Working With Photoshop Elements Themes

One of the benefits to using Photoshop Elements is taking advantage of it's build in design themes. This video shows you how to easily get started creating a scrapbook layout using themes.

Hello, and welcome to the Photoshop Elements for Absolutely Beginners training video. Today I’m going to show you how to get started in Photoshop Elements if you’ve never done digital scrapbooking before.

When you first launch Photoshop Elements, you will see this welcome window that gives you a few options as to what you want to do. For example, you’ll see Product Overview, View and Organize Photos, Quickly Fix Photos, Edit/Enhance Photos, and Make Photo Creations.

I’m not going to go through all of these steps, because you can do that on your own. Today I’m going to do the Make Photo Creations option. When you click on that icon, you are going to be presented with this Create with Your Photos option page. The first thing you’ll see is a select a size drop-down menu, it is set by default at 8 ½ by 11. When you click on it you will also see 12 by 12 and a couple other options in millimeters.

Select the 12 by 12 for scrapbooking layout. Below that it will say select a layout, you can choose one photo or if you scroll down, you can see all the other options available by default. This one has 19 photos.

Today, I’m going to choose two portraits. When you click on that icon, it’s going to pop up take two photos from your sample library, and plug it into the page layout. Below that, it’ll say select a theme, which is optional. I’m going to choose this option, just to give you an idea of how you can get started really quickly in digital scrapbooking with Photoshop Elements’ preset styles.

If you scroll down I am going to choose for this example scrapbook two. When you click on that, it’s going to start processing that layout. As you can see, it’s pulled up a default background paper with two different styles. It looks like it already has a torn-edged look to it, and it’s added a frame around each of your photos. I’m going to click okay. Then it’s gonna take us to the work window in the Elements browser.

Now, when I zoom in here, it says click here or add photo or drag photo here. If you already opened your photos that you want to use, they’re will display down here in this thumbnail gallery. I haven’t done that yet, so I’m going to click on the gray area, and it will pop up the browser window, so I can go and look for the photos that I want to use.

I am going to select these two photos. When you have the photos selected, you’re will see this little option slider bar. You can zoom it in or zoom it out, rotate the photo, or you can choose a different photo. I’m going to go back to the one I wanted. You also have the option to cancel. But I’m keepng this one, so I’m going to click the green arrow, and it’s will be set in my layers.

Over here in the layers tablet, you’re going to see this layer here that’s highlighted. This is where my photo is located, as far as the document is concerned. Now select the background paper, now that one is selected, you are not allowed to move the backround.

When you have a layer selected, make sure you have also selected this arrow key. Then you can move it around wherever you want. You don’t have to stay exactly how they have the layout set up. Typically with scrapbooking, a lot of things aren’t symmetrical anyway. I’m going to move that one up in that corner,and that one down there.

The other cool thing about using their pre-default themes is you can change them whenever you want to. In this Artworks and Effects window, you’re going to see a few icons here at the top. The second one over is the themes options. Under this themes option, you can choose from any type of seasons or nature. You have a couple options here, click on that, click on apply and then click okay.

It’s changed the background image for me. Now, it’s not something I really like, so I’m going to go back down to the scrapbook option again. I’m going to try the photo layout. Click on wedding classic, which certainly doesn’t fit the photos that I’m using, but I’m going to see what it looks like anyway.

I like this layout much better. However, my photos are not cropped correctly. As you can see, my head is being cut off here. To change that click on the photo, and you can see this bounding box appear. The next thing you want to do is right-click and select Position Photo and Frame.

The slider bar and these other options have now reappeared, when you click on the photo, you can drag it, you can scale it, and generally move it where you want, so it fits in that frame nicely then click okay.

Now I’m will do the same for this one. Now that I have my photos where I want them, I am going to add my title. That is done by simply clicking on this T icon here on the left-hand side of the browser window, this is your type tool. When you click on that, you’re going to see these options going across the top.

First of all, I’m going to select my font, I’ve selected this script font. Also I have made my type point quite large, because on a full-resolution, 12 by 12 scrapbook page, your standard 72-point font is going to be fairly small. So I have changed this to 152. When I click on the layout, I’m will see my flashing cursor, which is quite large, then just start typing.

Now I’m going to do part of my title at the bottom, as well. I can see this layer, the type layer is selected here. Click on the next one below it. That will get me out of that type layer. Then I’m going to click on another one down here, and it will automatically create the second type layer for me.

I see that my type is not going to fit where I want it , so at this point, I’m going to make this part of my title much smaller, drop it back down to 72 points. Now, when I click on this arrow key or the move tool, I can select my type and move it wherever I want to.

Now, as you can see, this one up here is a little bit too big, but I do want it to be as large as possible. So I will drop that down to 72 points, that keeps the word loves still fairly large.

There are some fun effects you can do with type. For this one, I am just going to simply add a drop shadow. When you click on this apply effects, filters, and layer styles icon here in your artwork and effects table, under special effects, I have layer styles selected.

The options, I’m going to scroll down to drop shadows. I’m just going to select soft edge, click apply. I’m will do that for both of my type – for my title.

There you go. Very simple drop shadow. However there isn’t a scrapbook page that is complete without an embellishment, so I’m going to show you, just using what is default in Photoshop Elements, how you can create a simple embellishment for this layout.