Layout From Scratch Part 2

Part two of the video series on creating a scrapbook layout from scratch

Now that I’ve created the basis for the scrapbook layout, I’m going to add some embellishments that I’ve already made. Down here in my photo bin, I have some flower embellishments that match the paper. A quick and easy way to get them into my layout is by clicking on the thumbnails and dragging them into my layout up here.

Before I do that, I am going to lock the layer that my photo’s on, so that I don’t accidentally select it while I’m clicking and dragging. The key here is to click down and drag without lifting up. Otherwise, you will wind up selecting that particular image.

We are just adding one on top of the other, on a separate layer. Now that they are in place, I’m going to start moving them one by one.

The key is to play around with it until you get them where you want. That’s the great thing about digital scrapbooking, nothing really is set in stone. You don’t have to glue anything down and try to peel it up. Just click and drag.

If you want to layer one on top of the other, you can always move them around here in the layers palette, as well. I’m also going to add a little bit of journaling. I want to place this behind the flowers and the photo. I’ll do that here, down in my layers palette.

Then I am going to type right on top of that by selecting my text tool. I have white set for my foreground, so that’s the color it’s going to type. I’ve already selected my font. And I’m going to change the point size to 14. We may need to go higher.

Now that I have my embellishments in place, I’m going to play around with my title a little bit more, and I’m going to increase the font size quite a bit.

Now I'm going to change the color after I remove the drop shadow by right-clicking Clear Layer Style. That removes the drop shadow. I’m also going to select brown for the font color. Once I have it highlighted, I’m will use the key commands "Alt" and "Backspace", that will change the color. Then, under the layers palette, Select Hard Light.

Also I'm going to increase the font size just a bit more, so it blends right in to the background of the paper, and add another one at the top. Change that to hard light, as well. You can have lots of fun with these layer styles, and have different effects going on in your scrapbook layouts.

As you can see, creating a basic scrapbook layout in Photoshop Elements is relatively simple. Once you are familiar with all the workflows, the palettes, the layers, and the special effects, it’s very easy to create traditional-looking scrapbook layouts just with these simple techniques.