Digital Scrapbooking Tips!
Adding text to Digital Scrapbook Pages!
You can add text to certain areas of a scrapbook page, even if you plan to attach your photographs to the page after it's printed! The trick is to use place holders (temporary shapes) to represent the size and shapes of the photographs in your layout.
Most computer layout programs will let you create basic shapes (squares, rectangles, circles, and ovals). If your program has this feature, create temporary shapes to use as place holders to mark where you will add your photographs later. Here's how:
1. Decide on the photographs you will use for the page and crop them to their final sizes.
2. If you will use decorative frames for your photographs, create them now so that you will know the final size of the area needed for each photograph and frame.
(Another option is to create your photo frames right in the layout program. Then you only need to add the actual photos to your scrapbook page.)
3. In your layout program, create rectangles, circles, etc.. to represent the outside dimensions of your photos. Don't worry about positioning them in your layout yet. For simplicity, we'll call these "shapes".
4. Do a test print of the scrapbook page with the shapes you have created. Lay your photos down on top of the test page over the shapes. Do the photos and frames exactly match the size of the shapes you made in your layout program? If they do, go on to the next step. If they don't, adjust the shape sizes in your layout, print and check them again.
5. OK, so your shapes are all to the right size. Now it's time to put your layout together!
6. With your layout open, import the Cliptures clipart you will use for your design.
7. Fun time! Start arranging the Cliptures clipart and the shapes on your layout. Make the Cliptures images bigger or smaller to fit your design, but do not change the sizes of your shapes!
8. Once you have your images and shapes positioned about where you want them, you can see what areas are left for adding text.
9. Create your blocks of text and position them in the open areas of your layout.
10. Now you want to fine tune everything! Make any adjustments you need to for the positions of the Cliptures images, shapes and text blocks. You can also make the Cliptures images larger or smaller if you need to, or, modify your text blocks. Just don't change the sizes of your shapes!
11. Once your done "tweaking" your layout and before you do anything else, Save Your Layout! Save it with everything in place, including the shapes. Why? So you can come back and use it again, or tweak it some more if you need to without having to recreate your shapes or anything else over again.
12. OK, so you saved it right? Everything looks good and you're ready to print? When you're ready to print, delete the shapes from the layout and print away! You will have a page with perfect spots to add your photographs and frames! More tips!
Save 2 copies of the layout! This is the safest way to work. When the layout is finished, save a master copy and then do a "Save As" and save a second copy with a version 2 number on it, or, something else that you will remember. That way if you accidentally do a save after you have deleted the temporary shapes, you can always go back to the master. Also, some programs have an "auto save" feature that may do a save without you doing anything. If your program should do an auto-save while your shapes are delete, you will have to make and size them over again.
Make a "master" set of shapes! If you use photographs of the same sizes and shapes frequently, you can create a set of master shapes that you can use over and over again. What you do is create a set of master shapes in your layout program and save the layout with only the shapes in it. Then, when you're doing a new layout, you can open up your "master shapes" file and copy shapes from that file into the layout you're working on!