Author: Kris Sazaki
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Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts Worth Memorizing!
Once you start working with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you soon realize that learning some keyboard shortcuts can really reduce your work time. The problem is there are so many shortcuts, that you don’t know where to start! Well, we have our favorites, so why don’t you start there? Where Can I Find Shortcuts? In…
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Join Us In Canada (Via Zoom!) For 3 Women : 3 Stories
Well, we can’t travel to Canada right now, but we can at least Zoom our way there! Please join us on Feb 24, 2021 at 4:00 pm PST as we give our presentation called “3 Women : 3 Stories” for the Region of York Quilters Guild. The cost is Canadian $7. Register for the event…
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Windows Ink, Writing Tablets & Photoshop Elements
Curses, Windows Ink! Every time we teach one of our classes, we inevitably have a student who, when working with a writing tablet, is unable to perform some of the actions in Photoshop Elements. (Many thanks to Laurel K. for the reminder!). We can often trace the issue back to Windows Ink, but since the…
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Rainbows, Books on Color, and Creating Color in Photoshop Elements
Are you interested in creating color? This is Kris with a confession. I registered for the Color Seminar offered by Studio Art Quilt Associates. It’s free for members. Let’s just say I am a big slacker because I haven’t created anything for class. But, the one thing this seminar has done for me so far…
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Why Image Resolution Is So Important
Last week we alluded to the importance of image resolution for your creative output. You can read that post here. Today we want to show you how the use of different image resolutions creates effective results in Photoshop Elements. (The image above was created using the crosshatch filter on low-resolution image.) General Considerations Our students…
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Happy New Year 2021! Registration & Recipe
Are you as happy to see 2020 in the rearview mirror as the Pixeladies? We are hopeful that 2021 will see us back in the studio working together at the same time! So let’s ring in the new year with class registration and a recipe. Registration Registration for classes starts on January 1! We don’t…
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Happy Holidays 2021 . . . The 1998 Throwback Edition!
We write our Happy Holidays post this time of year, usually with photos of our time together during the season. Deb is famous for her wine tasting parties, but not this year. Kris’s husband Neil makes a mean egg nog to share, but not this year. We Pixeladies are hunkering down for what will be…
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2021: Get Ready, Get Set, Take Photoshop Elements Classes!
Here’s to 2021! We are ready to start our next round of Photoshop Elements classes. It looks like we’ll all be homebound for a few more months, so let’s take advantage of the time and work on our Photoshop skills. Pick the class that’s right for you. The Schedule We’re starting with the beginning class…
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Thanksgiving 2020: Try Origami Turkey Napkins!
Well, our thanksgivings are going to be quite a bit smaller this year, but we are still thankful that we have the ability to stay home on what is the native land of the Nisenan, Zoom with our families, and teach online. We’re thankful for the medical frontline workers, the farmworkers, and the emergency workers.…
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The New Mississippi State Flag And Our “Mrs. Hamer”
During all of the hullabaloo of our recent presidential election, states managed to pass new laws or make some historic changes to their state. The citizens of Mississippi, for example, approved a new design for their state flag. Why, you may ask, was this historic, and what does this have to do with our work?…
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November Already? It’s Furoshiki Time!
November signals the start of the holiday season, especially for those of us who make our own gifts. In the case of the Pixeladies, we start thinking of gift wrapping with the super useful furoshiki. What we love about furoshiki (Japanese for fabric wrap) is that the object actually determines the type of wrap you…
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Happy 100th Birthday, Wayne Thiebaud!
This is Kris, writing to say the Pixeladies are taking a break from our Tech Tuesday posts to wish a happy 100th birthday to Wayne Thiebaud. He is a fellow graduate of Sac State University. Okay, so he graduated several years before either of us was born, when the place was called Sac State College,…
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Textile Talks And The Importance of Words
We think it’s pretty obvious to our readers by now how important we think words are. They are the underpinning of our art, so when we moderated in a recent Textile Talk, which is sponsored by a consortium of fiber arts organizations, we weren’t surprised the topic arose again. Deeds Not Words The irony doesn’t…
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Basketball and Art, Part 2
After five months of being in a creative and general funk, and with pro basketball shut down, I joined a critique group with eleven other talented, creative, intelligent, articulate artists. We’ve only had two virtual meetings, but I really enjoy them. I had met several of the women in person, known others by their work,…
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2020 SAQA Benefit Auction: Kris’ Dream Collection
Every September I look forward to the SAQA Benefit Auction, where you can bid on some really fantastic artwork. There’s a tradition of creating your dream collection from the hundreds of available artwork. Deb created her dream collection a couple of weeks ago. Mine is below. Why don’t you build your own dream collection? Click…
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Pixelady vs. Pixelady: The Zoom Tool in Photoshop Elements
We at the Pixeladies Studio think the best Photoshop tool is the Zoom Tool! Why, you ask? Is it because our eyes are getting old? Maybe, but it’s that attention to detail that makes your image unforgettable. But are there really different ways to use the Zoom Tool? Yes, that’s the little secret of Photoshop…
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Stitching Fannie Lou Hamer
This is Kris with a little update on our Fannie Lou Hamer (FLH) project. We introduced this project in a couple of earlier posts. (Links to them are at the end of this post.) Today I thought you’d like to see how the actual quilting is going. I sometimes think the quilting is the hardest…
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Because It Bears Repeating: Black Lives Matter
This is Kris with some more thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement. It has been a little over a month since George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We already wrote about our support of the movement here, but we wanted to share a couple of our artworks again within…
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7 Things To Remember About Photoshop Elements Organizer
We love Photoshop Elements (PSE) Organizer. It’s flexible and grows with you as you organize more and more photos. There are times, however, when it tries our patience. So here are 7 things to remember when working with Organizer. 1. Place Tags File this under “Ugh, I hate upgrades!” Let’s face it, software companies make…
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Mark Your Ballot Because Black Lives Matter
Let’s not equivocate: Black Lives Matter. If you are familiar with our art, you know that we have often addressed the issue of race. Take our Language of Color Series: various compositions of colored pencils that expose, upon closer inspection, the often tortured relationship between the races. But this subtlety might be lost on some…
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We’re Showing Our True Colors
This is Kris with a post about colors. Although the ongoing pandemic has definitely put a dent in the Pixeladies’ creative productivity, it has also allowed us some time to explore random topics that keep us inspired. One thing I’ve noticed recently is the incredible things some businesses have done . . . sure maybe…
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Art vs. Craft: The Greta Gerwig Sacramento Edition
For those of you who know me (Kris), you know that I love to spend my Sundays working on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. So what does that have to do with the big art vs. craft debate and Greta Gerwig? Let me explain. The Art of the NYT Times Crossword Puzzle Well,…
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Oops, They Did It Again: Adobe Organizer’s Category Glitch
We are simply dumbfounded. When Photoshop Element’s 2020 version came out, we checked the Category feature of Organizer. It had been broken since about Version 15. Yay! Adobe had fixed the issue. You could change a sub-category into a category as the Adobe manual describes. But when we checked a couple of weeks ago, it…
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Collaboration in Isolation: A New Road Map
This is Kris with a short explanation of how the Pixeladies are creating a new road map to help us collaborate in isolation. Let me tell you, it ain’t that easy, but we are not complaining. All of our families are safe and healthy. And, although we have several family members (on both sides!) in…
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Collaboration During A Pandemic And Our SDA Article
Well, we’ve been sheltering in place in California for over a month now. That’s not very conducive to collaborating, especially when you are the most creative when the two of you sneak out for gelato or have giggle fits when making your text collages. We’ve managed to stay busy, though. Deb has sewn almost a…
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Take Our Organizer Class For Free!
It looks like we’re all going to be staying close to home for quite a while. With lots of people thinking this is a good time to organize their photos, we have decided to offer our Photoshop Elements Organizer class for free. [Note: This offer expired June 30, 2020.] Click here to read more about…
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Photoshop Elements’ “Remove An Object” Guided Edit
We’re getting ready to teach our Photoshop Elements Essentials classes again. We’re always amazed at how many tips Photoshop Elements has built into the program. Deb thought you might like to know how to use one of these guided edits, Remove Objects, to eliminate a bald spot as well as getting rid of background objects.…
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MACC: Go For The Art, Stay For The Networking
As members of Studio Art Quilts Associates, we are always on the lookout to see the exhibitions the organization mounts. It’s a way for us to do some networking and see great art at the same time. We usually have to travel to do this, but in September we’ll get to see SAQA’s “Stitching California”…
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Why We Love Photoshop and Why We Teach Online – Try Us!
This Deb with a little post about how we here at the Pixeladies Studio use Photoshop all the time. We love to use it for things like collaging two images together, changing image colors, testing out quilting lines, and resizing photos to enter into exhibitions. It’s one of the most important tools we have. Here…
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Are You Registered To Vote? Our Art Asks You To Protect Your Voting Rights!
We live in California and for the longest time our primary took place in June. We were, for lack of a better term, irrelevant. Now our primary is March 3 on what is now truly a Super Tuesday primary. Over the past few years, our art has sometimes focused on the political process and the…