Notes on the Journey: ArtStudio: New File and Brining in Digi Goodies

To start a new project, select New from the File menu. The drop down menu gives you options depending on your iPad version, and your project. While it looks like I can pick the iPad with Retina option, since I don't have the new iPad, selecting this option causes ArtStudio to crash, so I don't recommend going that route without the proper equipment.

Once you have selected the correct document size, this is what the rest of the New Image window looks like. I normally choose White background, just like I would in PSE.

Now the document is ready to start creating!

I store the digital files I'm going to use in Dropbox. This saves space on my already-space-challenged iPad. Generally I pull my photos off PhotoStream, but you could certainly create a project folder in Dropbox to contain everything you plan on using.

Here is a screen shot of my Dropbox folder which contains the files I made from Anna Aspnes' ArtzyCards Crazy Life with the background I am going to select for this tutorial. I choose Copy Image to Clipboard.

Double-click the home button, go to ArtStudio. Select File>Import>Insert as a Layer>Paste from Clipboard. Hopefully Dropbox integration will be coming as a feature to make this a quicker process. It has been requested and the developer is looking at it.

Repeat the process to bring in other items you want on your page. Here is a screen shot of the background plus a transfer, with no blending modes applied.

Here is what the Blending modes pop-up looks like:

And here are some screen shots with various blend modes applied to the transfer layer. As in Photoshop or PSE, you just have to play with the various modes to see the effect, which varies depending on the characteristics of the layers. This addition of blend modes makes me a very happy mobile scrapper! I love the texture that shows through with Multiply: