Tag Archives: digital

New Freebie – CU 001 and a Gripe

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Good Monday to All.  I hope everyone is well and in good spirits.  Wish I was.  Sheesh!  I am so flippin’ depressed, I hope I can get through it.  Everything is gone wrong.  I can’t go into it all, but, suffice to say, I don’t know what I am going to do!  Oh, well!  LOL

Have any of you received an e-mail from any of the file-hosting services, lately, claiming some part of your digi-files are infringing on a copyright?  A few weeks ago I got an e-mail stating that 2 of my files on MediaFire were in violation of Copyright infringement.  The letter, which included a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo, included a lengthy list of all the files they were claiming as infringed.  The letter open with:

Hello, My Name is Hervé Lemaire , CEO of LeakID, I am legal representative of lemaire which does business under the name Metropolitan, Authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. You are hereby given notice valid under the DMCA copyright infringement notification requirements, 17 U.S.C.512. I am the designated agent of the owner of the copyrights of the images and audio/visual works listed below. I believe that the images and audio/visual works listed at the times cited below are being copied and distributed in a manner that has been not authorized by the owner of the copyrights, its agent or the law. All link below containing pirated versions of lemaire copyrighted works. The information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury. Please remove all linksAs soon as possible, we will check them everyday. Thanks to inform us about y our actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal. Very truly yours, Hervé

The files in question are part of a set of downloads for a kit I made, so, there are multiple images in the two files in question.  I requested in a response that they inform me of the exact images, but, I haven’t heard back from them.  I made all of the parts to the kit!  That, or what I used, I knew where it came from and there were not any stipulations.  I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before!

I mentioned it to an online friend and she said the same thing had happened to her!  Then, this morning, while perusing a site of another scrapbooking lady in France, I saw a post about infringement and read it.  The very same thing is happening to her, only she claims it is 4-Shared that sent her the e-mail.

I decided to do a little research.  Apparently, this act of alerting people that their files are infringement of someone else’s rights is a cancer!  I realize that copyright theft is rampant!  Over at DeviantArt, it is an almost daily occurrence.  Artists are closing their accounts in droves due to the outright theft of their art!  One artist, with a rather unusual name, had someone open an Etsy shop, by the very same name, selling all of the artists goods for theirself!  When the artist addressed the thief, the thief stated that the pieces were ‘out there’, so, what did it matter’.  I guess since people post things on an open internet, it makes the things fair game in the thief’s eyes.  But, to use the artist’s own name was ridiculous!  The artist began removing all of her art from DA and, finally, Etsy closed the thief down.

So, I get it about the infringement.  But, what if the files aren’t an infringement, as in my case and the case of the others I mention.  This doesn’t even include all the rest of the files listed in the e-mail, belonging to other ‘infringers’.  There were 563 infringed files on the list!

The action taken by the hosting services is to suspend the files in question.  Needless to say, I am moving all of my files elsewhere.  In my researching the topic online, I found several incidents of false claims that were quite scandalous.  Those were big claims and one, in particular, that caught a lot of attention, proved to be a mistake.  This is looking like a new way of stealing to me!  What is stopping me from claiming your files as my own and alerting MediaFire or 4-Shared, providing the files are hosted on their sites?  Either from lack of knowledge as to how to handle a bogus claim or from not knowing of the claim at all, you don’t do anything.  Wallah!  I claim them as my own and you look like a thief!  That’s what is happening!

In looking over the list of files included, there are a lot of music files and games, as well as anime.  Some things are obvious. like music and games.  I mean, if I am hosting a hot, new artist’s music, I’m asking for trouble.  It’s pretty obvious it isn’t mine!  But, what about the files that are mine?  I just wonder how many of this 563 files really are infringing!  Somebody isn’t playing nice!  I don’t have money to pay for legal fees to fight this, but, I can remove my files from MediaFire and 4-Shared.  What a pain!  That means I have to change all the links in my posts, too!  But, that’s okay!  The two sites are becoming impossible, anyway, with all the damn pop-ups!  Even with my pop-up-blocker, for every download at MediaFire, I get two pop-ups.

Alrighty, then!  LOL  Having gotten that off my chest, let’s move on to what we are really here for – the new Freebie from Miss Edna and I!  This month, we did something totally new.  We made CU Okay goodies!  Following a colour palette, somewhat, we have made overlays and patterns and stock images and all kinds of goodies, just for you, that may be used for Commercial Use and any other use, PU, S4H, etc.  We both enjoyed creating and plan on releasing a new CU freebie once every 3 months, 4 times a year!  So, do watch for those.  This one is “CU001”.

We usually post QP’s for our first two(2) parts, but, not this time.  Starting with Part 1, all of the offerings are free digi-elements!  We will give you two(2) parts today, two(2) parts next Monday, then, the last two(2) on the following Monday.  That means you’ll have a total of twelve(12) parts of new CU goodies!  So, without further adieu, here are the links for the first two(2) parts.

CU001 – Part 1 –  http://www.suruha.com/download/su CU Sept 12 Pt 1.zip 

CU001 – Part 2 –  http://www.suruha.com/download/su CU Sept 12 Pt 2.zip 

Here is a preview of my offerings:

And, here is Miss Edna’s previews!  She did a different preview for each part.

(Click on image to go to her blog for these two parts)

There ya go!  Let us know what you think of our new kind of freebie, please.   We really hope you enjoy!

Until next time…

I hope you are smiling!!

Hugs,

Su

Final Parts – ‘Vintage Garden’ and Texture Panel for PS

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A good morning to you!  I hope everyone is well and in good spirits.  Me, I’m so lost!  LOL  That’s really nothing new, tho!  Seriously!  Lately, there have been changes in my life.  Big changes.  I feel like I am struggling to stay sane!  Ah, well!  “Life goes on!”  “This, too, shall pass!”  And, finally, “What doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger!”  I have been reminding myself of these ‘catch-phrases’ over and over.  It is helping – somewhat.  LOL

So!  I have been looking at Adobe Exchange and some of the new features of CS6.  Wow!  Did you know you can download an ‘Adobe Exchange Portal’ that would enable you to visit the Exchange while inside Photoshop?  I am finding things to do with PS that will help in design and my art.  There are all types of things you can add on to PS!  I wanted to tell ya’ll about one ‘Extension’ that I have used since CS5 that I love!

Textures appeal to me!  I don’t know what it is, but, there is something about adding a texture and tweeking the ‘Blending Modes’ that just thrills me.  You can come up with some awesome designs/effects!  I am a sucker, too, for downloading about every ‘texture freebie’ I see.  When I first started playing with PS, I looked for the panel that had the textures.  LOL  You can add a style, a pattern, even create a ribbon with an action, but, there was not a panel/feature that would bring up and apply textures.  There’s the ‘Texturizer Filter’, but, I am speaking of something that would give the artist complete control as to what kind of texture we want.

Then, I read something about an extension that brings textures in to PS.  I went on a search and found it!  It’s called ‘Texture Panel’ and it works in conjunction with ‘FlyPaperTextures.com’.  I know it works in CS5 and CS6, but, any other versions, I do not know.  You can find the script on Dr. Brown’s Script page.  Russel Brown is such an awesome guy!  He’s funny and smart!  I am fuzzy on who came up with the idea and all that, but, I know it is a gem!

When you download it, which I do through the Extension Manager that comes with CS, and open PS, you will find it under ‘Windows’>’Extensions’.  It will open as a panel.  You’ll see something like this:

The textures that come installed are from FlyPaperTextures.com.  The assortment is very nice!  I use them a lot!  For a while they were the only textures you could use in this extension.  Now, though, they have added the capability, with Texture Panel open, to navigate to your hard drive, so, now, you can use all of your own textures!  Talk about easy-peasy!  LOL  On Dr. Brown’s Scripts page, he warns you about size.  I guess larger textures take a really long time to open.  It’s best to go with smaller size textures.  As with anything, you’ll have to experiment.

What is cool is, when you want to use a texture, you open the Texture Panel window/palette.  Either select one of the FlyPpaperTextures that comes installed, or navigate to your own with the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner of the palette.  Once you decide on a texture, and bring it into Texture Panel, just double click on the desired texture’s thumbnail.  Wallah!  The texture not only opens up, but, it goes on top of the stack of layers you currently have open.  What ever layer you have selected, it goes on top of it in the Layers Palette.  (I have not tried to open a texture as a stand-alone document, yet.) Then, it applies a Blending Mode; ‘Multiply’ is default, but, you can always change the mode.  Then, once the texture is applied, it closes.  You are left with your creation plus a texture!  You really must see it!  It is awesome!  While I have interspersed this article with links, I repeat them here:

Texture Panel (download is second in the list) – http://russellbrown.com/scripts.html

Fly Paper Textures –  http://flypapertextures.com/

Adobe Exchange Panel – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/exchange/

Now, the final two parts to ‘Vintage Garden’.  This wraps up the kit.  Next month, we have something neat!  So, do plan on coming back the second week of September!  My previews are linked to the downloads.  The first preview, the ‘elements’ lead to Part 5, and the second preview, the papers, lead to Part 6.  Then, if you haven’t already been to Miss Edna’s Place, click on her preview to go to her blog to download her two parts.  If you missed it, I made a layout using Miss Edna’s goodies for the photos we took of the children’s first day of school.  I shared it a few posts back or click on this link.

Part 5

Part 6

Miss Edna’s Preview and Link (click on image)

There ya go!  You’ve learned something and been able to download a freebie!  So, kick back and enjoy!  It has been raining here in sunny Florida for weeks!  So,

until next time…

Hugs,

Su

Links for Design Goodies

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Greetings!  I have been promising some links for you and now I am here to deliver!  LOL  These are sites I stumble upon or hear about that offer something good for scrappers and digital artists.  As a Photoshop user, too, I pay attention to those resources that are offered.  So, are you ready!

This first place is DigiTee Designs.  Shiela is into scrapbooking, it looks like.  She creates little goodies and gives them away, such as Layer Styles for PS, labels, strings and alphas.  I spotted a cute kit, too!  A couple of ’em!

Do you like ‘Layer Styles’?  JC Sweetpea Designs offers a slew of really nice styles for Photoshop.  They are free and for CU use, too.

Next, is ScrapKado Brushes.  Though the title says ‘Brushes’, Sylvaine has Patterns, Styles and Templates.  On this page, after the first post for Ballet Brushes, she gives links to all of her sites, and there are lots more that you may enjoy!

Now, about DeviantArt.  I spend a lot of time over there since I also do digital art and painting.  My favorite photo-manipulation is anything fantasy.  Thus, I have found a few artists who provide stock for art use.  I have compiled the links into one page at my old blog.  I just haven’t moved it yet.

http://www.suruha-freespirit.com/p/deviantart-stock-providers.html

I have noted after each link what type of goodies each primarily offers to help you narrow down your search.  Also, be sure to pay heed to each individual artist’s terms.  Some are fairly detailed whereas others – not so much.

I saved the best for last.  My friend, Jodiann.  I know I wrote about Jodiann before, but, if you haven’t been to her site, lately, you are missing out!  She is on a roll!  Jodiann is a natural-born designer.  She makes some of the nicest goodies.  Coincidentally, one of her specialties is Layer Styles.  But, she does elements and overlays and all kinds of neat things.

For those of you who design your own, she even offers a year-long CU Pass, allowing you to sell what you make with her goodies.  It is the most reasonable rate I have ever seen!  5 Bucks!  Yep!  For a whole year!  Even if you have no need for this, you really must read some of Jodiann’s posts.  She is a HOOT!  She’s an ol’ hippie chick, herself, so, we have a lot in common.

This isn’t all I have.  It’s just all the time I have.  LOL  I have a tutorial that I will post soon that will, hopefully, help you to save time doing your scrapping/art/designs.  Look for it!  Meanwhile, I will see what needs to be done about my RSS Feed.  I don’t know if it works or not.   The benefit of a ‘feed’ is every time I post something, you get it in your e-mail.  LOL  I use them all the time for sites I want to keep up with.  You can also have the feed go to a ‘reader’ of your choice.  I use Google Reader.  It would take me a year to view each of them, but…  LOL  I subscribe to a lot of places!  I just skim over them and hit on the stuff that stands out to me.  Seeing what all I have downloaded, it is probably a good thing that I can’t read all of them on a regular basis!  I have 2 External Hard Drives full of resources!  My brushes alone weigh in at over 50 gigabytes.  LOL

So, as usual, until next time…

Moving Smile Graphic

 Hugs,

Su

Musings, a Link and a New Freebie Parts

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Good Monday, folks!  How’s the weather where you are?  Here, in sunny Florida, we have been having RAIN!  Lots of dark, heavy clouds, the low rumbling of far off, then, nearby thunder, with intermittent thundershowers – the kind of day where you still need the lights on.  Great napping weather!  I know!  I have been test-driving it!  LOL

Today is the first day of school for the children.  I surprised myself with tears as I watched our youngest, my granddaughter, go out the door for her very first day of ‘big’ school.  With her big brother, a fifth-grader, encouraging her, her steps to the truck to go became less and less sure as she started out.  For days now she has been so excited!  Her new outfit sat on the ready for a week now.  Her cousins even did her hair yesterday in preparation for her big debut.  This morning, with her over-sized backpack and her new look, all the excitement culminated into a definate hesitation about mid-driveway.  Suddenly, she wasn’t as sure.  Big brother urged her on enough to get her in the truck and off they went.  Mom reported to me after dropping them off that she didn’t quite want Mommy to leave her.  She has been used to a day care, where both children have gone since birth.  In that closed, little world, she fit right in.  Now, she has a bigger world to fit into.  She has her brother to guide her, though, he has just this year to guard over her, as he goes on to a Middle School next year.  I’m not really worried about her.  This was just first-day nerves.  She is a pistol!  So, I wiped my tear and went and crawled back between the sheets and listened to the rain fall until I napped.

Key-Stroke Shortcut

I’d say, let’s learn another keystroke shortcut.  This one is uber-easy!  When you want to reset the foreground colours to black and white, which are default, click on “D”.  This will put black as foreground and white as background.  Need those colours reversed?  Click “X”.  That’s all there is to it!  There are no modifier keys for these.

Did You Know…? 

Now, you might wonder when you will ever need to use just black and white.  Masks require black and white.  When you place a mask on a layer, it does nothing since it is white.  All of the image it is attached to will be visible.  Once you apply a brushstroke of black to any spot on the mask, that part of the image will become transparent.  Poof!  Invisible!  It’s hidden!  If you erroneously ‘hide’ any part, all you have to do is hit “X”, to switch white back to foreground, and brush over the spot.  Your image will become visible again!  This is where black and white, and the “X” key, come in.  I do most of my ‘erasing’ with a mask in this manner.  I do this when ‘isolating’ an element from an image.  Once I have everything ‘erased’ that I want, then, I can apply the mask.

Here is an image I whipped up that shows the layer with the mask and a brushed circle on the mask.  Note how the space under the black is invisible?  That is what masks do!

I’ve been putting together a list of places you might find enjoyable, but, will post that later this week.  I do want to tell you about one, though.  A Vegas Girl at Heart is a blog where the author relates stories of her family and her life with pictures and amusing anecdotes.  Melissa puts her spin on nice, little goodies, as well.  I like her style!  I found some cute ‘Washi Tape’ pieces recently.  She had been hinting of something really big.  BIG, BIG!   In her most recent ‘Friday Freebie’ she revealed the big surprise – an entire collection of retro elements for Project Life.  While Project Life is not her baby, so to speak, she answered the need for a set of usable elements for keeping up your own project.  Melissa has put together cards of several types, an alpha and even brushes for anyone to document their lives.  Seeing all of her goodies makes me want to participate in PL!  Maybe, one day.  Her offerings are labeled ‘Retro Project Life Kit’ and can find it here.  She has arranged everything by category for downloading – NINE, in all, I believe.  Then, she has other fine components you may purchase from her Etsy shop.  Go check it out.  What I like about this kit is the ‘retro’ look.  The style reminds me of my youth when ‘modern’ was creepy-looking.  LOL  I didn’t ever care much for those clean lines and minimal styles.  To me, it looked cold and un-home-y.  In retro-spect, I love it.  I just didn’t like it when it was new!  So, go!  See what I write about!

Finally, today Miss Edna and I have two more parts for you from our August freebie, “Vintage Garden”.  Last week we gave out the QP’s.  This week and next we give you the papers and elements for you to design your own layouts.  I gots to tell ya, this was fun!  I went way above and beyond our usual target size.  Though the downloads are around 40-50mbs each, they unpack to right at 100mbs each!  I don’t think you will mind.  But, if anyone has any problems with downloading these sizes, let me know and I will accommodate you.

Below are my previews.  The first one, the ‘elements’, will link you to Part 3 and the ‘papers’ preview will link you to Part 4.  I still separate everything by papers and elements in the preview, but, each part has an assortment of each.  Then, below that, you’ll see Miss Edna’s preview.  Click on it, if you haven’t been to her blog yet, and go collect her parts.

Part 3

Part 4

Miss Edna

There ya go!  Until next week,

Smile!

Hugs,

Su

New Blog – Finally! Freebies and Links

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Hiya!  I made it!  Welcome to my new blog!  This one is mine!  LOL  I am using the WP plug-in, but, the hosting is done right here.  No more going to Minus or Box!  I am new to this concept, so, be patient with me, as you have already done.  I appreciate it!  Be sure to check out Hosting Bonanza if you would like to have your own site!  My friend, J, did all the set up for me and I couldn’t be more pleased!  I still need to transfer over my ‘resource’ pages, but, I will.  Every one of my posts from both, Blogger and WordPress, have been added to this blog, so, this one is complete!

I have lots for you today.  First off, I have been promising you some new links for good things.  I have some for you!  If you love pretty and colourful patterns, check out InkBite.  Here is quite the selection!  Here is just one of these gorgeous designs:

See what I mean?  It’s a nice site, so, do give it a click!

Next up is Animus.  There, you will find some of everything – design-wise, anyway.  At first look, it seemed that there was not that much content.  Then, when I clicked on the menu items, patterns, then, floral, in particular, it took me to a page like this:

Each of the circle previews can be clicked to see a larger preview and to download.  You can see the list of patterns offered.  It is about the same for brushes, fonts, even clip-art.  Go give it a whirl!  I think you’ll like!

This next site is one on DeviantArt, The Strawberry Tree.  This site is aimed at providing stock images for manipulations.  It has some great images!  If you do any kind of art or image-manipulating, this one is a jewel!  I’ll let you check it out.  Do follow any TOU’s, of course.

This one, e-Scape and Scrap, is for scrapping.  I had never seen it before!  There is a great selection of designers here!  I don’t know what it is about this site, but, I loved everything!  LOL  That doesn’t happen often, either.  I picked just one of the offered freebies to show you, but, there is a lot more!

See?  Check it out!

The last link today is SDWHaven.  This site is a design-oriented website which leans towards illustration.  It has been around a while.  There are some wonderful brushes, patterns, styles, etc, here.  Here is just one brush preview:

The offerings are good quality!  Give it a try, too!

Alrighty, then!  Those should keep ya busy for a little while.  Onward!

Did You Know…?

that in some versions of Photoshop, you can change the brush size and the opacity by holding down the ‘Alt’ key, then, clicking and dragging the mouse?  Click and drag right and left to change the size, up and down to change the opacity.  I know this feature is available in CS5 and CS6. I am not sure about PS Elements.  It won’t hurt to try if you have another version!  I like it as it keep my hands on the keyboard around the area where I do the most key-strokes – the lower left-hand corner of the keyboard.  To me, that is nice!  LOL   I hope someone can find this useful!

Keystroke Shortcut

For our keystroke shortcut of the week, let’s use all of our fingers!  LOL  By depressing all three modifier keys, ‘Alt’, ‘Shift’ and ‘Ctrl’, then, ‘E’, while on the top-most layer of your layers panel, it will create and place a composite image of every layer on top of them all.  This is best explained with an image.  Say you have several layers created.  You don’t want to merge them or flatten them as you may have to make some changes.  However, you really want to add an effect to the finished design.  This is where this shortcut comes in handy.  I threw together an image to illustrate this:

Looking at the Layers Palette, we see the layers we have:

Now, I want to clip a texture to the entire image, but, I don’t want to merge.  So, I hold down all three modifiers and click ‘E’.  You must be on the top-most layer to do this and get the entire image.  If you only have one layer, for some reason, you can just add a new layer, select it, then apply this feature.  There just has to be more than one layer and you have to be on the the top layer.  If there is a layer you don’t want included, just turn it off!  Easy-peasy!  Here is the Layers Palette after applying this step:

Now, I can go ahead and do whatever I want to the image and the layers aren’t affected.  It is a bit of a trick clicking on all three keys plus the ‘E’, but, it is worth it.  I use this almost every time I am on Photoshop.  I find lots of reasons I want various layers combined, yet still separate.

So, that is a gonna do it for this post!  I have a surprise for you!  Call it a ‘Welcome Gift’ if you like, but, I have some element sheets I forgot to give you from ‘Summer Fun’.  Oops! Click on each image for larger sizes, then, right-click and save!

Citrus Slices

Summer Signs

Tropical Fruits

Whew!  LOL  I hope you have found something useful here today!  I am so excited to have all of my blog together in one place!  Woo-hoo!  LOL

I am out of here!  There is another afternoon thunderstorm brewing.  I have to turn off everything.  I’m not replacing all that stuff again!  Cha-ching!(Sound of cash register)  So, until next time,

Smile Pretty!

Hugs,

Su