When I saw this kit by Patricia Christensen, I immediately thought of my mom. She loves sunflowers, and I always think of her when I see them. I guess that’s the reason I love them too 
!
Tips and Tricks:
- I wanted to highlight some of the beautiful original sunflower artwork Patricia included in this kit, since they are the theme of the page. I layered one of the sunflower elements above the seed packet, so that it looks like it is popping off the page. The circle placed around them draws even more attention in.
- Allowing some of the elements to hang off the edge of the page makes their placement look more natural and interesting.
- Since the sunflowers are very bold design elements, I clustered them on one side rather than filling the whole page with them. The lighter design areas on the rest of the page give your eyes a place to rest.
Technique: How to Turn a Digital Element into a Circle
This is one of the COOLEST photoshop tricks I have learned recently!!! Fryske, one of the other Weeds & Wildflowers creative team members taught it to me, and ever since then I can’t stop using it . I used it to turn the yellow, stitched ric-rac (seen behind the photo in it’s original form) from a straight line into a circle. Awesome, huh? Here’s how:
- You place the element (or text that has been simplified or rasterized) horizontally in the exact middle of a 12×12 inch (or any square) document. I’ve found that it will make the best circle if it hangs off the left and right sides slightly.
- Next, in “Free Transform” mode, make the element twice as high , by changing the height to 200%. If you are using text, you should rotate it 180% at this point.
- Now select Filter> Distort> Polar Coordinates, and click on “Rectangular to Polar”.
That’s it – easy and fun . I hope these instructions are clear, let me know if you need help getting it to work!
Great tip. Thanks a lot. And a lovely layout too. Love how you’ve turned the photo sepia. It works perfectly with the papers and elements you’ve used.
By: Karen on June 24, 2007
at 5:04 am
Cool tip, thanks!
By: Nancy on June 25, 2007
at 11:59 pm
Thank you!!! I love your tips and this one is fabulous. I was able to do it easily. I feel like I’m finally learning some new things. I appreciate the time you put into teaching us.
By: Melissa on June 27, 2007
at 11:44 am
[...] easy way to make this into a circle? I have. And, it turns out, there is an easy way!! Head over to Jess’ scrapbook ideas for an amazingly easy way of doing this using polar coordinates in Photoshop. It takes about two [...]
By: Make a circle! « Scraps of Life on July 9, 2007
at 2:37 pm
Thank you oh so much, I love tutorials and learning anything new, this is just so simple and easy. I’m now hooked on making circles everywhere with anything I can just coz I can
By: Tailz on November 1, 2007
at 12:37 am
thank you for sharing this easy trick. you have a very interesting site here with lots of info and resources. more power!
By: simplyjacy on August 19, 2008
at 9:36 pm
I can’t even begin to tell you how helpful this was! Every time I tried this, the warping made my image look all wrong. The scale increase was the key!
I’ve even played with it a little and learned you can get better affects on some images if you increase scaling to accomidate the type of graphic.
By: Cindy on September 15, 2008
at 11:52 am