Scrapwest Cybercrop

The very talented girls in Scrapwest hosted a cybercrop last Sunday to celebrate its first birthday.

I loved Annamarie's class, it is kinda hybrid as I printed the photos with the aged frames for PSE and the crochet flower is a digital element:



Lucy was sick and off school. When I suggested that she did some "arts&crafts" while I tried to finish my layout she replied that she want to do "adult's arts & crafts", like what I was doing. So I gave her a photo of Annemarie's layout and off she went. Here's my daughter's take:



Dialog after we finished:

Lucy: I like yours better.
Me: How come? I really like both.
Lucy: Yours is all together and mine is all over the place...

I think she's got an amazing way to put words together for a five-year-old!

Photo Editing I

I am by no means an expert, but there are always beginners around, so I decided to post some easy tips on how to improve your photos. Nothing complicated, only one-or-two step mini-tutorials.

There are often several ways on how to correct a certain problem, I'll show you my favourite way in Photoshop Elements 5 (aka PSE5) and/or PaintShopProXI (aka PSP XI).

Tutorial 1: How to correct colour cast in PSE5

I am not sure what is the correct definition of colour cast, but you know when the photo has a yellowish or bluish look, that's colour cast. I often get the yellowish tinge when I take a photo at night. This is technique that works if the photo has shows something that should be white.

Here's the before & after.



In PSE, go to Enhance -> Adjust Lighting -> Levels...



Click on the white dropper - the one in the right hand side - and then go to your picture and click on a point which should be white. I choose the sunlight bit on the door. That is it!

If you click on the wrong spot, you might end up with really weird colours, just click on "Reset" and try again.

PSP: Levels in PSP XI works the same way, with a slight better user interface. Go to Adjust -> Brightness and Contrast -> Levels... Another option is to try Adjust->Colour Balance.

Levels is a great tool, I will go back to it sometime.

Using a sketch

I had the photos and the theme, but wasn't happy with my own ideas for the layout until I saw this sketch by Ali Edwards in Pencillines. It is a fab sketch and I think I will use it again.

I like the final result but I am not sure about the word in acetate. It was the last thing I put, as I thought something was missing, but should have used the word "ciumes" in Portuguese as opposed to "Jealousy". Jealousy could mean "envy", which has nothing to do with what I wanted to portray about my daughter. I meant to say that she doesn't like when she feels that we are giving too much attention to somebody else instead of her.

I've finally finished the birthday candle pic frame for my daughter. I only could squeeze some of the candles, there were originally 4 smileys for the 4th birthday and Minnie Mouse (2nd birthday) was a bit to deep for the frame. The most precious one is Emilia, the rag doll candle for her first birthday. It was brought specially from Brazil by our friend Solange. Emilia is a character in a popular Brazilian childrens' book.

New Camera!

Comprei uma camera nova ha' dois meses atras. Ainda estou aprendendo a usa-la e os resultados nao sao grande coisa. Mas as cores saem muito mais vivas que a minha anterior. Roger e Luke, foto tirada no parquinho.

I bought my SLR a couple of months ago, and still haven't got the hang of it. But the colours are really vivid, specially like the outdoors photos. Roger and Luke, photo taken in the playground.