The Sprague Lab

Well, I have done a lot of thinking over the past few weeks. A lot of thinking and not a lot of blogging as you can see.

I’ve decided to start a little something I’ll call Photoshop Friday. I chose Friday because it’s my favorite day of the week. So full of hope for the weekend, things winding down from a usually hectic week, that kind of thing. I’m just usually in a great mood on Fridays, and I hope you are too.

Well, what I would like to do is share a little bit with you. Not just a layout, and not just a tutorial, but sharing ideas and inspiration for Photoshop as it specifically relates to digital scrapbooking.

I put together a layout, and some little instructions, which you can use to do the Inaugural Photoshop Friday challenge: creating your own digital brush.

*This is geared specifically toward Photoshop. If you use another program for your digi scrapping, you can still download this image and use it!

First, you need an image. Try this one (you can right-click this image to download it):

This is a royalty-free image from a Dover Books publication called “1500 Decorative Ornaments”. If you like what you do with this, and dig digi brushes, I recommend this book. :) Plus it comes with a CD, which makes creating brushes just about as painless as it can get.

Okay, so you have your image ready to go?

Now let’s set about making your brush:

1. Open your file in Photoshop.
2. Select Edit, Define Brush Preset.
3. Type in a name for your new brush.
4. Hit OK.

If you open your brush palette, you will see your new brush down at the bottom of the list.

Now using your new brush:

1. Open a blank canvas. (I usually start out with 12 x 12 inches, 300 dpi)
3. Hit B to choose the brush tool.
2. Open your Brushes palette (Window > Brushes). (If you don’t have a tool active that can use the brushes, they will be greyed out)
2. Hit Shift-Ctrl-N to create a new layer. (It’s generally good practice to create a new layer any time you’re going to stamp with a new stamp. This keeps things individually editable.)
3. Select the brush you just made (it’ll be at the bottom of the list).
4. Pick a cool color for your brush.
5. Click anywhere in the document once. Brushes are like stamps.

Next Photoshop Friday we’ll talk about using Photoshop brushes in other ways. Stay tuned.

Here is a layout I created using my custom-made brush:
I used the brush as a single stamp for an accent, as well as creating a new layer just over the background paper, stamping randomly, and playing with the layer blending modes until I got just the tone-on-tone I was looking for.

All of the papers and the journaling tag are from the Jungle Cruise Digi Kit by Kellie Mize. Love this kit!

Okay, now the fun part.
Go make a layout. :)
And if you do a layout with this brush, PLEASE link it up in the comments so I can go check it out!

That’s it for now. Can’t wait to see! :)