Monday Madness

Good Monday everyone! Hope your weekend went well!

This monday I'm going to take some time out to answer questions that I've had over the last few days/weeks via email and/or comments.  I've recieved a few repeats, so I'm hoping I'll answer all the questions, but if you have one that I missed or just wanted to ask me a question.. feel free to leave it in the comments :)

What kind of textures work best for texturing photographs? 

This one is kind of tough to answer. It's really a matter of trial and error. There are some tried and true things that really seem to work most of the time, but every once in awhile you'll find something random that just works well. For instance, on this picture of Katie, I used a picture of a bunch of ivy to texture, which I haven't had luck with in the past, but it just worked here:

Some things that seem to work well though are peeling paint, wooden fences (you get the wood texture, plus the lines of the slats in the fence), rust, Scratched surfaces, Brick, even sidewalks. If I get a chance later today I'll throw up a few textures of my own that I use often.

 

What font did you use in the storyboard?

 I believe I snagged that one from the  Two Peas website. I am NOT a scrapbooker, but browse the site/galleries from time to time because the women there are so incredibly talented and I wish I could be like them.

The font is HERE along with a bunch of others.. I believe it's the first one listed.

HI! I just found your blog info on twopeasinabucket.com but when I was reviewing your AWESOME info I noticed the picture of your husband and baby- My husband is in the Marine Corps as well-- joined in 1991. Where are you stationed and is he home stateside?

 Sam is reserves, so we're not stationed on a base. We live in Oregon, but his  duty station is in Boise, Idaho (we live about an hour away). He was deployed Jan-October 2005, we actually just got word that he's due to deploy again in Fall of 2008. We're HOPING something changes between now and then, so we'll see.  Good to see another Marine wife, you know what they say, it's the hardest job in the Corps ;)

And a big WELCOME to any two peas members that have found their way here.. Get Cozy, stay awhile! :)

I'd love to have a word by word (or key tip by key tip) written version too, something to refer back to.

Great Idea! I'll try to do that starting next week, for those who like to have something they could print out/save on the computer :)

if you could please, please, puhlease do a tutorial showing how to use your wonderful actions to make someone's clothing/surroundings saturated with color and skin NOT saturated. Does this make sense? I have asked around and everyone says "inverse mask" but I don't know how!?

First off, you might want to watch the Masking Tutorial I did a few months ago. In a nutshell, what Masking is is taking certain parts of a layer (in this case, a layer that is boosting saturation) and telling Photoshop which parts of the layer to apply. This way you can make layers that ONLY apply in certain areas, and then "mask off" the areas you don't want it to apply to (i.e. the skin). When people say to "invert the mask" they are probably telling you to take the mask layer (the white or black box that is to the right of an adjustment layer in the layers palette) and press Ctrl+I to reverse the color. A totally WHITE layer mask means that all the effects of that layer are visible (meaning it is applying the entire layer to everywhere. A totally BLACK layer mask means it's not applying ANY of the layer. When you paint on a layer mask with either black or white (or a shade of grey) you're going to reveal or conceal parts of that layer. Confused? Watch the tutorial, it will all make sense. :)

Kylie, you are awesome! How do you find the time?

 Well Thanks! And the time? I gave up sleeping a long time ago.. That's an extra 8 hours a day I can get stuff done! ;)

I missed last week's Freebie, can you rehost it/send it to me?

As much as I hate telling people No, it wouldn't be fair to the people who are making it a point to come back and get each weeks' freebies! You gotta check back ever week and download that week's freebie. But don't worry, I'm working on a brand new extras set that will have all the previous freebies included in it, so if you missed a few you can always grab a full set of actions (and get some super cool new ones too) and have them all in one place :)

I think that's all the questions that I could answer on the blog (the others via email should have replies).. If you needed something else answered, let me know :)

I'll make a post in a bit about this weekend's winner on comments, and since I'm feeling giving today, you may just see a special sale pop up today. Don't miss it! :)