Design party: making a collage in Photoshop

So today I'm showing you how to make the fun collages I do for my sponsor posts (click these words to see what I'm talking about). It's actually a pretty easy thing to do and helps save time when trying to get these posts together! This is the latest one I created for my sponsor love series:

Step 1//Create a new canvas in photoshop. The length doesn't matter so much, but make the width the same thing as you do for all other photos and images you post (mine are always 600px wide).

Step 2//Change the background color to something that your lines will stand out from.

Step 3//Create a new layer. Select the paintbrush tool and start drawing lines across your canvas. A trick to get a straight line: paint a little dot where you want your line to start then hold down the shift key and paint another dot where you want the line to end. It's like magic!

Step 4//Now it's time to crop down your image. Select the crop tool and crop out anything you don't need.

Step 5//Now we're ready to start adding in images. Open up the first image you want then copy and paste it into the collage document. Drag this new layer underneath the layer you used to make the lines. It's helpful to rename the layers as you create them (double click "Layer 1" then change it's name to "lines", "sponsor 1", etc).

Step 6//Scale the image down so that the main thing you want to be seen fits well into the shape you want it to be in. Now go to your "lines" layer and click the shape you're working in with the "magic wand" tool. In this case I wanted the little frog to be smack dab in the middle of the triangle shape.

Step 7//This next step is really important! You want to inverse your selection (Select>Inverse) then click back onto your "sponsor 1" layer. Hit the delete button. This should delete anything in your sponsor image that is outside of the shape we selected.

Step 8//Continue steps 5-7 until you have all your images into the collage. You'll note here that I've got some blue shapes left over.

Step 9//I felt like the leftover shapes weren't really that balanced, so I created more towards the bottom of the collage to even it out. To do this go back to your "lines" layer and draw in more using the same method we used earlier. You'll select these new shapes with the "magic wand" tool then go to the image we're deleting from and press "delete". Just make sure you aren't inversing the selection this time.

Step 10//Now it's time to fill in the blue spaces with different colors. Choose as many or as little as you want! I generally go with 2-3. You just select the area you want to change (make sure you're on the "lines" layer) then simply fill in with color using the paint bucket tool.

Step 11//Now it's time to add in numbers (or names, your pick). For the numbers I use a font that I downloaded called Fyra.

Step 12//To add contrast to your numbers, I "stroke" each one with a different color. Just double-click each text layer then click the last option in the menu ("stroke"). Play around with the size, opacity and color until you get something that you love. At this point the only thing left to do is save and upload your post!

It might sound like a lot of steps at first, but I promise this method actually saves a ton of time for me! Plus it's an interesting and different way to group the things you want to talk about. Let me know if you use this method of collaging for anything on your blog so I can check out your handy work : ) Feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions.

Design party: grab buttons

So here's the first tutorial of my blog design series. Its a three part tutorial so it's kind of lengthy. 

Today we're going over:
1//How to create a button
2//How to resize your button (because everyone is always asking for a different size!)
3//How to add code to a button

 Please note: this is a tutorial for Photoshop (using CS5 but still adaptable to all versions). I'll be posting the same tutorial using free photo-editing software in the near future!

Step 1//Open your photo in Photoshop (mine is already edited so you might want to play around with a few things before we start manipulating the image).

Step 2//Immediately save as a .psd file. The image will most likely be a .jpeg file, which keeps all layers that we'll be creating flat (aka merged together). Saving the picture as .psd insures that all of our layers will stay separated (which we'll need when resizing the button). I always find it helpful to save the image with the dimensions and who it is for in the title. So if I was making a button for myself, the title might look like this: mybillie_200x120.psd.

Step 3//Select your crop tool (its on the left hand side underneath the magnifying glass). Before we go to cropping, lets set the width and height. The area to do this should be under your main menu (file, edit, image, etc) but if it isn't, select Window>Options. Enter in the height and width that you want your button to be (make sure you have pixels selected), then go to work on your image. It will automatically be resized to the dimensions you entered (but to double check, go to Image>Image size and see what it says).

Step 4//Next we'll add in our text (click the capital "T" on the tool bar on the left hand side). Change your font, color and size to whatever fits your blog's aesthetic (this button is representing your blog!). I used the same font that I used on my blog's header. Its hard to see now but we'll fix that in the next step.

Step 5//To help put emphasis on your words, double click the text layer (on the right hand side of the screen) and a "Layers Style" box will pop up. Click on the box that says "Stroke" then play with the colors, size and opacity. Please note: this is just one way to add emphasis to the words on your button. I recommend adding a drop shadow to your texts or a gradient to your image as other options to make your text pop!

Step 6//Once your happy with your button, save it as a .jpeg again (this will flatten all the layers and make the internet very happy when you go to upload the picture!).

Good job! Youuuuu did it! Now let's turn the button we made into a different size!

Please note: this only works for buttons that are smaller than the original button and tends to work best with buttons that will end up in a similar shape (ie I'm creating another rectangle button vs  a square-shaped button). When I'm creating a ton of buttons at one time, I start with the biggest sized button that I'll need and work down from there.

Step 1//Open up your .psd button (not the .jpeg). 

2//Use your crop tool again. Enter in the new dimensions and let the magic happen.

Step 3//In this case, I don't need to change my text but you might with yours. Just move it around as needed. You might even want to change the stroke color to keep all your buttons different. It's up to you! Once you're happy with all your changes, save the button as a .jpeg (and don't forget to rename it with the new dimensions).

Okay y'all we're in the home stretch of the tutorial! Now I'm going to show you how to add code to your button. These are two different codes that you might find useful: code to add another blog's button to your sidebar and code to create the "grab box" underneath your button.

Adding buttons to your sidebar:
Step 1//Upload the button to a photo-hosting site (I use Photobucket).
Step 2//Now go to the "layout" part of your blog (if you're using the updated interface start at your dashboard then click the "layout" option from the drop down menu).
Step 3//You'll need to add a (an??) HTML/JavaScript gadget if you don't have one for your sponsors/friends section (click "Add A Gadget" then "Html/JavaScript").
Step 4//Type in this code: <a href=""><img src="">. The a href part is code for where the button should link to and the img src part tells the internet where to find the image.
Step 5//Fill in the rest of the code! If I were linking the button to my blog I would put http://mybilliedesigns.com between the quotation marks after a href (where the button will link to). You'll have to go back to your photo-hosting site to get the link for the image source (img src). For Photobucket users you just hover over your button and click the bar next to "Direct Link" (it automatically copies the link when you click it). Paste that between the quotation marks after img src.
Step 6//Repeat this process with all the buttons in the world, if you want to. Then click "save". We're done!!

Please note: if you are using Photobucket they have the code all typed up for you! Just click the bar next to "HTML code" and past the code into your gadget box instead of typing it all out. You will need to change the link in the "a href" part though!!

Adding the "grab box" code to your sidebar:
Step 1//Go to your HTML/JavaScript gadget and type in (or copy and paste) this code: 

<center><a href=""><img src="" /></a><center> </center> <center><textarea id=”code-source” rows=”3″ name=”code-source”> <center><a href="" target="_blank"><img src="" /></a></center></textarea></center></center></p>
Step 2//The a href and img src part of the code should look familiar now. This is all you need to worry about changing, and its just like we did in the steps above! Notice that it's in there twice though. Fill in where you want the button linked to after a href (both times that you see it) then fill in the image link after img src (both times).
Step 3//DONE!

Okay, did you stick through it? If you're overwhelmed...so am I! Just keep sticking with the directions and I pinky promise that it becomes easier and faster to do each time that you do it! I recommend starting a word document with all the coding you need, or even adding the directions for any of these tutorials for easy access (although it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you had a tutorial party on my blog as often as you needed!).

And here are some of the things you can look forward to learning at my future design parties:
//how to install fonts to your computer
//adding an image or background to your post titles
//other tweaks to your post header: making the title/date centered or right-aligned+removing the date
//how to rotate your ads each page click
//learning code to automatically resize your images to the same width
//how to automatically add a signature to your posts
//three different ways that I edit my pictures
//how to create the collages I make for posts (much like the "design party" image at the top of this post)
//and so much more!

So. Was this helpful? Anything you want to learn how to do that you didn't see on the list??! Let me know!