Basic Tips for Digital Scrapbooking

[IrishRaven]

Some Real Basic Tips for Digital Scrapbooking – for those wanting to get their feet wet. 

Some things to keep in mind is that most digital kit designers work with their files as large as 300ppi (pixels per inch) to give their designs great detail.  Papers are more often in a JPG format while the elements are usually saved in a PNG format which gives an interlaced benefit to them.  Meaning, the background is transparent so you can literally drag & drop elements into your layouts. 

Most designers want you to have full reign on what shadows you want to give your elements for a 3-D look, so quite a few do not automatically come with a drop-down shadow.  You can add this style on in your own graphics program.  In Adobe Photoshop you can find this under the heading Layer-Layer Style-Drop Shadow.   Play with the sliders to get the feel you want… you can also change the colours of the drop shadow itself. 

Lingo – Understanding some of the common terms used:
Layers – using layers is really a great way to keep each of your layout’s elements separate from each other so you can change your mind, flip order of your elements and add different styles to them.  When you drag & drop elements onto your background paper most graphic programs will automatically make this its own layer.    You can also merge layers together later if you want to.  Say joining two elements together.  (One word of caution… do not put on your drop shadow or inner shadow prior to merging them… they will duplicate the effect when merged.  Merge together first… then add the layer style.)

Opacity – this literally means the thickness of image.  You can play with this if you want to give a see-through feel to what element you wish.  Or soften the element. 

Brightness/Contrast – One of the many adjustments you can do in many different programs.  You can altar the look of an element or paper by using these sliders.  They will not change the opacity of the element at all… just how bright/dark & dull/sharp coloured it is.

More to come… stay tuned….

[Estir_BunE]

AWESOME Info!!!!!!!!!!!

[~deb~]

Nicky - excellent thread!  THANKS

[JenRadcliffe]

Great tips, Nicky!

[SuzieQ]

And I actually "get it"! Thanks Nicky!