It’s the little things that make life great isn’t it? For me it’s chapstick, diet coke, flip flops, automatic flushing toilets in public restrooms. Just to name a few. The same idea applies to scrapbooking. When I first started digital scrapbooking, it seemed to take me ages to complete a page. You can cut some serious time if you use a few little “tricks”. Lots of seasoned scrappers may know these already, but if you are just starting out, chances are these will be new for you.
Here is a short list of my favorite little time savers when scrapping.
Please note- I work in CS4 on a Mac. The control key on a PC is the equivalent of the command key on a Mac. For ease, I will simply refer to this key as C.
- Resizing the size of a brush or eraser- the ” [ " key resizes smaller and the " ] ” resizes the brush or eraser larger. I love this function & use it ALL the time.
- Resize your image to fit to page Hold C {as in command or control} and press zero.
- Make a duplicate {great for when you are make clusters and need multiple flowers or leaves} hover over your image hold the alt key and click and drag. You will drag a new image with it’s own layer.
- Resizing from the middle: Hold shift/alt while dragging the transform control. This will resize your image from the center – in.
- Resizing with the vertical skew: Hold Shift/C while dragging the transform control.
- Merge all layers: C/Shift E
- Undo: C/ Z
- Outline an element: hold C and click on the image in your layers pallet.
These are just a few of my favorite little tricks. I use all of these when scrapping or designing. If there is something you have never tried before, give it ago! You may be surprised at how easy it is to incorporate these little tricks into your scrapping and before you know it they will be second nature!
Happy Scrapping!
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When I first started my digital scrapbooking adventure, I didn’t know much about file types, file size or just how much hard drive space my new hobby would take up. I slowly learned these things, invested in an EHD and got my stuff organized. I’ve learned plenty over my years (like every little bit helps) and I’m sure I’ll be back to share some of my tricks….but today I want to focus on the difference between layered TIFF files and layered PSD files.
Adobe programs (like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements) can open either file type. A PSD file is a Photoshop file, and only the Adobe software can open these, a TIFF file is more universal and I know that some other scrapping software programs can open these in the layered format. This is why a lot of templates come in both versions. But, the biggest difference between the two is space. TIFF files are smaller than PSD files – and they still maintain the quality as well as layers and all effects applied to layers just like a PSD file does.
Let’s take a look at this layout I did using my Mr. & Mrs Kit of my husband and I on our wedding day.
With the high-quality photo and lots of layers and shadow effects applied to them, the PSD file comes in at 223.7MB. (To see this information on a Mac, right click on the file and select Get Info).
I’m going to open the file and re-save it as a layered TIFF file. After selecting Tiff as the file type in the Save As menu, a window of options will pop up. The image below will show you what options I use, but you can look into what they mean and make your own decisions if you’d like.
Now that my layered file is saved as a TIFF, let’s look at the difference in size. Remember our PSD was 223.7MB…
Only 129.8! That’s a difference of 93.9 MB – multiply that by all of the layered files on your computer (layouts, templates, etc) and you can save yourself GB after GB of space!
Hugs, Mandak
Nibbles Skribbles
Products available at: theStudio PU and theStudio CU
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Nibbles Skribbles
If you’re a Mac user and would like those boring blue folders filled with your kits to display the kit preview, product preview or something else – this is for you!
Many designers include an image in their products named folder.jpg – my understanding is that, in Windows, this image automatically displays as the folder icon. Mac users are not so lucky, but we can still get beautiful folder icons if we put in a little work!
Step 1: Open the Product Preview (you can also use the folder.jpg file if it’s included). Make sure that it’s sized to 600×600 at 72ppi (or smaller).
Step 2: Copy the entire image. (Select All (CMD-A) and copy (CMD-C))
Step 3: Go to the folder containing the kit/product you want to replace the image of. Right Click and select “Get Info”
Step 4: Click on the little blue folder in the upper corner, it should get a fuzzy blue border on it showing it’s selected. CMD-V to paste your image in that place
Step 5: Admire your work, your blue folder has been replaced with the preview image you used!
*Kit used for this tutorial is First Birthday by Nibbles Skribbles Coming soon!
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Hugs,
Mandak
Nibbles Skribbles
Products available at: theStudio PU and theStudio CU
Tagged as:
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