Joy,
I couldn't get the Lighten/Darken brush to work? PSP8
{{gwi:2062075}}

~Urlee~

Urlee, good job.

I used PSP8 and it worked for me. Are you sure that the opacity was set high enough ? The first time I tried it, I thought it wasn't working, I checked and the opacity was too low.

I'm sure this will also work in PSPX, but so few people have it, I thought it would be better to do it in 8 or 9.

Joy

I'd have to do it again to see?
All your hard work in the post, I thought I'd better do this.
Thanks.

~Urlee~

Hi Joy, I'm not sure what you mean by the light/dark brush tool or the soften brush tool. I'm using PSP8.
Teri

Teri, they should be on your toolbar....

Lighten/Darken is a white and black square icon...it's with Saturation up/down...Hue up/down....Change to Target.

The soften tool is a small round gray circle with a lighter gray center.....it's with the Dodge/Burn/Smudge etc.

Hold your cursor over each tool icon, if there is a small black triangle beside the tool, click on it to see other tools.

Joy

Thanks Joy. I guess I've never used those tools before because I could'nt find them for the life of me. It was a good tut. Thanks for posting it. Here is what I came up with.The ears look a little funny.
Teri

Teri, you did a good job. The ear problem doesn't show all that much. It is caused by not quite getting the selection to the edges of the ear....just takes practice. Be sure and Zoom in when working, so you can see the small areas.

You should be able to move any selection, using any photo as a background, once you get this under your belt.

Joy

Tks for the tut, Missy Joy. You're the best! Everybody did such a wonderful job! I cut off half of his feet and tail, but I don't think I hurt him 'much', lol. Methinks I need a LOT of practicing on the 'selection & painting'. :)

Naturally it took me longer to figure things out but I finally got it. haha
{{gwi:2062077}}

Cool, Judy.
Even Teri & Gale know something I don't?

I still couldn't get that Tool to work for the dog's footsies!
I am going to have to read up on it to see what I am not doing right.

{{gwi:2062078}}

I'm soooooo proud of all of you. Every one of you did a great job.

Urlee, are you using the right or left mouse button for the Lighten/Darken brush ? Unless you enable the 'Swap Mouse buttons' the left mouse button is 'Lighten' and the right mouse button is 'Darken'.

Joy

Joy,
I use the left mouse button and think the key words are foreground and change to target that I may have overlooked.
~Urlee~

Urlee, did you enable the Lighten/Darken brush...each tool must be enabled separately. None of the other brushes effect Lighten/Darken brush.

You must use the Right mouse button for Darken, unless, you enable the 'Swap Mouse button'....if you enable the Swap button button, you would then use the left mouse button for Darken....it switches the command.

Joy

Joy, Is it to late to fix the doggie's ear? Since it's been saved as it is already?
Teri

OK Joy.

Teri, open image, duplicate close original...

Here are two ways you can try...

Use the Push Brush Tool with a low opacity (try 40%, go up or down from there).....use a small size brush 10 or under > Hardness 50% > Step 5....

Click your cursor hold down shift key move cursor forward where you want it to stop....repeat if needed. Push from the good part to the missing part, it will fill it....if you over-do it, UNDO lower opacity and try again.....OR

Clone the ear.

Save

Joy

Thank you for the tut, I am trying to get back into the swing of things. Here's mine, my selection doesn't look as clean as all of yours.
{{gwi:2062079}}
Carol

Carol, you did a good job. I like your background and frame.

When you are painting on the Selection Edit (red film), it is important to zoom in to see the fine detail. You did a good job, the few places that you are seeing the background around the edges is where you painted White over the edge a tiny bit. That's where a small brush and Black paint come in handy, if you zoom in you can see where you are over the edge and erase it. It's very hard to get right on the very edge. Actually, it's better to stay a little bit inside of the dog's body than outside.

Joy

Carol, That is great!!!!!!

Thanks for that tip Joy.
I also had that problem.
~Urlee~

Thank you Joy for the help. I will have to give it another try.
Carol

LOL Here I come - late as usual.
Thanks Joy - I forced myself to use 8. LOL I'm such a stick in the mud when it comes to change and still use Version 7 but your tut inspired me to try.

Guess who didn't adjust the brush small enough for fiddly bits? LOL
HUGS
Sue :)

{{gwi:2062080}}

I got brave and tried another pictre. Of course after I uploaded it I found a few mistakes. Oh well at least I tried!! haha
Judy
{{gwi:2062081}}

Welcome to the club Sue!
That is keen.

Judy, that is such a darling picture!

Sue, you did a good job, it takes practice, practice, practice :-)

Judy, you did a good job, too. Your cutie-pie has such a sweet smile.

When you have a fairly straight area, like her legs, you can click at the top, hold down the shift and move the cursor forward and click again, the paint will go in a straight line eliminating the irregular edge. If the area curves, follow the curve clicking and adjusting where you want the paint to end as you move forward.

Note: A good way to practice is....
Open New Image (white)
Set the material palette to a bright color.
Add tube or a shape to the New Image
Choose the paint brush and practice, change paint brush size as you work, you will quickly get the hang of it.

You can also erase using the click/shift method. Most tools work this way....exception, the Clone tool, it does not work with the click/shift method.

Joy

I know I'm super late in following Joy's instructions, but hope she will still see this and critique my try. I checked in before leaving home and saw the great work that everyone else did, but just could not take time out from packing and closing the house to try it myself. We arrived in Myrtle Beach yesterday and although I don't have internet service yet - I found a place to take my laptop and so I could send in my effort.

I will have internet again on Friday (I'm in withdrawal) but it's forcing me to do some practicing which is needed. I'll soon be back on line full time. I framed it twice and couldn't decide which one to send in, so I'm sending them both. The work in cutting out the dog is exactly the same, just two different xmas frames.

Joy - if you get a chance to look at this - I really appreciate your instructions. This was so much fun to do. I'd love to have a few more lessons on working with photos, if you have the time.

Elaine

Elaine- I'm not Joy but those sure are nice!! You did a great job.
Judy

Oh Elaine,
How very pretty!
Glad to see ya on here!
I assume you are at your home away from home?

~Urlee~

Elaine, Those are great. I can see your getting into the holiday spirit :- )
Teri

Elaine, those look great to me, you did a really good job.

You wrote: "I'd love to have a few more lessons on working with photos, if you have the time."

I'm not sure I will have the answers, but, what type of things would you like to know ? Give me some examples.

Joy

Thank you for the kind words - Joy, you made it possible for me to do this, with your instructions. I've got that filed away for safe keeping! Yes Urlee, we have arrived at our winter home and I will have internet service in the condo after tomorrow. Can hardly wait. I'm writing quickly because my laptop has picked up a low signal this a.m. and I want to get this out before it disappears.
Joy, I'd like to practice with all the tools on photos, fix faded pictures, old pictures, scratch removal etc. I really enjoy trying to improve photos. I'll try to come up with a better explanation.
I've sure missed you all.
Elaine (who'll be on line for sure after tomorrow)

My first ever PSP attempt. Thanks for giving me the courage.

{{gwi:2062084}}

Judy

Judy, gooood job, especially good for a first try :-) Keep up the good work, you're on a roll.

Which version are you using ?

Joy

Nice job Judy. Glad you are posting.
The other Judy!

Hi Joy,

I am using PSP ver 8.
I played around with some of my own pictures and here is a sample. Believe me though, they didn't all turn out this well.
For one thing, when I pasted one picture as a new layer, it was very small. I'll have to work on this some more I guess.

Judy

Judy, Your work looks great for a first try. I'm glad you are joining us. It's lots of fun on this forum
Teri

Judy, that's really cute...love, Rover :-)

I'm not sure what you mean about the layer. Do you mean you copy/pasted your selection as a new layer and the selection was too small ?

Joy

"Do you mean you copy/pasted your selection as a new layer and the selection was too small?"

Yes, that's what I mean, Joy.
I think I have it figured out though. It was a very old picture, taken when I was a real beginner and as I look at that picture again, I see where it had only 72ppi for an 8" x 10" !! Wow, I don't remember doing that?
Shows how much I've learned since then.

Thanks MsT and Judy for the compliments and welcome.

Judy

Very good JudyS,

And oh how cute and nicly done of "my dog" when she was a pup! :) Looks exactly like her.

Welcome aboard!

~Urlee~

You can see my picture of the Maltese puppy above.
I continued to play with it, by adding spruce, gifts and snow picture tubes. When I was finished, I saved it to jpeg.
It wasn't until I tried to email the picture to my sister that I realized the file size had grown to 612kb, with the additional picture tubes.
Is this normal for a file size to increase with the addition of picture tubes or is there a step I missed?

Until just recently, I used PSP 8 only for editing my pictures and knew little about the programs other functions such as layers, masks etc., so I hope my question doensn't sound too ridiculous.

Judy

Judy, the more color intense the image is, the bigger the file size. Tubes have a lot of color, the larger they are the more file room they take.

Crop off any excess that you possibly can, from your finished image. Be sure you use the jpeg optimizer when you save ? The higher the value number the smaller the file, however, watch the image on the right as you change the number. If you go too high with the number, the image will be very poor.

Joy

Joy,

Thank you very much.

That was my introduction to 'jpeg optimizer'. I tried it and downsized my file size considerably.

As I mentioned above, I am not familiar with the tools of PSP-yet. You have taught me a lot and now, I am ready for my next lesson-lol.

Thanks again,
Judy