DIP Q and A session summary from 24 hour crop - SBB Digital Scrapbooking Forums | Scrapbook-Bytes

shelleyrae · #1 (**permalink**) 03-27-2004

DIP Q and A 24 Hour Crop session

Prizes were won by: Heart Strings Certificate - Leeandra, Jeri's downloadables - Marilyn Fuerstneberg, Cheryl Barber's $25.00 Certificate - Amber Kazmir

Congratulations!

Thanks so much to the 50+ people who joined the Q and A session. It sure was frantic but I hope you got something out of it.
My computer crashed at the end of the session which is why I disappeared ..sorry about that ..had to reboot and dial back in and you had all gone by then!

Here is some info on what was covered and what my answers were in no particular order. I apologise if I missed anything..if I have then just ask!

** The Case of the Mysterious Blue Square

When painting ..particulary freehand painting a mysterious blue square may show up when you have clicked done ..usually in the top left hand corner. I contacted MS about this who says its a code error but not one they can patch so unfortunately you just have to work around it. Most often the easiest way is just to crop the square out and then paint over it or crop off the whole top section if possible and just resize the background. Other than that delet e the work and start again.

** Shadowing

I wrote a tutorial regarding using shadows in DIP which is available on the site. The main rule with shadowing is that if the element would sit close to the page the shadow is dark and tight ..the further away te fuzzier and larger the shadow becomes. In DIP though you select a shadow eg bottom right you can use the rezize handles to adjust that shadow anyway you want so play with it a little to get the look you want.
IN DIP9 you cant undo shadows so if you have made an elaborate element or whatever and think that you may need to adjust the shadowing later then try duplicating teh object an dthen applyng the shadow to the bottom layer. You can then group the top unshadowed layer and the bottom shadowed layer together, Then if you need to adjust the shadow later you can simply ungroup and delete the bottom object and do it over. A bit convoluted but can save a lot of frustration with wrongly placed shadows too.

** The Canvas
Canvas Size
The default canvas size for DIP9 is 6x4 inches. If you scrap in another size there is no way to set a default but you can create a blank template. Create a page in teh size that you use and save it to your hard drive as "my template" or whatever and when you start a new project just iopen that template each time,

When you first open a canvas in DIp it is not a white surface but a blank canvas. Meaning it has nothing on it until you add something. To quickly and easily add a backdrop use Insert>Shape>Square and then use Format> Resize to fit >stretch to fit and the white sqaure will fill the canvas. Then you can make whatever adjustments you like

** Cutting Out Pics
If the subject you want to cut out has a definate line then using the edgefinder can work well. No matter which way you do it the best tip I can give is to zoom in as much as practible, work in small steps ..dont try to use large lengths. Use the Adjust edges to fix any lines and in DIp9 feather the cutout by about 3 to get a good line. If you have areas that need cleaning up use your effects>transparency>transparency brush set at 100% and hard edge to clean up stray pixels or ragged edges. Again zoom in to do this and work in dabs rather than strokes.

** Rulers
To measure objects you are putting on your page make sure you have yor rulers showing! You can make them show by selecting View > Rulers and making sure there is a tick there. you can choose between inches and cms by choosing Tools > Units of measuer and selecting from the drop down menu. Now when you place your object on your page use teh rulers to measure it to size. Those rulers move! just click and drag them up and down or side to side to help with positioning and measuring.

** Sizing pics all the same

When you want to have your pics all the same size the easiest way is to determine the size you want and Use Insert> Shape >Square. Size the square to the desired size eg 5 x 3 and then duplicate that as many times as needed. You may want to remove the line from the shape first.
Now select one shape and use Effects>fill with texture or color and then choose picture. Follow the instructions to fill the shape with your pic and resize as needed within the shape. Repeat for the others now your pics will all be uniform in size.

** Filters in DIP
DIP is compatible with any filter with a .8bf* extension which is most plug ins. The ones I use the most are EyeCandy 4000 and Xenofex 2 both you need to pay fo rthough there was a free copy of Eyecandy 3000 out there. Do a search for free filters on google and a ton will come up. They are worth a try. Read my tutorial on the SBB site on Plug ins for more info.

Circles and filters - To make sure that a circles edges are not flattened when applying filters you can do the following. Have your circle then behind it add a suare form which you have remove dthe line and chosen no fill so its just a transparent square. Make sure the edges are well beyond the circle. Now group the two together. Then apply your filter. This gives the filter the space to work and the same trick works when you are applying a motion filter for eg. Create a blank square (no line no fill) around the object and group teh two before applying the filter.

** Tiling In DIP 7 and 9

You need the free RedFields Plug In > Seamless tiling Workshop found here http://www.redfieldplugins.com/
Now open a blank canvas at the size you plan to scrap your page. Add something>shape or line>shapes>square. Fill the page with it Format>Resize object to fit page>stretch to fit
Select the shape and choose no fill and no line from the pictorial menu
Add your tile to the page in the far left hand corner. Make sure it is around 1 - 1.5 inches square. Group the tile with the background and make sure that its now is selected. Start your plugins, find Seamless workshop and launch it ( this may take some time so be patient) and choose Preset three. Find the slider down the bottom that is for Tile Edge Location (mine seems to be at 400 most times). Slide it left until you can see your pattern and it meets to create a strip of a tiles. Now look to your right for the tile edge locator and push that up until you create a pattern with your tile. You may have to adjust the sliders til it is right. Then press Pattern. This also may take some time so be patient!

** Changing Colors

There are several ways of doing this depending upon your project and what will work better for you.
Paint Bucket
Use the paint bucket icon to fill something with color using the pallete or click "more colors" to type in values or you can choose a gradient fill. This overlays any detail though.

Fill with color or texture
to choose a colour from the palettes or use more colour choices to use the eyedropper tool to match any picture in your page. This can be used on text as well!

Hue and Saturation
Its a bit hit and miss when you are trying to change a color as the base values stay the same so it takes some experimenting but it retains the detail of what you are changing.

Adjust tint
Found under TouchUp in the menu this lets you increase the colour intensity of a particular colour in your picture.

When working with photos using Touchup/Adjust levels also gives you the ability to change the red blue or green channels seperately.

In DIP9 you can also use your selection tools to choose a part of your image and apply a colour change just to that selection using any colour changing tool.