Insights of 2 Scrappy Sisters: Lay it down, part 2

Today's discussion is about the materials palette.

Materials tabs include: Frame, Rainbow and Swatch

Tabs 5 through 8 only appear on the materials palette if you have the swatches tab selected.:

1. Foreground color
2. Background color
3. Quickly switch foreground and background colors.
4. Make foreground, black and background color, white.
5. The color, gradient, pattern tab
6. Create new swatch tab
7. Delete swatch tab
8. More options tab
9. All tools check box if you want the colors locked for all tools.

No matter which materials tab you have selected, if you click on the foreground or background color, you will get a material properties pop up, where you can chose the color, gradient or pattern tab as well as a texture.

You can also chose color, gradient or pattern from the pop up below the fore and background colors (labeled 1); texture (labeled 2) or no color at all, called transparent in PSP (labeled 3).

In the color Material Properties you can change the color by (1) Moving around the ring; and (2) change the hue, saturation and lightness by moving around the square.

(3) You can also choose a color from the swatch box. (4) Change Red, Green and Blue values by typing in the numbers or using the sliders. You can do the same with the (5) hue, saturation and lightness. Or you can type in the (6) HTLM number if you know it.

Current (7) and Previous (8) are self explanatory, I think.

Next is the gradient properties. Several gradients are included with PSP and others can be downloaded by doing a search. Or you can always make your own, by using the edit button.

You can change the style of the gradient by choosing one of the buttons in the style box.

Gradients can be a great way to add color and uniqueness to your layouts.

As the Bug pointed out in an earlier post, the pattern option can be a very useful tool. By clicking on the arrow (1), you will get a listing of the patterns you have available. You can either (2) choose to have it show all or if you have your patterns in several folders you can click on the button to get the list and just show those is specific folders. You can also choose the angle and size of the pattern.

Using patterns to fill shapes and stencils can give an added punch to your layout.

The last we will talk about is texture. The first thing you are going to want to do is choose a light and dark shade of the color you want. I'm starting with a light green. I have filled my corner (from digidiva) with this color.

Note: I don't know what the background turned out black. Glitch when uploading I guess.

Next I have chosen a darker green (1) for my foreground color. Clicked on the pattern tab (2) to bring up the materials properties box. I checked the texture box (3) then clicked on the arrow (4) next to the texture and chose the blue spruce (5) texture to use

Now all I have to do is fill the corner with my texture. You do not have to put it on a different layer unless you plan on changing the mode (ie. multiply, overlay, etc).

Next time: Lay it down, part 3.