Scraps Of Mind

Scrapbooking Techniques & Tips - Printing your Digital Layouts

I don’t know about you but I’m an old fashioned girl. I like to be able to touch my scrapbook pages in printed form. Looking at them on the PC screen just doesn’t do it for me. I’m sorry, until they’re printed out they’re just not real.

But I don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of taking my 12×12 inch layout files to a professional printer to get it done. I want instant gratification.

However, as is the case with most of you I expect, I only have a regular A4 or Letter width printer.

So I recommend, when you have completed your layout, you resize it to 8×8 inches (in PSE4, Image>Resize>Image Size and change the height and width fields) and print it on your regular printer. Don’t save the reduced size unless you want to keep the file at 8×8. I just resize, print and then use the Undo button to get back to my 12×12 size. I use glossy or satin finish Photo paper and I adjust the printer settings for this and print at the highest quality. Let the ink dry properly (usually about an hour), then just trim off the white edges and there you have your digital layout…real!

Now there’s a few things you can do with your print out:

• Slip it into an 8×8 album (make sure it is in a protective sleeve, or the print will rub and wear off. And let it fully dry off for 24 hours before putting into the protective sleeve or the plastic will ’stick’ to the print.)
• Mount it on a 12×12 piece of cardstock and store it with your other hand scrapped pages (if you are bi-scraptual)
• Mount it on a canvas or in a frame and hang on the wall (makes a lovely gift)
• Or, my personal favourite, combine the two scrapbooking worlds by adding some ‘real’ embellishments such as brads, silk flowers or ribbons to it to give it an extra level of dimension.

I find that the reduction of size from 12×12 to 8×8 has very little impact on the quality of the layout (especially if you scrap at a minimum of 300 dpi). It’s probably a good idea to use a crisp clear font style if you’re going to include a lot of journaling or at least use a reasonable font size (but you’d have to do that anyway if you want to read it clearly on the screen).

And now your virtual creation is ‘real’.

Other related posts:

Scrapbooking Techniques & Tips - Photomerge: Electronic versions of your paper scrapbook layouts
Scrapbooking Techniques & Tips - Upsizing your digital photographs and images
Scrapbooking Techniques & Tips - Personalising your backgrounds