Success at Last!

I'm sure this is a sign of my Virgo-ness, but I have spent tons of time tagging all my images in Photoshop Elements. If I'm looking for a bird or a brush (or a bird brush!), one click brings up just the subset I'm interested in. I lost all the tags when I upgraded to Windows 7 and couldn't get my backup to restore correctly, so I've been obsessed about getting a copy on my laptop just in case. I got it to work today -- hooray, sigh of relief! It is a bit time-consuming, but definitely preferable to recreating all the tags.

I am still slogging away at binding on my scrappy sofa quilt for my class in two weeks, but binding is boring so here is a picture of my darling Yoda working on a chewie.

I used a photo mask meant to look like a Polaroid transfer for this one. I hadn't done a lot with photo masks until yesterday but they are pretty cool. I have two kinds to choose from -- brushes and png files. They are both magical in the way they transform a photo, but the png files may be a little more useful because they blend a photo in to an existing background better.

• Brush -- Add a solid black fill layer on top of the photo, then stamp with the photo mask brush in white "ink" to expose the photo below.
• png -- Drag the mask onto the working file, then drag the photo on top of the mask, making sure to cover the completely. With the photo layer active, CTRL-G to "glue" the layers together. The photo will appear in the mask and any "hangovers" will be cropped off.

Now you know what I know...

Fun with Filters

Yet another sample for the Spring schedule at The Stitchin' Post--this is for another Photoshop Elements for Quilters class about using filters. I started with a stunning photo from an Agile Rabbit collection (top photo), then used the stained glass, colored pencil and ocean ripple filters. Printed on EQ Printables with my new Epson Stylus R1900 printer--excellent color and pigment ink, but don't ask how long it took to get the fabric sheets to feed correctly!!!

I do enjoy messing around with Elements, but it is a good way to eat up a day. I have another photo of begonia flowers that I "hit" with the liquify filter--I call it "Begonias in a Blender"!!! I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but it will have to wait since I'm on to the next class sample.