[Mikelle]

I have been successful with the background, photos, and the word "January" on this first calendar layout, but for the grid, photo frames, days of the week, etc I can't seem to either colorize them or overlay a paper and merge down. What am I doing wrong? Colorizing with the eyedropper worked for "January." I'm so frustrated, and now I have to go to work!!! Here is a link, if I can figure out the link thing...

[tiza126]

Hi Mikelle! I looked at your calendar and it looks really cute! Sorry you are getting frustrated with the templates

What software program are you using?

I don't have these calendars, so I'm not able to give an exact solution. If it was me, I'd try the following technique:
Use the magic wand to select the grid lines and numbers. (You might need to play with the Tolerance setting in order to pull just the color of the grid/numbers.)
Once all of the grid lines and date numbers have the marching ants around them, try adjusting the Hue/Saturation (Ctrl-U in PSE). By playing with the sliders, you can make the grids lighter, darker, or different colors.

I wish I had my PSE program on my office computer so I could give you better directions. I'm trying to do this by memory.

I hope someone can come along and give better directions or other suggestions for coloring the templates.

Good luck!

[Heatheranne]

Did you have the correct layer active when colouring? Being on the wrong layer is something that many of us have done. The lines to the grids are very small and easy to miss with the paint bucket, so expand the size of your layout (ctrl + in PSE) until the line is easily seen and the paint should pour onto the lines. If that does't work, with your layout still large and the correct layer active, select the lines with the magic wand, then colour them with your paint bucket or paper layer that you have added. If you have added a paper layer above your grid to colour the lines, you've likely hidden it to see the lines, so unhide it, be sure that it is active, then clip it to the lines (ctrl g in PSE). As Tiza has said, the Hue/Saturation is another way of colouring and is a lot of fun to use. I hope this is helpful. If not, please mention the program that you are using and perhaps the next reader will see your question in a different way or have a different way of doing things. :-)

[PattyBee]

Colorizing a solid black color using the Hue/Sat menu requires that you move the Lightness and Saturation sliders to the right a bit before you try moving the Hue slider. Otherwise it will seem like the Hue isn't changing (because its too dark and saturated to see the changes).

[Mikelle]

I just typed out a long reply, and lost it (gah!!!) Tiza and Heatheranne, those are helpful tips; I did have the correct layer active (I have done that before a few times, had the wrong layer active!) I did briefly try using the paintbucket instead of clicking "colorize" in hue/saturation, but those grid lines are so stinking tiny I kept painting the square instead of the line. It did not even occur to me to enlarge my layout, lol. And Patty, hopefully that answers my question as to why I was able to use the eyedropper and just click "colorize" in hue/saturation for "January" but it didn't seem to be working for some of the other layers. I will try sliding the lightness and saturation to the right. But now I have to get through a whole day of work before I can try again!

BTW, I realized while I was driving to work that I should have mentioned that I'm using PS CS5 on a Mac... thanks for the help, guys!

[Heatheranne]

You're welcome! Hopefully one or two of the suggestions will be helpful and if not, you can always repost. lol I used to have so much trouble working with lines and tiny bits until I realized that I don't have to - all I had to do was enlarge the layout and I could work with it much better. I'm looking forward to seeing your completed calendar - it looks so cool already - so please post here or start a new post when you have it done, so that we can take a look at it. Have a great day! :-)

[scrapariadna]

Hi Mikelle!

You did a great job with your calendar page, it's so cute! Love it and can't wait to see the rest of the calendar

To answer your question - my favorite method of recoloring things like grids, lines and such is this one:

"To recolor the object you need to lock the transparent pixels by pressing the square icon at the top of your Layer's Palette. The lock icon will appear. Set the foreground color and go to Edit/Fill/Foreground Color."



(the screenshot comes from one of my other newsletter tutorials)

Hope this will help!
Ariadna

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[Mikelle]

Thank you Ariadna! =) I have to laugh that the "fixes" for my frustration are usually so simple. That is a new method of recoloring for me. And thank you for making the calendar template! Except for this snag that I ran into, I think making my calendars for this year will be very quick and easy.

[tiza126]

Thanks for the tutorial Ariadna! That is a new way of recoloring for me too...I'll have to try that!

[scrapariadna]

You're welcome!
If you have any more questions, just ask. Even if you think the answer is simple! It's so much better than being frustrated over something

[Heatheranne]

Wow! Another way to colour tiny things! Thank you Ariadna! :-)

[Mikelle]

Here is my final January layout for Ariadna's Good Times Calendar 2011... and that method of colorizing is SO EASY!

[scrapariadna]

Great job, Mikelle! Lovely page

[Heatheranne]

I love it! Gorgeous! :-)