In my Digital Media Arts class I’ve learned to create and use templates with Photoshop Elements … and here is my first attempt.  Each lettered space is a different layer on which to insert photos.  Our instructor is a Scrapbooker and wanted us to use a 12 by 24 inch format to create two book pages together.  I’m not sure I’ll continue this practice for blogging purposes … but I see why she likes it.

Using this template in last night’s class, I entered ten photos of Molly and Ms. Kitty … used the Control G (or ‘group’ command) to link each photo to the appropriate layer … added stroke outlines (blue for Molly and red for Ms Kitty) … shadows … and bevels to each … then used one photo with the opacity lowered as a background.

I separated the left and right pages using the cropping tool,

In order to make this a T-13, this morning I repeated last night’s steps to add 3 additional photos … below.  I do love the Control G command because it doesn’t require me to crop photos and finesse them into the correct spot.  I suspect that with practice (and some experimentation) I’ll figure out simple ways to combine these new skills with ones I’ve mastered previously … and discover new techniques of my own.

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and for others participating in Thursday Thirteen


Thought for Today
“What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.’ “ George Bernard Shaw