Can you believe the first half of the year is gone already??
Where is this year going?
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to scrap all
those memories you are capturing.
I'm CTM Robin and today
I'd like to show you a trick when using some of
Liz’s templates!
Do you know how to apply a paper to multiple shapes at one
time? If not, read on!
This will definitely make your workflow more
efficient.
Let me show you what I
mean.
Take this template from
Artsy Journal Template 24.
See all those circles?
They are individual elements but we are going to treat them as one
element.
You can do this two ways - you
can either merge the layers or group them.
Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through both ways!
Now before you begin either technique, you
must first select all the circles you want to have the same paper.
To do this you select the first circle and
then hold either the control key for a PC or the command key for a Mac and then
click the remaining ones.
Here I’ve
selected the red ones.
Now you have to make a decision.
You can right click on the layers that you’ve
grabbed and then click on “Merge Layers”.
This has now merged them all into one layer so that you can use them as
a clipping mask for your paper.
Bring
your paper in right above your merged circles, go to your toolbar and select
Layer>Create Clipping Mask, and clip the paper to the circles.
Voila!
All of them are filled at once!!
While this method is quick and easy, it does have a disadvantage.
You can no longer manipulate those individual
elements.
They are now one layer.
The second way I’m going to show you allows
you to easily fill all the circles still simultaneously with one paper, but you
have greater flexibility.
Let me show
you what I mean.
Go and select the circles
you want to fill.
Below I did this with
the green circles.
Then right click with
them all selected and click on “Group From Layers”.
This will show you a file folder with all
your selections inside.
You can then
bring in a piece of paper on top of the group and clip it to the ENTIRE group!
This will fill all the papers at once.
However, you can open the file and manipulate
each individual circle.
Perhaps you want
to delete just one?
Or maybe resize one?
You still have that capability using this “grouping”
method rather than the merging one!
Cool, ‘eh?!!
After I grouped all my circles, I filled them with paper and made this layout.
I will give you one warning though when trying to clip a
paper to multiple elements.
This ONLY
works if changing the order of the layers doesn’t impact your template.
What do I mean by this?
Well look at this template from
Artsy JournalTemplate 16.
Below I merged the two
yellow pieces, but see how the bottom strip is ON TOP of other ones?
When you merge them, their order changes!
So make sure that your elements don’t need to
be layered in any certain way and this new tip will work wonders!
Try this trick out and let us know what you think!!
I hope it makes using Liz’s templates easier
than they already are
😊
