Scraps Of Mind

Posted by karooch on

June 25, 2008

Scrapbooking in Silhouette

Silhouettes can make a great scrapbook layout technique.

Here’s a cool scrapbook idea which you should try. Removing your subject from the background of the photo lets you position them with whatever backdrop you want in order to tell your story.

I don’t mean like those TV reporters who stand in front of a blue screen with a fan ruffling their hair whilst they report on some news story that the TV station didn’t have an on-the-spot-reporter attending. Although you could do a terrific over-the-top and funky layout with a silhouette of your children in some totally unreal setting.

I’m mostly talking about creating a design incorporating your subject without putting them in the context of their background.

For example, in this hybrid scrapbook layout of my daughter’s University graduation I wanted to feature her on the cover of a book. So I didn’t want to keep the photo background as that would have defeated the purpose.

So I used the lasso tool in Photoshop Elements to extract her out of the background and then I could use her in my design. And don’t worry too much about getting your selection perfect. You can always clean up the edges after you’ve got rid of most of the background.

Once I had got rid of the background I was free to use her silhouette on the cover of the ‘book’ which I made for my scrapbook layout (thanks to Erica Hite’s Bookworm Collection and also Hot off the Press for the background paper). And because I did this digitally I was able to change the size to fit the layout design.

And paper scrapbookers can also jump on the silhouette band wagon. Get out your scissors and start snipping. Just make sure you have a copy of the original photo to work on. You don’t want to ruin your original.

And if your photo isn’t large enough for the silhouette feature that you want for your layout, just scan it into your computer at a high resolution (say 600-800 dpi and you can print out a larger version.

Silhouettes can be a lot of fun and you can make some very funky scrapbook layouts using them.

So why not give it a go?