Saturday, July 31, 2010

Scrap Saturday - Weaving String

The technique I'm going to show you today is one of my favorites. I like to make my pages look somewhat traditional - like a tangible, paper layout - and being able to weave strings in and around other items on the page helps to give my pages that look.

So let's get started, shall we?

First, put your string or ribbon on top of whatever layers you are going to weave through. I'm going to have some of my string go under the white mat around the photo, and some stay over the photo. Position the string just where you want it and decide what parts you want to go "under" the other items, and which you'd like to stay on top.

Next, add any shadows you'd like on your string layer, then duplicate your string, and move the copy just under the items you are weaving around. Like I said, my string will go under the white mat but over the blue one. (A shortcut to duplicating layers: hold the Alt key while you click and move the layer you want to duplicate.) Now you have two copies of your string.

Now - on the top copy - just use the eraser tool to get rid of the parts of the string that are "under" the other items. One little tip to erasing exactly the right parts is to select the pixels of the items you are weaving around. Right click the layer (I chose the white mat layer), and choose "select pixels". You'll see marching ants around that item.

Now choose the layer with the top copy of your string, and the eraser tool. While your marching ants are there - you can only erase inside of those pixels. The nice thing about this is that you can be sort of "messy" with your eraser, and you still get a nice crisp line of where the string would actually come out from under that item.

If you have more than one item you are weaving around, just follow the same procedure - select the pixels of that item, then choose your string layer and erase within the bounds. When you're happy with the weaving... we can move on to the shadows.

The only problem with shadows with a duplicated item, is that they are transparent - so both shadows show up, resulting in a shadow that is usually too dark. Sometimes, I'll just turn off the shadow on the top layer and it looks just fine - like a string that was resting very close to the paper wouldn't have a large shadow anyway.

But this time, I think it looks better with the shadow, so we just have to erase parts of the bottom string layer to get rid of the double shadow. If you still have marching ants (pixels selected) great - we are just going to select the inverse: Ctrl + Alt + I. Now you can erase anywhere outside of the box, and it won't erase anything on the inside. Make sure you choose the bottom string layer, and you'll see the shadow lighten as you erase that bottom copy. To unselect the pixels push Ctrl+D.