so many questions....

[just trying]

Hi all,
heres me questions. I am using paint shop pro, well lets call it fumbling not using and i am reading up all the old post about it. What is brushing and please the simplest answer would be apreciated. I have downloaded scrapbook flair (only because I dont have to know the ins and outs before using it) but would like to use PSP instead. Would you recommend a learner to use it?:o
I'd like to use (I think they are called) ploppers. But I cant work out how to PLOP the photo's in, when i try the photo will go there but the frame work (eg flower on frame) will be covered a bit.
sorry if this is silly questions but I have to learn somewhere.
Thanks in advance
Paula:p

[LadynRed]

Brushing is really just using a brush to 'paint' with. You have a Brush tool in the tools palette, and you should have a bunch of brushes that came with your PSP program -and there are tons more available on the 'net when you're ready for more :). When most of us talk about 'brushing' or doing 'brush work' we are really just using the brush tool in various ways. Sometimes you just 'stamp', click once with a shaped brush . Other times you will actually 'paint' with a brush to make fibers, lines etc. and to do that you select your brush and then click and drag around your canvas. Open a blank file and try a few. You can rotate brushes, and change the spacing, like with a solid circle brush to make a dotted line.

In PSP you work in layers. To understand layers, think of a stack of transparencies. Each transparency has something on it and you can move and edit each one separately and not disturb the others. You can change their stacking order to get different results. That is basically how layers work in PSP, Photoshop and PSE.

So for a plopper with a cutout for a photo, you would have the plopper on a layer of it's own and then you might put your photo on another layer BELOW the "frame" layer, making it look like your photo is inside the frame.

There are lots of great tutorials here: http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/tutorials.shtml#PSP

Hope that helps :)

[Abby]

Here is a link to a whole bunch of tutorials (up in the Menu above) .. they're great:
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/tutorials.shtml
PSP is a wonderful program to use for digital scrapping .. feel free to ask any questions you may have, here in the forums and someone is sure to help.

[just trying]

thanks for replying, i will have a look at the tutorials and see if it can all make sense to me. At the moment I have been messing around and trying out a few things, I find that if I do it that way instead of reading it sinks in more. Hopefully oneday I will be as half as good as the people on this site
thanks again

[LauraM62]

I pretty new to scrapping, and am trying to learn my PSP better. Really read the tutorials, give them a try as you read through them. I did a few now I am taking the DSU 130 class, which is a PSP beginner class. They have several classes online too here. :)

[Emma]

welcome! You can be all questions: I thought I'd drive my sister crazy with questions when I first started. I think she'd log out of chat really fast just so I wouldn't grab her every time she turned her computer on!

My simplest explanation of brushes is a lot like Lady's:
you either use an image like a rubber stamp and click the brush tool on the layout once
or click and drag the brush tool to paint strokes with it like a paint brush
There's a tutorial on the PSP Brush Variance palette you'd enjoy
but first

do the First Page in PSP tutorial
then the Understanding Layers for PSP tutorial
and join us for the Newbie chat this Friday night at 10pm to work through a basic layout, even simpler than the one in the tutorial

for Ploppers, you'll need to understand how layers work. Open the Plopper and go to File>Save AS with a new name.
Put your photo on your plopper window and in the Layers Palette click drag the photo thumbnail UNDER the Plopper layer (if the background layer is locked, then double click the layer thumbnail to unlock it, then click and drag the photo layer thumbnail under it).

Ploppers have a transparent "window" area in them, like putting a photo under glass in a picture frame.

[just trying]

thanks heaps for the tips, i have printed out the tutorials and hopefully when i have 5 minutes peace (if its not the kids its the husband) I will give it a twirl. Does anyone know of free wedding stuff to use, as I got married last Easter I would love to make a album up of it, but all I have found are pretty crappy ones.
Thanks again to everyone, and hopefully I will make it to chat one night

[debbers]

I can't say ENOUGH about Emma's Beginner's Class each month. It's awesome, and it helped me get enough confidence to start working on things in earnest. She showed us a simple technique, and gave us step by step instructions on how to do it. If we were lost, no matter WHAT software someone was using, she'd tell you where to look, what to click, to get you on track.

My first layout is STILL in the Gallery from that Friday night, and nary a single thing on it came from a kit.

It's a great introduction to what a fantastic teacher Emma is. :)

deb

[Emma]

found 5 quiet minutes yet? Nice thinig about digital is taht's all you need! Don t'have to drag stuff out and put it away, you can steal a moment here or there w/o making a mess or little fingers getting into things while you're away.

Remember the chat is in Chat Room 1 tomorrow night! All beginners and beginner-helpers welcome!