Welcome to another Lindsay Day – aka Thursday!  Last week I had several people ask how I created the multi-colored or gradient text fills and effects on my Elephant Birthday card.  So, I decided I’d do a quick tutorial for you.  I used a flower and a a sentiment from Lindsay’s Doodle Flowers set for this tutorial.

I launched PSE 6 and opened my two digital-stamps along with a new 6×6 file at 300 PPI.I centered the sentiment on my blank canvas and then added the flower.  I wanted the flower to fit inside the sentiment, so I adjusted its size by to 60% and kept the ratios locked so it wouldn’t be distorted. Now the fun (aka coloring) begins!  I created a new layer ABOVE my sentiment layer by clicking the new layer button (upper left corner of the layers palette) or you can go to Layer—> New—> Layer or Ctrl+Shift+N. Then I select my Gradient Tool (located just under the Paint Bucket on your toolbar) and pattern (this is from the default menu):Next draw a line across your canvas – I used a diagonal from upper left to lower right.  You can redraw them over and over until you get the look you want.Now take your mouse and Alt+Click on the narrow line between the Gradient Fill and your Sentiment layer to create the mask (filled the bottom layer with white so you could see the effect more clearly and to simulate being printed on white paper/cardstock): If you want your flower outline to match your text, you c an duplicate the Gradient layer by Right Clicking on it in the Layers Palette and selecting duplicate; then drag the duplicated layer ABOVE the Flower layer and Alt+Click to create the mask: You could print from here – color as you’d like or merely trim, embellish, and attach to your card. However, I thought I’d take it a step further and add some more color and texture to mine.  I created 4 new layers BELOW my flower stamp and above my Sentiment by selecting the Gradient Layer ABOVE the sentiment and clicking my Add New Layer button 4 times.  Then I double-clicked on the text of each layer and renamed it so I would know what I was working on. In this case my layers are titled, from top to bottom, Flower Outline Gradient, Flower Outline, Center Button, Top Petal, Bottom Petal, Leaves, Sentiment Gradient, Sentiment, and Background.Next, I selected my magic wand tool (7th button from the top on the toolbar). Then in my Layers Palette, I selected my Flower Outline Layer. I clicked inside the button to get “marching ants” or dotted lines around the button.Next I expanded my selection by 1 pixel – to do this go to your Select Menu –> Modify –> Expand          Enter 1 in the pop-up and click OK.Now, on your Layers Palette, select your Button Layer and fill it with color (it doesn’t matter what color you choose as we’ll be adding gradients above it anyway). Instead of the Paint Bucket tool, I used the Edit –> Fill Layer from the drop down menu. I selected Color… from the Contents drop-down and picked a light pink so I could see where my fill was.    Then I removed the marching ants by using Select –> Deselect (or Ctrl+D).I repeated the above steps for the top petal, bottom petal, and leaves to get this: Then I created a new layer above each of my Flower layers so I could add Gradient Fills to them as well. I played with my Gradients (the fill process is the same as above) until I was satisfied and ended up with this: You could save and print from here, but I wanted to add a bit of texture too. So, I simplified my Flower Layers (I selected my Gradient Layer and Ctrl+Clicked the corresponding Flower layer so that both layers were highlighted in my Layers Palette and then right Clicked and selected Merge Layers). My Gradients are no longer editable, but I can easily add texture now. To add Texture, I selected the Texture options from the Effects Palette (located above the Layers Palette)

You can use the defaults, or add your own.  I used a Texture from KimB  Designs (available as part of the DSV grab bag this month). Here’s my almost end-result:

Next I added a Scallop shape – I added a new layer BELOW my sentiment and then used my Custom Shape Tool (just below the Gradient button on the toolbar) to draw the Scallop (I also had my Shift button pressed while I was drawing so that my Scallop would be proportional. After I was satisfied with my Shape, I right clicked on the Scallop Layer in the Layers Palette and Simplified my shape. Again, you can print from here or add a bit of shadow to your flower layers to give them a more “pieced” look. To add the shadow, select the layer you want to work with, I selected my button fill first and worked down. Then in your Effects Palette, select Layer Styles (the button that looks like 2 frames), and then select Drop Shadows from the Drop-Down menu. Play with them until you find one you like (Ctrl+Z) will undo anything. My final stamped and colored image is now ready to printed and added to my card.

I hope you found this little tutorial helpful.  If you have questions, leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do to help. Happy stamping! And, just for playing along, I have to gradient background papers for you (just click the image to download) – they are Fall colors and coordinate well with Lindsay’s Sketchy Leaves digital stamp set or any of her fabulous $1 Leaves and Acorns individual stamps.

Oh, and don’t forget, Lindsay’s DT call is open until November 7th, you can get the details here.  Also, be sure you stop by Lindsay’s blog as she has some fabulous eye-candy up this week and there might be a freebie in it for you as well.  You can visit the rest of the DT from there – the team is so talented and I know they have some amazing projects to showcase this week.

I’d also like to remind everyone of the Spread the Love Blog Hop and my Blog Candy – it’s all up until November 9 and such a great cause to support – why not use some of Lindsay’s digital stamps (where every $5 purchase earns you a FREE $1 stamp) to create a card for Jaimie – then come back here, leave a link, and be entered to win some candy?!?!

You all know Lindsay did a fabulous tutorial on recoloring digital stamps using Paintshop Pro – so she asked her DT to come up with something similar using Photoshop Elements.  In this case, I’m using PSE 6.0 and working with Adjustment Layers.  I’ll do Gradients and Fills in another tut.

To get started I’ve opened a PNG file in PSE 6.0 – this is the Double Dot Border from Lindsay’s new All Around Phrases Digital Stamp Set.

We’re going to add an adjustment layer to change the color of the dots:

  On your layers palette, select the two-tone circle to Create Adjustment Layer. The select Hue/Saturation from the Drop Down Menu. A new screen will pop-up that looks like this – check the box next to Colorize: I played with the sliders until I found a color I liked – my numbers look like this (yours will vary depending on the color you want.):

This is what my colorized frame looks like now:

I wanted to include a sentiment inside the frame, so I opened the It’s Your Day png file, also from Lindsay’s new All Around Phrases Digital Stamp Set, and drug it onto my existing frame.  I resized it using the the little boxes in the corners (by dragging on the corners, I was able to scale the image and keep the proportions the same). I wanted to color the sentiment too, so I linked the existing Hue/Saturation layer to the Double Dot border by selecting the Hue/Saturation Layer. positioning my cursor on the little line between the Hue/Saturation Layer and the Frame, and ALT+Clicking on it.  This creates a link/mask so that this Hue/Saturation is only applied to the layer below it (in this case, the Double Dot border). You can tell the layer is linked by the little curved arrow that appears on the Layers Palette.

I created a new Hue/Saturation Layer above the Sentiment, using the same method as above – playing with the sliders until I found a color I liked.  Note, pay attention to the Sentiment color only as we’ll link the layers again so that the Double Dot border color isn’t changed.  This is what my stamps look like before I link the layers.

Following the same process (Alt+Click), I linked the 2nd Hue/Saturation layer to my Sentiment layer and viola – a two-color stamp.

Now that I’m done “coloring”, I want to merge my layers.  To do this, right click on one of your layers and select Merge Visible – this will combine all of the visible layers while leaving your background transparent. Then, because I want to use one of my circle punches to cut out my sentiment, I am going to resize the entire image.  To do this, go the top of your screen to the Image tab – select Resize then Image Size.

A new pop-up menu will appear.  Since I know my punch is 1.75 inches, I adjusted my sizes accordingly. By checking the Resample Image box, I am able to adjust the the Height and Width without increasing or decreasing the Resolution. I didn’t check the Scale Styles box because I didn’t use any layer styles.

Here’s my final product – ready to print, cut and add to a card!

I hope this little tutorial was helpful for you – if you have any questions, leave me a comment and I’ll try to answer them for you.

A little birdie also told me that Lindsay is having a DT call – so if you LOVE her stamps and want to be part of a fun and supportive creative team – check out this post for all of the details! Hurry though – the deadline is November 7th!

Have a great day!