Digi Tip December: Spell Check

Ever get done creating a wonderful digital layout with really terrific journaling, print it out or publish the layout, only to find that you have a misspelled word or words?  Today I'm going to share some ways to spell check your journaling, even if your software does not have a spell checker.

If you are using Photoshop (full version):
Photoshop has a spell checker built in!  This is one of the little known facts about the software. Since Photoshop is not considered a word processor, it is not a main feature.  But it is really simple to use.

First, be certain that you have the correct language selected for your text. You can do this when you are typing your text. In the Character panel at the lower left is the language drop down box.  Select the appropriate language here.

Once you have all of your text layers completed, simply choose Edit > Check Spelling.  Or you can check individual parts of text by highlighting them first and then choosing Edit > Check Spelling.


A dialog box will open that will locate all the misspelled words and give you the option to correct them.

The most likely correction will be displayed in the box "change to:" you can select that choice by clicking "change" or you can choose one of the suggested words from the list by clicking on it and then click "change". After all the misspelled words are corrected, click OK to close the spell checker.

If you are using software that does not have a spell checker:
Many photo editing software are not word processors and do not have built in spell checkers. But you can still check your text.  One way would be to type the text in your word processing software (such as Word) and spell check it there, then copy and paste it to a text layer in your photo editing software.  If you are working on a machine that does not have a lot of memory, you can use a web based spell checker. It will not hog as much computer resources as having a word processor running in addition to your graphic intense layout design in your photo editor.  One that you might give a try is SpellCheck.Net.  

Simply copy (Ctrl-c) and paste (Ctrl-v) your text into the block. Then click on the "Spell Check" button, on the left under the text box.

A dialog box will open with choices. Simply select the correct spelling and click "change to".  Then copy and paste your text back into the text layer of your photo editing software.

Now you can be assured that you've got the correct spelling before you print or publish your digi layouts.

Digi Tip November: Fonts

Playing with fonts can be so much fun!  They can liven up a layout, be a part of the feeling that you are conveying, and help to express your journaling.

But where to find those fonts?  And which fonts to use? If you are like me, this has been one thing that trips me up in getting my layouts done quickly. I can waste hours browsing through my fonts looking for just the right font.

Today I've got a bunch of great font examples to share. You can bookmark this post as a reference so you don't have to spend hours searching for the font that you want to use!

I've created each of the previews of the fonts using that font at 24 points. This will help you to be able to compare their styles and sizes.  Each preview is linked to the site where you can download that font.

Let's start off with some great fonts for titles.

 

Now that you've got your title font selected, it's time to select a journaling font. While you can be quite fancy with your title font, typically you will want your journaling font to be more simple and clear. This will help to make it easy to read, even at a small size.  I've previewed these fonts in 24 point to make them easy to see.  Each font image is linked to the site for download.

Century Gothic font typically comes with Microsoft and Adobe software

Now that's a whole lot of fonts to digest!  There are lots more out there too. A simple search for "free scrapbooking fonts" will turn up a lot more fonts that you may like.  If you have a go to font that you like for your titles or journaling, we'd like to know about it. Please leave a comment on this post with what you're favorite fonts are.

Digi Tip October: White Teeth

Happy Halloween!  Can you believe it is the end of October?  Time for trick-or-treaters!  And it's the last Monday of the Month so it's time for a Digi Tip. I've got a trick you can use in Photoshop/Elements that is a real treat!

A quick and easy way to whiten teeth in your photos.  You can do this in any version of Photoshop.

Open the photo that you want to brighten the smile on. Zoom in to the smile so you can see what you are doing.

Choose the "magic wand" selection tool. Be sure the "add to selection" option is chosen.  Click on the teeth to select them. You may need to click in a few spots on your teeth to get the majority of the area selected. It does not have to be perfect.  If you get too wide of an area, reduce the tolerance for the magic wand tool.

Now that you have the teeth selected, we are going to simply adjust the hue. In the full version of Photoshop click Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation.  In Elements choose Enhance>Adjust Color>Hue/Saturation.  In the dialog box that opens, next to the word "edit" open the drop down menu and select "yellows".  Slide the Saturation slider to the left. You may also have to slide the Lightness slider to the right a tiny bit.  Don't over whiten the teeth or they won't look natural.

There you have it. A quick and easy way for you to play dentist and apply a whitening treatment to teeth!  Now if it only were that simple on real teeth!

Digi Tip September: Photo Blend

Hello and welcome to this month's Digi Tip!  Today I'm going to show you how to do a photo blend.  Sometimes when you are designing a layout you have a special photo that just begs to be included in a large way.  Yet you may not want it to be "large and in charge" and taking over the entire focus of your design.

This is a time when a photo blend can come in handy.  I was working on pages for an album about a recent beach vacation. When I grabbed all the photos about our night at the boardwalk, there was one photo that I wanted to include, But I didn't want it to be the main focus of my page.  So I blended it and made it into a great background for my design.

This is the photo that I started with. I like that it captured so much of the rides on one of the piers, which just screams with the excitement of the boardwalk.  But if I scaled this photo down to include with the other photos on my page, it would lose some of it's charm.  That's when I thought it would make a great background!

In Photoshop, open the 2 images that you want to blend and bring them together into one document. I opened the digi paper that I am using and my photo.  I want my photo to be blended at the bottom of the digi paper. So I located it there and resized it to the constraints of the digi paper (in this case 12x12).

This is how the layers palette would look.  The 2 images, each on their own layer. Unlock the background image by double clicking it.

Click on the top layer to make it active.  Then click the Add Layer Mask button located at the bottom of the layers palette.

Notice the white border around the layer mask. This means that the mask, not the layer itself, is the active selection.

Select the gradient tool (or press G). 

In the options box, click the arrow to open the drop down gradient picker window. Choose the black to white which is in the top row, 3rd from the left.  Click elsewhere on the program bar to close the gradient picker window.

In the document, hold down the shift key and drag out a black to white gradient to blend the 2 images.  In the image above I've placed lines to show where I started and ended the drag to create the gradient in my example. Since you are actually drawing the gradient on the mask, you won't see it on your image. 

What you will see is a beautifully blended image!  I then played with the blending modes and opacity, added my photos and elements to complete my finished layout.

Tip: Don't use one of your images as your document where you will be blending. Create a new document to drag your 2 images into. This way you won't accidentally save the blended image over your original images.

Have some fun playing with the gradient feature.  You can blend photos together, elements, photos and papers.  Whatever your creative heart desires.

Remember too, if you would like to see your pages featured here, please email them to me at scrappycath(at)gmail(dot)com and we will include you in a Readers Pages post!