Celebrate your relationships with the ones you love (even yourself!) with a Valentine’s Day layout. After you are done, you can save this layout as a low-resolution JPG and use it for your desktop wallpaper, or print out a 4” x 6” copy to give as a Valentine.
Supplies needed:
Photos of your loved ones
Patterned (digital) papers
Photoshop CS
Try to remember to save your work after each step. This will insure less heartache if something accidentally happens to your computer.
Here’s what we’ll be creating:
1. START A NEW DOCUMENT: Start a new document in Photoshop that is 11 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall, white background, 300dpi. Turn on the GRID (VIEW>GRID) and make sure SNAP TO GRID is checked. There’s one more setting you’ll need to set –go to EDIT>PREFERENCES>GRID and in the box where it says “Subdivisions” type in 5.
2. CUTTING/PASTING PATTERNED PAPER ON YOUR LAYOUT: Open the paper (or papers) you want to use and copy 2.5 inch squares then paste them to your new layout document. To do this, open your digital paper. Select the marquee tool (press “M” on your keyboard) and type in 2.5in in both the WIDTH and HEIGHT boxes. Now, anywhere you click on the paper will automatically make a selection that is 2.5inches square. CTRL+C to copy, click on your layout document and CTRL+V to paste. Do this until you have about 7-8 squares.
Here’s what you should have so far:
3. ADDING PHOTOS: Now, open the photos you want to use and follow the same technique above to cut out 2.5inch squares of the faces in your photos. Copy and paste them to your layout.
4. LINE EVERYTHING UP: You should have a lot of paper pieces and some photos on your layout. It’s time to line them up. We’re going to make a grid of 4 across and 3 down. Using your MOVE TOOL, move the papers and photos so they line up with the grid leaving even spacing between the photos/papers. If you have too many papers, click on one of them and HIDE it in the layers palette by clicking the eyeball icon. It will still be there in case you change your mind later and want it back. Arrange all your pieces to your liking.
5. Your layout should look like this now with all the papers and photos lined up.
6. Now you can clear the grid lines (VIEW> (uncheck) GRID).
7. ADD JOURNALING: Click on the text tool (looks like a “T” in the tools palette). I simply put names on the photos and a title in the bottom right area along with the year. If you are going to leave your layout as a digital piece, save it now as a high-quality JPG and print it out for your album!
8. EXTRAS TO DO: Add a drop shadow to each of the elements for a more realistic look. (Remember for realism, paper elements shouldn’t have too deep/large a drop shadow. The default drop shadows in Photoshop need to be adjusted – that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial, but check the Help files if you want to know.) Add elements or more journaling to record special thoughts about the people in your layout.
If you would like to purchase the paper that I used for my tutorial, please visit the Matter of Scrap Boutique. We have more digital ideas and lots of high-quality designer digital scrapbooking supplies!
Clara Wallace is the owner and designer at Matter Of Scrap Digital Scrapbooking and is active in the digital scrapbooking community. Her layouts have been published in the Simple Scrapbooks Digital Scrapbooking idea books. You can find more tutorials and ideas at her digital scrapbooking site, http://matterofscrap.com.
