Kate Spade's Things We Love

Oh yay! I can't help. I just have to share this fabulous THINGS we LOVE at Kate Spade.

Browse and jump into Kate Spade's popsy world.. and if you're like me, it feels like serotonin booster, you know, the very thing that makes you feel happy from the inside your brain :-))

Graphic Goodness Exercises 1: Day 11

Hurraa! I hope you had a very nice Christmas!

I also hope you had good exercises with the graphic goodness and now we're going to talk about using 'eraser tool'. In the first part I include the PSD file for you to practice using the eraser tool, and I also uploaded the PSD file of the image above for your to play :-)

Download the files here:

The exercise
The image

So, let's start now :-)

Open the exercise file. Click on the eraser tool as shown in the screenshot above. The eraser features panel will appear at the top of the screen below the menu, and you can experiment yourself with the diameter, mode, opacity, etc. It's fun! :-)

Now make sure you are on the right layer. Click-and-hold your mouse and drag erasing the image. Ay, can you see it? Play again. As much as possible (...kidding...but a lot of practice will help :-))

Now I just pasted a red graphic to the working board, and I want to make a heart-shaped image.

so I clicked on the eraser tool again, and set the diameter to a small one. Then I use it to create a heart in the center of the red graphic.

Once I got the shape, I erase the outer area of the red graphic (I enlarge the diameter first to make it easier to erase), so, the red heart stands alone now.

Yippi! Now I got the brown and red graphics to create flowers. I added more elements that you have learned from the previous exercises. Open the PSD file of the image and you can play with it. It's another fun exercise :-)

Have a great week!

Auntie cooked for a special weekend lunch

Hello friends! How's your Graphic Goodness exercises going? Did you practice alot? ;-) It's been pretty busy around here..but here I'm back! Starting this week we'll catch up again with the Graphic Goodness Gratitude Cards Day 11 onward.

I'm just so happy that last weekend my aunt was visiting and she cooked for lunch the food my late grandma used to make. I don't how to say it in English, but it's kind of meatball...let's say it 'Javanese meatballs'. It's a mix of minced beef with finely chopped cabbage and carrot and egg, and cooked with tomato and spices.

In addition our cook prepared fried minced tofu, boiled spinach and soy bean, and spiced grated coconut (it's called 'Urap'). And of course we always have rice as staple. Love it. It was a special Sunday lunch at home with my aunts and cousins. A good energy to prepare a week with more graphics on the blog. I'm such a lucky niece of my wonderful aunts :-))

Graphic Goodness Exercises 1: Day 10

Download PSD file Day 10

Wow! Day 10. Let's wrap up a bit what we have learned until day 9:

• copy and paste the digital papers to the working board
• rectangular and elliptical marquee tools
• move tool
• lasso tools
• duplicate layer
• type tool (including coloring and changing sizes)
• arrange layers
• transform tools
• select and cut layer to create shapes

If  you missed the Graphic Goodness Exercises 1 -  Week 1, go here.

Today using the same image as day 9, we are going to practice:

• group or merge layers
• simple drop shadow tool
• using brush tool

Ok, let's start :-)

First, open the PSD file from Day 9.  You can see on the layers list that there are a lot of layers in the document.

Now, start experimenting. Take two or more layers that you want to put in one group, or, to merge into one image.

• click a layer on the layers list
• press Ctrl button and click another layer you want to put in one group or merge with the first layer 
• click "Layer" on the menu at the top, then "Group layers" if you want the images to still be individual only that they are 'together' - or "Merge layers" if you want to merge the images into one image.
• in the sample PSD file Day 10, I merged the entire small layers to make one doll image
• repeat the steps several times until you get the hang of it

Second, let's experimenting now with dropping shadow to the images / layers

• start the practice with one layer. For example the 'Thank You' text. Make sure you're on the right layer. Now click "Layer" on the menu at the top. On the sub-menu, click "Layer style" then "drop shadow" and the layer style box will pop up
• now it's time to play with the shadow box :-) you see in the picture below, on "drop shadow structure", I chose "multiply" on the 'blend mode' box, 35% opacity, 120 degree angle, distance 5px, spread 0px and size 5px 
• repeat these steps with other layers, and try to experiment with various blend mode, opacity, angle, distance, spread and size

Third, just a quick taste to brush tools, because I want to add pinky blush to the doll's cheeks (we'll talk more about brush tools in a few days):

• click on the brush tool on the tools menu as shown in the picture below

You see in the picture above:

• when the brush tool is selected, the brush menu appears at the top of the working board
• here I set the brush size to 32, mode normal, opacity 50%, flow 100%
• and on the toolbox, you see I already changed the color to pink
• if you still have other color there, double click the color box, and another color box will appear, and you can set the color of your choice
• click on the layer where you want to apply the brush tool (in the sample, it's the face or layer 2)
• now you can 'spray' the pink paint with the brush tool to the doll's face to create blushing cheeks
• repeat these exercises. you can always click on 'Step Backward' or 'Undo' by clicking first "Edit" on the menu at the top, whenever the result of your brush-painting is not yet satisfying, and then try again and again. have fun! :-)

to be continued....

Graphic Goodness Exercises 1: Day 9

Hello friends! Sorry for the absence.... I got sick and had difficult time staying for sometime in front of the computer ... learned something, though, next time I will use the scheduled post so there will be no interruption :-)

Download PSD file Day 9

So, before we start, I'd like to make sure that by now you have followed the tutorials and must be familiar with:

• copy and paste the digital papers to the working board
• rectangular and elliptical marquee tools
• move tool
• lasso tools
• duplicate layer
• type tool (including coloring and changing sizes)

And from week 2:

• arrange layers

If  you missed the Graphic Goodness Exercises 1 -  Week 1, go here.

Today we are going to learn about using more tools and functions that I mentioned in the previous post:

• transform tools
• more select and copy/cut functions

And tomorrow, using the same image as today's, we are going to talk about:

• group or merge layers
• simple drop shadow tool

Ok, let's start!

First, we are going to make a doll / girl image. On the step by step below, you will learn about transform tools and some variations on select tools. You will also use a lot of 'arrange layers' function so it's a good repetition from what you learned in the previous post. Anyway, you will always have to repeat most or all of the steps, which means you will get a lot of practice along the way :o)

• create a working board. Here I have the 640 x 480 pixels as usual, and copy-pasted the light blue paper
• make an ellips from the light-beige paper, for the head
• make three yellow ellips and arrange them around the bottom of the head. The light-beige head might be place under the yellow ellips, so put it forward using "arrange layer" function (see tutorial Day 8)
• make a purple ellips and put it under the yellows
• make a long dark blue ellips as shown here, for the dress

Second, to make a bell-shaped dress, use elliptical marquee tool on the dark blue ellips. Since you want to erase the outer area of the marquee, click "select" on the menu at the top, then click "inverse". When the inverse area is selected, push the "delete" button (on the keyboard) and then you will get the bell-shaped dark blue - as shown in the pictures below. Note: make sure that you work on the right layer (check with the layers list on the right).

Third, now we are going to start using the transform tools.

I want to make the sleeves which have the same shape as the dress, only smaller. So:

• make a duplicate of the blue dress
• on the menu at the top, click "edit" then "free transform"
• hold and drag your mouse to make the image smaller

Now I want the sleeve I just created to rotate a bit. So repeat the steps "edit" -> "free transform" and you'll see once again the blue sleeve is 'wrapped' by a box with 7 transform points as shown above. Place the cursor outside the transform box until the rotating cursor appears, then hold the mouse and rotate the sleeve. Apply the transformation.

Note: when you do the transformation, make sure that you are on the "move tool"

You now get the sleeve image...

• make a duplicate
• click "edit" -> "transform" -> "flip horizontal" ... and voila you've got two blue sleeves one for the right, one for the left side of the dress
•  use move tool to place them on the top-sides of the blue dress.

Fourth, now we are going to make the legs and shoes.

• using rectangular marquee tool, make the legs from the light-beige digital paper
• make a duplicate then place them behind the dress
• using elliptical marquee tool, make a small blue ellips
• almost similar to step two (on how to make the bell-shaped blue dress) - create a selection area with elliptical tool on the small blue ellips (check with the layer list that you are working on the right layer)
• press "delete" button and you'll get a half moon image. duplicate the image, then place them on top of the legs

Fifth, to create the hands

• I made a duplicate of the leg
• I wanted to make the image thinner, so I clicked on free transform tool (which means "edit" -> "free transform") and place the cursor to one of the middle-side points, and once the transform arrow cursor appear, hold and drag the mouse inward, to create a thinner rectangle. Apply the transformation.
• Now I wanted to rotate the image to suit the sleeve image. Repeat step 3 on how to rotate the image. Hints: free transform tool -> rotate
• Make a duplicate, click "edit" -> "transform" -> "flip horizontal"
• Using move tool and arrange-layer, place them behind the sleeves
• Make a small ellips from the light beige paper. Make a duplicate then place them on the hands

Sixth, to create the hair and the face

• repeat steps 2 on how to make the bell shaped dress, now with the black digital paper. Use free transform tool if you want to make it bigger or smaller
• place it behind the light beige head
• using elliptical marquee tool make an ellips from black paper. By now you know how to make it bigger or smaller :-) then use once again the free transform tool to rotate it. Place it on top of the head to make a side bang. Duplicate, flip horizontally, then place them on top of each other.
• make two tiny black ellips for the eyes
• repeat steps 4 on how to make the half moon images for the shoes, only now use a red paper

Voila! The girl graphics is done and now you are ready to add some more details as you like. Here you see I added hair ribbon (by now you know how to make them :-)) and the decorative bubbles and text.

Tomorrow we'll continue with dropping shadow to give a cutout and 3D-like effect to the image.

In the meantime, have a graphic goodness today! :o)