Practice, Practice...

I have been practicing and this week has been about adding digital word art to photos. I have found so many sites that allow use of their digital word art for personal use. This is great as I create photo and note cards for friends and family but a little limiting for those cards and photos I want to create for my own cottage business. The rules for commercial use are very difficult to find and when you do, they aren't always so clear. So for me, if you are planning to sell it, make your own digital word art. I am going to tackle that challenge next week. I am pretty sure its rather easy, using different fonts, you create a layer for each word, or set of words is how I think it would work. This would allow you to create depth, change font sizes, change font color. weave fonts into one another.

In any event, here are some really interesting sites that I think you might find fun to work with in developing your own photos. Be careful and make sure you use them for your own personal use, or get permission. In many cases, the artist or creator asks you to give them recognition for their work.

I am posting a few photos that I have created for you review. If you are looking for resources here are some. Let me know if I can help you with any other additional information.

Oh, and you can purchase all kinds of frames, masks, word art, etc. But many of these also specify they are for personal use only as well. Make sure you check.

This one is free for both personal and commercial: This site www.LostandTaken.com provides textures, papers and they can be used for both commercial and personal use. Read the creator's profile. I like his willingness to help others.

Here is one for fonts: www.1001fonts.com..

I stumbled up this site www.jenzworld.wordpress.com and so far all of what I find here seems to be limited to Personal use only. This woman Elegant Word Art 2 has beautiful work and again, her word art is for personal use ONLY. If you want to use it for commercial use you need to contact her directly. I haven't heard back from her regarding my request yet. Her site is well organized and categorized and there is a lot to choose from.

The interesting thing about word art is that if you aren't creating your own then you are limited by the thoughts and ideas of others. Quotes are everywhere, and its not the quote that is protected, its the style, layout and fonts used. If you are learning photoshop you will learn quickly that you can and should do this yourself so that you can create and use your own thoughts and ideas freely.

I have posted one of the new ones I have done for my family. Please link to your sites and let me see what you are creating! In this photo I used the paper texture from Lost and Taken and Bethany's word art from ElegantArt2.blogspot.com

Check them out!