Resizing layout for Web

Whether you are wanting to upload your completed layout to facebook, your blog or an online gallery, you'll need to resize it from its printable size.  It's very important to remember that things viewed on the web are much, much smaller than they are printed in real life.  I learned this lesson the hard way.  I created an entire first year book for my daughter (way back when I was just starting out) and I savedt them all on photobucket.  A few months later, our computer died and all I had was the versions on photobucket. I thought I would be just fine until I tried printing them.  No longer at a nice 12x12 inch size, they were just a tiny square on a piece of paper!

So, first create your layout at 12x12 inches at 300 dpi.

Next, save it in that format in a place where you will know you can print it.  I keep a folder called "My Albums"  and I have lots of folders in there where I keep all the layouts I am ready to print.  For example, my 2011 folder has a folder for each month with my layouts saved. I'm almost done and will then upload each of those layouts for printing.

Once I know it has been saved and tucked away for printing (and don't forget to back these files up in case something happens to your hard drive), you will want to shrink your layout from 300 dpi to 72 dpi and 600 pixels by 600 pixels.  If you are using photoshop, there is a "Save for Web" option that will make sure it is optimized and easy to upload online.  If you are using Pixlr, just save at this size and it should work at most galleries and facebook.

I save these web versions in the folder with my kit that I used. That way it is easy for me to give credit to the kit or template designer.

UnZipping Files

One of the first and most important things to learn when starting with digital scrapping is how to zip and unzip files.  Whenever you buy a kit or template pack, the graphics are zipped up in a folder.  You will download them to your computer hard drive and they will look like this:

Most of the files above are unzipped and the one at the bottom is zipped.  There are two ways that I unzip my files.  If I just have one, then I right click on the folder itself and choose "Extract All".  Afterwards, I delete the zipped one.

But usually a kit will have 3 to 4 zipped files and I hate having to wait for each to unzip.  I did it that way for far too long!  Then I discovered a wonderful free program called Extract Now.  Love it!

Go HERE to download the program.

Once you have it downloaded, it should show up as an option under your program files.  Open up the files you want to unzip and then using the start button, find Extract Now under your programs and open it.  Simply slide all of your files into the box:

Literally, just drag and drop!

Next, there are a few settings you'll want to set up in the beginning, but then they'll be there for the rest of the time.  So click on the little button in the bottom left corner that says settings.  From there, choose destination from the top menu:

I click on the box to open the files where they are.   What I usually do is cut and paste my zipped up files from my download box to whatever folder I want them organized in. That way I can just have them opened there and not have to change the setting each time to direct them to where I want them-but either way works.

The next setting is the one that says "post extraction".  Click the boxes I show below and once the files have been unzipped, they will automatically be deleted (the zipped ones!).  It helps to keep your files clean and not overcrowded!

Now just click okay and hit Extract and you're done! Your files are ready to scrap with!

Aligning your layout

I will admit, this isn't something I learned or used until recently when I got into designing templates.  Now I wish I had used it much more often!

In Photoshop, there is a super quick and easy way to keep everything aligned and even.

I'm going to share two different ways to line things up on your layout!

Let's pretend that you have 3 photos that you want to line up.  The first photo is large and you want the other two to line up so that together they would make one nice box.

I like to make my own squares first and line them up and then clip my photos to them.

First thing I'm going to do is the math!  Let's say I want my large photo to be 4x6 inches.  I would create a new image at 4 inches wide and 6 inches long at 300 dpi.  Then I would fill it with a color:

Now I'm going to create one more box half and a little less than this one.  If I want a half inch space between the two smaller photos, then I would make a new image with the dimensions of 4 inches (because our width isn't changing) and 2.75.  3 inches would be 1/2 of 6 inches and then I would want the two boxes to be a quarter of an inch smaller, giving a half inch in between.

Now put these images on your 12 by 12 inch layout and remember to place the smaller box on there twice.

At first glance, these look pretty lined up, but we're going for exact!  So, click on the layer of the large box and the top box and then go to layer>>Align>>Top Edges.  You'll notice them line right up.  Now do the same with the large box and the bottom one:

The last thing we want to do is make sure there is a 1/2 inch space between the large box and the two smaller ones.  To check this, we can click on View from the top menu and then choose Show>>Grid

This will put a grid over the whole thing and you can move the big box to be 1/2 inch away.  You can also use the grid from the beginning to line things up, but I wanted to show you several different options.

Text in a shape

I was scrapping and even designing for years before I learned this nifty trick!  It's so easy and makes it very fun to put your text in the shape of a circle or star or whatever might go with your layout.

First we're going to pull up a layout that needs some journaling. I'm going to use the amazing freebie that Evie made for us. I've placed my photo and now I want to journal.  I'm going to do it in a half circle shape like this:

So my next step is going to be to right click on the half circle in the layer palette and choose "select pixels".  This will put the marching ants around my half circle.  This is the start to creating the path for my journaling.

Add a layer by clicking the little box at the bottom of the layer palette that looks like a little paper with a folded corner.  Now you are going to look up on your layer palette and see where it says layers?  And next to it is channels and the last option is Paths?  You are going to click on it and it will change the look of your layers palette.  Next you are going to click on the icon at the bottom (follow the arrow in the pic below) and click on it. 

You'll notice that it changes the marching ant to a line around that section.  It is now ready for you to type your text within that area.

Here it is with the final result. You can play around with the size and if you want it centered or flush right or left.

Writing Text on a layout

Today, we're going to talk about text and how to use it in Pixlr.  Lets start by pulling up a partially completed layout and decide where we want to add the text.

Here I put in the text layer that came with the template.  In photoshop, it is easy to just change out the wording, but it works a little different in Pixlr.  So, for now, we're just going to look at it as a place marker and once we get ready to add our own journaling/text, we'll delete this layer.

If you click on the letter A, on the left hand side of the tool bar, and then click at the top of where the text is showing here, it will give you a text box.

I changed out the font to one of my favorite handwritten fonts by Darci Baldwin.  Then I changed the font size to 25 and the color to a dark brown so it will match the colors of the kit! 

Now, just type in your journaling into the text box and when you click okay, it will start the journaling wherever you placed the cursor.  You are also able to move it-if needed.

Now, I know that you are thinking how tiny that print looks.  But keep in mind that you are seeing this layout at about 20%.  If you view it at 100%, which is what you will view it at once it is printed, you'll see that the print is a great size:

To change the percent that you view it at--look at the red box above and change it to 100.  It usually is around 20%.  Now you can use the slider to read your journaling and see if you made any typos. As you can see above, I left out the r on your layout.  So, I will show you how to edit your box and make changes.

To edit the box, make sure that your layer with the text box is highlighted and then click on the A again on the left hand side and click anywhere on the journaling you typed. It will pull up the box and you can go in and add to it, make changes, etc.

Here is my fixed layout, this time at 50%:

I hope this tutorial was helpful!

Creating a round square of paper

If you were or are a paper scrapper, do you just love the little tool that allows you to clip off the corners, giving you a rounded edge?  It used to be one of my favorite tools to play with!  I rounded all my corners back in my paper days!

It is super easy to get this same look in photoshop.

Start with a blank 12x12 screen open.  Using the menu options on the left sidebar, choose the shape tool but change it from a rectangle shape to the rounded shape (it is on the drop down menu from the icon I have circled below):

Right click on that icon and choose the second option.  Next go up to the top and change the pixels to about 80.  Also make sure that the first box option is checked.

Now that you have all the settings ready, draw out your shape.  If you want it to be a perfect square--then hold the shift key down while you draw it out:

Also, after you draw the shape, you will want to Rastersize it so you can make changes, clip paper to it, etc.   To rastersize, just right click on the layer in the layer palette to the right and choose the option "Rastersize Layer".

That's all there is to it.  You can adjust the size, clip a paper, a photo, whatever you like to it!

Pixlr Tutorial--Changing out elements on a template

Up to this point, in the tutorials, we have covered how to add papers and clip them to the pieces of the template.  We have talked about shadows and adding a title.  Today, I'm going to talk about elements.

Every template has two types of images on their layers.  There are the pieces that you clip something to and the piece remains on your layout.  For example, most papers fall in this category.  You are simply covering the piece with a paper of your choosing.

The other type of image are place holders.  Things like leaves and flowers and strings and stitching--these just give a suggestion of where you might place these items on the layout.  It doesn't have to be exact and often the elements you pull from your kit won't perfectly match the place holders on your template. 

Let's get started to see what I mean!

We'll start out with some of the paper layers done and we'll build the cluster in the center:

First I pull in the next template piece, which is a string (it is the grey piece below) and then I look in the element section of my kit and find something similiar (this is the brown string).

I'm going to shrink the brown string a bit, move it over where the grey place holder is, add a shadow and then delete the place holder.  It will now look like this:

Let's do one more place holder, following the same steps as above:

Notice how the leaf is a little different, but it still basically goes in the same spot.

I'm going to finish out the cluster set, just following the steps above and this is what we get: