Cork Background

WE
Posted By
Wendy_E_Williams
Dec 23, 2003
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1829
Replies
45
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Closed
I am trying to make a notice board with a Christmas theme but I haven’t managed to find a cork pattern for the background. Anyone any ideas?

Wendy

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JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Wendy, I can’t think of any off hand that I have seen but if you have a cork notice board you could take a picture of it, download it and then work with the real thing.
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Wendy and Jodi: I found an action for full Photoshop that creates a corkboard texture. Now if I can figure out how to save it as a texture….

Chuck
R
Ray
Dec 24, 2003
Use this texture as pattern (Edit / Define Pattern), then use the paint bucket and fill an entire empty document. Else, save the pattern in a seperate pattern set and send it over to Wendy.

Ray
R
Ray
Dec 24, 2003
Chuck, if you have trouble with this, let me know (here) and post the link to the action, I’ll prepare the pattern and send it to Wendy.

Ray
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Chuck, to save as a texture change it to greyscale and then up the contrast and save as a psd file. When you want to use it go to filter>texture>load texture. You can send it to Wendy as well 😉 Where did you find the action ? I don’t see it in the defaults.
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Oh Hi Ray, I didn’t see you there 🙂
R
Ray
Dec 24, 2003
Hello there Jodi!

Can’t it be saved as a full colored pattern ?

Ray
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Ray, I got it and I used PS7’s Pattern Maker to save it. Will try it in Elements before I send it along to Wendy. Thanks for the offer!

Chuck
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Hi Ray…sure it can but Chuck asked how he could save it as a texture…I was just there blabbing on to him about ‘how to’….don’t mind me 😉
PA
Patti_Anderson
Dec 24, 2003
Wendy you can make a very convincing cork bulletin board texture without any actions or plug-ins. I was working on a 72 ppi when I did this, so if your image has a higher resolution, play with the sliders in the filters to scale it better.

1. Fill background with a warm brown (I used dark yellow orange from the Swatch palette)

2. Filters-> Noise-> Add Noise. About 20%, check Gaussian and Monochromatic.

3. Filter-> Brush Strokes-> Spatter. Spray radius about 1 to 2. Play with the Smoothness slider until you get the effect you want.

Patti
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Interesting! I used Photoshop 7 to save the Corkboard pattern group (with one pattern), and it wound up in the Photoshop Elements 2 pattern file folder. Oh, well.

Wendy, it’s available now if you want it; please e-mail me at if you’d like me to send it to you. Also, if you’d
prefer to make your own, I can dissect the action and list the steps for you; they appear to be all Element-ary…

🙂

Chuck
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Jodi, I saved it as a pattern – can be applied as a pattern fill layer, I believe. Will have to learn how to do texture creation…
PA
Patti_Anderson
Dec 24, 2003
Wendy,
I made a quick sample corkboard so you can see the results of the steps I used in my previous post. I actually found a push pin in Custom Shapes.

<http://www.pbase.com/image/24398921>

Patti
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Patti, you need to send that into the weekly challenge ! It’s so great !
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 24, 2003
Patti,

I have saved your cork-board method in my "recipe box"… nifty!

Thanks,

Byron
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Patti, that’s much better than the one from the action I downloaded – terrific!

Chuck
SK
Shan_Ko
Dec 24, 2003
Patti,

Neat trick. Thanks.

Shan
PA
Patti_Anderson
Dec 24, 2003
Thanks guys and you’re welcome. I did go ahead and send it in for this week’s challenge. The little kid’s drawing was made on another layer. I used that crumpled paper effect someone posted awhile back — that’s a very cool trick too! The crayon drawing was done with a set of brushes by Nagel I downloaded from Adobe Studio Exchange. It’s easy to draw and write kid-style with a mouse. 🙂

Patti
DS
Dick_Smith
Dec 24, 2003
Patti,

Thanks for those directions. I fooled around a bit and came up with this image:

<http://ncsmiths.com/Forum/cork-board.jpg>

Meeds work. Lucky I found that pushpin in the custom shapes! 😉

Dick
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 24, 2003
Dick, that’s great ! Quite the shopping list…ya like chips eh ?
PA
Patti_Anderson
Dec 24, 2003
Very cool there, Dick! Love the notes — that’s some shopping list you got there. 🙂 And what cute angels!

Patti
BH
Beth_Haney
Dec 24, 2003
I’m very impressed with your work, guys. Very nice. 🙂
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 24, 2003
Dick,

What is that first word on your shopping list? I recognize all of the others, but can’t quite seem to place that one…

Byron
DS
Dick_Smith
Dec 24, 2003
Byron -Ya mean carrots? I have no idea why I wrote that.

Jodi-Ya gotta have something to go with the beer!

Those angels were in the kid’s pageant at Church Sunday. It was one of the better pictures I took. Made two 5×7’s for their mothers tonite.

It was fun.

I’m going to play with that idear more after Christmas.

Dick

EDIT-Byron, I wrote those things using the digital table. Believe it or not it’s almost better than my own handwriting. 😉

Tablet! Egad, it’s late.
BW
Barbara_Wayne
Dec 24, 2003
The One-Click Wow < http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3D stripbooks%26field-keywords%3Done%252520click%252520wow%26st ore-name%3Dbooks/102-0971412-6692940> books, for PSE2 and Photoshop 7 have Organic Patterns and one of them is: Wow-Cork. You may also want to check your local library for a copy, mine had both books which was really great.

Edit: Had a little link trouble, 😉 should be fixed now. I also forgot to say that most of the One-Click Wow 7 stuff works in PSE2. Both books have CD’s that are loaded with Patterns, Layer Styles, etc.

Barb
TF
Terri_Foster
Dec 24, 2003
That’s pretty slick…I never dreamed of looking at the library for the wow books. Is the PS7 Wow pretty much a rehash of the PSE2 Wow goodies?
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Barb, re One-Click Wow….are they actually patterns or layer styles? I’m going back to my Wow discs now to see if I can find them. I have Organic Styles, but they don’t have names, only numbers…

Chuck
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Barb, I think I found them – but only on the PS7 disk. They’ve been there all this time and I never downloaded them….thanks!

Chuck
BW
Barbara_Wayne
Dec 24, 2003
Terri,

There are a bunch of other things besides what came with this PSE2. Look through the books over at Amazon, it’ll show you pretty much what comes with them. Hope your library has the books too, I always look there first, running out of book money and space. 😉

Barb
BW
Barbara_Wayne
Dec 24, 2003
Chuck, cork as a Pattern is in both the PS7 One-Click Wow and the PSE2 One-Click Wow, I just checked. Glad you’re getting around to installing them. 🙂

Barb
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 24, 2003
Barb, I know why I couldn’t find them on the PSE2 CD….because I have the PSE1 CD! They weren’t in the older one….

I never got the newer version ’cause I figured all the same stuff was on the PS7 CD…did you find any on the PSE2 CD that were unique?

🙂

Chuck
BW
Barbara_Wayne
Dec 24, 2003
Chuck, OK, that’s why it didn’t appear. There is something new in the PSE2 Wow book called Wow PSE2-Media Brushes which allows you to turn an existing photo into a painting. I haven’t tried it yet, it’s on my things to do list this week, I’ll let you know how it goes when I get to it. Other than that, the book looks similar to the ones you already have, you can check your library too if you want to have a look. 🙂 I just look up the author or book title online and request it be sent to the nearest branch, it’s great.

Barb
TF
Terri_Foster
Dec 24, 2003
Thanks Barbara…I will try my local library but being that I live in a rural area…I have a sinking feeling that I’ll end up at a bookstore. This is bad on the checkbook since I always end up with a handfull of books.
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 24, 2003
Dick,

I was just having fun… seemed like carrots was the odd entry on the list of chips and beer!

I’ve used my Graphire2 to capture handwriting, and have been disappointed. I just can’t seem to go slow enough for the cursor to keep up with the stylus, so end up with jagged, jerky writing.

Do you have any tips in that regard?

Byron
R
Ray
Dec 24, 2003
Byron,

What PC do you have (or Mac) ? On my P4 1.5Ghz, I can write at pretty much all speed and the cursor
won’t miss a thing.

Ray
SS
Susan_S.
Dec 24, 2003
Might be the settings on the Graphire – it could be worth playing with them to see if you can rejig the speed. It’s possible to write quite well with the graphire – well enough to do (rough) calligraphic alphabets…

<http://www.users.on.net/sestewart/Chriscard3B.jpg>

Susan S.
PL
Paul_L_UK
Dec 24, 2003
Byron

Try checking the ‘more options’ on the brush you are using, and take the spacing down to minimum. The default is 25% and when changing brushes it seems to go back to that.

Hope that helps.

Paul
BB
Barbara_Brundage
Dec 24, 2003
Terri, I also live in an area where the local library has fewer books than I do. Ask for inter-library loan. It’s amazing what they can get for you if you give them enough info. Go to amazon or someplace and get the ISBN and I bet your library can track down a copy for you.
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 24, 2003
Ray,

Most of the time, I’m working from my laptop (P3/500). I accept that machine performance could be responsible for the issue.

Susan,

I took a (short) class in calligraphy eons ago, so barely qualify as a novice – but for me, the speed with which I draw characters varies greatly between cursive and calligraphy. It’s my faster, normal handwriting speed which is giving me fits. I’ll have to look more deeply into the tablet’s control panel to see if I can rev it up.

Paul,

I had never looked into the brush spacing, and found it at 25%, as you predicted. I set it to 1%, but didn’t notice a change. After playing with the control at upper settings, I see what it does — so I suspect this option is not the source of the trouble.

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas. Although my strongest suspicion is that my PC’s processor speed is responsible for the latency between the stylus and the cursor, I’ll make sure all of the software settings are as optimized as possible.

I CAN get decent results if I limit my writing speed, but because that is unnatural to my hand, I malform characters. If I write at my normal speed, round characters are faceted. For instance, if I draw a circle at my normal handwriting speed, it comes out as a polygon, with around 12 or 14 sides.

Thanks, again.

Byron
SS
Susan_S.
Dec 24, 2003
Thats weird Byron! I can write and draw at normal speed on my tablet – the only problem I have is that the slightly slick surface tends to make my control slightly worse – but sitting a sheet of paper over the tablet suface fixes that. Have you got the latest driver for the tablet? I know there was a new one out for the Mac recently. I’ve also had my tablet driver or preferences (don’t know which) get corrupted – resulting in the pen/brush drawing an inch away from the cursor on the screen – which was most peculiar! Redownloading and reinstalling the driver fixed that one. I take it you don’t have the same problem with fast mousing?

Susan S.
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 24, 2003
Susan,

Rapidly drawing an arc with the mouse results in the same, faceted appearance.

I’m going to go on without any further worries, chalking it up to barely-acceptable hardware specs.

Thanks!

Byron
NS
Nancy_S
Dec 25, 2003
did you try 100%?
WE
Wendy_E_Williams
Dec 25, 2003
Hi Everyone,

And thank you all for the help … I am amazed at just how much you have all contributed whilst I have been enjoying our Christmas Eve Dinner.

Chuck I have sent you an E Mail and Patti I have copied all the stages down and will give it a try …

In the meantime I used the gold sprinkles and it doesn’t look to bad … as the challenge is nearing its close I will send it as it is and play around later.

Thank you all so much
Merry Christmas
Wendy
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Dec 25, 2003
Hi, Wendy: I sent it along to you; maybe it’ll come in handy someday… 🙂
Chuck
BG
Byron_Gale
Dec 25, 2003
I checked the Wacom site and found that they have posted a new driver for the Graphire2/3 models…. 4.78-6, where I was running 4.77-11.

So I downloaded and installed it.

WOW – they have really SIMPLIFIED the interface. Gone are the in-depth controls for fine-tuning pressure levels, along with many of the other advanced controls.

I do not see any performance benefits to the new driver, so am contemplating rolling back to the earlier driver to gain back the pressure settings.

Byron

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