More Ways to Spice up Your Photos in Photoshop

Still working my way through the on-line class I'm taking at Jessica Sprague's website, "Photo Editing: Frame-ups & Special Effects." I'm about 3/4 through the lessons, but am hoping to also have time to do the extra assignments at the end of each lesson; those are in addition to the layouts we students create during each lesson. I have to admit - I love learning.

So here's my first storyboard! These are really fun, especially choosing just the right photos that will convey a story. I love how this turned out. These are soooo nice, framed, and hung on the wall. I think I'll be doing just that with this one!
We also learned to create collages. Well, I've created lots of collages; still, I enjoyed working through this lesson and, while doing so, got NINE of the photos from our recent trip to Kauai on a layout! Heck, it's ready for my album! I think the photos I chose really give a good representation of our zipline tour (my first ever) and (bonus!) this layout is ready to be printed and placed in my album.
Here's the same layout with some additional techniques added. I changed all the photos to a sepia tone using a hue/saturation adjustment layer, then painted over the center square to let the color show through. Added some additional words, a dropshadow to "Zipline," and it's a totally different (and totally cool) look!
Okay, so I know I told you that I'd have a new freebie for you soon, and I will, I promise!! It's on my list for tomorrow. I have a lot of catching up to do with stuff for my little scrapbooker-for-hire/digital design business but the freebie is #1 on the Master To-Do List.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer - I know I am! If you'd like to read more about what I'm doing in my personal life, check out my other blog, Debz Talkin'.

No matter which blog you read, please leave me a comment (with email address). I love to hear from you, would enjoy knowing what kinds of freebies you'd like (personalized stuff???), what you've learned recently, where you've vacationed, where you live.....uh, yeah, I AM kinda nosey! I enjoy people, and want to know about you!

Out of It, Pretty Much!

I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I've been sooooo busy. A trip to southern California to hang with my Mom for a week, back home this week where I've been trying to get caught up on both personal and biz stuff. If you are on subscribe to the Webajeb newsletter you know this already. And tomorrow my hubby and I leave for a week in Florida to visit his folks. Plus, getting ready for a fundraiser on the 21st (I'm a vendor) - whew!

I'm "give out," as my friend, Nona, from Arkansas used to say. Thankfully, I'm pretty much done packing (just a few last-minute things to throw in the suitcase), and then I can relax for the evening and, hopefully, go to bed early. We have a 7:30 a.m. flight to catch at an airport about 45 mins. away so you can do that math, I don't want to think about it!

I WILL be updating this blog with some fun new stuff when I return, and after the fundraiser. So, y'all come back now!

Scrapbooking in China

At the moment I am in Luoyang City, China, visiting my son, who teaches English at a university here. I'm having a marvelous trip -- this country is really unbelievable. Opulence and poverty side by side with poverty, of course, winning out in sheer numbers. If you are interested in seeing some of my photos and reading a bit of my travels here, please visit my personal blog; www.debztalkin.blogspot.com.

As far as I can tell, no one here has heard about traditional scrapbooking, let alone digital, so it's really hard to explain to people what I do for a living! I been a special guest in my son's classroom on several occasions and we have been showing photos of him as a little boy, places of interest in America, and even one or two of my digital scrapbook pages. They especially love this one of my two cats.

In spite of the title of this posting, I'm not actually doing any scrapbooking here in China. I didn't want to bring my laptop so I don't have my Photoshop program. I am going to go home with TONS of photos, however! If I scrapbooked my China photos full-time 'til the end of the year I wouldn't be able to do them all, so I'm going to have to be very picky about which pictures to use. My son and I are both shutterbugs so, between the two of us, we will have literally thousands of photos!

I can't wait to get started on a travel album but will need lots of tips and ideas. If any of you have done travel pages I'd love to see them. Please leave a comment and a url where I can view them. THX!!!