Finally One Of The Promised Tutorials!!! How To Manipulate Digital Images

Okay, so a few weeks back I promised a few peeps who took the time to leave me a comment or sent an email requesting a tutorial on digital manipulation of images that I'd do one. Finally, I've managed to find some time to do it! However, I'm cheating here a little, as I am doubling this tutorial up with my post over at Studio 12 . I figured that the majority of them wouldn't have seen this card before, so it's something "new" for them, and gives you guys the tutorial you wanted! Which ultimately leaves me with time to play and create more things :D On the subject of the Studio 12 Blog, have you paid us a visit yet? If not then you really should as there is a daily inspiration post from the DT and if that wasn't enough anyway, there's also some followers candy up for grabs!

So before we start I just want to make it clear that this MY way of doing things - it may not be the correct or easiest method, but it's one I found that works for me! The other thing is I was just going to do the tutorial for Craft Artist Professional, but figured that there are quite possibly a whole lot of people who don't have it. So, the tutorial is actually going to use Microsoft Paint and Word as almost everyone has that and if they don't then they can download Open Office for free and take the nuts and bolts of the tutorial and adapt it. If you need to know how to do this with CAP then email me and I'll explain as it's really simple and will take you seconds as opposed to minutes using this method!


Right lets go:


1. Insert the Studio 12 Picknix Collection 1 cd into your computer and run it.


2. Goto the Welcome Home Kit and select the Sweet Sugar Sprinkles from the Pantry.  Find the cake on a stand and click on it and it will automatically open in Windows Viewer. Then go to the menu bar and click on OPEN and select the Paint option from the menu.


3. The image should now have opened in PAINT as shown below (minus the words sample) and you are ready to start manipulating your image. Please remember you can click on the images in this post to enlarge them.

4. Ensure the HOME tab is selected at the top and then click on SELECT and choose RECTANGULAR SELECTION. Select the area that you want to discard (in this case it's the cake and dome) and hit the delete button. You will end up with this

5. Now the large white area above the cake stand isn't required so to remove you simply use the SELECT tool for the cake stand and then use the crop tool which is located next to the select tool and you should be left with just the stand. You can tidy up any lines that aren't required by using the eraser tool, but if you're careful when you do step 4 you shouldn't need to do this.

6. Use the SELECT tool again and copy the cake stand. Then open a Word document and click paste. Then hover above the image and right click, select - WRAP TEXT, BEHIND TEXT you will now be able to move the stand anywhere on the page. Simply re-size the stand by grabbing the bottom corner with your mouse.

7. Next you are going to add the cakes. So click on the cake you want, it will open in Windows Viewer, then right click and copy the image. Go to your word document and click paste. Then hover above the image and right click, select - WRAP TEXT, BEHIND TEXT this will enable you to move the images anywhere on the page. Re-size as detailed above. Repeat this step as many times as is needed to build your picture.


8. You should end up with something that looks like this:

9. I would normally GROUP the images together at this stage, so that I can move them around and resize them as desired. To do this, simply hold the shift key down and click on each element that you want to be able to move as one unit, for example the centre cake stand with lots of cupcakes on. Then right click and go to group. The images will now act as single unit. Now all that's left to do is to resize and position as desired, as some text or a sentiment from the CD and hit the print button. You can then trim to fit your card base and add any glitter or embellishments that you require.

I hope this makes sense and will help you to get more out of your CD. Feel free to email me if you get stuck. Please do let me know if you make anything using this tutorial as I'd love to pop across and see what you've been upto.

Thanks for reading.

Claire x