Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Tutorials on Tuesdays: Top secret information...

Today I'm going to let you in on a little secret about my scrapbooking process. Yes, a S-E-C-E-R-E-T. So pull your chair in , move a little closer to your monitor, and get ready for my big reveal.

Are you ready? Here it comes...

I don't start my page design process with photos.

Whaaa??? You say?

That's right. I don't start with photos. (Okay, so that's only like half true -I do have a contact sheet at hand.)

Let me explain.

I find that when I start with the photos I focus too much on trying to figure out how to fit them on the page. This one here, this one there. Too many to fit, too large to fit. The puzzle just doesn't come together.

Then one day I had an ephinany: You can always resize photos and you can always make more pages. What you can't do (well, at least not easily) is resize embellishments or make the page itself bigger (12x12 is it).

So rather than fight with the page elements, I find it easier to build the page and then edit my photos to fit. Sometimes it's editing them for scale (size), sometimes for color, sometimes for style (vintage effects), and sometimes for emphasis (have you checked out the lomo effect in Photoshop Elements? It rocks!).

Freeing myself from the "photos first" mindset has helped me use my supplies to build a backdrop that highlights my photos instead of fighting with them. Try it next time you make a layout and leave a comment. I'd love to hear if it works for you too.

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