How to Design Digital Scrapbook Elements
Using digital scrapbook templates can be a fun and easy way to create digital scrapbooking pages for your memories, gifting, and more. Digital scrapbook album templates are wonderful for printing, framing, and sharing with your family and friends digitally. In this article, we'll look at how to use digital scrapbook templates, asset sets, high-resolution graphics, and more. It's easy, fun, and you can get started today.
What You'll Need
The following assets are used in this tutorial:
- Wedding Themed Design Template
- Stock Photos (Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4, Photo 5)
- Digital Scrapbooking Kit Illustrations
- Digital Paper Pack
You're welcome to download these assets or use assets of your own. The concepts will transfer.
Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:
1. What Is a Digital Scrapbook Template?
A digital scrapbooking template is a layout design that's already been completed for you. You can insert your photos, text, illustrations, and other content, right into the layout.
Since it's a digital template, you have the flexibility of deciding how to share your finished product. If you want to print it and add it to a physical scrapbook, you can. This can be a lovely option, especially if you don't necessarily want to cut or paste content onto your photographs. Or you can easily share web-friendly versions of your scrapbooking pages via email, messenger, or social media.
Digital scrapbooking templates can work for a number of design situations too. They make for great invitations, greeting cards, posters, and gifts. Celebrate a special day or announcement with a digital scrapbooking page. It's a fun way to visually share memories, sentiments, or even just warm hellos with your friends and family.
It's not all that different from traditional scrapbooking—only you have the convenience of digital tools. So, for example, you can undo if you don't like the way you've "cut" your digital paper. There's no need to fear damaging older photos. Digital files also have less risk of being lost or damaged, as opposed to traditional paper, which can weather with time.
When looking at digital scrapbooking templates, you have a lot of choices. You can work with an entirely built template page, or you can pick up a digital scrapbooking kit—which usually includes fun assets like digital scrapbooking paper, embellishments, digital stickers, and other fun add-ons. One of the huge benefits here is that you can reuse this content more than once. You can also print these assets, if you prefer working with physical scrapbooking pages.
So let's take a look at how to use digital scrapbook templates. We'll test out a layout and make some customizations. It's easy and fun.
2. How to Use Digital Scrapbook Templates
Step 1
Here's the template that we'll use in this demonstration. In this particular walkthrough, we're going to use Adobe Photoshop. It's a powerful tool used by professional designers—you'll have plenty of options to create beautiful pages in this software, both for digital viewing and for print.
You're welcome to download this template and work along, or use a file of your choice.
Step 2
This particular template comes with two Photoshop files included—one for each page design. Open one up by going to File > Open, and then select the file on your computer. Click OK to open it.
Let's begin by opening our Layers panel. This is an essential part of working in Adobe Photoshop. Think of layers like content "layered" on top of each other. Our content here in our layout has been separated into different layers for our convenience.
To open your Layers panel, go to Window > Layers. It looks like the example shown below.
Step 3
Let's start by editing some of the existing text in the template. We can easily do this with the Type Tool, which is located in the Tools panel. It's highlighted in the screenshot below.
With the Type Tool selected, simply click on some existing text in your layout. Then, you can edit and type as you would in most word-processing software. You'll notice that the applicable text layer also becomes active in your Layers panel.
Step 4
Next, let's add some images to the template.
We'll begin by turning to our Layers panel. There is a convenient folder here titled "insert your image here". This makes things convenient and easy for us. To expand a folder (or group), simply click on the arrow to expand it.
Inside, we have a number of Smart Objects. These are where we'll insert our images. Smart Objects are handy because they can hold image content for us, protect our images, and create a space where can easily swap images out.
If you're not sure which layer is which, click on the eye symbol to toggle visibility on and off. This can help you identify which layer you have selected.
Then, click on the layer thumbnail to proceed.
Step 5
Photoshop then takes us to a space that looks like a new document. You can see what this looks like in the screenshot below.
Notice that our layers are different here. We're inside the Smart Object at the moment, rather than looking at our template document.
Step 6
The first thing we need to do is paste our image into the Smart Object.
Open your image by going to File > Open and navigating to the image on your computer. Click OK to open it up. In this example, I'm using this stock photograph.
Then, go to Select > All to select the entire image. Notice, in the example image below, that there's a dashed line around the image. This is a visual cue that tells us it's selected.
Go to Edit > Copy to copy it.
Step 7
Next, return to our Smart Object document. Go to File > Paste, and then our image should be pasted into this document. Notice that it doesn't perfectly fit into this space by default. It's way too large as is.
Step 8
To resize our image, first make sure it is selected in our Layers panel.
Then, go to Edit > Free Transform. This allows us to click and drag on the resulting resize handles to resize our image. Note the little squares around the image in the example below. They are outside the Smart Object's boundaries—that's because the photo is larger than this space. We can adjust the photo to any size we like within this visible space.
Once you're happy with how your image is resized, save this document by going to File > Save.
Step 9
Next, return to your digital scrapbooking template file. If you saved the Smart Object file, you will now see your image within the layout.
We can go back into the Smart Object any time to swap our image, edit it, and make adjustments. The image will also be protected from edits we make on our scrapbooking page.
Step 10
Repeat this process to add more images to your digital scrapbooking page. In this case, I added more matching stock imagery of this beautiful couple.
Remember, the key is clicking on the layer thumbnail. Notice how Smart Object layers have a special icon on the right side of the thumbnail. This is a quick way to tell that it's a Smart Object.
Step 11
Next, let's experiment with adding more content to our digital scrapbooking page that isn't necessarily within a Smart Object. You could do this with photos, but let's try it out with some digital scrapbooking clip art.
Here are some cute digital assets that should match our aesthetic well. You could use any digital sticker packs, digital paper, or even your own scans if you'd like. Open this content in Adobe Photoshop to begin.
Step 12
Here's one of the cute digital clip art images from that digital scrapbooking kit, opened in Adobe Photoshop. Just like with our photograph, we'll need to select and copy it. To do so, go to Select > All, and then Edit > Copy.
Step 13
Return to our digital scrapbooking layout, and go to File > Paste to paste the image onto the page.
Photoshop pastes our image onto a new layer, as shown below. The position of the layer matters—for example, if you want the image on top of all the other content in your layout, it would need to be on the top layer. Click and drag a layer within the Layers panel to change this order.
Paste as much content into your layout as you like. One of the pros of digital scrapbooking templates is that you don't need to buy more stickers or more paper. Paste and reposition to your heart's content!
Step 14
We can also add new text to our layout, using the Type Tool.
Select the Type Tool in your Tools panel. Then, click on a part of your layout that does not have any text. You can then type and edit as you would in most word-processing software.
Tip: Want to change the font? Go to Window > Character to open up the Character panel. You can change the font, font size, font color, and more from this panel.
Digital Scrapbook Templates Are Simple and Fun to Use!
We can create and customize digital scrapbook templates in so many fun ways using these techniques. Here's an example outcome, shown below, using the techniques and assets that we tested out in this walkthrough.
Just add your images, paste in plenty of cute, fun extras, and you have a beautiful, printable page to share with your loved ones. It's really fun!
More Digital Scrapbook Templates and Graphics to Download
Love digital scrapbooking? Check out Envato Elements. One low fee gets you access to a huge library of design files, templates, and more—like graphic templates, fonts, digital paper, illustrations, and so much more. The content is high resolution, making it appropriate for printing too. It's perfect for hobbyists and professionals alike.
Here's some more high-quality content you can download today. It's all included for one low fee—download as much as you like from a huge library of content.
1. Baby Announcement Digital Scrapbooking Album Templates Card
Digital scrapbooking can be a really fun and stylish approach for announcements, cards, and other celebrations. You could also adapt this page to work as a printable scrapbook page.
2. String Lights Stylish Digital Scrapbooking Templates Graphics
If you love cute illustrations, digital stickers, and other assets you'd find in a digital scrapbooking kit, this one would be a fun addition to your collection. Add some hand-drawn string lights over photos and other memories.
3. Digital Scrapbook Templates Polaroid Photo Frames
This collection of digital photo frames could be the perfect start to a digital scrapbook template—or keep it as is and insert your photos. How far you customize the template is entirely up to you and your project's goals.
4. Floral Digital Scrapbooking Templates Graphics Pack Papers
Isn't this set of digital paper beautiful? It includes hand-painted watercolor designs that have so many possibilities. Use them as a background or an extra element in your next digital scrapbook page—or print them!
5. Save the Date Digital Scrapbook Album Templates
Here's another cute template that takes a scrapbooking approach and applies it in a fun way. Digital scrapbooking is such a cute idea for postcards. Give this one a download and customize it today.
Start Designing Your Digital Scrapbook Templates Today
There's so much you could do with digital scrapbook templates—design digital pages, use them for invitations, share them online, and so much more. What kind of digital scrapbook template would you create? There's no better time than right now to dig in and start creating. Good luck with your next project!
Want to learn more about digital scrapbooking? Check out these free tutorials from Envato Tuts+:
How to Design Digital Scrapbook Elements
Source: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-use-digital-scrapbook-templates--cms-36188
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