Sunday, October 10, 2010

Collage Sheets with Your Own Artwork Using Photoshop


 It's possible you won't recognize the painted background I showed you a few weeks ago as being the background to this collage - I almost feel sad that I covered it up. But, that was the next step towards making my tower pendant, so cover it up I did! Now, I have to share with you that I'm really not happy with the face...But, faces are something I have gone out of my way to avoid for years, and I've decided that I can do it...I just need to get instruction and practice.
And practice...and practice...
And one day I'll paint a face I'm really happy with...maybe not this week, but some day!

However, I posted this image not to share with you my insecurities about my face rendering abilities, but to give you a quick 'how to' on creating a collage sheet...Now this was fun!

Firstly, scan your original artwork and save the file in your desired folder. Then crop some 'sweet spots' as Sharon Tomlinson calls them, being super careful to save the crop as a different file name and reverting the image to the original after each crop (I had to scan my image twice...because I didn't quite follow that step!)


I cropped lots


and lots


of very sweet spots...


I wanted plenty of options


to work with


and these...


aren't all my sweet spots!


But, I'm thinking by now...


You get the idea!

The fun really starts when you crank up Photoshop (I used Photoshop Elements 7).

Open all your cropped images, and your original if you like, in your project bin at the bottom of the screen. Click on File in the top left hand corner, click New, then Blank File. Activate the Move Tool in the tool bar on the left of the screen at the top. Now, click on a cropped image, drag and drop it onto the screen, resize it to your hearts content, click on the green tick when you're happy with the size and shape and move on to the next one. you can fill your whole page with different sized crops. Save your collage sheet as a JPEG file, and you're good to go nuts and print it up! I found the print quality was better if I closed out of photoshop and printed from Windows Photo Gallery - but experiment and see what gives you the best results.


This might be old news to some of you more technically literate among us, but it was a revelation to me! I hope it's a revelation to someone else out there too!

Time to head back to the studio and play with some resin! Stay tuned for a completed tower pendant in the very near future.

3 comments:

Meg Mitchell said...

This is so cool Tracey and your collage with all it's sweet spots is beautiful. Thanks for the instruction.
Now about your face ... when I'm feeling insecure about painting a face, I think of Picasso's women ... noses here, eyes over there and lips around the bend. Faces are what you make them ... And yours is quirky and fun.
Meg

Hannah said...

Tracey--I like the fanciful quality of this collage. I'm intrigued by how the collage is created out of a sheet of cropped "sweet spots"--becoming a kind of "assemblage" in the process. About the faces--if you love them, they will come!

Tracey Hewitt said...

Meg and Hannah...thanks for the encouragement with the faces...I especially liked the reminder about Picasso's faces "lips around the bend" - maybe I need to try that - loosen up a little!!