Lessons

Lesson Info

10:45 am - Cookie Cutters, and Personalized Background

So a lot of people like the's cooking the cookie cutter tool and but they don't think about it in a way that you can use it as a frame, so what I'm going to do is I'm gonna kind of open your mind into a different way of using it now it took me a long time with I think it was version eleven it was it had its own little tool, but inversion twelve it's attached to the crop tool, so if you can't find it and I kind of panicked a little bit because I couldn't remember where it wass the other day and but when you click on the crop tool, you're going to see that the one that's right next to it is the cookie cutter tool crop cookie cutter see, I guess that's probably why they clump together, so when you go into the crop tool, make sure you click on cookie cutter and it's going to give you a bunch of different designs and default settings so you can go in let's see all shapes again, you can go into this little drop box here if you only want to do text, you could do tax so it tells you exactly wh...

at it is, but I like it whenever it's at least a large sum they also I can see what I'm going to be pulling in to my page the cookie cutter tool that I use most I don't really use any of these, but they're kind of cute. See? And you might want to use them, but you would just take us to say the butterfly with some pride wouldn't like this, but when you click and drag let's, see here I don't know why it's not, uh, pulling in, let me pull this click, and right there he is. All right, so I tried a couple times if it doesn't work the first time and now we've got that shaped cut out of that photo. Maybe not the greatest shape to use for this picture. Let's go ahead and commands, yet control the or maybe we have to go ahead and commit it. We do have to commit and then command controls the more command z on the mac so let's, go ahead and try a couple more. The animals are kind of weird. You have to get the right picture for them, but I like, where are the ones I like? Go through quick, they are the shapes? Nope just had him up and I can't remember objects default. I will find them flowers. I don't want to do that to him objects, shapes, ornaments, maybe it's under default. No, it isn't it's. Kind of like a border that she would use. So where is that? I will find it sooner or later. I may not take a lot of time now to find it. It's under frames. I bet now that's not under their darn it. Hold on. Give me two more seconds and then I'll stop if I don't find him. Well, there's the bubbles right here. A lot of people like to use bubbles when they're doing digital scrapbooking. So you just click and drag. Bring that in and here's the cool thing. You could go ahead and pull that into another. Like, if you have a twelve by twelve or something are in eight by eight, you can pull all of these into that page. You don't have to just keep it at this four by six or whatever size this photo is. So if I go to file new blank file, go with inches. Hate by eight, three hundred resolution. Okay, I've just got a plane. Ah, white background. I can go back in here and start pulling and dragging them into my page. Okay? And then I can shrink it down. If I need teo and then apply it, of course, wait, here we go. And then come back here and then we've got a copy of it in there so we can close out of that so that's really what we a lot of people use that cookie cutter tool for is teo create shapes out of their photos and there's all kinds of shapes in there those are just some of the ones I was wanted to show you could also I think purchase shapes online as well if you wantto particular shape that you want to use but their symbols there's uh ornaments these air kind of fun sometimes and another thing that's really kind of cool is you could bring in like a textured background and then make textured and pulled the texture into those ornaments that's another way of kind of looking at these shapes and the cookie cutter too because when you think of cookie cutter till you kind of think of cute sea and all that but really you can make some really cool things out of these shapes their pretty intricate shape so if let's just pull it into this wanted to see what it looks like see what it's going to dio so if you had a textured background it would be kind of cool to use that shape and put it on the top of it you know I take pictures of strange the strangest things that kind of lead me into a good segment here I'll take pictures of trees up close you're just the bark and I'll take pictures of carpet if I see carpet that has cool textures and all this get down in there and take a picture of it, this wouldn't be a bad thing to take a picture of you could use those as your backgrounds we're going talk about backgrounds of papers tomorrow a lot but you know, like I'll take picture of textures and drapes. Las vegas is kind of a cool place to take a lot of pictures because there's all kinds of different vibrant colors and carpet I don't know if you've ever been in a casino the carpets are really crazy so if you want you could do all kind of different filters to those as well. So just be thinking about that because taking pictures of just the same old same old stuff that's cool, I like I do that all the time, but then other things think about using them as backgrounds are textures, so I want to kind of this is only really quick segment is just getting your brain to be thinking about other things other I'm goingto not close out but I'm gonna pull this up it's my little guy leo see here it is think outside the box so my son draws a lot, which is really cool because he's got that side of me he's got the creative side in him so I kind of showed this yesterday, but take pictures or scan pictures in of your kid's artwork you know? You don't have to keep everything but just scan it in, you might need to use it someday this I made out of a card out of this and, uh everybody loves it. I love the way he thought himself has big eyes. He does have pretty big guys, but they're not hello there blue. But he was four years old and he brought that home and I this is one of my favorite pieces ever. He thinks his hair sticks up. I think it's cool. This is a little lost kabuki with one of my favorites. He did a twelve by eighteen of that. We're going to talk about howto interlaced pieces together like if you can't scan that whole thing and you were talking about devon, you were talking about maybe way there are already digital, but if you had a bunch of pieces laying around that were too big, you can always scan them in in different quadrants and then lason together. If your scanner is not big enough, which is really cool that's what I had to do with this one because it was such a big piece and you can't even tell that that was laced together, photoshopped elements could do itjust within ten seconds I take pictures of a lot of his artwork because I probably won't keep all of it. Um, and when I do throw things away, he'll look he's season in the trashcan. Mom, why are you throwing that away? I have it on tape. I have it on video are not on digital. I wasn't that's what? I graduated from school with isa commercial design in a liberal arts degree, and we have a wall of some of my paintings, so I took a picture of it because those pains are probably gonna be throwing away when he gets married, you know? So I took a picture of it just so he has to say, hey, my mom did these ones when she was younger, just things that you would want to keep that would remind you of a certain time, like a certain time frame, maybe when he was younger. I do have pictures of that. I didn't put it in here. He was a huge monster jam monster jam fan, I think let's call and so he had big monster trucks in his in his bedroom from the time he was like, three years old toe four years old, then he went to nascar, so we had to do his room, nascar, so I just like the progression now, he says. Saints fan so we did the saints fan in about two years he's probably going to be doing something else, so just keeping all those memories of each different phase of their lives and I don't go in there and I don't clean it up to take a picture of it I leave it like it is there's kleenex all over the place that's what reminds me of him it's giving me goose bumps way have some of our folks calling you out especially matthews. Jennifer says she said she's not a photographer but she takes it's really beautiful awesome! I love that kind of man I want to be a photographer what I'm I want to be really but thank you for that compliment I try but photoshopped helps me out a lot a photo shop elements does help me out so those different phases of if your kids lives like you know that little frog that's laying on the floor you know that I gave him for valentine's day like five or six years ago just just bring back all kinds of different little memories, so don't clean it up I just take it as is when he's all into the rockies players now so in all his trophies were not going to keep those trophies they get killed trophies for everything tastes but one of these days on the sneak them out and he won't let me sneak them out just yet but when he turns eighteen hopefully he will let me take those in say goodbye to them but I want to take pictures of them and I take him close up tio I have something here later this isn't a very good shot but you know like your to do list wouldn't you love to have your great grandma's to do list wouldn't you love to know what she was doing? Hundreds of you are you know gonna be cool I just think that that's the coolest thing so take pictures of things that you can't keep our that you may not think that she'll want later in life this is my husband's class ring I'm not going to put that in a scrapbook and it's probably going to get lost in the next fifty years somewhere so I took a picture of it close up you don't know if you can see it but it says baseball on it here he graduated lockport high school um you know, one hundred years from now hopefully you know our grandchildren or somebody will see that and say, oh my gosh where's lockport out we looked that up so just things like that I took both pictures of both sides of it and if the internet wants toe kind of chime in, give us ideas of what you've taken pictures off because I would love to know other ideas because I may not be thinking that that also you guys in the audience will be thinking about that put you on the spot okay, this is our little puppy and he waits for my son to come home every day at three o'clock so I had to take a picture of his little face because he just looks like when's he coming home so I take pictures of things like that we go to village is like a little water park place every year we get passes had to take pictures of the passes I might keep one pat may keep his past because it's got his picture on there and everything but I'll probably throw mine away but I want it oh I want to keep that I know people like you really think this pooh bear was my pooh bear when I was little and it's like almost tourney shreds and then that little monkey guy back there there's a name for him isn't there? Is that it sock monkey that was my husband's so his name was pizza? I don't I don't know what I call mine but I just like that because it's in his room now and I want to take a picture of it because some day those will be gone his favorite book is the diary of a wimpy kid so I had to take pictures of that you could just you know take care off the cover if you wanted to save a little piece of that, but I just take the pictures and then move on his favorite cereal have to know what his favorite cereal is. One hundred years lucky charms is going look totally different. So I like to see the progression of graphic design. You know how it was back a hundred years ago and in twenty five years it's going to look so different? So I just threw in the bowl in the spoon, their favorite shirt. He wears that once a week, at least, I have to fight him for that, and I hide it well, because do that. But I hide that shirt for a week. He'll come find it a football, him and his dad throw the football around the house all the time, his first pair of really good shoes. So I got him to nine years old, before he realized there were brand names. I try to keep him away from that, but it was nine years old when he found out about the devious, you know all those, because if he goes to a school where he has to wear uniforms so they don't allow those types of things, he begged us for our shoes, so those were his first pair of shoes that he got that were kind of expensive. The tower of doom. We went teo disneyland. And that was his ride. He wrote that thing over and over and over again. I did it once. I said, I'll try he's a momma's. Not scary at all. Not very nice little guy was scary. Anybody out there rode that thing? Oh, my gosh. Well, this is embarrassing to say, but this is one of his favorite lunches, at least it's not hamburger helper. Well, that's his second favorite. But anyway, I know he loves this and, you know, twenty five, thirty five years from now I'm gonna look at that and go all I wish he was still eating those. This is my great, my grandmother's step stool, and I'm the one who got it from all the grandchildren. I'm so excited that I did, because that is the thing that I remember her most from don't cry what people are saying, they're taking pictures off just give you a break there, suzy oh, one for nice says she takes pictures of the family trips sandy and texas is saying that she takes pictures of baseball poster boards when her son was younger and also her handmade crafts and matthew's jennifer just says, well, she takes pictures of everyday life most things and it's a lovely thing to memorialize people who may not be with us any longer people grand parents accept these passes a fantastic way to keep their memories alive awesome and I know it's hard it can be hard to but this is why this is why we scrapbook so that we can recall those memories so that we can hold those things near and dear to us right it is it is and every time he looked just like, oh, I don't know if I should put this in there, I'll get through it would be fine I don't know if I could so anyway, I took a picture of that and every time I look at it and it's in my house and I was the one who got it, so I was so happy that I got that step stool, but he had he was in that same picture, so I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I got that, um take pictures of things around the house. This is really cool photoshopped elements can allow you to really bring out the text. So he wrote this little story about thomas jefferson. I don't know where he gets his brains from because it's not for me, but he just knows he picks up things and he writes things and he writes awesome stories, so I know I can't keep all of his books, all his diaries. But I can at least scan in the ones I really want to look at this one's really funny. Um he did this when he was in kindergarten. He says I know my mother well, he says by j c my mother is forty two years old which he that was true. My mother is nine feet tall. Not true. My mother weighs eighty nine pounds. My mother's eyes are green or blue green that's. Alright. Her shoe size is a pretty close eye on her job is to work. She she is happy when she plays, I think that's what it says actually to have a no. Okay, and then her favorite food was pizza that's kind of true her my color of my mom likes purple and her best friend is mrs chan. Which what? That was his teacher on then? I'd like to buy my mom a tv because that's what he he wants he's been begging for a tv for years. So even when he was in kindergarten, he wanted a tv. Still hasn't tv. So anyway, just things like that. I probably keep that one because I love it, but I took a picture of it just in case. All right this is a letter I wrote to my friend suzie and it got water logged and everything this is when I was in kindergarten and I think this is a crack up you might get to go to you might get to go to freaky friday with us remember freaky friday any of you are you writing to joel one of my friends or chris yes or no if we go are you going to bring money yes or no I'm going to bring thirty cents if we go see now those types of things you be going thirty cents that doesn't buy you anything nowadays so I just took a picture of it just in case it gets lost some where there is his things okay so whenever he wants to buy something kind of frivolous we have we make him kind of save up some money just a put a little money towards that he saved up money to get this mad and thirteen he wanted for a long time and it was thirty dollars so one hundred years from now it's going to be like thirty cents so those kinds of things receipts your house mortgage payment you know when you were younger it's like probably doubled well in san francisco I would be scared to see one of those so what do you guys think? What what are one what one item that you would even think to take a picture of or have you thought that through and I don't want to put you on the spot but if anybody has any things that we can yes like I feel I use instagram a lot so it's just so easy I have it on my phone and face see something that looks you know, interesting I'll take a picture of it and I ended up like trying to scrapbook yesterday you and I had a picture of it was at a party someone had a bag of sparkles that they just opened up and it dumped all over the floor which was probably terrible to clean up but it looked awesome so you took a picture and I am using that trying to make a background for what I was going to do, which I might show you later because I have it I was s so yes, I ended up using that as a background and it was just cool to think of it in that way like, oh, I could use this sparkles as a background like why not? Like we'll see what happens totally it worked at least I like it so I'm gonna see that way people taking more photos of random stuff then maybe we would have normally like, you know you're driving along and you see something some crazy colors or some lights refraining or something you just gave your am yeah, wait up I just took a e purple and then I got cat socks for e take matchbox cars like that matchbox cars sort of cool and graphic and yeah, I've been thinking actually about your neon thing and thinking I take him in there little funny little old matchbox display things and then if you put that neon effect on it will be really cool you know and matchbox cars that's another thing that my son was really into for a while so that brings back memories he lined them up perfectly he couldn't couldn't be anyone out if we would go over there and like move it just a little bit he go there go put it back in his place I was like is there something wrong with this kid? Huh? We'll scare was due in a few years. Yes, my grandson was really into thomas the train about three years ago like tic individual pictures of a lot of his trains to use as embellishments on scrapbook pages with her picture on it and that in fact I went to toys arrested I was snapping pictures of all the top when your store yeah probably wanted a depaul security yeah what is this lady doing it's going still already that's a great idea to yeah making embellishments and such like that we haven't interesting one to share oh, I would love to hear I want to hear nbc says so cute, my mom's metal measuring spoons growing up, she was a baker and family. She always had a freezer full of baked goods waiting for company just the puffin that she's now almost ninety and blind. And I had the measuring spoons, and I think of her every time. Yeah, it does. I mean, this one little thing can just, like, sparked those memories with in two seconds and then you're trouble. Yeah, keep him rolling in if we get some more and there let us know in the future because I liked I'd like to find out and ideas from everybody and see if I just, you know, sometimes you just don't think about those things when I throw one more thing. It's really interesting saffron cell south says my uncle's war medals, old letters between my grand parents and uncles when that when they were serving in world war two, I could be busy all day just photographing or scanning these types of things. That was really sure. Yeah, and when you scan them in two, you can take him into photoshopped elements and darken up the letter. Because that letter that I had wrote it was a little bit light. So I can take it. Remember those levels that I told you I come in there and I squeeze them together. You just take the white to make him wider in the dark's mickum darker and you can read it better so when you're scanning and I think I will be talking about this a little bit when we're talking about photo restoration but when you're scanning them in scanning me at the highest resolution that you can kind of check it out see ghosts to find out your directions on your scanner and then also the size that you wanted to be and then you bring it into photoshopped elements and then you can really make a pop. In fact, you know what? Because I can do it really quickly I just want to show you just for the one who wants to do that. Um it was in my think outside the box and it's listen right here so when I see when I took a picture this letter let's, go ahead and rotate that meaningless semen inderal bit see how light that lettering is right there. I can go into enhance and adjust lighting and levels and just pull those on and then play around with these right here so you can read it better, okay, so that that's all you had to do when you scan it and it may not look it's good because it usually doesn't. But just take those levels, pull it and play around with this. Get that tax, we can read it better. That's. Great. Yeah, and we're going to get more into photo restoration in retouching. So those old letters as old photographs, yeah, perfect idea of love that very good.