Digital Scrapbooking Journal - Part Seventeen

More Digital Scrapbooking Layouts

Wednesday, June 25: Fall Homework Assignment

Here's my fall homework assignment: John (Mickey Mouse) and Aunt Rosemary (Raggedy Andy); Halloween 1970.

The journal tag says, "Aunt Rosemary was the sister you never had."

This was the toughest assignment for the Dynamic Stitching class. I did three versions before I got one I was remotely satisfied with. This is it.

The picture was just so faded and filled with noise, I couldn't do much with it.

Then finding papers and colors that enhanced it was unusually difficult.

Though I'm not real happy with the result, I learned an awful lot doing it. Another class member jumped in to help me rescue the photo with these suggestions:

"Regarding your question about the photo - it would probably benefit from some noise removal with a plug-in such as Noiseware (I don't have it so not 100% sure of the name). You can also adjust with levels, then immediately choose "edit >fade levels".

Then I would try a hue/saturation adjustment layer and increase the saturation a little.

If it still doesn't look right, merge the hue/saturation layer with the photo, duplicate and apply soft light blend mode to the photo layer that is above the original, then reduce the opacity of the top photo until it looks good.

You have probably tried some, or all of these suggestions, but just in case I wanted to offer a few ideas. Hope this helps!"

Thanks again Karen! The Scrap Girls community is just wonderful.

When I get time, I want to redo the fall layout I posted yesterday (yet a fourth time!) and start from scratch with the photo and Karen's tips for rescuing old "noisy" photos. Now I need to give credit where credit is due.

In addition to the Dynamic Brushes and EdgeIt Actions, this layout uses the following Scrap Girls products:

• Cheryl Barber's Stitching and Holes to give the stitches dimension and create stitch holes;
• Brown background paper from Brandy Murry's Table Manners kit;
• A green rectangle clipped to scalloped paper from Syndee Nuckles French Market collection and then overlaid with a paper template from Keri Schueller's Timeless set;
• Weathered Polaroid-style (how 70s!) photo mat from Melissa Renfro's Weathered Frame set;
• Photo Lens frame by Syndee Nuckles;
• Red pinstripe paper by Theresa Kavouras clipped to a tag shape I made; and
• A raffia string bow by Angie Briggs.

The orange ribbon is from Comfort, a collaborative kit by the Scrap Girls design team to raise money for "Food for the Poor".

I borrowed the leaf shapes from Print Shop and clipped Scrap Girls papers to them.

Visit our Digital Scrapbooking Index Page for more tips and techniques.