Fun with Colors

Hey Everyone!!  I hope you are all having a great day today.  I have been having a blast learning how to do things in Photoshop.   I'm probably like a lot of  people, if I don't keep doing something I have learned, I will forget and have to learn it all over again.   I have been trying (trying being the operative word here) to learn Photoshop for years.  I would pick up little bits and pieces here and there, but if I don't open the program for  few days, I forget everything I have learned.  I decided that since I'm not working so much overtime now, it's time to get serious about learning Photoshop.  Ever since I found Pixel Scrapper I have been devouring the tutorials that she posts. When I searched for PS tutorials before a lot of them I had found were either dealing with how to adjust pictures, how to use the tools in a general way or using the tools for something that was way more than I wanted or needed to do.  Nothing was specific to what I wanted to do.. and that is learn how to create things for my crafting. The other day I was going through my paper stash and I have accumulated so many papers that I love I don't want to use them.  If I only have one sheet, I will either, a) mess up my project and need to start over with a different paper because I don't have enough left or b) I will find another project that would have been perfect for that paper, but now I can't get any  more because they don't sell it any longer.  So it just sits there.  I decided that if I start using digital paper, either ones I have purchased or created myself, then I may actually start using it, because if I mess up, I can always print another sheet or two.  If I find the "perfect" project for a paper, I can use it again, since I can just print out what I need.  

Another thing that is great about using digital papers, I can print on any weight or type of paper that will fit through my printer.  If I want a watercolor paper for one project, I can print on that.  If I need card stock I can print on that.  If I only need a thin paper like patterned paper, I can print on regular printer paper.  You can't do that with most papers you purchase, they usually only manufacture it on one weight of paper (unless I'm just not seeing designer papers on different weights).  And if I only need a 6 x 6 inch piece of paper, I can print out just that much. If I need something bigger, I can print it to that size as well... again as long as my printer will print the size I want.  We have a old office Xerox laser printer that will print up to Tabloid size, and while I haven't had to use that size yet, it's nice to know I will be able to print out at least a 12 x 12 paper if necessary.  For now I mostly use my little laser printer and just print out 8.5 x 11.

One of my stumbling blocks for designing my own papers, is coming up with colors to use that look good together.  But if you have noticed lately there are a lot of color palettes on Pinterest.  I just learned how to create my own using Photoshop, so now I can take a favorite picture and create a color palette from it, then use that to create a digital paper.  Here is a photo I took a couple of years ago out in the desert in Nevada at sunset.  I picked 5 colors from the image and created my palette.

I added the colors to my Swatches Panel, so I could easily pick what color I wanted to use and then just started playing.  I added some texture images, and played with just the five colors in my palette. I came up with something I liked as far as the design went, then just started changing a color here and there to see what I came up with.  Here are some of the digital papers I came up with using just this palette.

                                             

I know some of them don't look like I used the same 5 colors, but I did. By changing of the properties of the layers it changed how everything looked.  I was having a great time just working with the 5 colors to see what I could come up with.  I saved my work as a .PSD to keep the layers, so I can go back and change my colors easily if I want that same look but with different colors.

I think the next time I have some time to play, I will use some of the StampinUp colors.  I spent one night creating a new Swatches group with just the current StampinUp colors.  Since I have so much of their solid card stock, I thought this would be a great way to create some textured or patterned paper to co-ordinate with it and use it for making cards.

Well thank you for sticking with me through this adventure.  I hope it may have inspired you to start playing around with creating your own digital papers and finding inspiration for color palettes for your projects.

P.S If any one is interested is downloading my papers, let me know, and I will work on finding out how to add files so that they can be downloaded. The previews here are small and while you could use them, they aren't the best quality.  I'm still trying to figure all this blogging stuff out. (I'm sure you noticed that I changed my look... thought I would try something different for awhile... it's going to be a work in progress while I tweak things around here).

P.S.S.  I would love to hear any constructive criticism about my new look, do you love it?  Hate it?  Hard to read?? What would make it better for you.  Any ideas on how to improve the way things work here??  

Enjoy your journey, I know I'm enjoying mine!!!