Riding
Techniques: Cropping with Cropping Library; Torn Edge Box, Burnt Edge
Cropping with Cropping Library: You can crop letters and all sorts of shapes from any digital paper using the Cropping Library. Here the title "Riding" and the horse elements that way. First, open the paper you wish to crop from. Click on Crop and then choose Pull or Adjust Pattern. Click on the down arrow and then choose Cutters Library. A dialog box will open with all the available shapes. For the title, I simple cropped letters. After cropping I added a drop shadow.
Horse Elements: These were made using the horse shape and then a burnt edge was applied. Follow the directions above and chose the horse shape. Now make sure the Keep Crop Rope is checked. This will assure that the crop line will stay so you can slide new papers underneath the crop rope to make sure all the horses are the same size. And keeping the rope lets you apply the burnt edge along it. Here is what you do: chose horse shape and crop. Now click on Correct and go to Filter Effects. Select the Burnt Edge (Rope) filter effect. Move the Edge Feathering slider to about 15 and click apply. To make the second horse, slide the first horse out from under the rope and slide a new paper under the rope and do it again!
Torn Edge Box: lots of the photos and papers here were cropped with the Torn Edge Box crop. To do this, click on Crop. Now click on Pull or Adjust Pattern, then click on the box down arrow to display the drop menu. From the menu, select Torn Edge Box. Place your cursor on your photo, and hold down the left button to drag out the box. You can adjust the box by moving your cursor over the rope until the directional arrows appear, then hold down the left mouse button to move that side of the crop rope. You can also move the whole crop box by moving you mouse over the crop until the move arrows appear and then hold the left button to move the whole box.
To crop the papers, simply add the papers to your collage and use the Torn Edge Box as above to crop. Now if you would like all of your cut papers (or photos) to be the same size you can keep the same crop rope and just move papers under it to crop. Choose the Keep Crop Rope option in the crop box and the rope will remain after you crop. Then change back to Correct mode and click on the cropped paper to move it out of the way. Select a new paper, bring it under the crop rope, click on Crop and crop it.
Burnt Edge: This is a filter effect that is applied along a rope so if you want a burnt edge, you should make sure you check Keep Crop Rope when you crop. Keeping the rope lets you apply the burnt edge along it. Here is what you do: chose shape and crop. Now click on Correct and go to Filter Effects. Select the Burnt Edge (Rope) filter effect. Move the Edge Feathering slider to about 15 and click apply. Voila - burnt edge.