Getting Rid of Those Ugly Jagged Edges!!

Morning everyone. Today I am offering a very benificial tutorial. We all see those nasty jaggies on so many things we make. This can happen at any time and doing the simplist things that you wouldn't think would leave a jaggie ... but it does! It also happens after using the warp brush tool, and many other tools too.

In my examples I am using the Ball and Bubbles Filter I use to make some of my beads. This leaves an unsightly very prominate outer edge I do not want showing, especially because I am a designer and need things to look perfect, lol. I am going to teach you my way of getting rid of these ugly edges and jaggies. You'll end up with much nicer, smoother edges.

What you need:

• PSP, any version
• Gold Ball Preset (if you don't already have it) Download
• or follow this link - https://www.4shared.com/s/fv6CzCd_Zca
• Put the "Preset_BallsAndBubbles_Gold ball.P_.PspScript" in your Preset Folder of PSP in My Documents\MyPSP\your version here\Presets.

Let's get started making a bead :)

New Image 300 x 300 > Transparent > 300 PPI Ellipse Tool set to circle Set color of your choice for Fill Draw out a circle about the proportions as below > Objects/Align/Center in Canvas. Selections/Select All/Selections/Float/Selections/Defloat. (Here out known as Select/Float/Defloat) You should now have something similar to this:

Now we'll apply Balls & Bubbles effect to it. Effects/Artistic Effects/Balls & Bubbles In the Preset drop down list select Gold Ball (attached if needed - put in Preset folder)/Click OK. You should now see this:

See that red outline? (This technique works for those jagged pixels as well) We are going to get rid of that outline left over by the Balls & Bubbles effect (UNLESS - you want to keep it). Select/Float/Defloat > Selections/Modify/Smooth. Use Default Settings (click the curved arrow to make it default) > Click OK > Select/Float/Defloat > Selections/Modify/Contract by 5 > Click OK > Invert/Delete/Select None.
This should now be your end result.

Of course you can play with these settings on anything you make. As you know, not everything will have this large of an edge to remove. You may need to adjust settings, even drop your smooth settings from 10 to 5. **This technique works equally well on those flower petals/objects you have used the Warp tool on!!** Two more examples: These two images are the same. I made a circle using the ellipse tool. Applied a SuperBladePro Preset to it. See how it gave it an ugly white outline? I used the exact method above and the second image is the result. Much cleaner and smoother.

BEFORE

AFTER

Have fun experimenting!! ~Debb: http://shadedezines.blogspot.com

Gingham

Here's a tutorial for making gingham and with a little creative work, plaid. It's the simplest means I've found for making gingham but one of the more complicated and least effective plaid tutorials I've done, and with the way I love plaids, I assure you, I've done more than my share! Almost every kit I make has at least one plaid in it. But I've not played with gingham for a long time so I'll probably add some in one of my many upcoming kits.

Those of you familiar with the common means of making checkerboard patterns will find this altogether too familiar. Remember, this tutorial is not for scrap kit making originally but with a little tweaking it can very well be. I would start with a six inch image and work from there. The tile is seamless so you can use it as a fill so long as your stripes are wide enough. Here's the link, I hope you all enjoy it.

          http://www.angelfire.com/art/graphicsbyart/tut6.html

Be Witched!

Endora Aphrattos
"Life's a Witch, yeah? So am I!"

Scrapbook Page Ideas

Scrapbook Page Ideas

By Rebecca Ludens

Get inspired to create fabulous pages by checking out the work of scrapbookers just like you.
These scrapbook page layouts were created by forum members,
designers, and article contributors to About Scrapbooking.

Learn Scrapbook Techniques

Learn new scrapbook techniques, find step by step instructions, and get ideas for your scrapbook pages in these articles.

Free Trendy Scrapbook Patterns

Designs from nature are currently very popular in scrapbooking. This new gallery contains free paper piecing patterns for a bird, a tree branch, and a tree that you can use for scrapbooking and card making.

Year In Review Scrapbook Page Layout Idea (and Free Sketch)

Compatibility Paint Shop Pro

Making images that will work in all forms of Paint Shop Pro

Sometimes we make tubes, brushes, with Newer versions of Paint Shop Pro.

Alas people using earlier versions (like 5 or 7) cannot open these shared items from us.

If you want to save them in a format that it is compatible with earlier versions,

Follow this Tutorial

http://emsportal.info/tutorials/compatibility.shtml

So You Created a Digital Scrapbooking Kit!

Perhaps you are learning to make your own kits for your own personal pleasure and use.

This can be a very satisfying hobby putting together what you have learned and designed into your own beautiful creations.

Perhaps you have created dozens of kits and you are giving them away as Freebies.
Many people will download them because they are free and why not? This is what you are offering!
Giving away your creations is great and many of your visitors are very grateful for them.

After a while, you think - well the kits are so popular, perhaps you should try selling some of them,
or collecting a small donation for them, to make creating them more worthwhile for you
........then you discover......Not so many downloads anymore.

Also the market is thoroughly saturated with free or for sale scrap kits and crapping elements - this is where you may lose heart and think - this is not for me. The sheer variety and selection is mind boggling.

However if you are determined to create and try selling your creations then you must be fully aware that The Secret might be in presentation or innovation.

Keeping your designs fresh with lots of new ideas is not easy.

Something people want is new fresh trendy and this is hard to keep up with. Suddenly everyone is making something or doing something similar to you and follow the fashions of digital scrapping trends. It is very easy to steal with your eyes and then create something similar.

Hundreds of people joined online groups to learn to create their own digital scrapping stock. Then opened blogs to show and sell and give away their digital scrapping designs and then suddenly hundreds stopped.

Real life, family and work commitments, lack of response, the difficulty in constantly coming up with new ideas and the amount of time involved trying to stay ahead are some of the reasons the hype seemed to diminish. Many blogs have not been looked at by the owners for years and many links are out of date and no longer work.

Journaling became the next buzzword and doodling and bible journaling and adult colouring books!

Presentation makes the kits more attractive. This is why so many "Shoppe's" have Creative Teams.

They need the team, to present the elements of the kit in different styled layouts, to attract your attention to the variety of ways the kit could be used.

One Kit can make a myriad of different layouts, but not everyone looking at your kit preview can see that. They need to see different parts of your kit shown in different styles and layouts. This could make one kit more popular than the next.

You only need to visit scrap boutiques, or Shoppe's, galleries to see the many different layouts created by their teams, you may see the same kits or combinations of kits being used over and over again. The possibilities are too numerous to imagine.

This is why you need to sharpen your skills with layouts.

**Practice making your own layouts.

**Do Layout Challenges

**Spend more time creating layouts

**Spend Less time creating endless Kits

**Use your Layouts to advertise your kits, whether they are free or not.

At the end of the day, you will have had much more fun creating your layouts for the world to see,
than you might have done creating yet another kit.

You might move on to being on a creative team. You might possibly sell more of your kits.

The Digital Scrapbooking world is enormous and extremely competitive, you need to really work hard to achieve any measure of success commercially (selling). 

However, if this is purely your hobby and earning few extra coins on the side is just an added bonus,
you will probably still have more interest if you present your kits with previews and a variety of layouts.

xoxoxo pat/PCArt
03 February 2009