From now on if I ever get discouraged, I'm just going to read all the sweet notes left on my blog. You all are the greatest! As for writing a book - I find the whole idea a bit intimidating, but if there are any publishers or magazine editors out there who feel the same way you all do, drop me a note mistycato@mistycatodesigns.com (how's that for a little shameless self-promotion) :)
By popular demand, I give you how to thread a ribbon through a buckle.
Open your buckle and ribbon and place them onto a common canvas with the buckle in a layer on top of the ribbon.
Hold down the control key and click on the ribbon layer icon in the layers palette. The 'marching ants' should now be around your ribbon. Click once on the buckle layer in the layers palette to select the buckle layer (the 'marching ants' should still be around your ribbon, they don't show well in the screen shot below).
Select your eraser tool from the tools palette. Select a hard round brush tip of about 40px and click and drag on your canvas to erase the center part of the buckle overlapping the ribbon.
Key Ctrl+D to get rid of the marching ants.
Select your Dodge tool from the tools palette. The Dodge tool is housed with the Burn and Sponge tools so you may have to right click on one of them to bring up the drop down menu from which you can select the Dodge tool. The Dodge tool looks like puff ball on a stick.
In the options bar at the top of your workspace, click on the small downward arrow next the word "Brush:" (in Photoshop, in PSE there is no label, but the arrow is there).
In Photoshop, select a round brush and use the sliders to set the diameter to approximately 80px (based on a 3/8th inch ribbon, you may want it a little bigger or smaller depending on ribbon size). Set the hardness slider to zero.
In PSE, select the soft round brush and use the slider to set the diameter to approximately 80px (you may need to adjust based on size of ribbon).
Click on the down arrow next to the word 'Range'. Midtones is the best option for most ribbon colors. If you ribbon is very light use "Highlights" and if it is very dark use "Shadows."
Click on the 'Exposure' arrow and set the slider to about 30% (you may want to experiment with this setting a bit).
Click once on your ribbon layer in the layers palette to set it as your active layer. Click and drag on your canvas with your dodge tool down the area where the buckle center would be. Don't worry about being exact. Notice how the light area gives the appearance of the ribbon being 'raised up' over the buckle center.
Select your Burn tool from the tools palette. The Burn tool is housed with the Dodge tool, so right click on the Dodge tool and select the Burn tool from the drop down menu.
Use a similar brush tip as you did for the Dodge brush, but lower the diameter to about 40px and the exposure to 15% (you may need to adjust the exposure, depending upon the color of your ribbon).
Click and drag on the ribbon layer to 'burn' the areas to the right and left of the the highlighted center, just inside the outer edges of the buckle.
Select your polygonal lasso tool from the tools palette. The polygonal lasso tool is housed with the Lasso Tool and the Magnetic Lasso tool so you may have to right click on one of those to bring up a drop down menu from which you can select the polygonal lasso tool.
Use your polygonal lasso tool to create a selection similar to the one I've created below. It doesn't have to be exact. To select with the polygonal lasso tool you click once on your canvas for each 'corner' of your shape until you are back to the original starting point.
Make sure your ribbon layer is still the active layer (if not click on it once in the layers palette). Go to Layer->New->Layer via Copy
Use your move tool to reposition and rotate the copied section of ribbon as shown below (rotational optional). The copied section of ribbon should be in a layer on top of the full ribbon and below the buckle. If it is not, click on the ribbon section layer in the layers palette and drag it to the correct layer order.
If any portion of your copied ribbon section is inside the buckle, select your eraser tool from the layers palette and click and drag on your canvas to erase the portions of the copied ribbon inside the buckle.
Viola - a threaded buckle!
