Bite Into This!
March 5th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley
Carol B contacted me late yesterday asking how she could create a bite mark in a cookie or an apple. Now the basic way would be to use the Ginsu knife tool and just hold down the left mouse button and draw the bite mark through the image and separate:
The problem is that I’m a lousy artist, thus my bite just doesn’t “work for me!” lol
So, I remembered the apple file that comes with KNK Studio and figured that it would be a good starting point because it has a bite taken from it. So, have a look at this video and you’ll see how I transferred that exact same bite to a circle to create the cookie:
Bite Mark Video
Thanks, Carol, for yet another great video idea!
Say thank you to Rayleen for today’s post! She sent me a similar file to the one above (on the left) and needed to crop a certain section so as to fit an existing size project. I recreated my own version of the file and I think this could easily be something that you might encounter when trying to modify existing files. The situation is this… you have a rectangular image that you would like to use but it must be converted to a square image to work in your application. You can’t just resize it because it will distort the image and change the width of the outer portions of the frame:
So, you would like to crop it in a similar way that you do with photos. Basically, you would like to just cut out a portion of the image to use. This is amazing simple to do by just using any shape tool, arranging the shape over the part of the image you wish to crop, and then applying the XOR weld.
In this situation, you want to go one step further, which is to create a perfect square crop and maximize as much of the existing image as possible. So, watch the video and you’ll see how it’s done:
Cropping Vector Images
and here’s a link to the file I used in case you want to try it out:
Valentine Mesh
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Thickening Shapes
November 22nd, 2009 by Sandy McCauley
BeCca contacted me last week with a stick tree that was impossible to cut due to extremely thin branches. So, I used the same process I’ve shown in several of the designing videos on this blog to make the branches thicker. The difference in this particular case was that part of the image needed to remain unchanged.
Ginsu to the rescue! lol I simply cut off the branches, thickened them using the Stroke and Fill tools (combined with the Basic weld), and then reattached the branches to the trunk. The new Thickening Images Video shows the process in detail. Note that I also have videos in my store which cover more details on using the Ginsu Knife and Polyarc Editing.
Finally, after having a partial crash of my site after a Word Press update a week ago, I now have the Store back in business! So, if you have been trying to purchase the new tracing videos without success, they are now available again:
Downloadable Videos
Carol B contacted me the other day after she inadvertently discovered the Decorative Border function in KNK Studio. She asked me if I was aware of it and I responded that I was. It’s covered in Section 8.9 of the KNK and ACS User Manuals. HOWEVER, there was something about Carol’s file that triggered something I had never thought of before! She had a hearts image selected when she clicked on the Decorative Border function and KNK Studio immediately placed the inner part of the border around her hearts:
That’s when I realized that the border was actually a frame (with a hollow interior), thus you could use it to weld the images to the inside rectangle! And further, it’s REALLY easy to drag that interior rectangle to overlap perfectly and maintain centering with the outside rectangle at the same time. The only thing one needs to remember to do, is change everything to the same color before welding. This is FAR easier and faster than either of the methods I’ve taught in the past and I’m so very happy to have available now. Thanks, Carol! And here’s the video to watch:
Use Decorative Border to Weld to Rectangles
Credit for today’s post goes to Brenda Josselet who has found a quick way to align nodes horizontally or vertically, thus making editing straight line images much easier. I was so impressed with her discovery that I just had to come up with a name for it that would make it hers forever. So, I’m calling it Josselet’s Jostle It because you do kind of jostle the nodes in the process!
Here’s the video to see how it works. I’ve also added a few more things you may not have thought of before, so hopefully there’s something for everyone in this post. Thanks again, Brenda, for sharing your discovery!
Josselet’s Jostle It
