Beware – the geek has landed.  Ok, yes, Neil is back from Barcelona, and now Houston - but I don't mean that geek.  I mean me.  The kitchen island is covered with laptops, monitor, wireless devices, mass storage devices, tablet, etc.  It hardly LOOKS like a kitchen.  I'm beginning to realize that I truly need a countertop in my workspace.  This is ridiculous, but necessary.

I have embarked on my first completely digi/hybrid scrapbooking project.  I've done pages before – but this is an entire scrapbook, encompassing a 2006 trip that my husband and in-laws took to Scotland and London.  I have a couple of weeks to get it done, and frankly, when it came down to details, I decided to go all high-tech on this one.  Several reasons:

• easier to make duplicate pages.  One for us, one for them.
• can burn the entire scrapbook onto DVDs for his family to view and/or print
• I didn't go on this trip – so this is 'scrapping for hire' with a very meticulous client.  'Could you angle that?', 'Can you zoom in more on that?' will be pervasive and this way we won't come to blows.  After all, Neil just got home at 1:00 AM and started 'editing' my work.  LOL!  I need a margarita!

So here is the first Scotland layout, featuring Urquhart Castle:

I used the following digital products, all available at www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com:

• Illusive Biggie Kit by Corina Nielsen
• Awakening Biggie Kit by Corina Nielsen
• Everyday Whites papers by Corina Nielsen
• Curled Border Action / Templates by Traci Murphy and Marci Reckinger

Note: the journaling is totally fake, until Neil decides what he wants to put there.  It's 1AM and he just got home, so I'll give him a break.

Photo Editing

I have to share this because in geek Photoshop CS3 editing terms this is cool (yes, I still spell it that way).

Before: In-Laws at back of Buckingham Palace.  At least I think it is them – they are standing in the shadows and the building is in the sunlight.  Argh!  NOTE: I did not take these pictures!

During:  Went into Bridge and edited the JPEG photo using 'Camera Raw'.  This allows you access to all the things your camera works with when capturing the shot.  Yes, you can change them after the fact, to an extent!  So I changed the white balance, exposure and shadows/highlights enough so that we can see the in-laws, but have 'blown out' most of the Palace in the process.

After: Open up the image in CS3.  Set your foreground color to Black.

Right click on the thumbnail of your photo in the layers palette and change the background to a Layer.

Create a new adjustment layer.  Choose Gradient.  Choose the one that is color to transparent.  Reverse it so that the dark is coming from the top portion of the picture.

Now single click on the gradient and drag the white control from the right to the left.  In this case I dragged it over (up) about halfway.

This gives more depth to the top of the picture so it isn't quite so blown out, and we can still see the in-laws.

Pretty slick!  I know it is late, late, late so I haven't added screen shots, etc. which is a geek-sin when it comes to describing these things adequately.  I will add them. Promise!