Digital Scrapbooking Now

Have you bought Adobe Elements yet? Here the latest on prices for Adobe Photoshop Elements software:

Adobe has finally figured out that many scrapbooking fanatics are using their software. You should go see how the site has changed (to include tips and help for scrapbookers). Photoshop Elements 7 costs $99.99 or Photoshop Elements 7 with Photoshop.com Plus membership for $139.99.

For Mac - Photoshop Elements 6 is on sale. It’s their Dad’s and Grads sale - $89.99 for the full version or $69.99 for the upgrade. These discounts never last for long, so act fast if buying Adobe Photoshop Elements was on your “to-do” list!

What is the Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 with Photoshop.com Plus* membership?

Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 7 software combines power and simplicity so you can make ordinary photos extraordinary, tell amazing stories, and share them virtually everywhere. And now, extend the capabilities of your software with new Photoshop.com Plus* membership that includes:

• Ongoing delivery of tutorials, artwork, and templates
• 20GB of online storage
• Access to your photos and videos virtually anywhere you are
• And fun, interactive photo-sharing experiences for friends and family

So, for a little more money you get a lot more with storage space, tutorials, templates and photo-shareing tools.

This is printable and downloadable graph paper maker is cool! And it is free (gotta love that). Have you ever wanted to make your digital scrapbook look like graph paper? I found a place to download digital graph paper as a PDF that you can print or use in your photo editing software for your layouts. You can download some pre-made graph paper or set up the type of grid you want to make custom papers.

You can create other geometric patterns such as dots or hex graphs to download, too. There is even an option for trapezoid paper. What is so cool about this is: you can even do custom page sizes (such as 12 x12), which is great for scrapbooking. These would be interesting to use in a scrapbook with a school theme. I don’t know if anyone has ever made an engineering or architecture scrapbook, but if you were going to, graph paper backgrounds would be a nice touch.

So, when you try to make your paper, you can change the line colors or dot colors to red, blue, black, gray, green or use a custom color.

So go play with this tool: graph paper and see what you can come up with for your digital scrapbooks. Or, use this for school projects or to use a drawing and sketching paper. Whatever you do, go be creative!

Photoshop brushes help you create custom effects in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Here is an example of bubbles created using a free custom brush (created by Shelby Kate Schmitz):

As soon as I saw that, I wanted to make bubbles in Photoshop! So, I am going to downlad the free brush and try it out. I have downloaded other people’s brushes before and then totally forgot I had them. So, this time I am actually going try using this brush set before I forget! These free brushes will work with Photoshop 7 and later versions and Photoshop Elements 2 and up. See my step-by-step instructions on loading and using a Photoshop brush.

You can find the brush sets and instructions here: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshopbrushes/ss/sksbrushes.htm. But I am going to go into some detail about downloading and using them (in case it will help anyone).

I started out by creating a folder (called photoshop brushes) to download them to (so I could know where the download went!). Then I went to the folder and saw a file named SKS-bubbles.abr. I just copied that file (select the file, right click and then select copy). Next I navigated to the Photoshop presets\brushes folder (see below for the exact location for the PC). I made sure I was in that folder and used right click, paste. Voila, the file is there now.

Note: If you cannot find some of the folders I mentioned above, go to the Control Panel > Folder Options > View tab, and make sure “Hidden files and folders” is set to Show, then click OK.

How to install free brushes in Photoshop:

• Put the *.abr file into: Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop X\Presets\Brushes where X is the version number for your version of Photoshop.
• Go to the Brushes Pallette in Photoshop, find the little down arrow and select load brushes to add them to your set of brushes.

Instructions for Photoshop Elements - You buy a program called Add-O-Matic!
(if you use Photoshop Elements 5, 6, or 7). The link to graphicssoft earlier on this page will take you to information about that. But I will walk through the free way to add the brushes to Photoshop Elements below.

How to install Photoshop Elements Brushes:

Note: You have to close Photoshop Elements first.

Windows: Download and place the *.abr files into the program files on your computer. If you are in the file manager look for: Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements X\Presets\Brushes where X is the version number for your version of Photoshop Elements.

Mac: Place the *.abr files into: Applications/Adobe Photoshop Elements 6/Presets/Brushes

Brushes created in Photoshop 7 or later will not work in older versions of Photoshop Elements (such as version 2 and earlier). Any Photoshop brushes should work in Photoshop Elements 3 and later.

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: Place the *.asl files in: Applications/Adobe Photoshop Elements 6/Presets/Styles

You can also check out other free brushes, custom shapes and custom layer styles on the website I referenced above. The instructions are good and they cover Photoshop and Photoshop Elements for the PC and for the MAC.

Have fun (and see the detailed instructions here)!