FREEBIE: Halloween Card

I created this Halloween card to send to relatives with Natalee's photo in the center.  I figured I would share it in case others wanted to do something similar.  I haven't completed the card yet because I still need to take a picture of Natalee in her costume, but will post it when I'm done.  Please post links to your own creations! 

The fonts I used for this document were all downloaded for free and are the following:

•  Jane Austen 
•  Lithos Pro
  
•  Bleeding Cowboys

Enjoy!

Download Link

FREEBIE: Fun Program

One of my coworkers asked me how to morph two faces into one in Photoshop.  While I am still determined to find the answer to this, I found a cool little online program that allows you to upload photos and morph them into one face.  It takes a little time to "prepare" the images, but the outcome is pretty fun(ny). 

The website is: www.morphthing.com

Enjoy!

FREEBIE: Fonts

You are no longer confined to the boring fonts that came with your computer.  There is a plethora of font types that can be downloaded for free. 

Three sites that I frequent for fonts are:

Dafont
1001 Free Fonts
Urban Fonts

When visiting any of these sites, you can browse by font type, such as Handwritten or Western.  Once you find one you may like to download, right click on the download link.  (Dafont's download link is located to the right of the font and says "Download PC/Mac OS X."  1001 Free Fonts' download link is located to the right of the font and allows you to choose whether it is for Windows or Mac.  Urban Fonts' download link is located to the bottom right of the font and says "Win" or "Mac.")

Directions to download and load the font:

1. Right click on the appropriate download link and click SAVE AS. 
2. Select the location on your computer where the file will be located. 
3. Find the file and extract the files.  (Right click on ZIP and click Extract All).
4. Once the files are extracted, go to your Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel).
5. Scroll to the folder entitled FONTS and double click to open.
6. Drag and drop the extracted font files into the FONTS folder. 
7. The next time you open a program (Photoshop, Word, etc.) your font should appear in the font pull down menu.  Note:  If you currently have a program open when loading a new font into the FONTS folder, it may not show up until you close and reopen the program. 

Enjoy!

TUTORIAL: Photoshop Batch Edit

Photoshop has a a convenient tool that allows users to effortlessly compress, resize, and/or perform Actions on a multitude of photos with the click of just a few buttons. This is sometimes known as Batch Editing.

1. Open Photoshop
2. File -> Scripts -> Image Processor
3. The Image Processor window will open up.
4. Select the folder where the images you want to process are located by clicking Select Folder.
5. Select the folder where you would like your processed images to be saved by clicking Select Folder. (This creates a new copy of of your images so your orginals are not altered).
6. Select whether you would like the images saved as a JPEG, PSD, or TIFF file. For each of the file formats, you may select a quality value (0-12, with 12 being the highest quality), as well as height and width of the images. If you want, you may save the images in multiple file types by checking the appropriate boxes.
7. In the Preferences section, if you want to run an Action, you may click the Run Action box and select the appropriate Action. If all you want to do is compress/resize, be sure the Run Action box is unchecked.
8. Click the Run button on the top right side of the Image Processor window.

Photo Recovery

We've all been there...you accidentally press the "delete all" button on your camera rather than just deleting a single photo...or, your photo card gets corrupted! Both have happened to me, and the one FREE program that has done wonders in recovering my data is called PC Inspector Smart Recovery.

If you are interested in downloading the program, you may do so at this reputable site:

PC Inspector Smart Recovery (downloadable from CNET)

For some reason, some Vista operating systems have a runtime error when you attempt to launch the program. The workaround I have found is to right click on the program icon and click "Run as Administrator." Just another one of those Vista glitches.

FREEBIES: Photoshop Actions

In my daily effort to become more knowledgable about Photoshop CS3, I have been researching Photoshop Actions. Actions are a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or batch of files - it is a quick an easy way to "replay" a group of tasks to effortlessly effect the changes on files all at once.

Due to my obsession with freebies, I have been looking for free actions to download. Some of the favorites I have found include Lomo, Out of Bounds, and Polaroid (compliments of Addicted to Design.) and of course, Smooth Skin (compliments of Turning Turnip)!..but my search has just begun. There are so many generous people out there willing to disseminate their Actions for our use! Here is my not so exclusive list, as of this evening:

Action Central
Turning Turnip
PanosFX
Addicted to Design
FinesseFX

If you are unfamiliar with Actions, I found a pretty good tutorial. I typically prefer written tutorials to videos so I can more easily follow it step-by-step. This one written by Ms. Bradley is pretty comprehensive and easy to understand: Complete Guide to Using Actions in Photoshop

Another really great Photoshop resource I found was the Photoshop Exchange. While there doesn't appear to be much on the Exchange main page, you can find pages and pages of items by clicking on the "Browse by Category" section in the right pane of the page. For example, the Photoshop Exchange Actions section has more than 5000 pages. Along with Actions, they also have free Brushes, Filters, Plug-Ins, Scripts, Templates, Tutorials and more!

Where To Begin?

The first post..where do I begin? I am a lost soul in the big world of crafts. I love to try a variety of crafts, from sewing to digital scrapbooking, but haven't really found my niche because I like to try so many things. If I had to choose, I guess digital scrapbooking and photography would be my favorite crafting hobbies. My husband would probably argue that I am addicted to my laptop.

I have been using Microsoft Digital Image Pro, but am finally making the transition to Photoshop CS3! I am taking an 18 hour class from a local photographer, but realize that is not nearly long enough to become proficient with the program. I try to look at tutorials online and search Photoshop Help to become more knowledgable, but it is such a complex program that I feel like I will never know it all. If I didn't have the cutest baby in the world to spend time with at night, I would probably take a more comprehensive Photoshop class.

I posted some pages from my first ever digital scrapbook at Craftee Mama's Pages. I will post more, but for now, I would like to spend my time working on new layouts. Since I am obsessed with digital scrapbook freebies, I would like start creating my own freebies for others to use.