Scrap Book Fonts

Scrap Book / Tag Font Shapes for Indesign, Pages, PaintShop Pro, Elements, Xpress and others

Installing scrap book true type fonts on PC (windows 7)

The scrap book true type fonts are easy to install, either on a PC (as in this example) or on a mac.

1) select the TTF true type font file

2) right click

3) select the windows font viewer to open the true type font

4) select the install option in the windows font viewer application (there is not a vast amount of functionality - install is one of the key functions of the application). The application is a standard feature of windows 7

Photoshop Elements and scrap book type tutorial

1) Select the 'horizontal type' tool in Photoshop Elements' toolbox

2) you will then be able to select the GX Scrap book font set via the type drop down along the option bar at the top of Photoshop Elements

3) type a character from the keyboard such as 'P' (all the graphicxtras font sets come with a PDF document (for printing etc) showing the relationship between the designs and the keyboard characters

4) Set the color for the design as well as the alignment etc - you can also warp the text at this point

5) Warp text by clicking the warp text button on the option bar - you are then offered a selection of different warps such as arc, wave etc

4) select the move tool in Photoshop Elements to display the transformation / bounding box

5) Rotate / scale etc the text design and click OK (check)

Apply effects to type in Photoshop Elements

Effects can be applied to text by using the filter menu - apply artistic effects etc. As soon as you attempt to apply an effect to one of the designs, a dialog will appear saying that the type design will be simplified and will no longer be text.

Though as a flat colorful design, most of the effects actually do little - stained glass perhaps but most of the others will leave the design basically untouched.

The best approach to use is layer menu and flatten image (again this means the text cannot be changed) and then apply filter effects.

Layer effects and type in Photoshop Elements

1) select text character

2) go to the effects palette

3) double click on the drop shadow etc layer effects

Once you have applied a layer style, you can now modify the style (albeit in a fairly limited way in Photoshop Elements)

1) layer menu and layer style command and layer settings..

2) if you want to add a stroke style then just check the stroke setting and then add a stroke color and size (and opacity)

3) De-select the checkbox if you want to remove a setting

4) Click OK

At this point you can always simply the layer via the layer menu and simplify layer command (though it loses the ability to change the scrap book text / type character design)

If you wish, you can then just re-apply a new layer style on top of the original layer style - to create weird and wonderful color gel, metallic etc effects

Type characters in Photoshop Elements as a source for patterns tutorial

1) select the type tool

2) set the font to one of the scrap book fonts

3) set color

4) type character on the keyboard

5) layer menu followed by flatten command

6) rectangle marquee tool

7) select character design (leave space around the design as required - this creates a seamless pattern) If you select part of the design, the pattern will not (in all probability) be a seamless tile but it might still be useful for abstract designs

8) edit menu and define pattern from selection

Of course, you could always use multiple characters as well as different colors and even layer styles in the pattern definition.

1) layer menu followed by new fill layer and pattern

2) set scale for the pattern + you can always move / shift the pattern while the dialog is visible and also just by selecting the layer and using the move tool to shift the layer

If you want to create a pattern with transparency in it - do as above but before defining the pattern, go to the layer palette and select the background layer and click the delete button on the layer palette - now define the pattern via the edit menu

You can also add a little more complexity to the scrap book pattern by duplicating the text layer and setting the bottom layer to black and the top layer to a color, and offsetting the bottom layer by 10 pixels or so and then selecting that, followed by a define pattern command

Now go to the layer menu and new fill layer and pattern

Now you can see the background layer beneath the scrap book shadow pattern. At this point, you can also just add an additional (or more than one) layer via the layer menu followed by new fill layer and pattern and offset the pattern design to create ever more complex pattern designs in Elements.

The layers can be merged via the layer menu and followed by merge layers command and you can then also apply layer styles via the effects palette (such as metallic or gel or shadow effects to the newly combined layers)

Accessing font characters in Photoshop tutorial

Each application has its own approach to type / text.

In Photoshop, set the font to the graphicxtras.com font and then type A B C D E etc as you would with any other font. Change the color via the top bar (in the example below - orange). Scale, rotate etc the character design. Changing a character into a custom shapes (via the layer menu command) gives additional flexibility in transformations and everyday use, though the character can no longer be changed simply by selecting a new letter. Personally I find transforming and manipulating custom shapes a lot easier than text characters.

The zip sets all include PDF documents showing the relationship between the keyboard characters and the design. If you prefer not to use the font designs, you can use the EPS files instead.

Load EPS files into Photoshop via the file menu and open command or the place command (layer).

Real-Draw Pro and importing font shape designs tutorial

1) Start Real-Draw Pro

2) File menu and import command

3) Select font file (TTF)

4) Select design from displayed selection of shapes in font

5) Inset & close button

6) Go to global NPR palette and select a style

7) Apply

Real-Draw is a powerful application that comes with a huge range of features to manipulate vector shapes.

A great feature of the program, along with its various styles such as sketch, engraving, manga, water color etc, is the ability to open TTF fonts and use the shapes in the font without any requirement to access the designs via the text tool.

The font shape non photo realistic style can be further modified via the settings option - the outline brush can be modified, the color, hardness, thickness of brush, the fill brush, intensity of the fill brush, paint type such as chalk and acrylic, smearing, applying liquid shape to outline brush, shadows, thinning and more.

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Date modified: May 10th, 2012

Creating plugins and presets since 1995. Privacy - no details sent to third parties. After buying any of the font sets, you receive the download link to a zip with the designs. Unique items, commercial use, royalty-free.