30 Before 30: A New Computer Skill

A big thank you to my husband for helping me cross another item off of my list!  This one pretty much depended on him, but I'm still thankful that he took the time to teach me.

When we exchanged anniversary gifts, I took one look at his and knew which computer skill I wanted to learn: photo shop.  I loved the way he took wedding images and formed the letters, this was going to work so well with the shadow box of items we saved from our honeymoon.

I won't do a step by step because I am no photo shop expert (I don't even have it on my computer, we did it on his), but if you do have it below are some key strokes that helped me out.

We measured out the space in the shadow box and then created the canvas in PS with the correct dimensions.  After typing out the word I wanted to use, Chris taught me all about adding the layers for each of the letters.

Chris worked through the first letter, and then left it up to me to finish out the word.  Thankfully he left me with a little cheat sheet in case I forgot what step I was on.

- Drag in the image from my pictures

- Scale the image, then hit Enter

- Right click on the picture layer and select Rasterize layer

- Select the letter layer

- Click on the wand and select the letter

- Ctrl+Shift+I

- Hide the letter layer (by clicking on the eye)

- Select the picture layer

- Delete

- Ctrl+D (to deselect)

- Right click on the picture layer

- Paste Layer Style

It took a little playing around to find images that I liked that would fit in each of the letters shapes.  Once I was happy with the images, I printed it off and added it to a the shadow box that contained our room keys, airline ticket stubs and some Mexican pesos.

Hopefully I can learn some more photo shop before his summer classes begin!

Have you learned any skills from your friends or family?