Ali Edwards Layered Template Tutorial - Jan 31, 2011
Here is a tutorial by Ali on how to use one of her Free Layered Templates. Enjoy!
Photoshop Elements Tutorial - Jan 10, 2011
I will be using PSE 7 for this tutorial, but they are all basically the same if your have a different version loaded on your PC
1. Decide what size you want your finished picture to be – this one is going to be 12”x4”. It will fit the top pocket on the protector that has 4 standard 4x6 pockets on the bottom and 1 long skinny pocket at the top.
- Edit your picture for sharpness, color, contrast, etc
3. Now use your CROP TOOL (side bar - it looks like a rectangle with broken lines – when you hover over it with your mouse it will say “Rectangular Marquee Tool”) to crop the photo – you will have to do some guessing on this at 1st. Just get all of the parts of the photo inside the rectangle that you want in approximately the right size.
4. Now move your mouse up to the top bar to “IMAGE” > “CROP” this will get rid of all of the parts of the photo you did not want.
5. Now go back to the top bar and click on “IMAGE” > “RESIZE”> “IMAGE SIZE” in the drop down window under WIDTH type in 12” since that is how wide we want our finished photo to be. Be sure your sizes are set to inches not pixels or anything else! Once you do that look to see what the HEIGHT has changed to. Hopefully you have cropped close enough to your 12x4. But no worries. Tell it “OK” – the window will disappear now.
6. If you need to take a little more off the height of your photo do that now using the steps we used above – Crop tool > Image > Crop > Image > Resize > Image Resize.
7. You should now have an image that is 12”x4” – YIPPEE!!!!
8. Now is the time to add text if you want to. Follow these steps:
9. Click on the “T” on your side bar and wait for the hour glass to go away. Then you will be left with a flashing symbol that sort of looks like an “I” this is where you will start typing. As you type it will underline all of the words but it will go away. Once you have typed what you want to say, in this case, HOME SWEET HOME, you can use your cursor to move it to where you want it. You can also highlight the text and change your font or size (you do that at the top bar where you will see the name of the font and the sizes in “pt”. PSE will automatically allow you to use ALL of the fonts you already have loaded on your computer.
10. Now you want to “glue” your words there so they don’t move. You do this by going to the “LAYERS” on your top bar and then clicking “FLATTEN IMAGE”
11. Okay – now your picture should look exactly like you want it to and it should fit your pocket exactly. The problem is no one prints a 12x4 photo! So this is what we do –
12. Minimize (-) your photo so that it is in the “PROJECT BIN” (the very bottom of your screen). Now go to the Top Bar and click on “FILE” > “NEW” > “BLANK FILE” > and make yourself a new “photo” by typing in the dimensions of a standard photo sixe – in this case we will be using a 12”x8”.
13. Again make sure your height and width are set in “INCHES”! Also make sure your “RESOLUTION” for this new photo is set at the same size as your original photo. (Note: I always shoot at a resolution of 300DPI so I know this is what I always want. If you are not sure what the original photo was shot at you can find that out by looking here “IMAGE” > “RESIZE”> “IMAGE SIZE”) Also make sure under “COLOR MODE” you are in “RGB COLOR”
14. You should now have a big blank white rectangle on your screen. Minimize (-) this into the “Project Bin”
16. Now “grab” your photo in the center and drag it down to the “Project Bin” and drop it onto the blank white rectangle you just made. It should now be on your screen in the center of the white rectangle. You can move the picture around and put it up to the top, or down to the bottom of the rectangle if you want (this is good if you want to add more photos to this blank that you just made.
17. You do that this way – minimize (-) this to the “Project Bin” and then minimize (-) the photo that is left on your screen. Open up more photos and resize them like we did above and then drag and drop them onto the white rectangle like before
18. Now – this is very important! Go to the top bar again and click “LAYERS” on and then clicking “FLATTEN IMAGE”! This will “glue” your photo together and change it back to a jpeg so that you can have it printed!
19. Lastly you must save your photo – “FILE” > SAVE AS> Give it a file name (I always mane mine with the date and a one word description) > SAVE > OK.
20. Now you should have a finished photo with multiple images on it for sending to your lab!!!!
I hope you will give this a try - but don't forget you still get 5 photo edits for FREE from me this quarter!
