Tag Archives: photo editing

WonderFall – a 42-Layout Cinch Mini!

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Remember the little autumn-themed ultra mini album I showed you a couple of blog posts ago? I had created it with the leftover scraps of a larger, regular-sized mini album that I was working on. Well, I’ve finished that one and I’m very happy to share the results! 🙂

This 6×6 mini album is Cinch-bound, it has TEN page assemblies with 42 (!) photo layouts, a lot of diecuts by me, plus a lot of extra embellishments. The page construction was very very simple, so I’ve incorporated a short page tutorial as well.

The paper collection I used is Autumn Song by Bo Bunny – of which I totally forgot to film a walkthrough before I started the project, but there’s a link to Amazon below should you be interested in this collection, which is absolutely gorgeous and perfect for this time of year!

This mini album is all about Shalem, my French lop who passed away two years ago. So I decorated the front cover of the album with a picture of him, but before I had the photo printed, I did some digital editing first! I cut Shalem from his original background (the grass in my garden) and then pasted him into a fantasy fall landscape that I found on the internet somewhere. In the lower right corner I digitally wrote his name and dates of birth/death. So before we go to the video, here’s a close-up of the album’s front cover:

So enjoy the video and please leave a comment to let me know what you think! Also, click the Like button…. 😉

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Fairytale Treasures keepsake album deluxe

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Every 1-2 months or so I work on a “big” project like a minialbum or some other project that takes a lot of effort, like an explosion box or some complex altering project. I wish I could do more of them, but they take a lot of time to create! For instance, a deluxe album like the project I’m showing you below, takes me at least 3-4 weeks to create – I do work a fulltime job and have a household to run as well, you know 😉

Therefore I’m very pleased to present to you my latest keepsake album deluxe: Fairytale Treasures!

It takes after my Butterflies & Stars keepsake album, as well as my Flora & Fauna version. This time I used DCWV’s gorgeous Once Upon a Time II design paper, and inked around all the edges with Tea Dye distress ink by Tim Holtz.

It’s customized to order, for it was commissioned by my friend Nicole, who wanted her beloved terriers “incorporated” in the album 🙂 So, among other things, I did some photo editing to create a custom Once Upon a Time background – which is great to do for any picture you want to “blend in” with your mini album or your scrapbook page layout.

Above: One of Nicole’s terriers, a cute Westie. I hid it in the booklet on the first real mini album page in the album, the one tied closed with the gold-colored strings, also shown on the video thumbnail. 

If you’d like to create an album like this yourself, check out the tutorial for my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, for it has the same basic page design.

But enough with the chit-chat: on to the video! Enjoy!

Please don’t forget to like & subscribe, see you next week!

 

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Photo editing: the effect of a different, digital background

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Sometimes the objects in our pictures look good, but yet there seems to be missing something. Something that would make this photo really stand out, showcasing its object with flair. If you encounter such a picture in your camera roll, have you ever considered changing the background, and exchanging it for something different altogether?

For instance, here’s a picture of our choir with a fun enhanced background:

Below is the original: it was taken under less than ideal lighting conditions due to our low-lit practice room and a “snap-shot camera”. The room itself had nothing but dark colors and had little else to catch one’s attention in a favorable way. And yet, at the moment it was the only photo we had with all of us present. So, I changed our background to liven it up a bit. Here’s another variation with a digital background:

Of course you don’t have to use abstract digital art – a nice landscape will do just as well! 🙂

These changes don’t make it a beautiful picture all of a sudden – but, it does add at least some “pizzazz”…

Another example. I love photographing my cute little long-haired guinea pigs. They make for ideal top models by the way: they hardly move once they notice that thing you keep pointing at them (what could it be?!) and they even let you change small things in their poses, like lifting their chins a little bit, or stretching their legs just so. 🙂

Take Sh’eilah for instance. I took a picture of her which is lovely in and of itself – mostly because she is lovely no matter how or where you take her picture ;-).

Anyway, the background was a bit dull, so I removed it all together – or rather, I cut Sh’eilah from her original background and pasted her onto a green digital abstract. This makes the pic rather more flamboyant – and its object a true Top Model, imho.

When I want to copy the object in one photo and paste it into the next (always create a new layer!), I make sure my selection tool “leaves some room” between the selection I drew – this way I create kind of a “blurry” selection line, which makes it way more easy to blend the object in with its new background.

And last but not least, you can combine digital photo editing with scrapbooking or making cards, by making sure you choose photo backgrounds that will match with the color scheme of your design paper stack. Like I did with the pictures for my Tag card in Red. I already showed you the example below in that post; if you want to see how the rest of the pictures turned out, go check out that blog post (of deze in het Nederlands) and watch the video!

By the way, I’m using Paintshop Pro XI for these kind of edits.

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Photo editing: Happy Easter! (Vrolijk Pasen!)

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Season’s greetings!

Wishing you all a glorious Easter, reflected each spring in the lovely colors the Lord paints our beautiful Earth with, celebrating the New Life conquered for us by Jesus’s death and resurrection! (in case you forgot Easter’s true meaning due to all the distractions of Easter eggs & bunnies 😉 )

I tried to capture a fraction of this colorful Glory in this picture, which I edited with Paintshop Pro XI. Of course featuring one of my very own top model guinea piggies – her name is Queen Ester, and isn’t she gorgeous! 🙂 (Meanwhile, she’s grown into a curly-haired beauty)

Enjoy a blessed Easter!

Je zou het niet zeggen, maar het is Lente! Tijd om te genieten van de mooie voorjaarskleuren waarmee God onze aarde elk jaar schildert, kleuren die het Nieuwe Leven uitdrukken dat Jezus voor ons heeft veroverd door Zijn dood en opstanding! (voor het geval je door alle paaseieren en paashazen de echte betekenis van Pasen vergeten was 😉 )

Ik heb een fractie van die kleurenpracht proberen te vangen in deze bewerkte foto, bewerkt met Paintshop Pro XI – met in de hoofdrol trouwens een echt caafje, mijn eigen Queen Ester! (Inmiddels uitgegroeid tot een prachtige langharige dame)

Ik wens iedereen een vrolijk en gezegend Pasen!

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Fashion Tip: Customizing Your Own T-shirts!

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Although a t-shirt is not necessarily a fashion statement in and of itself, you still want it to express something of your unique personality. Sometimes the shirts that wait for you in your local fashion shop just won’t do. They are either ridiculously expensive ($70,= for what in the end still is a t-shirt?!) or they have a silly image, logo or text that simply doesn’t appeal to you at all.

That is why now and then I customize, by choosing or creating an image to my own liking and having it printed on a shirt, hoodie or tank top.

Of course a holiday picture or a photo of my family wouldn’t do, but… there are other options. How about picking a painting or piece of art that you like – or better yet: created yourself – or a text that you love, or, like me, scenes from your favorite comics!

So here’s six pieces of clothing that I had customized, plus two more that I did myself. I edited every image by giving them nice frames, and sometimes blending them with another image or adding a different background. Then I had them printed on pieces of clothing.

Black hoodie + black t-shirt

Green Lantern comics fans will recognize the picture I used here as the logos of each of the Lantern corps (except the Black). Being an ardent comics fan, I’m very pleased with how this one turned out and I actually wear this thing a lot – and I never wear hoodies! 🙂

Again a Green Lantern theme, although more subtle than the previous one: the Green Lantern logo blended with a fantasy landscape, which I did with Paintshop Pro XI:

White t-shirt 1

A scene from Nonplayer this time – with digitally customized borders – this is such a fan-tas-tic comic I don’t know where to begin to describe it! (apologies for the frumpy look: I searched and searched for this darned little tee, and finally recovered it – from the laundry hamper! :oops:)


White t-shirt 2

Back to Green Lantern, with a view from Odym:
Black t-shirt

An underwater action shot from Fathom:

(image from the website’s cart right before I ordered)

The print turned out nice enough even though the colors were too blue, but the shirt itself wasn’t quite as lovely as shown on the site, due to its straightness and lack of waist. Bummer. So there’s a risk when ordering online…

White t-shirt 3 – bought a white shirt in a store, then took it to a sportswear printing company and mailed them the image. This turned out to be one of the cheaper options, although I had to drive there twice (once to deliver my shirt to them, the second time a couple of days later to pick it up).

This image is from Seven Warriors (a great comic!), which I edited by giving it some customized borders with Paintshop Pro XI, creating the “wiping” effect you can see here:

Of course there is always an alternative option:
D.I.Y.!
Use your home printer to print your image on special photo transfer paper, cut it to size (following the image borders as close as you can!) and then simply iron it onto your t-shirt.

This is relatively cheap, but I consider this more of a one-time-use solution because usually after only one or two laundry sessions your image will start to crack or fade, or both.

The examples below show pictures of two of the guinea pigs from my caviary, that I digitally gave new backgrounds; I usually wear these only once or twice a year, when I go to a cavy show ;-):

So who says that customizing your t-shirt is only for family happenings or company team building sessions?! Be your own unique self and start customizing those boring white t-shirts in your closet!