What do I need to do my first layout?

• ACDSee Photo Editor. This is a photo editing software. You can find a free trial of Photo Editor here. Once you have it downloaded, run the .exe file and it will install it.

• A digital photo in .jpg format.

  • You want the best quality that your digital camera took. Don't use pictures that have been made smaller. The other option is to scan your photo. To do this, you would need a scanner to scan the photo & save it as a file.

• A digital kit. What is a digital kit?

  • A digital kit is a group of papers, stickers, alphabets and all kinds of embellishments. The great thing about digital kits is that a designer has put together entire kits that are coordinated & sometimes themed. It's like going to a paper scrapbook store & pick up all the pieces that you need for a page. You can find the exact kit that I used here for free. Or you can use any other kit you want.

• How do I get the digital kit?

  • Click this link: Jen Spiration Kit I would like to credit the designer of this kit is Vicki Stegall and you can find more of her work at www.OScraps.com To download, add it to your cart and checkout. It is free so it will not ask for payment information but you will need to register with name and address. Once you checkout, you will be provided with a download link. Click on the download link.

  • It will ask you to save the file somewhere. I would recommend creating a special area just for digital kits because if you like to do this, the number of kits will grow quickly. Create a folder called “DigitalKits" and save the file there.

  • The digital kit is still unusable because it's in a zipped format. Using Windows Explorer, browse to your “DigitalKits" folder and double click on it and it should unzip.

Ready to get started? Soon, I promise!

• Let me explain two things to make the tutorial easier to understand. If you really want to get started skip to the next section but come back and read this please when you have time.
• Undo is your friend. Anytime you do something that you don't like just undo and it's gone. To undo in Photo Editor, go to Edit | Undo. But I suggest you remember the keyboard shortcut. Ctrl - Z. You can do multiple undo's if you make a series of mistakes, up to 10 of them. If you change your mind and like what you undid, you can select Edit | Redo.
• Layers or Objects.
  • What's the difference?
    • Some photo editor software call them layers, but Photo Editor calls it objects. Layers are the same as objects. I will continue to call them objects to match Photo Editor but many digital scrapbookers will talk about layers. They are the same thing though.
  • What are they?
    • If you have paper scrapbooked, you already have worked with objects. Each item (paper, photo, element) you put on the page is an object. The one thing that is different is that with real paper you can see what is on top. In a photo editor, it will show you the objects on the side in a stack like manner. The lowest object is like your bottom paper. The next object up is sitting on top of the bottom paper and so one. This is important because you can then rearrange the objects as needed. Place one on top or below another.

Our Intended Goal:

Getting started

1. Start ACDSee Photo Editor.
2. Let's get some images ready to use. Then we don't have to keep going back to look for them.
   • The Image Basket is like your storage area for all the images you are going to use in your layout. Think of it as your work surface that has your papers, photo(s), and elements on it.

How to Add Images to your Image Basket.

1. Go to File | Image Basket | Add Files/Images

2. Browse (in the top left corner of the window) to your digital kit and select the images you want to use, click on Add

   1. For my example, I am using these files:
      • vstegall-jenspiration-solid1.jpg
      • vstegall-jenspiration-solid2.jpg
      • vstegall-jenspiration-stripes.jpg
      • flower-shabby-freebie.png
      • 

   2. Select OK.

   3. Now, we will add your photo and this uses the exact same process Repeat Step 1

   4. Browse (in the top left corner of the window) to your photos and select the photo you want to use, click on Add

   5. Select OK.

   6. Let's make sure you can see your Image Basket, go to View and see if Image Basket is checked. If it isn't, then select Image Basket in that menu.

   7. Your Photo Editor window should now look like this:
      • If use see the Quick Launch Window, click Close and you should be fine.

      • 

3. Starting your layout. First, lets do a quick review of final page size. We are going to do a 12 inch x 12 inch layout with 300 dpi (which is important for printing in the future). Most paper in digital kits come as 12 inch x 12inch and 300 dpi so we will just open up a paper and use that as our starting point. In the future you can change the layout size to the size you wish. By the time you are done with this tutorial, you will know how to crop the initial paper to get the intended size of page you want.

   1. Let's start with the paper for the background. For my example, I am choosing the yellow paper for my background. In the Image Basket, double-click on the paper you wish to use for the background.
   2. 

How to do Save As

Let's save it as new file so we don't accidentally overwrite the paper.

1. Go to File | Save As

   1. Select Save as type to be APD - ACDSee Photo Document. This is your working file. If you want to make changes later, reopen this file to make changes. At the end of this tutorial we will convert this file into JPG file which is the common image file used by everyone to print. But we can't make changes to a JPG file very easily so we need to save it as an APD for now (it's called a working file).

   2. Type in a name for your file.

   3. Choose where you want to save your file.

   4. Click Save

2. In my example I double matted the photo - which is basically putting two pieces of papers underneath the photo. Let's start the with the bottom mat. The pink paper in my example.

How to Place an Object

1. Click on the pink paper down in the image basket, hold the mouse button to place the pink paper over the yellow paper. Your cursor will turn into a Move the cursor where you want the left corner of your paper to go and release the mouse button.

2. Your screen should look like the screenshot below:
3. This is too big, so we need to cut out a mat. We do this with the crop tool. I circled the crop tool in the toolbar in the above screenshot.

Explanation of the Object Palette:

• I am going to stop and explain the Object Palette quickly. The object palette contains all the items in your layout. You can see the object layout on the right side. This will also tell which object is on top of which. To see the Object Palette better, let's close the Adjustments box by clicking on the x on the same line as the Adjustments and close the How-to's box by clicking on the x on the same line as How-tos.

How to Crop an Object

• To crop we need to first select the object we want to crop. We want to crop the pink matte. So click on the pink matte in the Object Palette.

  1. Click on the Crop tool in the toolbar or choose Image | Crop from the menus.

  2. Click on the button next to Crop Selected Image (circled in orange below)

  3. Start in the one corner click and hold the mouse and drag the new create box to the other corner. Once you create the box, it grays out the paper that will be cropped (cut.) If it's not quite right, click and hold on the one square on the corners or sides to resize the crop.

  4. Click on Apply Crop in the tool bar.

  5. If you didn't like what you did or did something wrong. Remember Ctrl-Z or Edit | Undo

     • Your layout should look something like this now:
  6. Let's repeat step 2 of place and crop another matte using the striped paper. So we get something like this:
  7. Next, we'll learn how to rotate the matte slightly.

How to Rotate/Skew an Object

1. Click on the striped map in the Object Palette. It should be the one on top.

2. Click on the Rotate/Skew button in the toolbar or from the menu Object | Rotate/Flip/Resize | Rotate/Skew. The corners on the objects turn into circles.

   • : For future reference the square and circles on the corners and sides of an object are called Handles.)

   • If you don't see the Rotate Skew button, it may be in part of the toolbar off the screen. Click on the down arrow. (Circled in red in the screen shot and you should find the Rotate/Skew button.)

3. Click on one of the circled corners and hold the mouse button. Slightly move the mouse and you will see the object (mat) rotate. Rotate as desired. In the future, you can also type in the rotate degrees that you want to rotate the object. I use this when I want 45 or 90.
4. Click Done in the toolbar.
5. Let's next learn how to move an Object.

How to Move an Object

1. Select the arrow in the upper left corner. This is called the Selection Tool.
2. Click on the Object and hold the mouse button. Move the mouse and the object moves.
3. Lets place our photo. Do it the same way as you did the paper. Click and drag it onto your page and place the upper left hand corner.
4. My photo isn't the right size so let's resize it. This is easy.

How to Resize an Object

1. Click and hold the corner
2. Move mouse and the object will resize.
3. If you wish to crop the photo, do so now, it's easier to do this before you rotate it.

   • For all objects. They are placed into your layout with the correct relation to your paper. If you make the object a lot bigger than how it was placed on your layout that object may not print out well. I recommend that you go slightly bigger but not by much. You can make it as small as you want with no issues.

4. Rotate your picture the exact same was you did the mat. Our layout should look something like this:

5. We are getting closer! Let's place the flower onto our layout. Remember how? If not, go way back to the beginning and look How to Place an Object. (click on it & drag it onto the page)

   1. Resize the flower as needed. I made it a little smaller. If you don't remember, go to How to Resize an Object.

   2. Move the flower as needed. If you don't remember, go to How to Move an Object.

6. Last step, let's add the text and curve it around the flower.

How to Create Text

1. Click on the text tool in the tool bar. It's the T with an arrow under it. Or in the menu Object | Create Text | Horizontal

2. Choose your Font and Size in the tool bar. I chose Tempus Sans ITC and 36.
3. Click to the left of your flower and type in your text. I typed in “A smile is so sweet its simply irresistible."
4. Now lets get the text to curve around the flower.

How to Curve our Text on a Path

1. Select the Selection Tool (The arrow in right corner)
2. Click on the Text in the Object Palette
3. Click on the Path button in the Toolbar. (Remember the down arrow on the right side if you can't see the button. This button hides a lot since it is so far right.)
4. Click on the circle path as shown above.
5. Make sure Pen Size is 0. This means we won't actually see the path the text goes on.
6. Click OK.
7. Wasn't that easy? Now this is a little trickier. You need to resize, move and rotate to get the text right where you want it. So play with it. Remember Undo works well when it doesn't turn out like you want it too. You can look at the screen shot below to get an idea of the shape and position of the text box to make it look right.
8. That's it, your first layout is finished!

   1. Let's finish it up. First, save the working APD file again. Go to File | Save or Ctrl-S on the keyboard.

   2. If we are completely done then you also want to save it in the Common File Format used for photos called JPEG's.

Saving your File as JPG

1. Go to File | Save As

2. Choose Save as type: to be JPG - JPEG (*.JPG)

3. Choose where you want to save it.
4. Enter in your filename.
5. Click Save
6. For the JPEG Options leave the defaults except for the Image Quality. Change that to Best Quality.
7. You are all done!

What do you do from here?

• I would suggest playing with the layout you just made.
• I would try zooming into your object, panning (sliding the image over), moving around in your image while zoomed in.
• In the Object Palette, click and drag an object up a level. See what happens.
• Try some of the other common scrapbooking functions listed in this tutorial:

  • Basic Scrapbooking Functions in ACDSee Photo Editor