Let Your Spirit Be Free

Candace Duffy Jones — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:29:25 +0000

Never Grow Up

Candace Duffy Jones — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:52:06 +0000

First Christmas

Candace Duffy Jones — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:58:55 +0000

I am still scrapping my baby photos...

Comic Book Photos and Layouts

Candace Duffy Jones — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:02:29 +0000

1. Open the photo you wish to alter in Photoshop. I am going to use one of the photos from my layout. 2. Make a duplicate layer of the photo. You can do this by going to the menu Layer -> Duplicate Layer or by dragging the layer to the Create a New Layer button. 3. Next desaturate the duplicate layer by going to the menu Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate or Shift+Ctrl+U (MAC Cmd+Shift+U). 4. Now we have to change the brightness and contrast on the photo for a better result later. Go to menu Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast. Change your contrast and the brightness so you have good blackish outlines like in my image below: 5. Now we will being using one of the Photoshop Filters. Before we do this we will need to set our foreground and background colors to black and white, respectively. Press D to set the colors so that the foreground is black and the background white, or you can do it manually. Go to menu Filter -> Sketch -> Stamp. When the stamp window has opened, zoom out on your image using the - button in the bottom left hand corner, so that you can see all of your image. Change the Light/Dark Balance and the Smoothness until you get what looks like a B&W print of your image. Each image will use different quantities of Light/Dark and Smoothness. I used Light/Darkness Balance of 26 and Smoothness of 8. When you are happy with your image click OK. 6. Now we will need to remove the white areas so you can see the colors. Go to menu Select -> Color Range. You image should look something like mine: You will also get a window that looks like this: Set your settings to Select: Sampled Colors, Fuzziness: 200, Selection marked, Selection Preview: Quick Mask, the Dropper with no + or - selected and Invert unchecked. Use the dropper to select a white area of your photo (it may be red right now, but select where you know the white areas are). Your image should change so all the black areas are red and the white areas are white, like this: Click on OK. A selection will be around the white area. Press the Delete key on your keyboard to remove the white areas. Then press Ctrl+D to deselect (MAC Cmd+D). 7. Now you can leave your image the way it is, if you want. I don't think that looks to much like a comic but different photos may work better. What I did is add a layer below my outline so that I could paint in some color. Select the bottom layer in your layers palette. Click on the Create a New Layer button at the bottom. This will create a new layer between the original photo and the outline layer. Next select the Brush tool from the Tool Palette, you can also press B on your keyboard to get the brush tool. Now using your Brush Palette (Window -> Brushes or F5) select the Hard Round 19 brush. You may wish to make this brush larger by changing the Diameter size. I changed my to 46px to start and then went back to 19px for filling in small places. Select the color you wish to use and then paint within the outline, like I did below: Next you can add another layer for another color or use the same layer to paint another color. Which ever way you prefer to do it. I used the same layer to paint my next color: I then painted a background. I only used four colors but you may need more. Just remember the more colors you use the less like a comic it may look. Printing presses used for comics usually only have a few colors, although now a days that is changing. So it's really up to you how you want it to look. 8. Now I have some extras lines and dots I don't want so I used the Eraser Tool (E) to erase them. 9. I then cropped my image to the size I wanted and merged all the layer. To crop select the Crop Tool (C). Move your mouse to the top left area you want to crop from. Hold down your mouse button and drag the crop tool to the bottom right of the area you wish to crop. You can move the sides afterwards if you need to. Let go of the mouse button and make any adjustments you need to make to the sides by moving your mouse over the selected side and hold your mouse button as you drag it to it's new location. When you are happy with your crop selection press the Enter button on your keyboard or click on the Check Mark in the options bar. Merge all the layers by going to the menu Layer -> Merge Layers or using the keys Ctrl+E (MAC Cmd+E). 10. You can now add it to your layout. Here is how I did it. I used Jan Crowley's Comic Junkie Pt 1 and Comic Junkie Pt 2 (which are no longer available). I opened up the Template in Photoshop. And added my photo to the template. To do that you select your photo and drag it onto the template window. The photo will be added above the template, so I went to the Layers Palette and dragged my photo layer below the template layer. I then moved my photo into place. I added the rest of my altered photos to the template the same way. Then using the fonts I got from Blambot Fonts I added a title. I used the bubbles included in the Comic Junkie kit to add some thought bubbles to my layout. I did some resizing and flipping to get variations on the bubbles. I then added text over the bubbles. 11. This looks great but I wanted to add some texture to my layout so I used an overlay from the Comic Junkie kit and placed it above all the other layers in my layout. I then changed the overlay layer's Blend Mode to Soft Light. I then saved my layout. That's it!

We Missed You

Candace Duffy Jones — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:04:25 +0000

I have been living in my first house for 2 years. We've been trying to sell it for 1 year. Here is a layout I made about moving into our first house. The journaling is written to my husband who wasn't there for the closing of the house or for the moving in and getting settled.

Liam – Year in Review 2007

Candace Duffy Jones — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:34:50 +0000

i’m looking at you

Candace Duffy Jones — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:34:49 +0000

Photo Shoot

Candace Duffy Jones — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:54:59 +0000

Most Important Gift

Candace Duffy Jones — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:02:31 +0000

The most important gift under the tree.

First Snow

Candace Duffy Jones — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:19:26 +0000

Candace Duffy Jones Designs » jan crowley