Hello, all! Happy Tuesday! I thought I’d write a little bit about digital stamps today! I’ve been creating lots of these little pieces lately and I thought it might be a timely topic to write about!

There are three different ways (that I can think of—LOL!) to use a digital stamp:

1. Just as it is: Open up the .png file and drop it on your layout, like any other element.
2. Add it as a Brush: Open up the .png file and add it to your Brush collection. This way, you can “paint” in any color you like!
3. Use a blending mode: Drop the element on your layout, but change it’s blending mode from “Normal” to something like “Overlay” or “Soft Light.”

Sometimes a stamp looks great just dropped on a page as is! But sometimes it’s a little too strong and over-powering. Take this strip of stars from the Tough Stuff mini kit as an example:

I think I’d like to try them in a different color… so, I will just add them to my collection of Brushes! Here’s how you do it:

In Photoshop, you simply go to Edit > Define Brush Preset. A pop-up window will appear with the file name already in it. Click “OK” to add, then select a color to get to painting. It’s that easy!

Here are my stars now:

Another quick and easy way to use digital stamps and other elements is to play around with the Blending Mode. Here’s a layout I made with several different black stamps:

But they stand out too much and fight with the other elements on the page! So, I played around with the Blending Mode and changed their settings to a combination of Soft Light mode and Overlay mode (you will find these Blending Mode options in your Layers palette in Photoshop):

Now I’m much happier with how they look! They are a part of the page, but they move to the background and they compliment the other elements I used.

Here’s a little tip for you: if Overlay mode is too light, try duplicating the layer so you have two and playing with the opacity of the new layer until it looks the way you’d like it to!

And here’s another tip you can try: You can alter the look of a stamp in a Blending Mode by changing it’s color! And you can easily change a stamp from black to white or vice versa by using the Hue, Saturation and Lightness tool to change the Lightness to +100 or -100. Here’s a black arrow from the Project 365 Embellishment pack in Soft Light mode:

And here is the same arrow in Soft Light mode, but in white:

You can have even more fun with using these two techniques together! Add a stamp to your Brushes, select a color from your paper and paint with it. Now change it’s mode to Multiple or Screen and see what your results are!

So many options, so much fun to try them all out! Well, I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about digital stamps! If you give some of these ideas a try, be sure to come back and leave me a link. I’d love to see what you’ve created! You guys always make my day when you send me an e-mail or leave me a comment with your work. Thanks for doing that!

As always, happy scrapping!