What do I do with these nifty Photo Spots??
If you’re browsing Danielle’s amazing creations, you may notice collections of colorful dots and buttons. What are these little circles of joy? How on earth can you use these to add spark and excitement to your pages?

Let’s start with selecting a photo to play with, a background, and a black & white Photo Spot. I am using a photo I took at Denver Botanic Gardens, Miss Daisy Photo Spots and Miss Daisy Paper Pack.

First, I clipped the Photo Spot to my picture. Our next step is to find a blending mode that will allow the picture to peek through the Photo Spot. I like to click through each mode, keeping in mind the smoothness of the letters, how the background color affects the colors of the picture, and how you want the finished photo to look. For this photo I will be using the “Soft Light” blending mode. The original white circle becomes a sheer overlay, while the black lettering is smooth and readable. You could also use the brightly colored Spots in the same way, clicking through the blending modes to find the best fit.

Once you have your first Photo Spot blended to perfection, we will repeat the process with an opposite color scheme Spot. I chose to use a black circle with white lettering to achieve an overlapping lens flare effect. The “Color Dodge” blending mode works really well with the white lettering, allowing it to still be slightly seen under the first Spot. Try adjusting the transparency of the Spots to get different looks.

Another option is re-coloring the B&W Spots with a pattern or solid paper. To do this, select your spot and paper, clip the paper to the Spot, then change the blending mode and/or transparency until you are happy with the result.

Now that you have new ideas for the Black and White Photo Spots, let’s consider what we might do with the other Photo Spots.

This is a trick Danielle herself showed me, cutting a semi-circle out of your photo and filling in the space left with a Spot! I have found the easiest way to make a cutout on a standard photo is by using the Erase Tool. Simply select the brush shape and size you would like to use. For this photo I stuck with a standard circle, though you can get creative and use any brush you would like, I think a square cutout and circle Spot with and interesting patterned paper behind the photo would make really fun tab.
Quick tip: Mark your History tab before trying any cutouts, that way if there is a goof it is one click back to your original photo without losing all your previous work!
After you’ve got your cutout where you’d like it, select your Photo Spot and drop it in. Resize to leave a small space between the Spot and your photo. I really like this look by itself.

However, there is an easy way to add a mat to your page to add a little more emphasis to your photo. This technique is a little more involved than the first two and might take a couple tries to get just right, don’t be discouraged if you find this a little tricky.
Once you’ve gotten all the Spots and cutouts in the right place, select the photo and Spot layers, then make a copy of these layers and merge them into one. We’ll call this the mat layer.

Now, we still have a small gap in our copied Photo and Spot layers, here you have two options. Either create a solid shape the same size as the photo and merge it into your mat layer or take your Brush Tool and fill in the space. Clip your selected paper to the mat layer and then enlarge your mat layer until you have the desired width of a border around your photo and Spots.

You now have a paper border around your photo and Spots! Continue building your page, here I used a stitch and tab (with Soft Light Blending Mode applied) from Danielle’s My Sunshine kit and a paint splatter from the Artsy Element Pack and added another Black and White Spot to one of the background papers the same way we added it to the photo. A dash of journaling and a sprinkle of shadows and the page is complete!

I hope you have been inspired to add Photo Spots to your next page and don’t forget to upload them to Danielle’s Designer Gallery at Oscraps so that we can all see your creative genius!
Tiffany, iffybean