Last week I walked you through the steps of using a Brag Book Template and creating brag book sized layouts to print out.  For this tutorial, I'm going to introduce you to Quick Pages.

Supplies you are going to need:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 or higher - You can use an older version, but some terminology will be different.

• Quick Page created by Ann Cobb from her Springamajig Collection (This is located in the Digital Scrapbook Forum)

• Zip program to unzip the Quick Page 

Using a Quick Page to create a finished layout

A Quick Page is a pre-assembled layout that allows you to quickly and easily add a photo and print. The Quick Page will have openings where you can insert your photos.  When you are finished, you will have a complete layout that you can have printed out.  You can use these layouts by themselves, framed, in photo books, or just to view online.  Most Quick Pages are 12" x 12" and 300ppi for the ultimate quality in printing.  However, because not everyone has a printer that can accommodate a 12" x 12" print out, many resize the layout to 8" x 8".  Many stores also now sell frames for scrapbook pages.  For this tutorial, I am using an 8" x 8", 200ppi Quick Page, which is still acceptable for printing.

Step One - Open the Quick Page

After you have unzipped your Quick Page, open Photoshop Elements and on the top toolbar go to File > Open and find the directory where you unzipped your product to and open the Quick Page titled "annthegran_quickpage.png".  PNG's (Portable Network Graphic) are a image format that gives you the ability to have transparent areas.  The majority of all Digital Scrapbook Elements are in PNG format.

Step Two - Open your Photo

This particular Quick Page has a cut out for one image, however, some Quick Pages have more, which allows you to add several photos.  Everything you open in Photoshop Elements will be on a canvas, with or without transparent areas.  The cut out is what we refer to as transparency or a transparent area in the Quick Page.  Transparent areas in Photoshop Elements are indicated by the gray and white squares.  So for this image you have the canvas and the Quick Page .

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On the top toolbar go to File > Open and choose the photo you would like to add to this Quick Page Page.

Step Three - Place your photo on your Quick Page Canvas

You need to get the photo behind the the Quick Page .  The easiest way to do this is to drag and drop.  Dragging and Dropping consists of you clicking your left mouse button on one image, and without releasing the button, move your mouse over to the second image and then releasing your mouse button..

On the left handed toolbar, select (click on) the Move Tool . 

Hover over your photo, click and hold the left mouse key and drag it over so that it is on top of the Quick Page.  Once you are over the Quick Page, release your mouse button.

Step Four - Move your photo behind your Quick Page 

Right now, your image is on top of your Quick Page, however, you want it to be behind the Quick Page .

Go to the Top Toolbar > Windows and make sure that Layers is checked marked.  Find the Layers palette in your Photoshop Elements window.  On my screen, it's in the bottom left corner and labeled Layers.  You are going to see 2 small thumbnails that show the Quick Page and your photo.  Your photo layer should already be highlighted, however, if it is not, click on it once.

With your mouse, in the Layers Window, click and hold on the photo layer and drag it underneath the Quick Page layer. 

Step Five - Move Your Photo (and resize too)

With your Move Tool still selected, go to your canvas and click on photo and do not release your mouse button.  Because the photo layer is selected, you are going to move your photo around the canvas.  Move your photo around with the Move Tool so that it is showing up in the cut out portion of the Quick Page.  Make sure though that the photo fills in any transparent areas where the cut out is.

If you need to resize the image

With the Move Tool, move your image so that the top right corner of it is visible in the canvas window.  You are going to see a marquee that marks the edges of your photo, along with squares on each corners that are visible.  With your mouse, go to the top left corner box and hover.  You will notice that your mouse changes to a two sided arrow.  This indicates that you can resize.  Left click and hold and drag in or out, depending on if you need to make your image larger or smaller.  When you let go of the mouse button, a check mark and a stop icon will appear under your photo. Check means "commit" and "stop" means go back to the way it was. Experiment as much as you'd like with re-sizing your photo and click on the checkmark when you're satisfied.

If the image is really large you may run out of canvas space.  If this happens, release the mouse key, re-position the photo so that you have the left top corner visible again on your canvas and resize it some more.

Step 6 - Adding Text to the Quick Page

Many scrappers like to add information to the layout, so they can help complete the story, or to memorialize the event.  On this Quick Page, you have a lot of places where you place the journaling.  You can use word art to do journaling or you can just type in text.  For this example, we are just going to type in text.

On the left hand toolbar, select your Text Tool .  I am going to be putting my journaling in the bottom right hand corner, and the best way to do this so that your text stays within a confined area is to create a text box.

With your mouse, left click and hold your mouse button in the top corner of the blank area and drag down to the right bottom.  As you drag you are going to see the text marquee being created, and this is the marker of where your text will show up when you start typing.  When you have made a box big enough, release your mouse button.  You can always resize your text box later if you create it to small in this step.

As soon as you release the mouse button, your text cursor will be flashing inside the box.  You are going to most likely want to adjust your font size, color or type.  To to this, go to the top portion of the screen and find the text toolbar.  You will find many commands in this toolbar that let you control how your font will look.  For this example, change your font to 72 pt and change the color to black.  

Once you have done this, just start typing what you want the journaling to say.

If you can not see your text, make sure that your font layer is on top of your Quick Page layer.  If it is behind it, the Quick Page layer will hide the text.  You can move layers around just like you did in step 4 with your photo.

If you find that your font is the wrong color, size, or alignment, with your mouse, highlight the entire portion of text and then make the changes on the toolbar.  You have to highlight the portions of text that you want to edit before you can edit it though.

If you need to resize the text box

Activate the Move Tool.  With your mouse, go to the bottom right corner of the text box  and hover.  You will notice that your mouse changes to a two sided arrow.  This indicates that you can resize.  Left click and hold and drag in or out, depending on if you need to make your text larger or smaller.  When you let go of the mouse button, a check mark and a stop icon will appear under your photo. Check means "commit" and "stop" means go back to the way it was. Experiment as much as you'd like with re-sizing your text and click on the checkmark when you're satisfied.

Step 7 - Saving your Image and Printing

When you are finished with your Quick Page  you will want to save it so that you can print it out or post it in the AnnTheGran gallery.  I highly suggest that you save a PSD version of anything you created.  A PSD format is a graphic format that maintains all your layers and styles and fonts.  It allows you to re-open the file and edit any of those layers if you need to.  You never know when you'll need to edit a layout or Quick Page, and it's a lot easier to edit then to totally recreate it.

To save as a PSD go to the Top Toolbar > File > Save As > type in the file name and pick PSD as the format.

If you are going to have this printed out, you will need to save it as a JPG.  JPG is a graphic format that flattens your image and allows you to compress the overall size so that it can easily be uploaded online or put onto disk to be printed.  Be aware that the compressing an jpg image can degrade the quality of your image.  If you are printing the photo, leave the JPG quality at 12.  If you are wanting to put your image online, it's save to go to between 5-8 to get the overall KB size of the image small enough. 

To save as a JPG go to the Top Toolbar > File > Save As > type in the file name and pick JPG as the format.

A second screen will pop up.

The Quality is your compression rating.  The higher the quality the less degrading of the image you will get, but the KB size of the image will be larger.  When you have set the quality to where you want it, press OK.

When you are finished making all the Quick Page pages you wish to make, you can put them on a disk, or submit them online to a local photo printer or any online printing company, and have them printed out, which you can then put into your Quick Page!

A Side Note - Meet the Designers 

Last week I introduced you to Kathryn Estry, one of the designers who are selling in the AnnTheGran Digital Scrapbook store.

This week  I would like to introduce you to Liz Hutchinson who sells under the name Sweet Digi Scraps.

My name is Liz but to majority of the Digital Community I am known as Sweet Digi Scraps. I am a 24 year old mother to 3 darling little girls and a little boy on its way. I live in Ohio with my children and fiancé of five years and going Joe. I started out in Digital mainly through photography. I was amazed at what the programs could do to my photos and loved playing around with them. In June of 2007 I stumbled upon digital scrapbooking and a week later designed my first design because I just didn't know where to find any then. I kept creating to match the pictures I was using and just never stopped. I absolutely love the fact that I can create something that will last forever and I will be able to pass onto to my children, without the mess and supply table. 

My proudest kit right now has to be Your Smile Collection. I love the versatility of it for boys and girls and it was just so much fun to create

The Store is Open!

Did you notice that the new store is open and even better, if you buy 2 Collections, you get one free?!