Digital collage using scanned background papers
January 30, 2007 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Home & Living
Technique Tuesday!
I love Technique Tuesday…it’s gotten to be my favorite day of the week! Today I want to look at how you can use your background papers for digital art. If you scan them before you cut them up for other projects, you can use them over and over. And you can modify them considerably too by using Photoshop or some other image editing software. Photoshop is the one I use, so the steps that I list below use its terminology. I’m sure you can make the adjustments for a different program if you fool around with it a bit!
These two digital collages were both made with the same basic steps. Even so, I have to warn you that there’s nothing mechanical about this process. Each digital collage presents its own unique set of challenges, and so there’s no way that I can tell you the exact values and settings I used and have them work out well for you. You’ll have to just take these steps and tweak them for each new piece that you work with.
hi Cindy I realy love these techniques
Thanks Douglas! I hope you’ll try some and show us what you did
I’m just learning about digital collage and I love your techniques. Great work and creativity. My biggest challenge is the price for Photoshop. I have Photoshop 5.0 but it’s an older version that doesn’t support a lot of the features used for this magical finish. Also, can one still get close to the same results using only a scanner and transparencies? Please advise if you have any thoughts. thank you for sharing.
Peace and Blessings,
Patrizia~*
Hi Patrizia! I’m a big believer in using what you’ve got and trying to fake it as much as possible
Photoshop is unbelievably expensive and I only have it because it’s my job. Many people use free open source programs like Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) and are very happy with the results. As for using your scanner and transparencies…absolutely! Do it! Print out images on an inkjet transparency or photocopy them on and scan the pieces together. You can probably then use your PS 5.0 to clean up the images a bit and make them look better.
I’d *love* to see what you come up with!