Choosing Color For Digital Scrapbook Layouts

With any form of art and design, color plays an intricate relationship to our subject. Because of its instinctive, visual appeal, color has the power to evoke emotion and set the stage for what we are trying to say. As a digital scrapbook artist, your choice of color is very important to showcase your favorite photos and to preserve your memories.

Do you struggle with finding the right color combinations for your digital scrapbook layouts? Using a computer is an easy and mess free tool for the art of scrapbooking. It also provides an infinite possibility of colors to choose from. Unless you are trained in the subject of color and design, this multitude of choices can be overwhelming. I have found a very useful tool that will take all the guess work out of choosing your color schemes for any scrapbook design. It is a small yet powerful software tool called ColorCache.

With ColorCache you can:

• Use the eye dropper tool to select the source color from any digital photograph that you want to use in your layout.
• Automatically create a series of color schemes from your source color like analogous harmony and contrasting harmony.
• Save your color palettes for later use.
• Export your color palettes to popular design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Freehand.
• View your selected palettes in a 2 or more color block right in your web browser so that you can see how they work together.

The display window in ColorCache is small and can be pinned to any project or any scrapbook design software which will keep your palette on top. When you click on the eyedropper tool to select your source color, it will turn your mouse curser into a small block that will magnify whatever you are rolling over. This gives you the ability to accurately choose any color that is displayed on your computer monitor. The curser will stay in eyedropper mode until you right click the mouse. You can also set a hot key to display the eyedropper while ColorCache is running in the background.

Once you have the source color you want for your scrapbook layouts, click on the Build Palette button to display the system generated color palettes. You can also use the eyedropper right from this window. The palette builder will automatically display 22 different color schemes with 3 or more colors per palette. These include Contrasting Harmony, the source color, its compliment and to analogous colors; Standard Harmony, the source color with two analogous colors; and Equidistant Triad, which is the source color and two equally constrasting colors.

Contrasting Harmony
The source color, its complimentary color and two analogous colors make up this appealing color scheme.

Standard Harmony
The source color and two analogous colors give this layout a soft and subtle feel.

Equidistant Triad
The source color and two equally contrasting colors colors give this color combination great energy.

For my examples, I used the eyedropper to select a light shade of blue from my daughter's plaid shirt. I chose 3 different color schemes based on my selected color to demonstrate how each color combo works together yet evokes a different feel altogether. By importing each palette into Photoshop, I was able to change each color scheme with relative ease without changing any of the layout.

Once you have chosen your color schemes for your scrapbook pages, you have the option to preview your selected palette right in your browser window. Choose from different sample color blocks to see just how the colors work together. I have created a preview page just for digital scrapbook pages where you can see a simple layout with photo placemarks that you can add to the list of browers preview options. You can download the Scrapbook Layout here.