|
From YourSITE.com *Technique Rounded corners, curves, and fun shapes are making a big comeback in scrapbooking these days. My favorite part of this trend is the circle layout, and they happen to be easy as pie to make.  To create your circle, first choose the Shape Tool from the Detachable Tools Menu (red arrow in picture). Then, in the Shape Tool Menu Bar, choose the Ellipse Tool (green arrow).  Next, click the small downward triangle in the menu bar to set the geometry options for our circle. In the dialog box that appears, check the Circle option as well as the From Center option.  Move to the workspace and position your cursor near the center of the page. Left click and hold while you drag the cursor from the center out to the edge of the page. You will see the circle growing larger. Release when the circle almost fills the page, but there is still some space remaining between the shape and the edge of the layout. Click the Simplify button on the menu bar to complete. (You can use the Move Tool in the Detachable Tools Menu to adjust the position of your circle if it is not properly centered on the page.)  We are ready to add some background paper. Open the paper of your choice (File > Open) and copy and paste it on top of the circle, that is, the layer with the paper should be above the circle layer in the Layers Palette. With the paper layer active, use Ctrl + G to “clip” it onto the circle. The great thing about this method is that you can now move the paper layer around on the face of the circle. Try it!  Let’s move on to a picture. Open and crop your photo to the desired size. Copy and paste it into this layout and ensure that it is the top layer. Using the move tool, position the photo on the circle and again hit Ctrl + G. This will visually delete any area of the photo that is outside the circle. Continue this process with all elements you wish to add to the layout. Save the layout as a Photoshop file (*.psd) with File > Save or Ctrl + S, so you can edit later if need be. To print or post this layout in a gallery, we first need to merge all layers with Layer > Merge Visible (Shift + Ctrl + E). Next, we want to add a drop shadow to the circle. In the Layer Styles Palette (Window > Layer Styles), select Drop Shadows from the pull down menu and choose Low. We can now flatten the image with Layer > Flatten Image (which should give it a white background), resize if necessary, and save as a JPEG.  Credits: Paper from Ali Folendore’s True Grit Kit . Photo frame and stamped alpha by Katie Pertiet . © Copyright by YourSITE.com |