How to use a quick page (+ a freebie)

Ok, so it's not my tutorial (and not my freebie), but it's still good to know - esp. for those of you who are just starting digital scrapbooking.

The "quick page" is really simple to do. It's just a pre-designed digital srapbook page that you can plop your photos in.

Paislee Press has put together a detailed tutorial on how it's done. Click the image to see the easy peezy instructions:

Simple white border

After doing a bit of research, I'm happy to say I'm not the only one who has been frustrated by Photoshop's strange lack of options when it comes to creating a simple white border on your elements. I've tried stroke, expand, and even "border", but all of them are either rounded or feathered, and it makes me crazy! Finally, I found something that works (other than layering a disproportionate white rectangle underneathe). Here's the step by step on how to get a simple square border (at least in PS3). Activate the layer. (Click the thumbnail in the layers palette while holding the Ctrl key) Hold down the Shift key and the letter "Q" From the top menu, select Filter> Other> Maximum Choose the width of your border Shift-Q again Now you'll see an empty marquee around your picture, fill that marquee with whatever color you want for your border. Now hit Ctrl-D on your keyboard to get rid of the marching ants and there ya go!
It may seem like a lot of steps, but after you've done it a couple of times, it's really quick and easy.

Fonts

These are 2 sites I recommend for fonts:
1. dafont.com (100s of free fonts!) Just about everything you could possibly want.		2. fontgarden.com This site has some cute handwritten fonts - great for scrapbooking. Not free but affordable.

Tips

So let's say you've decided to go digital (or, at least learn more about it), here are some tips and tricks that I wish I knew when I started.

SOFTWARE


Photoshop Elements - "The best selling consumer photo-editing software...combines power and simplicity".

Thanks to my job, I have Photoshop CS3, but I've heard that PS Elements is the best, affordable option for beginners.

It should sell for about $60. I would suggest looking for it on Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart or Best Buy.

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FREEBIES

They're everywhere! If you just google, "digital scrapbooking freebies", you'll probably find more sites than you know what to do with.

I recommend IKEA Goddess if you want a good one-stop resource for freebies.

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GOOGLE READER

Something you should be using anyway. If you have a Gmail account, you'll see a "reader" link in the top left corner. It's just an easy way to keep track of all of your favorite websites in one place. You just subscribe to the sites/blogs that you frequent most, and the Reader lets you know when that site's been updated. It's nice b/c you can view all of the updates right there without having to browse around.

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TEMPLATES & QUICK PAGES

Simply Yin is my favorite spot for templates.

I'm a walking contradiction b/c I'm a minimalist when it comes to design, but I also take way too many photos. That's why I like Yin's templates; she has a way of organizing the chaos.

Here's an example of how you can use a template:

A "quick page" is pre-designed. So it would be like my finished layout above, but with open placeholders just for your pictures and text.

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DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING KITS & GALLERIES


Ok, so it's not all free. Occasionally, you'll find a must-have kit that costs a few bucks (usually between $3 and $7). But, you can mix and match everything and use the papers & elements as many times as you like.

My favorite "store" is Oscraps.

It's also good to browse around the galleries for ideas...

Why go digital??

Ok, so I get it; you're nervous about making that big leap into digital scrapbooking - and abandoning all of your cheesy quote stamps, scalloped scissors and heart-shaped hole punches (that you spent entirely too much on to begin with). But, tell me this, when was the last time you actually sat down and made a scrapbook page? I have a feeling it's been a while. It's such an ordeal to get everything out, and - if you're like me - spread everything around all over the room just so you can recall what exactly you own. A mess only your kids will appreciate. So, I say it's time to simplify!

While we were in Saipan, I took a bazillion pictures, but all of my scrapbooking junk was in a storage unit 7000 miles away. That's when I discovered digital scrapbooking and resolved never to turn back.

If you're thinking about making the switch yourself, here are some things you'll want to consider:

• NO MESS!
• Less expensive - there are thousands of freebies out there. You could easily create an entire album out of freebies. There are even crazy people out there who spend hours a day searching all over the internet for said freebies and then compile them all together for us. (ie. http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/)
• Requires design software. I strongly recommend Photoshop. I think you can get PS Elements for about $50.
• Printing: Shutterfly is one of the more popular Photobook printing companies, and you can print a 20-pg 12x12 book for under $40 right now ($1 per additional page)
• Storage: It does require a decent amount of virtual storage space. These days, however, you can buy massive external hard drives for really cheap (ie. 500 GB for $80, etc.) You'll probably use closer to 50 GB (at most).
• Convenient - it's so easy to sit down and create a layout or 2 in the evenings. And, if something comes up, you can just save the page and come back to it.
• Convenient #2 - All of your photos are right there, nice and organized on your computer. No more shoe boxes full of random photos, and no more expensive photo printing.
• Convenient #3 - It's also helpful to have all of your scrapbooking elements organized in tidy little directories. (ie. tan papers, stars, alphas, frames, etc.) No more digging!
• Convenient #4 - With traditional scrapbooking, once you've used a paper or element, it's gone, but with digital, you can use and re-use everything!
• Convenient #5 - You don't have to be a designer. It can be as easy or complex as you want it to be. If you just want to create an album as quickly as possible, they offer lots of templates, quick pages and even pre-designed albums to simplify the process for you.
• Convenient #6 - After you've finished a photobook, you can easily print duplicates (maybe for Grandma?)

Ok, I think you get the point. Ultimately, it's going to save you a lot of time and money (and stress!).

Slightly embarrasing (I blame my sister!)

Confession time. Ok, so my sister and I have a small crush on Wentworth Miller. So she asked me to do a little superimposing project for her. Don't judge us! This is totally just for fun. And, she's divorced so she's allowed.

The photo Amanda gave me to work with was difficult to say the least. That head angle?!!

I think she chose this one for it's steamy romance novel quality.

She actually sent me the challenge before sending me the picture so I decided to play with one of my own pictures first so I could have Wentworth's floating head all ready to go...

Click to enlarge

I promise I don't spend my days lusting after "Michael Scofield"! Eric is my one and only hunky monkey. :)

How it's done:

You can't see it very well, but I've outlined his face with the polygonal lasso tool (feather: 1 or 2px). Then, just cut-and-paste and do any necessary editing. I placed and re-sized the floating head by temporarily decreasing the opacity so I could see Eric's face below Wentworth's and tried to match the size and angle.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to re-create the quality and lighting of professional celebrity photos, but I tried to do a few alterations to make it a little less noticeable. For example, my original photo was too warm so I desaturated it a bit...Wentworth's picture was taken in a dark room with artificial lighting so, although I couldn't remove the glow from his face, I did increase the brightness (just on his layer) so it looks a bit more like he's outside. I also had to copy and paste small sections of the door in the area around his head to cover up Eric's hair.

Ok, I'm really spending too much time on this silly post. :)

Marquee tool (revisited)

I'm sorry! This post is about 2 weeks late, but I hope it's still helpful and demonstrates how ridiculosly EASY it can be to use the marquee tool. First, take a look at the screenshots below...

Simple, no? Here are a few extra tips:

1. To start, I usually create my marquee directly over the subject I want to "hide" (in this case, Brynne & pup). This way, you can make it the perfect size. Then, just move the marquee over to a similar area (typically right beside the suject), and use that as your copy area.
2. After you paste, it may seem like nothing has happened. That's because your pasted layer is directly on top of the original layer - it still needs to be moved. In this case, to the right. (Also, the new layer should appear in your layers palette.)
3. It may take more than one copy or edit to make your cover-up look realistic. For example, in my photo, you can still see Brynne's head poking out from the top the pasted layer. To hide that, I just copied and pasted a few more slices from the grassy area closest to her head. I also used the burn tool to darken the line between the tall and short grass.
4. Next, I cropped the picture to keep it simple...no roads and telephone poles, just Paige and the lush green grass. (see below)

5. Finally, I tried to enhance the photo itself (see final product in previous post). Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what I did, but I'll usually try out a few PS actions & some manual edits (hue/saturation, sharpness, selective color, etc.)