Companion Handouts August 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Art of the Apps Monthly Membership Page 1 of 15 at Scrapaneers.com SEPTEMBER 2018 Mobile App: LetterGlow
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Welcome to Art of the Apps Monthly Membership September 2018 Lesson 1 (video 2): Main User Interface Lesson 2 (video 3): Text, Fonts, Photo Editing Tools Lesson 3 (video 4): Project Editing Tools Lesson 4 (video 5): Working with Graphics Lesson 5 (video 6): Creating a Card From Scratch Lesson 6 (video 7): A Few Favorite Tips and Tricks 3 4 5 8 10 13 14 Page 2 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Welcome to Art of the Apps Monthly Membership September 2018 LetterGlow is an app that gives you the freedom to use your own graphics, logos, color palettes, and fonts to create stunning images and artwork with ease. It is an app that is quick and easy to use and has just the right amount of tools you need to add text and graphics to your photos or page layouts or create filler or journal cards for your pocket-style scrapbook pages. We will explore the following: How to work with photos or create a project from scratch using a blank canvas Apply text and install/manage your own fonts Fine-tune your text with fun text editing tools Create custom color palettes Apply shapes, phrases, and other graphics to your project How to use the photo editing tools to stylize your photos How to use the layers palette Using your projects as templates And more! As a reminder these handouts are a condensed version of what is in the videos. For more detailed instruction please refer to the videos and use the handouts as a complement to them. Time to begin! ~Kelly Page 3 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Lesson 1 (video 2): Main User Interface You know the routine! The second video is always of the app s main user interface...so here we go! When you open the app what you see is your project screen. If you do not see the LetterGlow logo, the present icon or the settings icons at the top, just drag your screen down. Depending on your phone, this area may be tucked up here beyond the screen. Project Screen Icons: 1. The Present Icon: this little icon is basically the store for in-app purchases. And I did end up buying the whole kit and kaboodle for $3.99. That gave me all of the graphics and unlocked extra fonts. 2. Settings Icon: This isn t a regular settings icon. It's not home to your profile, but more of an area where you can upload fonts, graphics, and input colors. There is a reference to design freedom. Design Freedom basically allows you to upload your own fonts, graphics, and color palettes into the app. It is mentioned in the video that it is unclear if this is available as a separate in-app purchase, if it is part of that $3.99 bundle or if it comes free with the app. I have had this app on my iphone for several years and I can t remember if it is a separate purchase or not and I have not been able to find information on it. Project Categories: There are a few different categories that your projects can be marked as: 1. New Project: This one is obvious and will be covered in the next video. 2. Completed: Anything that has completed at the top signifies that you have saved it to your camera roll or other designated place you may have exported it to. That s not to say you can t go back in to change things around. But it s nice that LetterGlow recognizes that you completed this project by labeling it as so. 3. Drafts: Drafts are those projects in progress. That s awesome to know you can start something and come back to it later. Page 4 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Now you do have the option to rename these projects. However, if you do, it may confuse you a bit as to which ones are complete and those that are in progress. To change the name of your project: 1. Tap the three little dots in the upper right corner of the Project. 2. From the fly out menu, tap rename, and type in a new name for your project. The other things you can do here from the fly out menu are delete the project and duplicate the project. Lesson 2 (video 3): Text, Fonts, Photo Editing Tools In this lesson we will go over the user interface of beginning a new project. We ll walk through the photo editing tools, begin to talk about color, add a text to a photo, and finally learn how to add your own fonts to the app. Beginning a new project: 1. Tap on new project. From the menu on the next screen, you are going to be prompted from where to choose a photo or if you are going to start with a blank canvas. a. If you tap on the cloud, you have the option of accessing icloud Drive or Dropbox and start with a photo. b. If you tap on canvas you will start with a blank workspace (we go over this option in a later lesson). 2. When you select a photo, a crop screen will appear. The pixel dimension of your photo is at the top of your screen. If you divide each of those numbers by 300 (300 for 300dpi), it will give you the dimension of your image in inches. That s just a little hint to help you determine the size of your photo :). To crop your photo, select one of the aspect ratios you see in the scroll bar below or one of the sizes for social media platforms. Tap apply. 3. And on the next screen you have some icons at the bottom of your screen and two at the top. a. The arrow icons at the top are your undo/redo arrows. b. The icons at the bottom are: Page 5 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Save Draft: This is your option to save your draft. Tap it and you ll be prompted to save or not save a draft. Layers: This will show you the various layers you have in your project. Plus Sign: This is the icon you tap to add text or graphics to your project. Photo editing: There are a few photo editing icons you can use to make slight adjustments to your photos. They are not technical, just more stylistic. i. Two arrows: photo swap (we ll address this in more detail in an upcoming lesson. ii. Crop Tool: Self-explanatory. iii. Tint: If you tap on the dot to the right, your color scroll bar will appear. Select a color, tap the tint icon again, then tap the plus sign to add a tint to your photo. Tap the minus sign to adjust it if you applied too much. iv. Blur: Tap the plus sign to add and the minus sign to lessen the blur. v. Saturation: Again super simple-use the plus and minus signs to increase or decrease saturation. c. The export icon is in the lower right corner. Once you have your photo cropped and edited (if desired), it s time to add some text 1. Tap the plus sign and select the letter icon. 2. On the next screen your cursor will be blinking in the center of your screen, your keyboard appears and you have a font icon and your justification icon. 3. If you tap on the font icon you ll see a list of all of your fonts you have to choose from. 4. Tap the justification icon to justify your text to the left, center, or right. Page 6 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership 5. Type in some text and then select done. When your next screen appears you are immediately brought to your font size tool. Please understand that the font size in Letterglow is not the equivalent to the font size you would use in programs like Photoshop or your word processing programs. The font size does not translate that way. The font size in LetterGlow is just a number and not indicative to traditional type size. Increase and decrease your font size by sliding the button right or left. Adding Your Own Fonts to LetterGlow: There are two ways in which you can add your own fonts into LetterGlow Through the Text Tool: 1. Add a text box to your project. 2. In your font list, select the icon at the top with the three dots. 3. At the very top of the list you have the option to choose install fonts. Tap it. 4. You will then be prompted to navigate to the area on your device from where you want to select your fonts. Remember, your fonts should be either a.ttf or.otf file. Through the Settings Icon on the Project Screen: 1. Tap the Settings icon on the main project screen. 2. Tap Install Fonts at the top of the list. 3. You will then be prompted to navigate to the area on your device from where you want to select your fonts. Remember, your fonts should be either a.ttf or.otf file. From this screen you can toggle your fonts off and on by tapping the button. This is very helpful if you don t plan on using certain fonts in the app. If you tap edit up here in the right corner red dots appear to the left of each font and if you tap on it, you have the option to delete it. These lines here allow you to drag and drop your fonts in any order you wish. This is very helpful if you use certain fonts all of the time. Move those to the top of the list and they will appear in that order when selecting a font within the app. Page 7 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Lesson 3 (video 4): Project Editing Tools There are two types of editing tools in LetterGlow. The first set we covered in the previous lesson-the photo editing tools. The next set, Project Editing Tools, we will cover in this lesson. These tools allow you to edit the various elements added to your project. They include layers, colors, resize, opacity, shadow, move, and rotate. Open up or begin a new project. Starting from the left, the icons are: 1. Layers: The layer you have selected will be highlighted in orange. If you tap on the three buttons to the left, you can trash it, duplicate it, or lock it. If you tap and drag the three little lines to the left, you can rearrange the order of them. 2. Color Picker: Simply slide the bar back and forth to select your color. Notice the white bar on my screen in the video. You may not have this bar yet. Any color swatch to the right of the bar are the colors that are part of the app. When you tap one of those swatches, a small slider at the top of the swatch appears. Tap it and then you have a bar that will appear with the tints and shades of that particular color. Move that circle around the bar to select a different tint or shade. To go back to the main color swatch simply tap anywhere on the bar. Any color swatch to the left of that white bar is the colors I imported into the app. Just like with fonts there are two different ways you can import your own color codes into the app. Through the Text Tool: 1. Swipe all the way to the right and an icon with three dots will appear. 2. Tap on the icon and the custom color palette appears. All of the colors you see here are those I have imported into the app. 3. Tap the add color and add your RGB codes in the white boxes. 4. Your new color will appear directly to the left of that vertical bar. 5. If you tap on edit in the upper right corner, red dots will appear to the left of the color and will allow you to delete the color if you want. Page 8 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Through the Settings Icon in the Project Screen The second way to add a color is through accessing the custom color palette through the settings icon on the app s home page, just like we did for fonts in the last lesson. Instead of selecting font you would select color and proceed in the same manner explained above. 3. Resize Tool: You can use this tool to resize text or any graphics on the project. Move the slider to the right to enlarge, to the left to decrease size. 4. Opacity: The minus sign will lower the opacity, the plus sign increases it. 5. Shadow: Feel free to add a shadow to text, graphics or even other photos if you bring them into your project as another layer. The large bar in the center with the zero adjusts the size of your shadow. The large white dot to the left of the bar gives you either a hard shadow or a soft shadow. Change it just by tapping the dot. You can see the difference when you tap on it. The dot to the right of the bar is your color picker. You can select any color you wish for your shadow. Please refer to the video for a better visual demonstration. 6. Move Tool: Use the arrows to move the object up and down or side to side. 7. Rotate Tool: Use the plus or minus sign to rotate in small increments. Use the arrow in the circle for 90 degree rotation increments. 8. Lock: By tapping this you can lock your layer. Tap again to unlock. 9. Trash: Delete your layer by tapping this icon. Page 9 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Lesson 4 (video 5): Working with Graphics In this lesson we are going to learn how to do a few things. We will combine a few graphics with text on photo and make use of those tools we went over in Lesson 3. You will learn how to import your own graphics into the app and will be provided with some suggestions as to which kinds of graphics you may only want to import. We will go over how to place graphics on your project that you do not import into the app. And finally you will learn how to swap your photo for a different one, but keep the text and graphics you applied to the project. Adding a graphic to your project: 1. Select a photo and crop to your liking. 2. Tap the plus sign at the bottom center of your screen and select the graphic icon. 3. You will see icons with various categories. When you tap one of them all of the graphics within that category will appear in a scroll bar at the bottom of your screen. Swipe left to scroll through them. Tap one to select and place it in your project. 4. Experiment with the editing tools to add shadows, resize, or change your graphic to a different color. How to install graphics into LetterGlow: Just like installing fonts and colors, you can install graphics two different ways through the settings icon on the main Project Screen and through the graphics icon when adding. Installing Graphics Through the Settings Icon: 1. Tap the settings icon in the upper right corner and select graphics. The screen that appears houses the graphics you have imported into LetterGlow. If this is the first time you're using the app, this screen won t have graphics in it. 2. Tap the purple plus sign and you will have the option from where you wish to select your graphic. 3. Once you select a graphic it will pop up in your graphic library. Page 10 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership 4. You can delete any graphic you wish by tapping the edit button in the upper right corner and selecting the red dot on the graphic you want to delete. Installing Graphics Through the Graphics Icon: 1. Open a photo or a blank canvas, tap the plus sign, and then select my graphics. 2. Tap the icon with the three little dots. 3. The screen that appears next is your graphics library as you just viewed from the settings icon. Follow the same instructions as previously demonstrated to install a graphic through the settings icon. Placing your installed graphic on your project: Open a photo or blank canvas 1. Tap the plus sign in the bottom center of your screen and then select my graphics. 2. Your graphics will appear in a scroll bar at the bottom of your screen. Tap the graphic you wish to use and it will be placed on your screen. 3. Feel free to use the various editing tools such as resize, drop shadow, opacity, and rotate. Placing a graphic from your device on your project: You do not have to install a graphic directly into LetterGlow in order to use it in your project. 1. Open a photo or blank canvas. 2. Tap the plus sign at the bottom center of your screen. 3. Instead of tapping my graphics, tap photo/logo and navigate to the area on your device where you have your graphic saved. I keep mine in icloud Drive, but you can keep yours in DropBox, too! Page 11 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership A few comments about installing graphics into LetterGlow: LetterGlow should not be used as a place to store all of your embellishments or digital word art stamps. Import generic embellishments that you tend to use over and over again. Think blank labels, date stamps, or generic word art. You can only install one graphic at a time. Bummer, I know. Only black or white graphics can be recolored (think word art). And there are even some black graphics where you may not be able to change the color. It will depend on the CMYK percentages the designer used to create the piece. You won t know that it can t be changed until you bring it onto your project. Refer to the video for more information. Swapping a photo, but keeping same text/graphics There are times where you may change your mind about the photo you selected and want to change it, but still keep all of your embellishments and text you added. This is super easy to do! 1. Open or duplicate a completed or draft project. 2. Once opened, tap the little icon for photo editing. It looks like a mountain. 3. Select the very first icon on the left. You will be asked if you want to replace the image and keep the same text and graphics. Select replace and your photo will be swapped out with one you choose from wherever you have it stored. Now if you need to tweak the placement of the graphics a little bit, drag your finger across the entire project to make sure you are selecting all the layers and move your graphic(s) to another place on your photo. Page 12 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Lesson 5 (video 6): Creating a Card From Scratch Whenever I am putting a layout together and can t find the perfect filler or journal card, I make my own. More often than not, LetterGlow is my go-to app to do this. In the previous lessons you have learned everything you need to know about how to add text to your photos, install fonts, import graphics, add your own color codes and more. You should also feel totally comfortable using the various editing tools. In this you will learn how to put together a filler card and a journal card. And friends, even though I am referring to these cards as something you would put in a pocket style layout, you can use these as accents to a traditional layout as well! I see pocket-style cards used on traditional scrapbook layouts all of the time. I don t mean to be partial to Project Life! These cards are going to be created by starting a project using the canvas option. With your app open: 1. Tap new project and select canvas. There are various aspect ratios to choose from including a few presets for social media. 2. Use the 3:2 for 4x6 cards and the 4:3 option for 3x4 cards. 3. Please refer to Video 6 for continued instruction. By going through the previous lessons, you are armed with all of the tools you need to create your own filler or journal card. Once you have your canvas size set, it is just a matter of placing graphics and text onto your canvas in the same way you did when adding them to a photo. Get creative! Page 13 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Lesson 6 (video 7): A Few Favorite Tips and Tricks So I think you would agree that LetterGlow is a fairly easy app to use. Once you are comfortable where things are and how to bring in graphics, you can get a project done pretty quickly. In this video I want to share with you a few tips and tricks that I use from time to time. Page Titles I mentioned in the beginning of this month s content that I do not build an entire layout in LetterGlow. Since there is no zoom feature, I find it difficult to complete an entire page, even on an ipad with the large screen. But I have added a large title across a page that was created in the Project Life app. And I want to show you how this is done: 1. Export/save the layout you wish to add a title across the page 2. In LetterGlow, add your text and recolor if you wish. 3. Use the resize tool to enlarge your title to your liking. 4. Add a drop shadow. 5. Save your page to your camera roll. Projects as Templates One of my favorite things to do is to use a project as a template. Especially for journal cards. It was mentioned in a previous video that I have a journal card template that I like to use over and over again on my pages. Please note that these instructions are specific to the card I created in LetterGlow in Video 6. 1. Duplicate a journal card project you created in LetterGlow. 2. Swap the patterned background by tapping on the photo edit icon and then the photo swap icon. 3. Navigate to the area on your device from where you have your new background stored. 4. Keep your journaling area the same color or change it by tapping on it and choosing a new color from the color picker. 5. Change any embellishments you wish by using the skills you learned in Video 5 (the section where I changed photos of the succulents). Page 14 of 15
Companion Handouts September 2018 : Art of the App Monthly Membership Page Sharing Instagram Templates This final tip is for those who share their pages on Instagram. If you follow my IG feed, Pixels to Pages, you will notice that I have the same layout when I share my pages. I reuse the same template again and again and it makes producing these so easy and quick. And I have a few different templates for this depending on the type of pages I am sharing. I have them for Monthly Spreads, Weekly Spreads, December Daily and more. Because this tip is specific for a template I created, please refer to the video for detailed instruction. Heads Up! Remember that poll I posted in our Facebook Group? I was trying to get a feel for those who work on an iphone or an ipad. I also needed to get a grasp at the number of people working on an ipad who have taken the Art of the Apps 3.0 (aka the Affinity Photo class). Why did I need to do this? Well what I have planned for the rest of the year requires apps that support working in layers. So no matter if you are working on an iphone or ipad, you will be able to successfully complete the course material that will release in October, November and December. iphone users, will have LetterGlow and ipad users will have LetterGlow or Affinity to use. There will be videos to support the content using both apps. HOWEVER, the videos that will cover the content using Affinity will not be a crash course learning how to use the app. You would already need to know how to use it. Make sense? So carry on my friends, play around with LetterGlow, if you are an ipad user and wanting to learn Affinity now would be the time to do so! Page 15 of 15