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Welcome! This tutorial is to learn how to make textured cardstock "Paper" for Adobe Photoshop Elements.  I'm starting out with an easier lesson, to get you familiar with the basics, your color palette and effects. 

First let me talk a little about digital scrapbook paper.  Just like traditional paper, you can have the traditional sizes:  12 X 12, 8.5 X 11, 8 X 8, 6 X 6 etc.  But the great thing about digital paper is you can make it any size you want!  And you can reuse it as many times as you would like!  There are sites and groups that discuss the ppi (pixels per inch) for paper, some say 200 ppi is more than enough and takes up less space.  My personal thought is that the majority of digital scrappers make their items at 300 ppi (which I have printed out beautifully) is the standard, therefore you won't have to resize your papers or items to have them fit each other if you're going to mix and match kits etc.  Which means if you have a paper at 300 ppi and elements at 200 ppi, you will need to make those elements larger to fit with your paper (vice versa).  So, I'll be doing my tutorials at 300 ppi, but please make yours however you wish - it's your art!

Step 1:  You need to decide the size you want your paper.  I always make mine 12 X 12 so I can use it for any layout even bragbooks at 4 X 6.  But again, choose what ever you like. 

Start off going to FILE - NEW

Then you will get a box that looks like this:

At the very top you will see NAME.  Once you put in your information highlight UNTITLED-1 and put in your own title.  Mine will be 12 X 12.  This way you can easily use the same parameters next time you want to make a paper. 

Next is PRESET, this is where you can select the arrow and a list of pre made sizes will drop down.

Then you will see where you will decide the size of your paper.  As you can see mine is set at 12 for width and height, and to the right of that you will see I have selected INCHES.  If yours says pixels, just hit the arrow next to it and select inches.  Then below that you will see RESOLUTION, I have mine set at 300 PIXELS/INCH.

Next you will see BACKGROUND CONTENTS.  I set mine to be TRANSPARENT, so I can chose my colors on my own.  Your other options will be White or Background color.  Well I never know what my background color was, nor is it what I would always want to start with, so that is not very helpful to me.

Step 2:  Let's choose our color now.  Go to your TOOLS Palette and choose the paint bucket:

Then lets go over to our MATERIALS palette:

Click on the top color which is your foreground color (the bottom layer is your background color).

Find a color that is pleasing to you.

Then go back to your blank canvas and you will see your curser change to the paint bucket.  Click on your blank canvas and it will fill with the color you've chosen.

Step 3:  You now have a solid paper.  Which is nice to have to go with patterned papers, so let's save this one.  Go to FILE - SAVE.  Then save it as a jpg and put it in a new folder with whatever name you'd like to make it and name it something like SolidGreen_YourInitials.  You will then see a screen like this:

I always set mine to Maximum for the best quality.  Just remember the higher your quality, the bigger the file size, if this is an issue for you.

Step 4:  Now let's add a little texture to this paper.  On the very top of your screen go FILTER - TEXTURE  - TEXTURIZER:

 
Here comes the fun part!  You will get a page that looks like this:

Wow look at all those options!  Don't worry though, it's fun I promise :0)  The best tool of digital scrapbooking is that button - CANCEL!  If you don't like it, just hit cancel and it will change nothing on your original.  Lets take a look at what we can do with our paper now.

To the left you will see what your paper will look like as a preview.  My sample is just a small part of the image to save space here. 

Then in the middle you'll see all those folders:  Artistic, Brush strokes etc.  Go ahead and click on them all and see what happens.  Now some of them will give you no effect at all because we only have a single color paper.

On the right you see where you can make changes to the preset from Adobe.  Play with everything, to see what you can come up with.  Here's my example, I'm going to go under the folder ARTISTIC, then choose SMUDGE STICK, to the right I changed my stroke width from 2 to 3.  I kind of think it looks like grass which is giving me an idea, so I'm going to stick with this one.

I hope you're not feeling overwhelmed, please don't.  If too many options scare you then just pick one folder and hit the options until you see something that inspires you.  Then next time you play, pick a different folder and so on.


 

The great thing about PS Elements is that you can add many textures at one time.  You can add LAYERS for even more looks.  An example is at first I couldn't get a result from STAINED GLASS under the TEXTURE folder because I only had one color.  Well since I did my SMUDGE STICK see how I now have a couple colors/shades in my preview above?  Here's how to add more texture:

Look at the very bottom of my screen print to the right.  You see the garbage can?  To the left of that is an option to add an additional layer.  Click on that and add an additional layer.  I can now see an effect from the Stained Glass because I have multiple colors from my first texture!  Now you can play with the folders again and see what you can come up with.  I'm just going to stick to my grassy looking texture.

If you don't like that second texture, then highlight the texture you don't want and then click on the garbage can and it will delete that layer.

Click OK when you have something you like and it will then fill your paper with the texture you chose.

You can't see my texture can you?  Well that's because if you look at where my curser is, it's telling me I'm only looking at my paper at 9.39%.  If I go to the very top and choose VIEW then ACTUAL PIXELS, I'll be able to see what my textured paper really looks like:

Step 5:  Now let's save this paper.  Go to FILE - SAVE AS.  You don't want to SAVE, because that will save over your original.  So choose SAVE AS and save it as a jpg again and give it different name like TextureGreen_YourInitials.
Step 6:  Now go through this process at least one more time choosing a different color and texture.  This will give you at least 4 papers to start your kit.  For my next tutorial I'll show you how to take those papers and make patterned paper :0)
I hope you found this tutorial helpful.  Remember this is FUN! lol  Don't worry if you don't think you're very creative.  Pick colors that are pleasing to you.  Photoshop Elements will help you with their effects and functions.

Renee' Strucel

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