Help --again

[sam ellis]

OK so by now you know I am new to this digital stuff. So I am going to ask some {maybe to you } dumb questions and then I can understand a little more of how this thing works :

1) If you have a whole sheet of paper - for eg --do you opne the paer " cut of a little by cropping then drag to your new layout ? - in other words do you do all the cropping etc in the "original file " then cose it ?
2) The alphabet that we can download --free and paid for --- do you open it up as in a whole sheet with ALL the alphabet on and crop to the A and then the N etc etc. Or do you sit and do this prior to requiring it so that you have all the letters seperately when you need them.

Ok so thats all for now _-I know I will need some more answers shortly IF you guys dont mund answering them !

sam
xx

[Tali]

Hi Sam, no such thing as dumb questions here...we've all been there

I'm sure other people have different ways of doing things so I'll just share how I use paper and alphas.

I open up the original file and then crop and drag the piece that I cropped into my LO. When I close the original file, I NEVER EVER save so I can keep it in it's original form. Sometimes if I'm not sure what size I want to crop the paper, I'll drag the whole piece into my LO and crop it from there. The piece that I cropped will now be on it's own layer and I delete the layer of the paper piece that I don't want....hope that just made sense!

As for alphas, I open up the original file and crop the letters out individually and drag just what I need into my LO. Again, I don't save when I close.

There's no right or wrong way but you'll eventually find something that works for you! Please don't hesitate to ask any more questions....we're here to help!

[susancurtis]

Hi Sam!

Depending on your software, it feels like there's usually three or four ways of doing anything so I love these questions--I get to see how others approach things and I always seem to learn new stuff, too! (So ask away anytime!)

[sam ellis]

I have PS cs2.

OK --so --I have a piece of paper, right, I want say the top 1/4 . If I drag the FULL sheet into my new LO . How do I crop it in my new layout. If I use my crop tool there then the whole LO is cropped !

3 ) another one. How do you sort your digital stash ? I have got a few Freebies and bought kits etc. I do the whole download thing and it comes as a zip file (save0 then open --go into folder and copy up into root ( I called kits) . BUt I getting a bit too much now ! So do you sort it by person --how do your remember what you got without seeing it ?


sam

[wendymck]

jealous of your pscs2 sam....sigh.

ok, since i'm pretty green, and i forget things, i've recently done the resizing thing A LOT in the hopes that i'll remember.

i typically crop before i drag it onto my page but sometimes that still isn't the right size. so, go to EDIT -- TRANSFORM --- RESIZE (mine is older and says scale). that gives you a set of small boxes that you can move up, down, right or left and adjust the size of something. hit enter when you have it the way you like.

as for organizing, i'm not very good at it, but i do keep my stuff separate by who or where it came from. my DD file is getting REALLY big! time to sort it out a bit more. i will do it by artist for papers and by thing for accessories. like grunge overlays, brushes, etc. those i want lumped together but the papers i like to have by artist because just like real paper, i always know who made what.

hth!

[Tali]

Sam, I should have mentioned that I don't use the crop tool to crop my paper. I use the marque tool and cut it. This way you don't crop the entire LO. You just select that layer of paper drag the marque tool around the area you want to keep, right click and cut. It will automatically make the cut piece a new layer of it's own. Then delete the other layer (left over paper).

[sarahbcmc]

Hi Sam,

As you get used to it, you'll find your 'favourite' way...there's really no real right or wrong - I'm more of a keyboard person than a mouse person, so I'm always using the keyboard shortcuts - just coz it suits my preference better. You'll discover what's best for you. Like people say - different things for different people.

I always copy my paper over to my layout before I 'cut-out' the shape or size I need - I find it very tricky to get the right size without seeing the other components of the page. Once I've got the full 'sheet' into my layout, like Tali says, I use the Marque tool to select what I want and the select the inverse of the selection (in PSE it's CTL, SHIFT 'I') and then delete that bit I don't need.

With alphas I go separately alpha by alpha using the Marque tool to select, then copy from the original and paste into my layout.

And with the saving kits - I have a folder for each website I shop at, a subfolder for each designer and then all their kits, papers etc in that. In the 'thumbnails' folder view I select which image I want to display so I can quickly remind myself what's in that folder. By the way - ask 10 people this question and you'll probably get 10 different answers!!!!

Glad you're getting into this!!

[susancurtis]

Hey Sam,

You probably already know this, but one of my favorite discoveries was how to center a new paper that you are bringing into your LO using Photoshop:

1. Make sure the "Move" tool (it has a small arrowhead and two crossing arrows) is highlighted in the tool box (press V).
2. Holding down the "Alt" and "Shift" keys on a PC (don't know the Mac equiv.) click the mouse in the new paper window and drag and drop the new paper from its window into your LO window.
3. Let go of mouse button and the "Alt" and "Shift" keys.

The "Alt" key makes a duplicate of the paper so you don't destroy the original version, the "Shift" key is the one that centers it for you. Unfortunately, if you have any "marching ants" going on in your LO when you are dragging and dropping the new paper into it, holding down "shift" won't center the new paper. And for some reason, it only works with the whole paper, not a smaller selection of it.

Tali found a really great visual file organizer. I haven't tried it yet--I've been buying scrapping books. It's called iview media and costs about $50.
Since you have CS2, it looks like Adobe Bridge will also let you see your files. I think that there's a training video included with CS2 about Adobe Bridge that will help you identify your jpg files with keywords--like stripes, floral, plaid, etc. So supposedly you can type in "stripes", and all the jpgs with that keyword come up. (I need to watch the training video again to be sure.) Unfortunately, Adobe Bridge is a major memory hog, in my opinion. A bit on the slow side for me. But at least I can *see* jpegs, pngs, and even photoshop files on my drive with it.

ETA Bad news--I can't figure out how to add keywords to png files in Adobe Bridge yet. I can add them to jpegs but pngs are not cooperating. Does anyone know a way to add a keyword to a png in Adobe Bridge?

[sam ellis]

thanks so much for answering this thread. I must apologise for my bad spelling. Its typos - not bad spelling. I type too quickly then hit GO !

I agree - If I asked 10 people - Its like asking someone how they file in their filing cabinet --and how they find things. But its interesting to ask and maybe there is a perfect way of doing it and its something you have to do right at the start !

tfl

sam