HELP with stitching tutorial!!

[grafixgrl]

Hi everyone. I'm new here...but not new to Photoshop as a whole. However I am very new at digital scrapbooking! Just needed a little help with some stuff (for a more realistic approach) and was following the tutorial on stitching. I have made my stitch brush, my button graphic, but no matter what, my stitches will NOT conform to the direction of the path. My button is heart shaped and I am trying to make the stitches go around the button, but it just won't do it.

I started another canvas just doing a plain circle and started again...same thing. All my screenshots look just like the tutorial...I'm at my wit's end!! I need some help! lol

Here is a screenshot of what is going on:

Thanks in advance for all help,

Jeralyn

[Starling]

Look in the brushes pallet, under Shape Dynamics. There is an area called Angle Jitter with a drop down box. Angle Jitter should be zero. Then drop the drop down box and choose Direction.

That will set up your stitching to always go in the direction the brush is moving.

[Emma]

hth, that Direction Control under Angle Jitter Starling mentioned sounds like the problem.

Stitching is so fun to make digitally, let us know how it turns out!

[grafixgrl]

Hi Ladies. Thanks for the reply, but I have made sure (over...and over again lol) that the angle jitter is off, and that the control is set to direction. The screenshot shows what happened when I did it this way. Any more ideas?

J

[Emma]

can you instead attach a screen shot of your Brushes Palette? Perhaps there is something else amiss that we can see on that

[Emma]

The only way I can make mine do anything like what yours is doing is to have the Angle Jitter set to around 10%. Make sure it's 0%.

If that's still not it, we need to have a lot more descriptions about what you're doing, what the settings are, etc

[grafixgrl]

Emma...thanks for the fast reply! Okay, here's a screenshot of the brush palette, and the graphic I'm working on (with the stitches going wild) under it. If you see something I'm missing, please let me know!

Thanks again,

Jeralyn

[Emma]

uncle...everything looks fine to me! anyone else know what's up?

[Emma]

and try this one...not sure if it'll help, but perhaps a fresh perspective?
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/brush7/stitch/stitch.htm

[grafixgrl]

Okay Emma...the link you gave for Janie's tutorial...I tried that one and got it to work. BUT...I had to use the shape tool (using the heart shape I defined earlier when making the button). This is what made the difference. I don't know why though. I had to try a couple different times to make the shape fit the button. I SO wish I could just select what I have already and get it to work this way because this is what was impressive about this tutorial....making the stitches work with a custom shape. Oh well...if someone figures out the answer to this mystery, please let us know!

I have uploaded a screenshot of the button I was making. If anyone wants it (as an element) email me. I'll be happy to share!

Thanks again,

Jeralyn

[Emma]

I'm not following, about the Shape Tool vs. the Custom Shape Tool. Any path will work, from a shape, custom shape, to a free form path you make with the Pen Tool

Can you give some more info about exactly what you did differently on these two tutorials? They seem pretty much the same to me...

Glad you go it working, but we can still fine tune it so it works the way you'd like.

[grafixgrl]

Hi Emma. Okay, here's exactly what I did. I made my graphic...in the form of a custom heart...defined the shape, rasterized. I then selected it, modified and contracted it by 25 pixels, (thus ensuring an EXACT shape only 25 pixels smaller) chose paths>make path from selection. Selected my stitch brush from the brush palette, adjusted the spacing and size...clicked shaped dynamics, made sure the angle jitter was set to 0 and the control was set to direction. Then from the paths palette, chose stroke path with brush....and got wild looking stitches.

The way I got it to work was to start with the rasterized button heart, select the shape tool and drag out another heart inside it trying to match the rasterized heart exactly...but this takes more than a few tries. Very important is that while using the shape tool to drag out a smaller (hopefully 25 pixels smaller shape) heart is to make sure that the PATHS button at the top is selected, vs. the shape layers button. When I was satisfied that I had a simular looking path as the graphic, I did the rest the same as above...only it worked correctly!

Not sure how else to explain it.

Jeralyn

[rebecca burkett]

If you still want to try and solve this, maybe you could compare the history palette for each way. Or post it, and let everyone see it and maybe something will pop out.

[Starling]

I know this is going to sound weird, but consider starting over, from the beginning with a new drawing. It is possible we will never figure out what went wrong the first time, but that the second time will work.