A discussion about sketches

First I'll start with some questions: What do you like about sketches? Do you use them? Do you stick to them closely or do you tend to get creative and veer off a little? HOW do you use sketches? Do you just use them for ideas and then create your own LO? Or do you blow them up to full size and use them as a sort-of "template"?

There are a couple of websites I have rediscovered that made me wonder about this tool. You can see them here and here. In these websites they use the term "maps" instead of "sketches". Do you consider these the same? From what I can tell, they are. There are also sketches you can purchase--seemingly everywhere! As a GIMP user you are probably trying to be thrifty like me. Is buying something like a sketch a necessary part of your digi-scrapping routine?

Sketches, or maps, are basically LO ideas in shades of grey with journaling and title positioning ideas that are created to help you get started on your own LO. They are 1(one) layer only. These can be very simple to use in the GIMP because there is no need for converting anything. Just open up the sketch in an image window to have it as a reference, then start building your LO in a separate image window.

More in my next post. Now find a sketch and get scrapping! I would love to see what you all are doing, too! Happy Scrapping! ~Jen

For posterity...

I decided to sign up for the Scrapbooking Top 50 group today and my rank doesn't even fit on the little image they gave me! So sad... I'm #4506. Give me some love and tell others out there about me so I can improve my ranking--I KNOW I can get in under 1000 if we all spread the word. Pretty please?

Happy Scrapping!

GIMP tour Part 2

Okay, let's pick up where we left off. Open the GIMP and then close any extra windows that might pop up, leaving only the toolbox open. Click on "File", then "Preferences." Now, I have GIMP 2.4 for Linux so yours may be different, but some defaults did not translate to the new version for me. First is the Toolbox appearance. Go down to the Toolbox option in your preferences window. Here you can select or unselect information you want displayed in your toolbox, such as foreground/background colors, active brush, pattern, gradient, etc. Not a HUGE deal, but one that I am going to change so it suits me better.

Next is Default Image. If you create a lot of elements or papers, you may want to adjust the default image size. Keep in mind that the bigger you make it, the more memory the GIMP will use--in fact, the GIMP has actually told me I am using too much memory in the past and I have learned this the hard way. :-)

Default grid is something that is very important to me and I was happy when I discovered how to change it. When you are trying to align photos or squares of any kind, using the grid can be an amazingly big help! My preference for grid default is a solid line style with 100 pixel spacing. Set what you think you want here, and then try it out. You can always change it from your image window, or come back here and change the default.

Appearance, under Image Windows, may or may not be important to you. The defaults that I have seem to be enough. I might change them on a case by case basis in the image window but you can decide what is best for you. I would suggest changing the settings in the image window to see what you like, before changing them in the defaults.

In the Display settings, you can change what the canvas looks like when your image is transparent. You can change the size and style of the checkerboard you see. You can also select your monitor resolution here, but I just let the GIMP do that for me.

That's all we're going to get to today. Hope that tides you over 'til next time!

Happy Scrapping! ~Jen

Get Your Party On!

I just heard from a friend that there's a blog PARTY goin' on! Come join the party! We're going to party about the GIMP and all it means to us girlies when it comes to our digi-scrapping passion!

Here's a great link to some lovin' about the GIMP. What have YOU got to say about the GIMP? Tell me the good and the bad, because we can make it better if we let the programmers know. Leave a note in the comments--please! I need some comments!

Happy Scrapping!

What annoys you about the GIMP?

I decided I'm going to spend a few posts talking about preferences set-up. I want my GIMP personalized--don't you?? Well, you can do it--to an extent--and I want you to learn how to do it, too.
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First of all, open the GIMP. (If your layers dialogue opens, go ahead and close it because we aren't going to do a LO right now.) Now toodle around the menus in the toolbox. There's a LOT of stuff in there that I never used to use--in fact, I didn't even know it was there! But now that you've glanced around, let me give you a tour!
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First, left-click on the little GIMP guy in the top left corner. He's above the "File" drop down button. The first option is "Advanced." Choose "Advanced" and then choose the first option "Keep above others". When I do this it will allow me to look at the tool box while I am typing this blog, AND always have the toolbox visible while I am working on a LO. This is nice for me because I always seem to need it when it is buried! Ugh. Now it won't be buried anymore! To turn it off, go back to the same button and click it again. It appears that I will have to reset this feature every time I open GIMP. However, as we explore more menus and more options, this might change.

You could also select "Keep below others" if you prefer using the "tools" dropdown menu on the image (or LO) window.

NOTE: DO NOT click on "no border" or "full screen". They are annoying, at least to me, and seem to have no useful purpose in the realm of digi-scrapping.

I think that's all I'm going to cover in the "Advanced" section.

Now click on the GIMP guy again. Go down to "shade". If you REALLY don't like looking at the toolbox, and selecting "Keep below others" is not enough for you, you could use the "shade" feature. This treats the toolbox window like a window shade. You reverse the feature by de-selecting it.

ANOTHER NOTE: Closing the toolbox will shut down GIMP.

Okay, that is all we will be doing with the GIMP guy. And if all of that was confusing to you or did not make sense or you could not find any of it, do not dispair. GIMP runs on different operating systems, and yours just might be different than mine.
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Now to the "File" drop down menu. There are several options here, as I'm sure you have noticed before. Here's the list I see: New, Open, Open location, Open recent, Acquire, Preferences, Keyboard shortcuts, Units, Dialogs, Close all, Quit.

"New" gives you a window to create a new, blank image. You can decide the size manually, or use a template. In digital scrapbooking, I find that I never use this feature. It may be useful if you find yourself creating your own blinkie, digi-elements or digi-paper, however.

Next is Open. Open takes you to a window where you can open any file on your hard drive, disc or memory card. Choosing this option limits you to opening the file in the size that it already is. For instance, I scrap in 12" x 12" or 3600 x 3600 pixels, with 300 dpi. If I open a file with these dimentions, my resulting image (or LO) will be those dimentions. So, I always open my background paper first when I do a LO. More on this later.

Next we will skip to "Open recent." When you click on this it will give you a list and tiny thumbnails of your recent files, whether they be photos, LO's or anything else you might have opened. If you want to dock this list for frequent reference, you can click on the very bottom item which is a folder of your recently opened history.

I think I'm gonna stop there now. I know we haven't gotten to many "preferences" yet, but we will so hang in there. I have to get some laundry started and go pick up my son at preschool. A mother's work is never done ya know! :D

Happy Scrapping! ~Jen

Just found a new tutorial site!

I just found out about a website dedicated to software tutorials and they have GIMP! I glanced at one tut about editing a photo and it looked really good! Can't wait to try it out.

Here's the website: http://www.tipclique.com/tutorials/gimp/ You'll also find it in my sidebar very soon! ~Jen

Tutorial: Making one photo look like a pile of photos

Since this is a pretty low-tech blog, there will be no pictures to follow, so I hope that my explanation and the sample above will be enough. It's a pretty cool technique so I want you all to learn it!

In choosing a photo for your LO, you want to choose one that has multiple subjects, like a family photo, a landscape photo with lots of different objects, or a "still life" kind of photo with many objects. You want to be able to create separate "snapshots" that will lay together to form one "subject" in your LO.

Decide on at least two areas of your photo you want to make into new "photos". Here are the instructions to create a new photo for your "pile". After you finish these directions, you can repeat as many times as you want within your LO. One step that is helpful to make your finished product look realistic is to make sure your stack of "photos" are each the same ratio as a 4" x 6" or a 5" x 7" would be. This will mean more as you go through the instructions.

Here we go:
Add a new transparent layer to match the dimensions of the area you selected (Layers-->New Layer). Move the layer to where you want it. Fill the area with white, or whatever color you want the border of your photos to be (Edit-->Fill with BG color). In the layers dialogue, lower the opacity of this white layer so you can see through it. Rotate until it is at the angle you want (Tools-->Transform tools-->Rotate) . Select by color the white area of your layer (Select-->Select by color, then click on the white area). In the layers dialogue, switch to your photo layer. Select "float" (Select-->Float). Then in the layers dialogue choose new layer (or Layers-->New). Now select your white layer in the layers dialogue and scale it bigger so that it shows from beneath the photo layer you just created. Change the aspect so that the white shows up exactly how you want it. At this point you may want to change the opacity back to 100% so you can see the layer better as well.

Now, take two of these and call me in the morning! LOL! Actually, repeat instructions above as necessary until you have as many photos in your pile as you want. Then, click on the eye next to your original photo in the layers dialogue, and your LO should now look like the one above, with a blank or transparent background. I actually did all of my work on top of a pretty background paper so I didn't have the GIMP grid to look at, but blacked it out for this tutorial.

Once you have created your photo stack, you can merge all of the different layers together so you can save it as it's own file, cut and paste it into a LO, or whatever suits your fancy! I hope you have as much fun with this technique as I have!

Happy Scrapping! ~Jen

With my head slightly above water for a moment, I'm posting to say hello. :D I finally upgraded to 2.4.something and have used it a teeny bit, but haven't found any significant difference yet. It might make a difference though, that I use Linux for my operating system, as opposed to Windows, so it may look way different in Windows, I don't know.

Been mainly scrapping for therapy lately (LOL!) and haven't printed a thing (or finished a page!) in months, but I'm coming back little by little and you'll see me around regularly soon. And as my motto should be: you will learn (ie. tuts) as I learn. :D

And to answer the question posted in the comments, here is a page I found that explains the brightness-contrast tool. Haven't tried it yet, but I think I'm gonna keep the site bookmarked for future reference! :D

Happy Scrapping! ~Jen

I haven't fallen off the planet...

We're just discovering them... heeheehee. My 4 year old is so cute! My husband gets up earlier than me and lately even THEN the sky is a little dark. Well, the other morning, after I got up, my sweet little boy told me that Daddy had shown him a planet! It's just so cool to see him discover his world. Now he wants to go somewhere to see planets close up, you know, like we went to the air museum to see airplanes close up? LOL! What a hoot! On top of this great discovery, we started MOPS, AWANA and preschool in the last couple of weeks! Yikes! And a great class called Financial Peace University. Can you say "hectic?" Heehee! So, that said, I am STILL HERE... just a little quiet right now. That tut I promised you all has NOT been written yet... sorry. Hang in there with me. It will be worth the wait. And here's a big welcome to all the new people we have visiting! WELCOME!!!! :D Later, Jen

Be watching for a new tutorial!

I don't know what your favorite digi-scrapping website is. Frankly, I don't know what MY favorite digi-scrapping website is. But I know who sends out the coolest newsletter! It's ScrapGirls! They send out a newsletter about 3 times a week and it is LOADED with cool stuff! The CEO of the company writes a MUSE that is thought provoking, funny, serious, light-hearted or just plain entertaining. There is always lots of great inspiration in the form of layouts that customers have done. There's always a freebie. And there's TUTORIALS! Alas, none for the GIMP, but we all cope, don't we. ;) Oh, and did I mention? The newsletter is free, too! LOL!

Anyway, one thing I have tried to do is learn from the methods explained in the tutorials of other software (both SG tuts, and others'), and not the specific instructions themselves. This has proven fairly productive and has resulted in some of the GIMP tutorials here in my blog.

So, to make a long story even longer, I'm gearin' up to give you all a really cool tutorial. But in the mean time, sign up for the ScrapGirls newsletter--I highly recommend it!