How I made the new banner, step by step

Greta Koehl at Greta's Genealogy Bog asked me how I made the new banner on this blog.

Here's what I did, step by step. Let me know if you follow these steps to create something similar! But not too similar, cos this is my look now, OK?

Step by step
First I found a font that suited me. It took a bit of searching, but eventually I hit gold at dafont.com. My starting point in Photoshop Elements looked like this:

It was a bit lightweight for what I had in mind, so I made the text bold. I also wanted more dimension to the text, so I used layer styles to add a bevel to the layer and a thin stroke outline in black.

Next I added a pattern adjustment layer and picked a nice woodgrain pattern. I set the layer to 'overlay' and used the text layer as a clipping mask. That made a big difference because it meant that the pattern applied only to the raised bit, not the stroke.

I wasn't happy with the colour so added a brown colour fill adjustment layer to the clipping group - again I liked the look of the 'overlay' setting the best. Then a green colour adjustment layer and I used the layer mask to pick out the leaves. I've just upgraded to Photoshop Elements 9 which has layer masks included - woohoo! - but there are plenty of plugins around that add the feature to earlier versions.

My layers palette looked like this:

And the final product (in case anyone reads this in the future and I have changed the design again) looked like this:

Ta da!

Advent Calender - December 6 - Santa Claus

Growing up, we received gifts from Father Christmas. It was never Santa Claus until we made the move from Melbourne to Canberra. I don't know if the change in terminology is a Victoria/New South Wales thing, or if the name more commonly used just changed over time. Either way, it was a visit from Father Christmas that I looked forward to.

Most years I looked forward to the presents entirely too much. Not only my own presents, everyone's presents! I just loved that we were all getting something. I still love seeing nicely wrapped gifts under a tree, even if I know that none of them are for me.

One of my earliest Christmas memories is tip-toeing out from my room in the night, to the living room where Father Christmas left his gifts. I remember standing there and looking at the shapes, trying to imagine what could be hidden under the wrapping paper, but not touching anything. Going back to sleep seemed impossible. It was a long night!

When morning finally came the excitement was too much to bear... my stomach was churning... I unwrapped my toys with a bucket by my side, and I used it. From that point on the entire family would get up at whatever time I awoke (typically 2-4am) on Christmas day and we would all unwrap our gifts, then go back to bed. I insisted that everyone had to get up, it was no fun if we weren't all opening presents together!

I don't remember if this was before or after I found out "the truth". Finding out wasn't a big deal for me. I had my suspicions and one year asked my father about it. His response... "Do you really think I would spend that much money on toys for you?". Faced with the competing concepts of a large red-suited man who flew around the entire world in a night, somehow getting in and out of houses and depositing presents without being seen OR my Dad buying lots of toys, what was I to believe? That kept me believing in Father Christmas for at least another year.

Speaking of Father Christmas, here he is.

I recently posted one of my efforts at fixing up my family photos. I wasn't entirely happy with the result. Inspired by a comment from John Patten, I tried again. I'm almost happy with it now. Almost! As I look at it now, I can see half a dozen things that I could have done better, but I think I'm on the right track.

Joining in the Geneabloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories fun
 

Playing with photos - part 2

I'm still having a lot of fun messing around with my family photos in Photoshop Elements. I'm concentrating on our more recent photos at the moment, dating from the 70s. I have some books on digital photo restoration on order but the estimated delivery date is still a month away. A month! Ridiculous, but even including the outrageous postage it's at least 25% cheaper to order them from the USA than to buy here in Australia.

So, while I wait, I'm reading internet tutorials and experimenting. I do have one or two photoshop books, but they're pretty basic.

Here's a before and after. It's a crop of the original image, reduced to 50%. The original image had a paper texture problem and a colour cast, but only very minor marks to clear up and no tears or coloured splotches of any sort.

I'm quite happy with how I've cleared the paper texture (which isn't nearly as visible here as it is full size). I'm not as pleased with the colour correction. As with the texture, I don't think the colour problems are as obvious here as in the original. There was a disinct magenta cast over everything, but especially the shadows on the faces.

I think I've improved the colour in the "after" shot... but I'm not entirely happy with it. More experimentation needed, I think!

Comments welcome, as always!

Playing with photos - part 1

I have a growing collection of old family photos and have made the time to scan most of them. Having only an average sort of scanner and no particular expertise, I've done what I could to get good scans and then made sure that the originals photos were put away safely. I now have quite a few digital copies of photos but they suffer from the usual problems of fading and (mostly minor) dust and scratch marks.

My latest obsession has been learning to make better use of Photoshop Elements before attempting to do a "good" clean up of the old family pictures. I have a few books, and a growing list of helpful URLs, to get me started.

I've nearly finished a practice run on a collection of photos from a trip to New Zealand with my sister in 2001. Neither my sister nor I had a digital camera in 2001. We both had our negatives scanned when they were developed. Unfortunately, many of the scans were pretty bad and my negatives were all but ruined in the process. Fortunately, the prints were done before the scans and they were fine. I've been fixing the colour and scratches on the existing scans, where I can, and rescanning the prints if they look too bad. My plan is to have them printed in a photobook, which I have been setting up as I go along. I think I'm getting pretty good at the dust and scratch repairs, including editing off the distracting yellow date stamps, if I do say so myself. I still have a way to go on colour correction.

Once the New Zealand pictures are done I plan on moving on to my family pictures. Stage 2 of the photos project will be to work on family photos from as early as I have them, up to the 1970s and 1980s (if the images of 80s fashion doesn't scare me off them!).

I'd like to make a photobook of the older family shots, especially, and give copies to my extended family. I'd also like to reproduce my grandparents' photo album as a photobook.

I have lots and lots of photo work to do. Expect to see more photo posts in the future!