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Digital Valentines Day Card

Adding WOW with Digital Styles

Using Digital Styles To Create Amazing Special Effects

This year’s Valentine card for Mom was made using Photoshop CS, some digital products from Scrap Girls and some original products of my own.

Styles really add 3-dimensional WOW to your 2-dimensional layouts or cards.

All of the tools to create your own Styles are available in Photoshop. The Valentine card above has several Styles added. See if you can find them.

There are Drop Shadows applied to each element to add visual depth. Notice the shading to the bottom and right of each object – as if light is shining on the page from the upper left.

There are inked edges applied to the red paper and the paper bag scrap to add a bit of grunge.

For these, I used Mandy Steward’s Inked Edges Style from Scrap Girls. The glitter on the heart was done using Amanda Sok’s Glittered Gelly Styles, also from Scrap Girls.

Where Can I Find Digital Styles?

As I said earlier, the basics for creating your own Styles are right in Photoshop (or the less expensive Photoshop Elements). The best way to learn about Styles is to just go play with them. The Styles you purchase (like the Inked Edges and Glittered Gelly in my example) are compound Styles.

By that I mean that each one incorporates several Photoshop Styles. A digital designer probably spent countless hours trying different Styles in combination before getting just the right look.

The first Style most digi-scrappers use is definitely the Drop Shadow. When you add an element to a page, you often want to add a Drop Shadow so that it appears to be resting lightly above the background paper.

To add a Drop Shadow, activate the Layer you want to shadow. (Click on its Layer and the block darkens.)

Then click on the scripty “f” at the bottom of the Layers Palette. This opens up all of the available individual Styles, including Drop Shadows.

Notice that each Style type has various options within itself. You may alter the color, the size and spread, angle, blending mode and so on. Think of the possibilities!

I didn’t do the math, but I expect there are a gazillion different effects that could be produced.

Once you’ve applied a few simple Styles to elements in your design, purchase a few of the professionals’ Styles and try them out.

I was just in awe when I used my first one. Not only are they really cool to use; they are as flexible as the individual Styles. Each one can be customized to your taste or the particular project you are working on.

The purchased Styles come with easy-to-follow instructions. All you do is download the Style you bought, unzip it and put it into the proper folder on your computer.

The next time you open Photoshop, it will be available for your use.

To find the compound Styles (some come included in Photoshop), go to the Styles Palette. (If you don’t see it above the Layers Palette, click on Window and check mark Styles.) A set of Styles will show up automatically.

To select and load the new one you purchased, click on the little fly out box arrow in the upper right corner of the Styles Palette.

Voila – a list of all the Style sets you have at your disposal will appear. Click on your choice. You will be given the option of OK (for Replace) or Append.

I always replace so that I can keep the sets pure.

Other Digital Effects in My Example

To crop and frame the photo in my LO, I used the Rectangular Marquee tool to outline the part of the picture I wanted. I tried typing different pixel amounts in the Feather option box at the top of the screen to round the corners (40 pixels turned out to be just what I wanted).

Since I wanted to cut away the parts of the picture outside of the Marquee box, I clicked Select>Inverse and then hit Delete. For the photo border, I added an Inside Stroke Style of 10 pixels in off-white.

The other Scrap Girls products I used are a sprig of herbs special brush by Ariadna Wiczling, a file tab from Cheryl Barber’s Antique Charm collection and kraft paper from Erica Hite’s Destinations collection.

Go get yourself some Style!

“Style is a magic wand, and turns everything to gold that it touches”

Logan Pearsall Smith

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