Styles ?

[SlidingKat]

Styles can be used on anything. Create your own background paper. Use on text to create you own alpha (without the hassel of lining seperate letters up). On elements. Frames. Etc.

I have to say I really like that styles are being offerred. I'd much rather buy a style to use on text than buy an alpha.

Also a simple search for "free photoshop styles" will get you numerous links to free styles you can download and use.

[crystals622]

Styles are the best! They really make your supplies go further and be more versatile. As far as I know, there's no way to load styles as you need them (at least in PSE 6). You can do this with brushes and textures, but not styles and actions.

There are tons of places on the web that offer lots of information on this subject, unfortunately, I can't post a link here. The one that give the best info for styles and digiscrap is a competitor to GDS.

[candi1973]

Originally Posted by britnkaysmemaw2

I have installed styles and used them, but my question is:

Is there a program out there that you can load the styles, etc into and use instead of putting all of them into your program. I know that PSE7 which I use, starts bogging down and sometimes has a hard time loading since I installed several styles, etc into my program.

YES, YES, YES! I totally agree with you! I NEVER import any of the styles into PSE7 because it caused me a lot of issues, just as you explained. PSE RUNS SLOOOOOW!

[SparkysGirl]

OK ... this is my understanding so far ... (1) "styles" can be used to create things in PS or PSE ... (2) there is a special way to store and install "styles" ... (3) there is some sort of "process" for utilizing "styles".

I have a manual I bought at the bookstore (you may roll your eyes), but it doesn't necessarily address digital scrapbooking ... just the use of the PSE7 software. In "real life", I am a systems analyst ... so, I love software manuals! I'm usually pretty good at figuring things out ... but, I'm struggling with the "styles" thing. In PSE terminology ... is a "style" the same thing as a "layer style"?

[britnkaysmemaw2]

I can't answer for sure the question as to Styles/Layer Styles, but I think they are the same. I use PSE 7 and have loaded several styles. This lo of mine used Styles on the Alpha and Word art to recolor them to match the lo. The original Alpha was Metal/Pewter. (The letter L). The word art was your normal black word art and then applied the style to color it.

Just thought I would show you something that had a style used on it.

[crystals622]

Yes, in PSE terms, styles are the same as layer styles.

If you do a google search for "installing layer styles" "Photoshop Elements" you'll get hits for many sites, including stuff on You Tube that explains how and where to install the styles

In order to use styles in PSE just select the layer you want to "stylize", choose the style you want to use from your layer styles palette, click apply. If you're adding a style to a text layer you need to simplify it first (Select layer, right click on layers palette, choose "simplify layer" from menu)

Hope this helps.

[Gem]

This is soooo helpful! I've been wondering for a long time about styles. That would make a great tutorial topic for GDS.

[elenasworld]

Several posts back it was mentioned that adding lots of styles and fonts to your PS or PSElements can slow the system down. The same applies to brushes and actions as well.

I never put these files in my Photoshop system folders.
I install a few styles and actions that I use a lot, and the others I install, use them for a while and then remove them from my "styles window" or the actions window" this is just removing them from photoshop, and as long as you have them saved (i am like Jenn -- i have all my actions, brushes, styles, gradients, patterns and filters saved in a folder called Photoshop add-ons) you can go back and load them as you want to use them.

I purged many of my fonts, since I was crashing half them time when I tried to use the text tool or do my journaling. I only keep a few that I use often (as well as all the presets the system came with) and I have not had the problems crashing I used to have.

for people who use programs that dont have "styles", some designers will include the .png file of glitter or felt or whatever it may be. You would use them like a clipping mask, layer of the item you want "glittered" and then the glitter layer on top. I like to make a duplicate layer of my item, and clip the "glitter" to that. after the clipping, I have two layers, my original, and a layer the shape of my original with the "glitter" I can then play around with the opacity, color, and blending.

I used to use lots of actions to do things when I first started scrapping. I have found that many of those I learned to do myself, and they took a long time. Actions have come a long way and the newer actions out there are so fast. I still like styles, since all I have to do is click one button -- but a great black and white action is a wonderful tool to have.

[Blackthorne]

Lisa - It is as you have noticed not a silly question.
I´ve wondered often how to use them. Now that I
have read most of the tips already I will have a try
too.Unfortunately I have Ulead Photo Impact on my
PC and no Photoshop.
Hope I can figure out how to use it.

Thank you Ladies for your help !!!

[SlidingKat]

I discovered an interesting helpful improvement in Photoshop CS5. If you have Photoshop open and are browsing your hard drive for styles you might have saved in other locations (for example you've purchased and downloaded a style kit) you can just double click on the style file and it will automatically load it into Photoshop and apply it to your current layer.

This saved me a bunch of time after re-loading Photoshop and is great when you only want to use a style for one page. Just click on the style in your scrapbook folder. Then right click on it in the panel and delete after you are done with that page.