Dreamweaver
I’ve just closed my eyes again. Climbed aboard the dream weaver train. Driver take away my worries of today and leave tomorrow behind.
Those words are from the song “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright. It was a hugely popular song in the 1970s. At least for me 😊 I loved that song and all the while I was working on this post it echoed in my head. And you’re welcome for the ear worm 😉
Today I’m going to talk all about weaving in digital layouts!
Weaving On Layouts
Back in the days when I was still a paper scrapbooker I used to love weaving papers to create an interesting background. Today I still incorporate some weaving in my digital layouts. Whether you’re a traditional or digital scrapbooker, it’s a fun technique. And this is one case where I’ll admit the old way was a bit easier.
With paper scrapbooking it was often just as simple as weaving strips of paper to form a mat. Picture if you will a weaving loom used to create a basket weave.
In digital scrapbooking we can still do this but it’s not quite as easy. Don’t get me wrong…it’s not terribly difficult just not quite as straightforward.
Best part is with digital scrapbooking we’re not limited to just weaving paper. Today I’m going to show you several different ways you can incorporate weaving into your layouts.
Note: the layout shown above is one I snagged from the Scrapbook.com gallery.
Paper Weaving
I imagine that you likely have woven with paper at some point in your life. Perhaps it was at summer camp or in school, but wherever it was, you probably enjoyed weaving strips of paper. It’s a simple but engaging pastime that can teach some interesting weaving and design concepts.
In digital scrapbooking we can still weave paper or ribbons just as we could with paper…it just takes a little different technique. Today I’m going to be working with ribbon instead of paper because the “strips” are already cut to size and will save me some time.
Before I go any further, I do need to remind you that I am using the most current version of Photoshop Elements (PSE 2024). Some of my screen shots may look different than your screen if you use an older version of PSE. And if you are using a version of PSE older than PSE 9, you may not be able to follow along with all of the steps below. And if you’re not using PSE at all then I’d encourage you to search for paper weaving tutorials related to whichever graphics editing package you do use.
Warning: There are a lot of steps to follow so the rest of this gets pretty long. If you aren’t at a point where you have a lot of time, just give it a quick read. You can always come back to this post at a later time when you’re able to give it a thorough read.
I highly recommend that you don’t attempt to do the type of paper or ribbon weaving I’m about to describe directly on your layout. It is much better to create the woven element in a file all its own.
Given that, I’m starting with a 12×12 file that has a background paper. Having a solid color background rather than transparent (or even white) typically makes it easier to see what I’m doing. You can make your background using a paper or any color that suits your needs best. I also have several ribbons arranged over the background horizontally & vertically:
Note: The background paper & lace is from “Snow Kissed” by Alexis Design Studio. The solid blue ribbon is from “It’s Elementary My Dear” by Janet Kemp (AKA Janet Scott). The remaining ribbons are ones I had previously made using templates from “Medium RibbonTemplates” & “Medium Ribbons Templates #2” both by Marisa Lerin.
If you’re trying to follow along, you can click here for a free template that will make it easier to work along as you read. And you can use papers instead of ribbon if you’d like.
As you likely know, I have a Type-A personality so I can sometimes get a bit carried away with organization. I have my layers arranged top to bottom for the horizontal ribbon layers (colored green) and left to right for all of the vertical ribbon layers next (colored orange):
Making Selections
I’m going to select the top horizontal ribbon by using Ctrl and clicking on the thumbnail for that layer:
Note: That selection method is what I referred to as the “Layer Selection Tool” in my post several weeks back about Making The Right Selection.
You should be able to see the “marching ants” around that ribbon. Now I’m going to teach you a new keyboard short cut that I’m going to use so I can select every other one of the remaining horizontal ribbons – Shift+Ctrl Click.
With the top ribbon still active and with its marching ants I then just Shift+Ctrl Click on the thumbnail for the 3rd horizontal ribbon layer:
Now you should be able to see the marching ants around the 1st & 3rd ribbons. I’ll continue making selections using this method until the 5th & 7th ribbons are also selected. I take my time and look very carefully so I’m sure to select every other ribbon. If I miss one, I’ll just have to go back and start over. Having the layers organized in order (top->bottom & left->right) really helps!
You should now be able to see that every other horizontal ribbon has marching ants.
Saving Selections
Now I’m going to save the selection by going to the top tool bar and clicking on Select->Save Selection:
This will bring up the Save Selection dialog box:
I’m going to name this selection “Horizontal1Selection”, ensure New Selection is checked & click OK to commit the save.
Then I’m going to deselect the current selection using Select->Deselect (ESC or Ctrl+D).
Now, I’m guessing you may have already figured out that based on my name for this first selection I’m going to end up with 4 selections; 2 horizontal ones & 2 vertical ones.
So, I’ll just repeat the select/save process until I have all four selections saved: Horizontal1Selection, Horizontal2Selection, & Vertical1Selection & Vertical2Selection. You can name your selections whatever way will be easy for you to remember.
Be aware that if you make any mistakes in selecting your ribbons in the correct order or in saving (naming) your selections properly, it’s going to mess things up in the weaving process. So please pay particular attention to all the steps so you can avoid having to redo things before you can start the next step.
Note: Once you save all of the selections you can no longer go back and make any changes to the ribbons/papers or their placement. If you do…you’ll need to re-create the saved selections using the altered ribbons/paper.
Weaving – Part 1
Suggestion for you here: don’t attempt this if you’re tired, distracted or short on time. This weaving process takes a lot of thought, concentration & patience. If you’re still game – read on…
I’ll start the weaving process with the top horizontal ribbon. I’ve zoomed in a bit to try and make it easier for you to see things.
I want this first horizontal ribbon to be over the first (leftmost) vertical ribbon, under the second vertical ribbon, over the third vertical ribbon & so on. This tells me that I need to use the saved selection named Vertical2Selection that I saved earlier.
With the first (top) horizontal ribbon layer active I load the Vertical2Selection because I want to “cut out” the part of this 1st horizontal ribbon that currently goes over the 2nd vertical ribbon (I hope that’s not too confusing). Remember, I said I want this first horizontal ribbon to go UNDER the second vertical ribbon and every other vertical ribbon thereafter.
This will bring up the Load Selection Dialog box:
PSE (at least in my version) shows the name associated with the active layer, in this case the name of that top horizontal ribbon. All I have to do is click the down arrow next to that name, select the Vertical2Selection and click OK.
PSE now brings back that saved selection:
You can see the marching ants around three of the vertical ribbons. Don’t panic. This is all going to work out just fine.
I’m going to invert (trust me) the selection using Select->Inverse or Shift+Ctrl+I. Ensuring that the top horizontal layer is still active, I then click the “Add layer mask” tool in the Layers panel and voila…
That top horizontal ribbon is now woven just that quickly. And here’s what the layer mask looks like:
Depending on what version of PSE you’re using there is a little bonus that will save a bit of time. Let’s take another look at that Load selection dialog box:
See the little box with the word Invert next to it? Yes, all I have to do is check that box when I load my selection the next time & it will automatically be inverted. Since I’m not sure when that option was included, I wanted you to know how to do the invert if that little box is not there in your version.
I then just repeat this process for the 3rd, 5th & 7th horizontal ribbons until I have masked every other horizontal ribbon. And here’s what the layer masks look like in the Layers panel:
This is a good time to go through and ensure that I properly selected EVERY OTHER layer. Again, if the structure isn’t solid…this can be very tedious. I know that creating that basic structure seems complicated but, in the end, it’s worth it because this is how things turned out:
Every other horizontal ribbon has been woven over the vertical ribbons!
The key to completing this load/mask process is ensuring that you are working on every other horizontal ribbon. If you don’t have your ribbons layered sequentially, keeping things straight will make this a bit harder.
At this point I’m fairly certain you can see where this is headed…
Weaving – Part 2
Now that the horizontal ribbons 1, 3, 5 & 7 are woven, all I have to do is repeat the steps above using the horizontal ribbons 2, 4 & 6 and loading the saved selection named “Vertical1Selection”. Here’s what the layer masks look like now in the Layers panel:
Again, this is a good time to go through and ensure that ALL of the horizontal ribbons have been masked.
I know the steps above may have been confusing. The setup is the hardest part. By taking the time to create a solid basic structure & naming all of the saved selections in a methodical way made the actual weaving process easier. Just take a look at how nicely the horizontal ribbons have been woven over and under the vertical ribbons:
Good news…I don’t have to do any masking on the vertical ribbons…YEA! The weaving process is complete. Now for adding some final touches.
Finishing Touches
It’s time to add some drop shadows. This too can get a little tricky, especially if I didn’t have a good basic structure. I’m going to be using those same saved selections to add the shadows.
Horizontal Ribbon Shadows #1
I’m going to start by adding a blank new layer at the very top of the Layers panel. I name this blank layer Shadows 1. With that layer active I now load the saved selection named “Horizontal1Selection”. I don’t need to invert the selection this time. Horizontal ribbons 1, 3, 5 & 7 are now selected:
The goal here is to put a drop shadow on only the parts of the ribbons going OVER the vertical ribbons. So with that new blank layer active I now also have to load the saved selection named “Vertical1Selection”. This time when I load this second selection I need to do something different:
I don’t need to invert the selection this time either. But I do need to check the box that says “Intersect with Selection”. I have to do this because I’m “stacking” selections together so I get only the parts of the ribbon I want to shadow at this point. I click OK and this is what the intersecting selections look like:
You should be able to see that only the parts of ribbons 1, 3, 5 & 7 that are going OVER the vertical ribbons are included in the selection. This is exactly what I wanted.
Because I used lace in two places you can see that the selection over that lace is full of lines around all the fine detail. This is going to cause a problem with shadowing. But I can fix this.
All I have to do is use the Selection Brush tool:
Ensuring the Add option is selected:
I know this sounds confusing since what I’m really trying to do is “remove” some of the selection. This certainly sounds counter-intuitive that I’m going to “add” to the selection. But that is precisely what I will be doing. You have to remember that only the parts with the marching ants around it will be included in the selection.
If I want the entire center of that lacy piece to be selected, then it must be added to the selection. Therefore, I’m selecting the Add option. I can then just brush over all the fine details of each lacy part (8 in this case) so that the lace is only outlined like this:
If I found any parts of the lace that I didn’t want to be included in the selection I switched to the Subtract option. I didn’t get overly precise with it but I did make sure that there were no “major” holes left inside the selection. Each hole in the wrong place will end up with a shadow. Here is the final selection:
If you have good mastery over your “brushing skills this can go quicker than you think!
Next I’m going to set my foreground color chip to black (press D). You can use any color that you like it’s just a good idea to use one that is in sharp contrast to any of the other colors…it just makes this next step easier.
Ensuring that the Shadows 1 layer is still active, I want to fill that selection with my foreground color. I could use the paint bucket tool but Alt+Backspace just makes it quicker:
I now have these black selections going over top of the vertical ribbons.
It took a little bit of time to do this but I know in the end it will be worth it. And I can now deselect the selection (Esc or Ctrl+D) and start the shadowing.
For this method of shadowing I can’t grab one of my usual shadow styles. It just won’t turn out properly. Instead I’m going to do things manually so the shadows look more realistic and consistent with something woven.
I’m going to start by adding a stroke to all of these selections. I select Layer->Layer Style->Style Settings from the top tool bar:
PSE opens the Style Settings dialog box:
The color chip defaulted to black which is what I wanted (it should match the original fill for the selection). I’m using a Lighting Angle of 120 degrees, a Size of 10 pixels, Position to Outside, and the opacity is set to 100%. I click OK and this is the result:
Note: If you’re weaving paper instead of ribbon, you’ll want your shadow to be “thinner” than what I’m using for ribbon. I’d recommend setting your stroke size to 5 pixels. You can play around with this setting until you’re happy with how “thin” that shadow will be for your paper.
You should use whatever lighting angle you need to so these shadows are in keeping with the rest of your layout.
Now, I select Styles at the bottom of the Layers panel which opens the last set of styles I used. Those aren’t the ones I want so I click the down arrow next to the style name at the top of the Styles panel:
This then brings up all of my loaded styles. I scroll down until I see Visibility (near the bottom of the list) and I click on that style name:
PSE opens the Visibility style options and I select Hide:
After selecting the Hide style, I go back to the Layers panel because I need to double-check the lighting angle for this style. PSE preset styles such as Visibility tend to default to a lighting angle of 90 degrees. I’m using 120 degrees so I’ll need to adjust the lighting angle.
To do this, I double-click the style icon on the Shadows 1 layer:
This will open up the Style Settings dialog box and I can ensure that the lighting angle is set to 120 degrees. I click OK and here’s the result:
As you can see, the only thing remaining is the black stroke. That’s what I wanted to see.
Before I go further, I’m going to duplicate the Shadows 1 layer (Ctrl+J) so I can save this set of styles for use later. I name this duplicate layer to Saved Styles 1 so I remember this is the set of stroke & hide styles. I then hide the Saved Styles 1 layer.
Next, I’m going to click on the thumbnail for the Shadows 1 layer to activate that layer again. I then right click on the layer & select Simplify Layer:
Next, I select Filter->Blur->Gaussian from the top tool bar:
PSE opens the Gaussian Blur dialog box:
You can see that my Radius setting right now is 15.0 pixels. I’m going to zoom in a bit more so you can hopefully see the shadow better:
This is way too much shadow for what I’m trying to do. So, I’m just going to play with the blur using the slider until I hit a setting that looks like a natural shadow “around the ribbon underneath this layer. I ended up with a radius set to 12.5 and then changed the Opacity in the Layers panel to 35%:
I’m fairly happy with things at this point. You can play with the blur and opacity settings to see what looks best for you.
Note: If you’re weaving paper instead of ribbon, you’ll want your blur to be “crisper” than what I’m using for ribbon. I’d recommend setting your blur size to 5 pixels and your opacity for the shadow layer set to 30%. You can play around with this setting until you’re happy with how “hard” that shadow will be for your paper.
I don’t want to scare you but I’m going to repeat these shadowing steps 3 more times (minus the part about duplicating the layer to save the style settings – I already saved them). Yes, weaving paper/ribbons is not for the faint of heart. But it should go a bit quicker now that I’ve done it once.
Horizontal Ribbon Shadows #2
I’m going to create a new layer above the Shadow 1 layer & repeat the above steps only this time I’ll rename the new layer Shadows 2. Then I’m going to load the saved selection named “Horizontal2Selection” & intersect it with the saved selection named “Vertical2Selection”:
Hooray…no lacy parts to deal with this time. So, just as before I can press Alt+Backspace to fill the selection, deselect (Esc or Ctrl+D) & then copy the style settings from that Saved Styles 1 layer.
With that done I simplify the Shadows 2 layer. I can then repeat the Gaussian Blur step. Which will also be easy since PSE remembers my last set of blur settings:
You can also use (Ctrl+F). So, it’ll be a one click blur this time. If you get to this point and you want to be absolutely certain the settings are the same as what you used before all you have to do is repeat the same steps from above regarding the blur.
Note: If you had to close your file for any reason before working on the second set of horizontal ribbons, PSE will not remember the last blur settings so you will have to re-enter them again.
And once again I set the opacity to 35%. Now all of the horizontal ribbons have shadows on the parts that go OVER the vertical ribbons:
Halfway there. Now to shadow the Vertical ribbons.
Vertical Ribbon Shadows #1
I’ll once more create a new layer, this time above the Shadows 2 layer & repeat the above process only this time I’ll rename the new layer Shadows 3. Then I’m going to load the saved selection named “Vertical1Selection” & intersect it with the saved selection named “Horizontal2Selection”:
Once again, you can see that the selection over the lace is not completely solid. Thankfully only 6 places this time. I’ll fix that now just like I did for the first set of horizontal ribbons:
It went a little quicker this time since I knew exactly what to watch for when brushing. Now I can proceed with the remaining steps:
- Fill the selection (Alt+Backspace)
- Deselect the selection (Esc or CTRL+D)
- Copy the stroke & visibility styles from the Saved Styles 1 layer
- Simplify the Shadows 3 layer
- Apply the Gaussian Blue (Ctrl+F)
- Change the opacity of the Shadows 3 Layer
Note: If you had to close your file for any reason before working on the vertical ribbons, PSE will not remember the last blur settings so you will have to re-enter them again.
This feels like “old hat” now so the last set of shadows is going to go quickly…no lacy bits involved 😊
Vertical Ribbon Shadows #2
Again, I create a new layer, this time above the Shadows 3 layer & repeat the above processs only this time I’ll rename the new layer Shadows 4. Then I’m going to load the saved selection named “Vertical2Selection” & intersect it with the saved selection named “Horizontal1Selection”.
Now I can proceed with the remaining steps:
- Fill the selection (Alt+Backspace)
- Deselect the selection (Esc or Ctrl+D)
- Copy the stroke & visibility styles from the Saved Styles 1 layer
- Simplify the Shadows 4 layer
- Apply the Gaussian Blue (Ctrl+F)
- Change the opacity of the Shadows 4 Layer
Note: If you had to close your file for any reason before working on this last set of ribbons, PSE will not remember the last blur settings so you will have to re-enter them again.
And here’s the entire set of shadows:
Now that I’ve gotten all the over/under shadows in place I’m going to take a closer look at the “whole” woven element. And it seems to me that this is still looking kind of flat. So, I’m going to “raise it up” a bit off the background layer.
Shadow Full Woven Element
I need to get shadows on the edges of all the ribbons. First, I’ll turn off the background layer so I can see the shadows more readily:
Then I create a new layer above the background layer and I name it “Edge Shadows 1”. I need to be sure I have this new layer directly above the background layer because I want these new shadows to be beneath all of the ribbons.
Next, I have to hide the other 4 shadow layers for now. Otherwise, those shadows will make the next process more complicated. I’ll unhide them later. Now I’m going to use the Magic Wand Selection tool:
I ensure the Add option is selected, check the Sample All Layers box and I set the Tolerance to 44. Ensuring that the Edge Shadows 1 layer is still active, I then click in any one of the open “boxes” between ribbons. Here’s how the selection looks:
This actually selected all of the transparent area “around” those woven ribbons. That’s not what I need. I want the woven ribbons to be the selection. So, I invert the selection (Shift+Ctrl+I)…trust me! I now end up with this selection:
Yes, all that fine detail around the lace is selected again. But this time, that’s okay. I want shadows under all of that detail in this case.
Now just like before, I’m going to fill this selection with black using Alt+Backspace. I won’t see the fill because it is behind the ribbon which is exactly where I want it. But I can see on the thumbnail for the Edge Shadows 1 layer that the selection is filled:
Hang in there with me. This is all going to make sense in a minute. I deselect the selection (Esc or Ctrl+D). This time I’m NOT going to copy the style settings I used during the weaving process (from the Saved Styles 1 layer). Those shadows are above the actual ribbon edges I just selected.
If you remember the “rule” about shadows, the more space between the object and the background, the lighter the shadow will be. The shadows over the weaving are further away from the background than the actual ribbon with fairly light & “bigger” shadows. Conversely, wherever the ribbons’ edges are directly on the background (not over another ribbon), their shadows need to be darker & smaller than the shadows I used before. Gosh I hope that makes sense.
For these ribbon edges, I’m going to manually add a drop shadow to all of this filled area.
With the Edge Shadows 1 layer active, I select Layer->Layer Style->Style Settings. I ensure the Lighting Angle is 120 degrees, check the Drop Shadow box & ensure the color chip is black. I set the Size to 20 pixels, Distance to 6 pixels and the Opacity to 55 degrees. I click OK, unhide my background layer, unhide all of the prior shadow layers (Shadows 1 thru Shadows 4), and here is the result:
And here’s a look at the full-size shadowed woven ribbon:
You can adjust your edge shadows however you need depending on the lightness or darkness of your background paper.
I’m pretty happy with this. It took a lot of work but I think it looks so much more realistic than just the “flat” woven ribbon without shadows:
Final Cleanup
The best thing to do at this point is for me to save my woven element for future use. First, I’ll save the current file as a PSD. I almost always do this when I create my own unique elements. This way I can keep all the original layers and go back to make modifications if necessary. I named my PSD file “PaperRibbonWeaving-Original”.
With that file saved I will now prepare this woven element for use on my layout. I can do this one of two ways.
Copy Woven Element
I could just select all of the layers (excluding any hidden layers (i.e., Saved Style 1)). That would be the “Shadow” layers 1-4, all of the ribbon layers and the Edge shadow layer. For this particular woven element This is a total of 19 layers:
With those layers selected I then link the layers to ensure they stay “together”. I can then just copy those layers onto my layout using Shift-Click and drag them onto my layout. By using the shift key PSE will position the layers in the exact spot as they were in the original file (for me that is mostly centered on the page):
Save Woven Element
The other option would be to save the woven element as a PNG file. To do this I will still use the same selected/linked layers as I did above. This time I will also hide the background layer.
Next, I will cut the file to size using the Crop tool (under Modify) in the Tool bar off to the left of the work area:
The default action in PSE (at least on my system) is generally to end up with a grid drawn around the whole file. And this works out just fine. All I have to do is drag the edges of that box until on the element (including all shadows) is all that remains in the box and click the check mark to confirm the crop:
Note: In some cases, it may be helpful to keep the background paper visible until after you crop the file. It could make it easier to be sure you keep all the shadows’ edges.
I can now save the cropped element as a PNG file:
I named my PNG file “WovenElement-GorgeLayout”. That name will make sense in just a minute. Since I saved my PSD file prior to the cropping, I can now simply exit the file. I definitely don’t want to save this cropped file over top of that PSD which has the full-size work area.
Now, I don’t know about you but adding an additional (sort of unnecessary) 19 layers to a layout that may end up with a lot of other layers doesn’t seem to make much sense. So, I actually went with using the PNG version of the woven element on my layout.
Layout With Weaving
And here’s my completed layout using this woven ribbon element (background excluded):
For more details about this layout, you can find it in my gallery.
So, as happened with my “tutorial” on Out of Bounds Frames, this post got way more than just a bit long. And I’m sorry it was so incredibly long but it was important to get all the steps included with as much detail as possible. I want your weaving and shadowing to turn out as nice as possible.
I had said I was going to cover several different ways you can incorporate weaving into your layouts. With all the steps required for weaving paper/ribbons, this post is a lot to digest as it is. I don’t want to overwhelm you so my next post will cover the other weaving techniques.
Additional Tips For Weaving
The more you work at weaving paper/ribbons, the easier and quicker it gets! I promise! I’ve been doing this for years so it kind of feels second nature to me. I purposely included lace so I could show you the downside of doing so. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still use it from time to time😉
Take your time, concentrate on each step of the process with all of your attention. If you’re distracted or tired…walk away for a bit and come back when you feel more refreshed.
Save your file periodically during this process…just in case PSE crashes! It’s always a good idea to do incremental saves but even more so when working on something as involved as this weaving.
Remember to use a solid color background when working on weaving with busy papers or ribbons.
Remember to ensure that your weaving follows a consistent over-under pattern to keep it natural looking.
Avoid using intricate lacy ribbons, or ribbons with other holes of any sort. If you do use them, it will require extra work to ensure shadows are created properly.
If you do find that you need to modify selections for lace or ribbons with holes, be sure to zoom in closely so you can identify all the areas that need to be added to the selection.
Remember to keep the lighting angle on your weaving consistent with other elements on your layout.
Whenever you crop a file for saving as a PNG be very careful to be sure you include all of the shadows. It’s best to zoom in fairly close so you can see the edges of the shadows.
Above all just enjoy experimenting with weaving. You may decide it’s not for you or you could fall in love with it! Either way, just have fun
As always, if you have any questions or want to make a suggestion about a topic you’d like me to cover, please don’t ever hesitate to “Message Me”.
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