached by the sun.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I Scrapped! Plus Some Thoughts on PS vs PSP
In case you have not been following my adventures with Photoshop CS2, I purchased it at a very reduced price just before CS3 came out. I bought it for the challenge of learning something new. I have not abandoned Paint Shop Pro. But I do find myself combining the two, along with Art Rage, to work on projects. As I become more familiar with where things are in Photoshop, I find myself using it more.
I have been using my time to learn Photoshop and work on designing, so I haven't scrapped a page for a while. I decided it was time to combine the Photoshop lessons with scrapping some photos. The recent hot weather made me wish for cooler weather, so I chose a couple of the photos I took last fall. I shared the best of them here on the blog at the time.
My goal was to use only Photoshop to make the materials and to scrap this page. I almost succeeded. I did use the Add Border feature of Paint Shop Pro to make my stripe pattern. It is much easier than any method I have tried in PS or PSP. But after dumping the pattern and saving as a PSD in PSP, I finished the paper in PS. The brad was one I had made a long time ago in PSP. Since it matched, I went ahead and used it. You may recognize the top paper layer as one of my Orphan papers. It was one of the first things I made when I got PS.
I did use an action called Tag'ed by Monica Larsen, which I purchased recently, to make the string for the tag. I recolored a tag from one of my kits. But everything else was done from scratch, including the custom shadows and the folded corner. I even made a staple since I had never done the metals tut from DigiScrap Designer.
Here is the final result. You can click on the image to see a larger version.
I think folded corners are now out-of-style and have been replaced by curled edges. But I wanted to practice dodging and burning which I am not very good at in any program. I will try curled edges another time. I am not sure my artistic talents are up to those.
My problem for much of this stuff is not the technical, but my lack of artistic talent. You would not want to see what I would come up with using some other medium. Computer graphics help me fake it. *grin*
Absolutely everything I did in this layout, other than using the PS action, could have been done in Paint Shop Pro. Brushes for dodging, burning, and smudging, as well as the ability to use blend modes, add Gaussian blur, warp, and add jitter to brushes are all available in both programs. So if Paint Shop Pro fits your budget better than Photoshop, you shouldn't feel that you can't produce a good layout or even design your own scrapping materials.
My challenge in learning Photoshop has not been in using the tools. Being very familiar with Paint Shop Pro has helped me with that part. It is just remembering where things are located and how certain things are done in each program. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I have tried to duplicate an image in PS by clicking on Window on the menubar. That works in PSP!
I have discovered that you can get along just fine without knowing all the shortcuts in PS that everyone talks about. I am a dedicated right-clicker in any piece of software. So it was a relief to discover much of what I need to do can be found by right-clicking on the layers palette. There are a few keyboard shortcuts that I use, but mostly I am still using menus and right-clicking.
The only real advantage to PS over PSP that I can see is the workflow advantage. Sometimes things can be accomplished in PS with fewer steps. One of the most noticeable of these is layer styles (called effects in PSP). In Paint Shop Pro, each effect is done separately. You can save different settings in the effect as presets to use again. In Photoshop, instead of having to do each style separately, you can save multiple styles together to be applied together repeatedly. This can save a lot of time if you are making numerous items that need a similar set of styles. This would be helpful when "time is money".
I am still using Paint Shop Pro to edit my photographs. I try to get a good photo "in camera", so I usually don't need to do too much editing. We did some basic editing in the PSCS2 class I took at LVS last winter. I didn't see a lot of difference in the results. But I can see why a professional photographer might want to use Photoshop, for all the actions available if for no other reason.
Of course, if you are working professionally, Photoshop is the industry standard and works with the other Adobe programs that professionals have to use. But if digital arts are a hobby, Paint Shop Pro can do the job and save you a lot of money.
I have been using my time to learn Photoshop and work on designing, so I haven't scrapped a page for a while. I decided it was time to combine the Photoshop lessons with scrapping some photos. The recent hot weather made me wish for cooler weather, so I chose a couple of the photos I took last fall. I shared the best of them here on the blog at the time.
My goal was to use only Photoshop to make the materials and to scrap this page. I almost succeeded. I did use the Add Border feature of Paint Shop Pro to make my stripe pattern. It is much easier than any method I have tried in PS or PSP. But after dumping the pattern and saving as a PSD in PSP, I finished the paper in PS. The brad was one I had made a long time ago in PSP. Since it matched, I went ahead and used it. You may recognize the top paper layer as one of my Orphan papers. It was one of the first things I made when I got PS.
I did use an action called Tag'ed by Monica Larsen, which I purchased recently, to make the string for the tag. I recolored a tag from one of my kits. But everything else was done from scratch, including the custom shadows and the folded corner. I even made a staple since I had never done the metals tut from DigiScrap Designer.
Here is the final result. You can click on the image to see a larger version.
I think folded corners are now out-of-style and have been replaced by curled edges. But I wanted to practice dodging and burning which I am not very good at in any program. I will try curled edges another time. I am not sure my artistic talents are up to those.
My problem for much of this stuff is not the technical, but my lack of artistic talent. You would not want to see what I would come up with using some other medium. Computer graphics help me fake it. *grin*
Absolutely everything I did in this layout, other than using the PS action, could have been done in Paint Shop Pro. Brushes for dodging, burning, and smudging, as well as the ability to use blend modes, add Gaussian blur, warp, and add jitter to brushes are all available in both programs. So if Paint Shop Pro fits your budget better than Photoshop, you shouldn't feel that you can't produce a good layout or even design your own scrapping materials.
My challenge in learning Photoshop has not been in using the tools. Being very familiar with Paint Shop Pro has helped me with that part. It is just remembering where things are located and how certain things are done in each program. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I have tried to duplicate an image in PS by clicking on Window on the menubar. That works in PSP!
I have discovered that you can get along just fine without knowing all the shortcuts in PS that everyone talks about. I am a dedicated right-clicker in any piece of software. So it was a relief to discover much of what I need to do can be found by right-clicking on the layers palette. There are a few keyboard shortcuts that I use, but mostly I am still using menus and right-clicking.
The only real advantage to PS over PSP that I can see is the workflow advantage. Sometimes things can be accomplished in PS with fewer steps. One of the most noticeable of these is layer styles (called effects in PSP). In Paint Shop Pro, each effect is done separately. You can save different settings in the effect as presets to use again. In Photoshop, instead of having to do each style separately, you can save multiple styles together to be applied together repeatedly. This can save a lot of time if you are making numerous items that need a similar set of styles. This would be helpful when "time is money".
I am still using Paint Shop Pro to edit my photographs. I try to get a good photo "in camera", so I usually don't need to do too much editing. We did some basic editing in the PSCS2 class I took at LVS last winter. I didn't see a lot of difference in the results. But I can see why a professional photographer might want to use Photoshop, for all the actions available if for no other reason.
Of course, if you are working professionally, Photoshop is the industry standard and works with the other Adobe programs that professionals have to use. But if digital arts are a hobby, Paint Shop Pro can do the job and save you a lot of money.
Friday, August 10, 2007
August: Heat, Haze, and Humidity
I hope all the fellow sufferers of this week's miserably hot weather have found a cool retreat. It has been hot enough to keep me inside this afternoon, but things have been better here in the hollow today. The haze is gone and humidity is down.
It is nice to look out the window toward the woods and see clearly. Since Tuesday, it has been like looking at an unfocused photograph. There is even a nice breeze blowing. And the forecast for tonight is in the 60s.
The temperatures here in the hollow have been lower than in the city, but the humidity has been worse. The surrounding woods, hills, and mountains trap the moisture if there is no breeze. It actually felt cooler standing in the parking lot of whatever school I was working than here at home, even though the temperature was several degrees higher.
You may have heard this saying: Horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies glow. Well, I have never glowed in my life. Neigh!!
You should have seen me Tuesday morning. Because of Monday's rain, the haze was so thick it could almost pass as fog. Even early, it was already hot. By the time I made three trips to the car to load things for work, I looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over my head.
My head always starts sweating first and my fine hair is soon drenched. My mother used to keep my hair chopped off in the summer when I was young so it was easy to wash every time she gave me a bath. It made for some interesting photographs since I didn't like to sit still to get it cut. Since I retired, I quit fighting the stick-straight, baby-fine hair that Mother Nature gave me. I keep it short and unpermed. And it still gets washed every day.
The plants have been enjoying the hot nights. They have not suffered from the heat as much as those in drier places. Mowing is a must on this weekend's agenda. Thank goodness, it is supposed to be cooler. The eighties will seem like a cold wave!
It is nice to look out the window toward the woods and see clearly. Since Tuesday, it has been like looking at an unfocused photograph. There is even a nice breeze blowing. And the forecast for tonight is in the 60s.
The temperatures here in the hollow have been lower than in the city, but the humidity has been worse. The surrounding woods, hills, and mountains trap the moisture if there is no breeze. It actually felt cooler standing in the parking lot of whatever school I was working than here at home, even though the temperature was several degrees higher.
You may have heard this saying: Horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies glow. Well, I have never glowed in my life. Neigh!!
You should have seen me Tuesday morning. Because of Monday's rain, the haze was so thick it could almost pass as fog. Even early, it was already hot. By the time I made three trips to the car to load things for work, I looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over my head.
My head always starts sweating first and my fine hair is soon drenched. My mother used to keep my hair chopped off in the summer when I was young so it was easy to wash every time she gave me a bath. It made for some interesting photographs since I didn't like to sit still to get it cut. Since I retired, I quit fighting the stick-straight, baby-fine hair that Mother Nature gave me. I keep it short and unpermed. And it still gets washed every day.
The plants have been enjoying the hot nights. They have not suffered from the heat as much as those in drier places. Mowing is a must on this weekend's agenda. Thank goodness, it is supposed to be cooler. The eighties will seem like a cold wave!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
My Graphics Site and Other Info
Update: Scrapgraphics @ Teacher's Mentor is no longer available.
It has been a busy week here in the hollow. Mostly I have been indoors except during the early morning hours. The summer humidity returned full force, plus some. I knew we would pay for that nice weather we had a couple of weeks ago.
I finally got around to sprucing up my graphics subdomain, Scrapgraphics @ Teacher's Mentor. When I put it up a year ago, I did bare-bones coding for the index page with full intentions of prettifying it. But I never got around to it until this past week. Hopefully, it now looks more like a scrapping website. Let me know what you think. And if anything doesn't work right for you, let me know.
You may have noticed that the name is different. I got rid of the word "free" in the title and my meta tags. Hopefully, that will make it a little harder for the vultures to find it. They lost me for a few weeks. But, since I posted a link to my last kit in a digiscrapping forum, they will find me again. I am sure the pirates monitor the giveaway forum threads at all the digiscrapping sites.
There is a new update out for Art Rage which adds some new features. I haven't had too much time to experiment, but the stencil feature looks to be a helpful addition. If you are trying to learn Art Rage, be sure to check out the users' forum for tips.
I am thinking about doing a tutorial on how to make the mountain scene that you see in my header graphic. I am always getting hits from Google looking for mountain brushes or directions for making mountains in Paint Shop Pro. I would provide the brush and gradient I used to make the scene. It would be an intermediate level tutorial which also involves using a mask. Interested?
More tutorials are on the agenda, but I need to make the time to work on them. Notice I said "make". The time is there, but I have so many things I want to do. I stay busy all the time doing something. The list of things I want to do is longer than the time I have to do them. After the daily chores and the workday are done, I usually just go wherever my mood takes me. I love being semi-retired!
It has been a busy week here in the hollow. Mostly I have been indoors except during the early morning hours. The summer humidity returned full force, plus some. I knew we would pay for that nice weather we had a couple of weeks ago.
I finally got around to sprucing up my graphics subdomain, Scrapgraphics @ Teacher's Mentor. When I put it up a year ago, I did bare-bones coding for the index page with full intentions of prettifying it. But I never got around to it until this past week. Hopefully, it now looks more like a scrapping website. Let me know what you think. And if anything doesn't work right for you, let me know.
You may have noticed that the name is different. I got rid of the word "free" in the title and my meta tags. Hopefully, that will make it a little harder for the vultures to find it. They lost me for a few weeks. But, since I posted a link to my last kit in a digiscrapping forum, they will find me again. I am sure the pirates monitor the giveaway forum threads at all the digiscrapping sites.
There is a new update out for Art Rage which adds some new features. I haven't had too much time to experiment, but the stencil feature looks to be a helpful addition. If you are trying to learn Art Rage, be sure to check out the users' forum for tips.
I am thinking about doing a tutorial on how to make the mountain scene that you see in my header graphic. I am always getting hits from Google looking for mountain brushes or directions for making mountains in Paint Shop Pro. I would provide the brush and gradient I used to make the scene. It would be an intermediate level tutorial which also involves using a mask. Interested?
More tutorials are on the agenda, but I need to make the time to work on them. Notice I said "make". The time is there, but I have so many things I want to do. I stay busy all the time doing something. The list of things I want to do is longer than the time I have to do them. After the daily chores and the workday are done, I usually just go wherever my mood takes me. I love being semi-retired!
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