Digital Scrapbooking Now

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)!

In a previous post I wrote about a place to download free Photoshop and Photoshop Elements brushes. I promised to actually try installing one. So, I am going to use the free bubble brush I downloaded. I documented each step and will show you how load and to use the brush.

First, a review of downloading – I created a folder to save my downloads in. You don’t have to do this, you can just download the file to the program files: 

Step 1: Download or add brush file.

• Download to or place the *.abr file (brush file) into: Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop X\Presets\Brushes where X is the version number for your version of Photoshop.

Step 2: View the Photoshop Brushes Palette

• View the brushes pallete from the Photoshop “Window” menu, or press F5 to view it.

Step 3: Load a New Brush

• If Photoshop was open, close the program reopen it.  Go to the Brushes Pallette in Photoshop, find the little down arrow and select “load brushes” to add them. (you’ll have to select the file – in my example it’s called SKS-bubbles.abr – shown in step 1).

Step 4: Click on the Brush Tool

• You have to be using the brush tool (see the toolbar above) to use brushes.

Step 5: Select the Brush (now that it’s been loaded)

• This shows how I select a brush in the brush pallete.

Step 6: Using the new brush!

• Just change the colors, select a brush size and click on the page – you have a cool bubble. I changed the colors and brush sizes to make these three bubbles. (Very fun!)

I hope you have as much fun with your new brush as I did!