As I promised earlier this week, here is something for you to download today. One of my all-time favorite layouts as a quick page. I hope you enjoy it!

Are you new to digital scrapbooking and photoshop? Check out the QUICK PAGES tutorial below. Go grab the quick page and come back here to follow along as I walk you through the basics of how to use a quick page. You will be pleasantly surprised to discover how easy it is complete layouts in photoshop using quick pages!

Already know how to use quick pages? GREAT! Scroll down to the bottom of this post to read about the quick page challenge I’m hosting and enter for your chance to win a $5 gift coupon to my shop!

HOW TO USE QUICK PAGES (a photoshop tutorial)

1. DOWNLOAD THE QUICK PAGE
Download chasing the sun quick page no. 2 HERE. (you must be logged in to the store to download). Unzip the downloaded folder so you can access the files.

2. OPEN THE QUICK PAGE
Open the quick page in photoshop. File > Open > navigate to where you saved paislee-chasingthesun-QP2-wtitle.PNG, select it and click OPEN. (mac users: simply drag the paislee-chasingthesun-QP2-wtitle.PNG icon and drop it onto the photoshop icon found on your navigation bar).

Your screen should look something like this now:

Hooray, you’re already almost halfway done. That’s right! All you need to do now is add your photo to the quick page, and perhaps the date (or journaling) and you’ve got yourself a completed layout in a matter of minutes!

3. ADD A PHOTO TO THE QUICK PAGE
To open a photo file in photoshop, follow the steps outlined in step #2: FILE > OPEN > navigate to where your photo file is, select it, click OPEN. Your screen should look something like this now, with both the quick page and the photo file open.

There are several ways to add a photo to the quick page. I like using the drag and drop method. To do this, make sure that you have the MOVE TOOL selected, click on the photo and drag it over to the quick page, then release your mouse. (note: if you hold down the SHIFT key while dragging and dropping, the photo will automatically be centered to the layout. I like starting from the center so I’m a hold-down-the-shift-key-girl).

Your layout should look something like this now. My photo file size is HUGE so it fills up most of the page.

Now that your photo has been added to the quick page, you can go ahead and CLOSE the photo file. To do this, click on the photo to make sure the file is selected then go to FILE > CLOSE. Or simply click on the button as shown below. (the buttons are located on the right hand side for PC’s)

4. GET THINGS IN THE RIGHT ORDER (IN THE LAYERS PALETTE)
The next thing you want to do is to make sure that you bring your quick page layer back to the top so that your photo is underneath the quick page rather than above the page. To do this, select the quick page layer in the layers palette and drag it to the top, above the photo layer. (Note: If you don’t see your layers palette, go to WINDOWS > LAYERS > and make sure LAYERS has a check mark next to it).

Your layout should look something like this now, with parts of the photo peeking through the quick page window. I can leave the layout as if but Maddie’s face is too large and is cut off along the top so the next thing I’m going to do is to resize + move the photo.

5. RESIZE / MOVE YOUR PHOTO
To resize your photo, press CTRL+T and a BOUNDING BOX will appear like so:

Notice how the corners of the bounding box do not appear on the screen. That’s because the photo is large and spans beyond the 12×12 quick page canvas.

I’m going to reduce the photo down to a size where that I can see all four corners of the bounding box. There are several ways to do this and I’m going to show you one. At the top of your navigation bar you will see a W (width) add H (height) box, both with values of 100%. To reduce the size of the photo, simply reduce the value of the percentage (70% and 70%). Make sure the percentage values are the SAME for both the width and the height so you retain the proper proportions of the photo (we don’t want that fun-house, stretched look on our photos!).

Your layout should look something like this. Reducing the photo size to 70% allows me to see the corners of the bounding box so I can further reduce the photo until I get the size I want. To do this, grab any corner of the bounding box and start dragging it toward the center of the box. Be sure to HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY when you are doing this so you retain the proportions of the photo.

I further reduced my photo to 49.9%. Since my photo was already centered when I brought it in, there was no need for me to move it around the layout. If you need to nudge your photo, simply use your mouse to move the photo around. Once you have the photo exactly where you want it, you can accept the changes by clicking on the arrow button on your navigation bar. Once you do that, the bounding box will disappear.

5. ADD TEXT/JOURNALING
To add text to your layout, first make sure that your quick page layer is selected. This is so when you start typing, the text will appear on top of the quick page. Select the text tool (from the toolbar), then go to the area on your layout where you want the text to appear and click your mouse.
You can customize your text by changing the font, the size, the colors, etc. Your text properties can be found in TWO different places on your workspace. (1) at the top of your navigation bar (only when you have the TEXT TOOL selected) or (2) the CHARACTER PALETTE (WINDOW > check CHARACTER to make this palette visible). Here’s a screenshot of the CHARACTER PALETTE:To customize your text (the font, font size, color, orientation, you can access these options on the navigation bar (as highlighted below).

(2) character palette

You can continue to further customize your layout by adding more text, adding embellishments (follow steps 2 and 3 to open and add elements to your layout). To complete my layout, I added a stamp and a metal alpha.

mismatched metal pewter alphas by holly griego, stamp from chasing the sun by paislee press

Hooray!!! The layout is done. Ready to finish this up?

6. LAST STEP – SAVING THE LAYOUT
To save the layout, I recommend saving several versions – one as a psd file (with the layers) so that you can go back and modify the layout and a flattened jpg version (a high res file for printing + a low res file for posting online)

Saving the layout as an editable psd file
FILE > SAVE AS > name of file.psd (make sure the file extension is .psd)

Saving the layout for print
1. Flatten your layout file. LAYERS > FLATTEN.
2. Save the file as a high resolution jpg file. FILE > SAVE AS > name of file.jpg (quality 10)

Saving the layout for web viewing
download this save for web action (created by ct member Cindee Bae for paislee press)

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A PAISLEE PRESS QUICK PAGE CHALLENGE

I hope you had fun working with the quick page! I want to see what YOU did with the quick page. To make things extra fun, TWO of you will receive a $5 gift coupon to my shop. One coupon will go to the person that submits the most innovative + creative use of the quick page and the other coupon will go to a person chosen by random drawing. To enter this contest, create a layout using this quick page, upload your creation to an online gallery of your choice then come back here and post a link to your layout in the comments section below. I will be taking entries thru Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 9:00PM PST. I’m looking forward to your seeing your creations. Good luck!