Great New Actions for Elements!

Panos over at PanoxFX has done it again!  He has created a great new action for Elements called The OOB+ (Out of Bounds plus) it “is an advanced tool which simplifies the steps needed to create the impressive and popular OOB effects.”

The action is very flexible; at the beginning it lets you define the area of the photo and its shape; it then lets you define the size of the white border; in the next step you define the out-of-bounds areas. The action makes use of layer masks and this allows you to edit the final effect at the end.

It is available FREE for PSE 5.0-7.0 and a tutorial on how to use it is also included.

And while you are over there be sure and check out all of this other actions which are now available for PSE 7.0.   Including several new items like “Anaylsis” which has a lot of great scraping applications, and “Comics” which turns your images into comics.

And of course he continues to offer fabulous Photoshop actions as well.

Sentimental Style

The beautiful designs at Sentimental Style are for personal non profit use only and they have been created in Paint Shop Pro X. All of Melissa’s creations are mainly created for taggers so her designs are on a much smaller scale than the average industry sized scraps.

Despite their smaller size, there quality makes it worth checking them out. Her freebies include alphas, embellishments as well as whole kits.

Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like.

Wordle is a Java applet, and Java applets are not permitted to write anything to your disk, so it can’t be saved as a png or jpg file. But you can take a screen shot or convert to PDF. PDF’s can be opened in either Elements or Photoshop and you can edit and add to a digiscrap layout.

Scrapping & Stampin with Savitri

I reviewed Scrapping & Stampin with Savitri last May and just recently she has updated, rearranged and added new tutorials so I thought I would bring this site to your attention again.   The video tutorials are easy to locate and with over 40 tutorials there is a wide variety of topics covered.

If you haven’t stopped by and taken a look recently click on over!

CoffeeShop Photography

CoffeeShop Photography provides free tutorials and actions for Photoshop and Elements.   The actions for Photoshop work in version 7 and above and the actions for Elements have only been tested in PSE 6.0

The tutorials are related to the actions, not how to run them, but how to create the same effects without the action.   Looking at those tutorials makes you appreciate just how useful actions can be!

Here is an example of just one of the many free actions sets Rita has made available on her blog:

Graphics Illustrations

Graphics-illustrations is all about providing illustrations, Photoshop brushes and useful resources in the form of downloads, tutorials and how-to articles.  All brushes offered in both the shop and the blog are Photoshop 7.0 and Elements 6.0 compatible and they have a tutorial available on how to convert Photoshop brushes to Paint Shop Pro brushes.

You do need to register in order to obtain the free brushes and other items including scrapbook pages.

7 Photography Questions

Scrappers, especially those that scrap to preserve memories,  will scrap any picture no matter how bad it might be if it covers an important event.  But wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to scrap were really good pictures?

If you would like to improve your skills and learn digital photography tips, techniques and even secrets of world class photographers. Then you should really sign up for the FREE podcasts at “7 Photo Questions”. You can listen to the episdoes via iTunes or you can listen to an episode on the website.  They even transcribe the interviews, so if you prefer to read the edited transcripts, you can do that there as well.

An email is sent out ahead of time alerting you to the comming weeks topic, and if you’d like you can even submit questions to the experts that are interviewed each week.  And you can also suggest topics that you would like to hear expert photographers talk about.

Taggers “Summer Party” Blog Train

Twenty-two (22) designers have gotten together for a Summer Blog Train with lots and lots of free goodies for you. All you need to do is go from blog to blog and collect the goodies. Everything is color co-ordinated so you should end up with a huge mega kit!

You can jump on the train at any of the following sites:

Bittersweet Designs
Twinky
Swheat Creations
Just a Girl’s Designs
Liadan’s Mes – Scraps by Liadan
Cinnamon Scraps
QueenBrat Designs
Aussie Scraps
Designs by Sarah for Pimp My Tags… With Scraps
Scrappy Lover
Danielle [DMK Designs]
Berry Delightz
Farrahs Creations
Jessica’s Scraps
Simply Irresistible Designz
Classie Creationz
Paula at Scrapz A Dasiy
Vamp Productions Scraps n Things
Baby Cakes Scraps
Angie’s Asylum
Krissy’s Scraps
Tantrum Scraps

Peppermint Creative

Peppermint Creative is a very cheerful looking site that offers a wide variety of items for both digi and hybrid scrappers.  In particular they offer board books for hybrid scrappers in 5×5 and 8×8 sizes.  And additional hybrid project kits are available.

They also have a CD burning service if you prefer to have your order shipped to you on CD instead of downloading. This service is available for both domestic and interntional orders.

Finally, there is a free digi kit offered every month and there is a free virtual libray of Titles & Phrases for scrapbooking.  This library is well organized and definately a page that should be book marked for future reference when you just can’t find the right words.

Design Reviver

Design Reviver is a resource for web designers, but there is a lot of good information and freebies available for scrappers.  There you will find tutorials, freebies, inspiration, and other useful information.  Good design matters whether you are creating a web site or scrapping your babies first steps.

Over 300 free vintage style textures and burshes are available, and over 200 textures, brushes and fonts are avaiable for grunge lovers.   These two catagories of freebies are the most obviously useful to scrappers, but there is more to be had.