We'll start with paper why? Why are we concerned about paper? Why can't we just stick a piece of paper on the bottom of the layout and call it good paper is a literal bottom of your layout, so we're going to start from the ground up if you have poor paper choices um when you start your layout, things clash if they don't work with your photo it's probably not going to work out well for you in the end and you're you're not going to happen with your layout, so paper choices are very important paper doesn't just have to be the background, it can be the foreground, it could be a major design element and we're going to learn how to do that ah, we have some goals. My goals for you for the segment are to understand all the different ways that you can use paper to ground a layout so that's all how the paperwork's in the background even though it's not a major design element it is important and we want to understand how to use paper as a foreground design element as well, and we're going to be l...

earning a lot about how to create an edit shapes and photoshopped the shape tool is your friend when working with paper and we're going to be using it a lot today so let's get started, I'd like to ask the online audience what do you use more? Do you use pattern paper or solid papers as the like the ground of yearly out the foundation of yearly out who hears afraid of using pattern papers as like the main paper in their layout? It's so funny I always use almost always use pattern paper as a huge part of my lay out, so I find it really interesting that most people don't most people use solid papers as the beginning of their layout, so we're going to be looking at a lot of hatton today don't let it scare you if you want to use solid papers instead feel free I think that just you guys designed such beautiful papers that I can't, you know, move away from what I want to go get those patterns because they're beautiful exactly that's why I use them to I know how much time they make, so I want to use as many as possible. Well, she use patterns even if it's just lightly pattern she says solids are very hard for her to work with d in montana sis they use all its molly scraps I used tons of patent papers on therapy ninety seven says I actually use usually mix and match brendle says it depends on the theme, but the patterns made me very happy patterns make you very happy tails so thank you for your responses appreciate it ok, so let's start with the very the easiest way to add some interest in your background and that is stacking background papers. You don't have to use just one it's super fun tio stack him up and with digital we have an advantage because we can take paper and we want to cut anything. We don't even have to worry about clipping masks or um or the ratio of the size for the paper all we have to dio is literally resize. Now, if you are concerned now to make sure that you constrained proportions, you can hold down shift. And I like to hold down ault while I'm re sizing as well because yes, it re sizes from the center. Now, if I were teo, you can see that it recite from the center. If I were to just hold down shift well, I resized it would re size from the corner I drug from. So if you hold down all while you are re sizing, it will re size from the center. Super quick and easy way to do that let's. Make sure we use right paper. Anything. Oh, so really simple. Way to add some interest in the background is to just add a couple of stacked papers. Just like I did on this layout. And then you have a really solid foundation to start building your main center cluster of photos and embellishments. And when you have that outside border around the edges of your layout, it really brings it into focus and draws your eye into the center of the layout. Another way that we can add visual interest in the background is by off study our papers. Another really simple trick. You can see that with this particular officer, it draws your attention right to the photos and that's normally what you want to dio when you're offsetting papers. Now I have this layout half started that we can work on the same way out, and you can see that if we were to offset the papers in a different way let's say that we pull them down here, they do different effects. So this kind of grounds the center of your layout are the bottom of your layout, but kind of tracks from your photos a little bit. Maybe you would use this if you were putting a title or some journaling down here or some cluster work, you could do the same thing on the opposite edge, which again is going to pull away from your main cluster probably not what you want to dio, but if you do it instead right here the vertical line draws your eye right to that main photo and with this banner that heads on the right direction it is going to also lead your eye to the rest of the way out so you can see you have this line drawing your eye right to the photo which then leads your eye this way and you can go down with the center cluster or with this cluster of elements and he read the read the text so the whole point of design is to lead the eye around the page so you always want to keep that in your back of your mind when you are choosing how you are going toe both add your papers and and um cluster your embellishments because you don't want to put things in there they're going to detract from what you want the idol look at if you have a page where the photo maybe wasn't so good and you were trying to focus on the journaling would you make the the design lead to the journaling first and then kind of leave the picture is an afterthought well, the thing is is that your eyes naturally going to want to go to the pictures so when you if you have about holder and these aren't the best photos these are just snapshots from my camera I didn't even really edit edit them that much um the problem with separating let's say that we took this paper over here and we were going to add our journaling down over here your eyes still going to want to lead over here because we're naturally drawn to the photos so breaking that up and causing two deaths disparate places to look at your eyes it's probably gonna mess with your design a little bit s o if you have a photo that you don't necessarily want to be the center of attention there's a lot of ways that you can ad that photo without making it the main attraction you khun blend it which we're gonna be talking about later you could make it a lot smaller if you let's say you were going to talk about journaling tricks on how to make journaling your main focus and things but you could take that photo make it small and surrounded by journal e instead so that way the journaling is the main attraction but you still have the photo because people are gonna want to look at it even if it's bad okay so you wanda example number three now this is a fun layout this layout designed my husband and I are polar opposites he is an extreme pessimist the world is going to end and I am an optimist everything's going to be fine and I think I was particularly frustrated one day with his pessimism and I really loved the thought actually designed this whole kit around the thought that he was not there. He is pat specimens and I was an optimist. So I also when I scrapped looked it wanted to create a division in my lay out. You can see that this center line divides directly down the middle of the layout and the darker colors air representing the pessimism and the lighter colors are representing the optimism. And so it's actually, um, vaguely harder process and you think it would be? Because if you want tio divided down the middle, your automatic instinct is to take one of these papers and two rotated diagonally and move it up. But what? What happens when you do that is you lose half the paper is not big enough anymore. So and said, we have tio draw a shape with your I'm gonna drop with mental? Well, I love the mental um, so what you d'oh to divide this paper let's, turn this off just so we can see better. You want to start in the corner of your layout and hold shift and click up in the top corner and hold shift and click of click in the opposite corner and then when you finish them, you'll have a triangle. Now you do this two ways if you prefer layer mass, you can draw path instead of a shape, but I prefer shapes because I think I feel that they're more they're easier for me to edit because you can drive around pictures so we're going to draw shape instead draw me triangle again this time with a shape and now I can clip this paper using command ault n g to the shape and to create the border if you know this I have a border instead of just one solid paper all you have to d'oh is duplicate this shape command jay drag it on top and clip your blue paper to it and then just move it over it's not down over and you have a nice little stripe and now what that strike does is it creates a little bit more visual interest than if you had just had the blue and the gray papers together it creates a nice contrast line down the center of your layout so that you have that nice visual contrast all the way down and you can see ok, this is definitely a divided layout it's definitely something that is a part of the design after that control is so they doesn't take up too much well for saving me ok, so I told them the last thing I never saved my psc files but if I weren't you save my psc files it would be very important to merge though that it as long as you know you're never gonna want to change them because the file size is going to be huge another thing that you can do to reduce the file size if you don't want to emerge, is you can right click on these shape players, and you can rast arise them, and that will reduce a lot of file size, too. So any time you have a smart object or a shape, they they're going to really increase your file size because they have pounds and pounds of mathematical. And that has a lot to your your file size. So, good question. Good question.

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Traci Reed

Traci Reed is a veteran in the Digital Scrapbooking world with over 10 years of experience in Photoshop for scrapbooking. She designs product for both digital scrapbookers at Sweet Shoppe Designs and paper scrapbookers through Gossamer Blue and My Mind’s

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Scrapbooking

Ratings and Reviews

Corrina

I have recently discovered digital scrapbooking and have been using a great scrapbooking software that I downloaded on-line. There are limitations with the software that prompted me to look deeper for ideas. Traci's course was fantastic! I learned so much from her not only in scrapbooking layouts and using different elements in a page but my level of understanding of photoshop has improved dramatically. The presentation was easy to follow and broken into perfect chunks to go back and review the techniques. Thank you so much Traci for presenting this awesome course. I will look for more of your courses. Your scrapbooking is beautiful and inspiring!

ChristyWhitehead

I'm a photographer. I do a lot of graphic design for my business. I feel like I'm fairly knowledgeable. I saw this class being shown for free on Creative Live one day and it wasn't my first choice to watch, but was the best out of the list... I was wrong. This is a great class. I didn't expect to learn that much and I've been learning a lot! Great info!

Lianne Kruger

Not only did she talk about how to do things in Photoshop [the computer steps] but she also explained art and design tips: what looks good and what doesn't on a page. That was a very nice touch.

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Paper: Your Layout Foundation

Paper: Your Layout Foundation

Lesson Info

2. Paper: Your Layout Foundation

Lessons

Intro to Scrapbook Layering