How to recolor your digis by Diane Noble

Hello Everyone!

We have a very talented guest tutorial writer with us today, Diane Noble!  Diane has put together this wonderful tutorial that will teach you how to recolor your digis!  I have been very excited to use this in my own cardmaking and I am sure you will love having this knowledge too!

You can visit Diane's blog here! 

Diane has created the following three cards using the newly released digis Tag Blessings and Thoughtful Notes.  These cards turned out just beautiful!

Diane is going to show you how to recolor your images in Microsoft Word and in Publisher.

Recoloring Digital Images

(using Microsoft Word 2010)

1.      Copy and paste images from your purchased file.  Use either JPEG or PNG files. Size them by pulling or pushing the corner handles.  (See Deedee Anderson’s tutorial, Digis 101 posted on June 26, 2012).  Note: To move images around in Word, you have to click the image, then go to the tool bar and pull down the menu under “Wrap Text.” Choose “through” and you will be able to move the images anywhere on the page.

2.      To begin recoloring, double click the first image you want to recolor. This will open the Picture Tool tab and bars. Click on the “Color” icon on the left of tool bar (see arrows below).

 

3. 

When you click on the “Color” icon, a drop-down menu will appear.  Select your colors from the third row under “Recolor.”  This immediately changes the color of all the solid portions of your image.  Repeat to change color of other images, then copy and paste recolored images to get the number needed of each size and each color.  Remember you can change sentiments so they coordinate with the colors of your images.

 

4. 

Continue copying/pasting/sizing/recoloring to fill the page with desired images for one or more projects. I wanted to use images from Tag Blessings and Silhouette Thoughts, so both appear on the page for this tutorial.

 

5.      When you have the number of images you want to use, you can arrange them before you print to conserve paper.  Leave space around images where you may want to use dies, like on the sentiment.  If you are going to free-hand cut out images, they can be placed closer together. You can leave the images as they are now, or you can proceed and have a little more fun cropping your digis.

6. 

Notice in the step above, that two identical sized images from Tag Blessings (bird/text) have been recolored.  We will go through a series of cropping steps to combine two colors on one image! Select the first image to crop (blue bird/text circle tag in lower left corner of page). Use the crop tool in the upper right corner of the tool bar. (Highlighted in yellow below.)  This will create the cropping handles on your image.  Push in to crop off the unwanted portion. 

 

7.   

I cropped off the bottom, or text, of the blue bird image, and cropped off the top of the green bird image.  See the two images in the lower left corner of the page. 

 

8.      Now move the two cropped images into alignment and “group” the images.  You can now copy as many images as you need and arrange them all on your page to conserve paper. 

 

9.      I also copied and recolored two sentiments, cropped them and rejoined them to create a two-colored sentiment.  Now, I’m ready to cut out, die cut, or punch the images/sentiments to make my projects. 

Recoloring Digital Images

(using Microsoft Publisher 2010)

Microsoft Publisher is a word document program but it works with a graphics base.  You have to insert text boxes that act as images instead of just typing on the page to embed text.  But because it is a graphics based program it handles digital images with much more flexibility and ease than does Microsoft Word.  When you copy/paste your initial images, they will immediately float on the page—you can move them anywhere by just clicking and dragging.  Publisher has a decided advantage over MS Word in the scope of colors available with virtually endless possibilities. Working with the images will be very similar as far as mechanics.

1.   

Copy and paste your images to a Publisher page.  To speed this portion up I’ll show the recoloring all at once instead of in steps as before.

2.   

To recolor click on an image.  The picture Tools tab will appear and you will pull down the menu from the Recolor icon on the left side of the tool bar.  From here you will immediately have a huge array of color options.  Select the color you want, apply and save and you’re finished!

3.   

Here’s the window that open to select your colors. There will be another drop down menu on the Color bar.  Once you open that you’ll see the color palette. 

 

4.      The colors just pop with Publisher.  Publisher is a very versatile program and can make newsletters, brochures, letterheads and all types of graphics rich documents.  Here all the images are copied and recolored once. The cropping function to achieve two colors on one image is basically the same.

5.      To crop, click on the image and go to the crop icon in the upper right hand portion of the tool bar. It’s highlighted in yellow in the screen shot below. Once you click it cropping handles will appear just as they did in MS Word, and you continue to crop as before.

6.      Here’s the finished recolored and cropped worksheet done in Publisher.  It’s ready to print.

The advantages and challenges with each program are dependent on user comfort.  Most people are more familiar with Microsoft Word, but Publisher is easy to learn.

Images can also be recolored in other photo editing programs.  When recoloring images, give the creator of the image full credit for the design.  Occasionally artist will stipulate that their images are not to be reconfigured or manipulated.  Adhere to any stated limitations by the creator, particularly if you plan to publish pictures of projects with the recolored or cropped image.  It is a violation of the intellectual copyright laws of the original artist to manipulate their designs then claim any credit as your own original creation. 

Most artists are delighted to see their images used and enjoyed.  They get excited to see the versatility someone has achieved with their images.   Playing with recoloring just takes a little practice.  Most printers will print at a high enough color quality on the regular print settings, but experiment with your printer.  You may have to change the setting to a higher quality to achieve the look you want. 

Thank you Diane for sharing this wonderful tutorial with us!  What a blessing!

I hope your day is filled with stamping and blessings galore!