| Step 1: You need to choose
which paper you want for your background.
Got to FILE - OPEN
Then you will get a box that looks like this:
Choose "thumbnails" so you can see the
what is in the folder.
Look for the paper that you want for
your background. You can double click on the one you want and it
will open up in Photoshop. Or you can single click and
hit open. |
| Step 2: Follow the steps
above and choose the elements you think you want on your
page. Open as many as you want by clicking on the
element while hitting your CTRL key and selecting the
others, you can always close out the elements you don't end
up using. Your screen can look like this:
If this is too daunting for you,
then just open one element at a time :0) Otherwise,
you can just minimize the elements until you want to place
them. |
| Step 3: Have your background
paper open. Take a moment and think about how you want
your photos to be. Do you want a really big photo?
Several smaller photos? Circle or rectangle?
When I do a 12 X 12 layout, I personally like the many photo
layout. |
| Step 4: We need to make our
Paper a Layer. This way when we make our cut outs or
openings, it will be transparent so we can put our pictures
behind the Quick Page. So
Right Click on your layer and choose Layer From Background.
 |
| Step 5: For this tutorial,
I'm going to keep it simple. Then as you get used to
doing a basic Quick Page, I'll make a tutorial for something
more elaborate, like adding multiple papers etc.
Chose your Marquee Tool or hit the
letter "M" on your keyboard and Photo Shop will highlight it
for you.
If you right click on the Marquee
Tool, you will get options for Rectangle, Elliptical etc.
I'm going to choose Rectangle.
 |
| Step 6: Now go to your
paper, Left Click and draw your shape. You will see
"marching ants" as your selection. If you don't like
what you drew, then hit CTRL D on your keyboard to deselect.
This is just a small portion of my
paper. |
| Step 7: Once you have your
selection that your happy with, hit the Delete key on your
keyboard.
You now have a transparency where
your photo will go :0)
Go ahead and make all your photo
openings on your paper. You can always mix and match.
Use Circles and squares etc. Mine looks like this:
 |
| Step 8: Now have fun with
your elements! Choose an element that you want on your
page. Then click on the element layer and drag it to
your actual paper.
 |
| Step 9: It doesn't matter
where you place your element at first, because you can
always move it where ever you want.
To do this choose your Move Tool or
hit the letter V on your keyboard.
Then you pick an element you want
to move and move it where ever you want it.
Go ahead and place all your
elements where you want them. |
| Step 10: One thing that may
happen when your placing all your elements is that say you
have a ribbon and a brad, but the brad is behind the ribbon
instead of On Top of the ribbon. To fix this, go to
your layers and click on the one you want to move and drag
it Up to be on the top or drag it down to be on the Bottom.
 |
| Here's what mine looks like now.
It's a little busy looking, but hey
it's a Halloween one :0) |
| Step 11: Now we want to add
drop shadows to all our layers, to give our page a more
realistic look. I always
like starting at the top of my layers and work my way down,
when doing drop shadows. So click on your top layer in
your layers palette to high light it then go to the very
bottom and click on what looks like the letter F to add a
new layer style.
You will then get some options,
choose Drop Shadow
You will then get another screen
with Drop Shadow options. You can play around until
you get what looks good to you. For this tutorial I'm
going to make the following changes:
Distance = 20
Spread = 20 Size = 20
Then hit the OK button to accept
your new drop shadow. If you don't like what you did,
then just click on your "F" again and make changes.
Once you have the shadow the way
you like it, right click on that same layer and choose Copy
Layer Style.
This does just what it sounds like,
it copies the layer style's you have on that layer.
For ours, it's the Drop Shadow Style.
Now go down the line of your layers
of elements and right click on each layer and choose Paste
Layer Style. This will paste your drop shadow settings
quickly and easily. You may want to tweak some of the
layers, if you want a different size shadow.
 |
| Here's an up close view of a
section of my Quick Page with the shadows. It doesn't
look at flat as before.
 |
| Step 12: The final step!
Saving your Quick Page. It's very important to save
your Quick Page as a PNG. Saving it as a PNG will
assure that you maintain the areas of transparency for your
photos. Go to your very
top toolbar and choose: File
Save As You will then get an option
box of where and how to save your Quick Page.
Choose the folder you want to save
it in. Then give it a file name, and change the Format
to PNG. You will then get a prompt box with 2 options:
You want to make sure NONE is
checked. This will give your PNG a much more clearer
and crisper image. |
| To use your new Quick Page, just
open it up if it's not already open. Then pick out
what pictures you want by using the same technique you used
when opening your elements and paper.
This time you want to make sure
your Quick Page is the very top Layer. Use your Move
tool to move your pictures around to where you want them.
When you have your move tool selected, you will see a box
around that item. Click on a corner and hit your shift
key to resize your photos. This can also be used to
resize your elements. Just remember it's OK to make
things smaller, but be careful when trying to make something
larger, because you will lose some of your quality. |
| I hope you found this tutorial
helpful. You can use this tutorial for all shapes and
sizes of paper. If you're working on a smaller project
like a 4 X 6 for a brag book, you'll want to play around
with resizing your paper and elements that were made for say
a 12 X 12 kit.
The kit used in this tutorial is free for
all members of my Yahoo Group. The link to the
password protected kit is
HERE
Renee' Strucel |
