Hi from Brazil!

[RomanticLouise]

Hi everyone!!!

I'm testing this amazing software and I'm very glad to see how easy it is!

But I'm still afraid to buy it. Do you know if there is any feature that allows us to crop the photos in different shapes and apply effects around them? We can see some round photos and some with special effects in the gallery, but I can't find a feature do create my own effects around the photos. Any ideas?

Thank you so much!

RL

[Granny]

Hi Louise.. Welcome to the forum!

When you say effects, can you be a little more specific. There are many masks or shapes that come with the program, and there are 100s in the web that you can use with Max.

If you can give us a little more info, maybe we can answer your question?

Granny

[OnieRN]

Welcome to our group! Have you downloaded the trial version of the program. If not, you will want to do that so you can play with it. You can use it for 30 days before purchasing the full version.

As for croping pictures and adding shapes, YES YES YES!!!! :D :D You can do all of that with this program. It is very easy and so much fun! If you use the trial version, it will have some shapes included and the full version will have even more. I promise you, you will not be disappointed!!!! Also, we hae a lot of great people here that will assist you with your questions.

Again, welcome and do enjoy the software and the members of the forum. :p

:)nie

[RomanticLouise]

Thank you, ladies, for your warm welcome!

Yes, Onie, I've downloaded the trial version! And hey - I discovered how to work with the "shapes" for the photos!!! I read the Help (:rolleyes: after all, this is why help files are there, to be read...).

And thanks, Granny, this was another question I had, if SBM is "expandable", I mean, if we can add stuff to it!

I'm convinced! I'm buying it!

[Winnie49]

Welcome Louisue!!!
Finally I saw somebody from south america, i dont speak portuges, but i borned close to your country! (Lima,Peru) from which part of Brazil are you?

This is a fantastic place, all the people is sooooo kind, nice, talent, special, creative, etc ,etc, and also a little crazy :D I'm sure you will enjoy playing with SBM is soooo easy to use, good luck and hope to see your creations!

Ciao
Wendy

[RomanticLouise]

I'm from a city called Campinas, in São Paulo State.

Nice to know there is someone from South America too!

I'm amazed with SBM!

Hope to see you all here soon!

[Granny]

Locos, locos? Quien esta loco aqui? No yo!!!!

Granny :D

ps: The crazy Cuban!

[Marcelle]

I'm from Brasil too. To be more specific from the northeast, Recife. I was using corel to do my scraps but now i found this program and has buy it.

[Marion]

Welcome Marcelle! You are going to love this program and the members here also.

Marion

[Squeak]

Speaking of special shapes. I was just working on making my own custom shapes to see if it would work ... and it did!

1484

[Marion]

Looks like a wonderful page. It is amazing how creative we are all becoming!
You did a great job!

Marion

[Squeak]

Thanks. I am still having little issues with the page, but overall I like how the shapes came out. Sometimes the cutout portion of the letters shows through as a faded area and I am not sure why. :confused: I have to go in and reapply the shape. Once I figure out why it is doing that, I'll upload the template.

[OnieRN]

Time to pass on the secret to the custom shapes! I like the shapes we have in the program but would love to have the ability to shape my SCRAPS like I did in paper scrapping. I used to take paper and cut it in Triangle wedges with fancy siscers. Or Cut into DEEP waves. The waves we have on the program are already in a paper design, I would like to pic my own paper to do that and design my own shape of the wave.

:eek:nie

[srussell]

Thanks. I am still having little issues with the page, but overall I like how the shapes came out. Sometimes the cutout portion of the letters shows through as a faded area and I am not sure why. :confused: I have to go in and reapply the shape. Once I figure out why it is doing that, I'll upload the template.

Squeak,
Here's a thought... Try making your letter shapes in larger dimensions ( i.e. 600x600 or 800x800). That gives you more pixels to work with, smoother edges, etc. I'll see if I can whip up a couple of samples

[Squeak]

Maybe that's the problem. I orignally did them full size in photoshop, then shrunk them down to 100 x 100 because that is the size of custom shapes in SBM. I thought they had to be that way. I will try them larger and see if I still have problems. Thanks for the tip.

Onie. Once I get mine working properly, I will pass along the info. :D

[srussell]

Try these... They're not exactly the same font style as yours, but I just tried them and they seems to be nice and crisp...

[Squeak]

Thanks for the shapes. I still want to figure out how to create them properly.

BTW .. There was no 'font style' to mine. I did them with rectangles, triangles, and a circle.

[OnieRN]

I made a file for the letter shapes within the embellishments. Can these be installed in the SHAPES area of the program? The area that you change the shape of pictures or scraps! If so, please tell where and how to do that!

[Squeak]

I created the letter shape and then put it in the
C:\Program Files\Scrapbook MAX!\Gallery\Images\Shapes\Objects
directory. Then when I added a photo, I could select 'custom shape' and 'object' and my shape was in the list. The shapes I created were black and white, where the black portion is the cutout portion (your picture will not show on the black parts) and the white part will let your picture show through.

Anyway, that's is how I did it. :cool: Anyone else with any tips?

[OnieRN]

Somehow I missed that folder........... :rolleyes: Now, how do you do the wave cuts? :confused: The ones in the paper stuff only has the one set called "waves" I would like to choose my own paper rather than those blue and gree doted ones. Also would like to have more variation on the wave shapes or trangular shapes with a fancy edge.

Your so creative, I'm sure you will figure more out! ;)

:)nie

[Squeak]

Grrrr.... I still can't seem to get my shapes to work correctly. I made them larger and they are just not correct. They still either occasionally bleed through or won't shape the picture. I know this can be done. I refuse to give up!

Steve your shapes work fine. When I open yours in Photoshop and compare them to mine, they look the same ... but somewhere (maybe in the twilight zone) mine are different.

[srussell]

Grrrr.... I still can't seem to get my shapes to work correctly. I made them larger and they are just not correct. They still either occasionally bleed through or won't shape the picture. I know this can be done. I refuse to give up!

Steve your shapes work fine. When I open yours in Photoshop and compare them to mine, they look the same ... but somewhere (maybe in the twilight zone) mine are different.

Squeak... How are you creating your shapes? Are you saving them as 24bit PNG's?

[Squeak]

I started out in Photoshop with 8 bit, RGB, 800 x 800, 72 pixel image. After I created the shape, I merged all the shape parts together, rasterized, then filled the background with black. When I finish everythng is one one layer. I choose 'save as png'. I am not given a choice on 24 bit, so I can only assume that is what they are. The only option I get is 'Interlaced' and I have been choosing 'None'.
Did I miss a step?

[srussell]

Try changing the image mode in Photoshop to 24-bit RGB instead of 8-bit indexed before merging the layers... See if that works ... Then try "Export for Web" in Photoshop. You should have the options of GIF, JPG, PNG 8 and PNG 24 .. Maybe be slighty different depending on which version of PS you're using.

You could alos save the file as the PSD and convert it to PNG in another graphics programs like Fireworks or Debabelizer

[Squeak]

Steve

When I selected 'Save for Web' I did have the option for 24 bit PNG, but that didn't work. :(
I kept messing around with it and opened up the letters you sent me trying to figure out where they were differnt and I GOT IT!!

On your letters they were only one layer - the background layer. I opened up mine and flattened them into a background layer and it worked! I am so used to NOT flattening them that I didn't even think about that. Sometimes the simplest things will mess you up in the biggest ways.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one. :D

[srussell]

That's interesting... I usually just turn off the layers I'm not using (keeping only the parts I want visible ), then export as a PNG ... hey' whatever works, right? :D

Glad I could help! :)

[Squeak]

You wouldn't think it would make much difference, a picture with only one layer and a picture with only one layer named 'background', but it seems to be working now, so I am a happy camper!

Could be when you saved as png, it did that automatically, and mine didn't. I uploaded the template and we will see if it works for others. Then we can move on to some cool shapes! :D