Thursday, December 30, 2010

MDS Thursday: Opacity

I missed last week's MDS Thursday.  My little brother was getting married.  Congrats baby bro!!!!

Back to MDS: Thursday

Have you ever stamped an image and thought,  "Well, that was darker than what I wanted,"  and tried to re stamp it lighter.  Opacity bar to the rescue.  The opacity bar allows you to change how dark/light your image appears.  I have used it for stamps and photos. I love it.

Here is the first project I used it for.


 Photos and text lighten using the opacity bar

I like how the sand and the waves show through.

Without opacity changes


Here is the original image. 

There were several things I didn't like about it.  First, The black on my sunglasses and my husband's shirt looked harsh.   Second, the picture of Jimmy Buffet was blurry. Third, the pirate ship was lost in the background.  So I thought to myself, there has to be a way to lighten these images.  My first instinct was to go my Photoshop Elements and tweak everything, but I'm lazy.  So I read every button in the side menu, and lo and behold, opacity.

See yellow box for opacity bar.
These is the easiest of things to use.  All you do now is slide the bar left and right to change how dark/light you want the image.

This is really great for dark  and blurry pictures.

Ta da!!

This bar is also available for the stamp sets and embellishments.  I like to use it as a space holder for my hybrid projects.  I add the embellishment and lighten it until you can barely see it.  Then I print my project and add real brads, ribbons, etc...  Since it is so light it looks like a cool shadow, if you can see it at all.

Give it a try.  Thanks for looking.

Here are some other projects where I used the opacity bar.


I changed the opacity on the leaves

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful layouts and pictures. Thanks for the information on Opacity. Very helpful!. I'm your newest follower from Stampin Connection. I'm #212 on the list and hope you'll drop by my blog sometime too!

    Penny
    http://pennytokensstampinspot.blogspot.com

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  2. Great layouts. I've played around with the opacity also and love that option. Thanks for sharing the MDS tips.

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  3. These are great layouts. Thanks for the tips. I haven't played with MDS lately but I really want to get back to it. You are inspiring.

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  4. Really enjoyed surfing your blog. :) Especially like your MDS Thursday posts. Keep up the good work!

    Nicole
    http://www.undertheinkfluence.com/

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  5. Very nice!

    I followed over from the Stampin' Connection thread.

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  6. Very nice! I look forward to seeing more Thursday MDS posts, as MDS totally overwhelms me and I don't use it as much as I should. Thanks for the tips! :)

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