Inspiration # 4 - Excitement with ribbons, bows and action
Okay Chameleon, this one's for you! I recently included these two types of ribbons on some digital rework entries so I'll share how they were made.
Both of these ribbons were made with the actions feature in photoshop. Actions is not a quick blog entry, I would have to put aside a separate entry for that and a separate entry per lesson. The questions I am addressing today are answering how were they made and how I got the ragged feature in the criss cross ribbon.
What is an action?
Basically, you record the movements that you make (when you first create something) then when you are done, you stop and save it as an action. Then these actions are put into your presets folder of adobe photoshop/or illustrator, etc. While you are working if you decide you want to use one of them you just open up your actions palette, open the one you want and like magic, it's there anytime you need it.
Once you have these actions, it's just a matter of pulling a different color, different background paper, whatever you want over the template, hit the action key and like magic, the computer now does the rest of the work while you go get some vitamin P, (that's Pepsi, ha, ha!) I'm a big Pepsi drinker so my husband calls it my vitamin P.
Sample # 1 the criss cross ribbon on the photo below, I was asked about how did I get that ragged look. Once the ribbon was made with the action key, it still looked new compared to the aged look of the photo so I used the MAGIC ERASER with a setting of 4. Just have the layer activated with the ribbon on it, activate your eraser and just tap one tap at a time on the ribbon in different locations. Tap as little or alot as you like until you get the feel that YOU want. So, the MAGIC ERASER is the tool that gave the ragged look on these ribbons.
Sample #2 was the Artella Ribbon:
This ribbon was made with an action key as well. As the action is playing it will stop to allow you to pick your own color each time, then it will stop again to allow you to add any text that you want, after you add your text it will complete the action and you then just save your ribbon.
Since, I am still troubleshooting the download capabilities in my blog, I can't just have the samples here for you to download, that is what I was originally planning, I am hoping aunt bobby can help me troubleshoot.
As a temporary solution, if anyone wants a freebie ribbon with artella's name on it or the criss cross ribbon - new without aged damage, please just email me and in the subject line add: artella ribbon request. If anyone has any questions about actions themselves don't hesitate to ask about that too.
And if anyone wants me to make them a personalized ribbon, I'll be happy to do that, Just specify color and text, one word obviously works the best because as you can see the ribbon keeps wrapping.
I hope to have a freebie download section within my blog in the future.
Thanks for visiting and I'll hope you stop by again!