Keep it Simple - Scrapping Tips

[SodScrap]

Scrapping Tip

One thing that I think saves time while scrapping is having your supplies organized.  (Says the girl that has a month worth of purchases to unzip and file away...) I almost always just scrap from one collection + its add ons (clusters, borders, collage papers, etc).  Everything coordinates and since I keep it all in one folder, I don't have to do a lot of searching.  I feel like since the designers have done all the work coordinating the elements for a collection, I should use them together.  ?

[SodScrap]

Scrapping Tip

Easy Pages are a super quick way to get layouts done in a flash!  I try to add a tag to add my journaling and date.  It's a simple and quick way to add the finishing touch to the layout.

[Laura]

Like @MariJ, I keep my kits together in folders- all of the kit in one folder. And like @mimes1, I love Picasa. . . but really wish it was supported!  I was lucky to find it for my new laptop last year.  I keep all of my photos organized by event. Each event is in that year's folder. I would love something like an online photo storage. That would take so much data to upload. I take TONS of photos.  For example, I took over 7,000 photos on my trip to Alaska/Seattle, WA.  It was only 13 days lol. @Celestine I love that idea about converting layouts into templates! 

[Laura]

Scrapping Tip

So, I have been known to knock out a few layouts at our Midwest Meet-up crops we have.  I do this with a few tricks:

1. I usually work with 1 or 2 kits unless I have a certain idea in mind. 

2. I start by selecting the photos I want to scrapbook. That will help me decide my color scheme, theme, and how much "extra" I will need on the page once my photos are one there.  Once I place the photos, they usually get a frame.  It just makes it look more polished.  The fastest way I know how to do this is by using this style:

 

[April Showers]

14 hours ago, Celestine said:

I have been contemplating Amazon Prime Photo storage for backup. Has anyone used that? Had a good/bad experience with it?

I use SmugMug for storing my photos. I even have galleries there with my scrapbook pages. 

[A-M]

Thank you everyone for all the great tips shared. 

[GraceJ]

SCRAPPING TIP: When I like a page that I have made, I turn it into a QP, with no title and no word bits, so next time I can add few elements and word bits or a title and the quick page turn to be a different layout. Especially I do this with my photo albums, about forest pages.

[GraceJ]

thank you so much everyone for sharing your tips, keeping an eye on this thread.

[Celestine]

3 hours ago, GraceJ said:

SCRAPPING TIP: When I like a page that I have made, I turn it into a QP, with no title and no word bits, so next time I can add few elements and word bits or a title and the quick page turn to be a different layout. Especially I do this with my photo albums, about forest pages.

That is a great idea!

[mimes1]

SCRAPPING TIP: Another tip that I thought of in the night is that when adding styles to my projects, I can add styles to multiple layers at once by highlighting them (CTRL click) and clicking on the style button. The style will go to all highlighted layers. (In PS)

Also, you can drag the style altogether from one layer to another by clicking on the little fx and dragging it to the desired layer. By holding the "alt" key and dragging the fx to a new layer you are copying the style to a new layer. Both of these are keyboard commands I use all the time. 

[ladyscrapalot]

1 hour ago, mimes1 said:

SCRAPPING TIP: Another tip that I thought of in the night is that when adding styles to my projects, I can add styles to multiple layers at once by highlighting them (CTRL click) and clicking on the style button. The style will go to all highlighted layers. (In PS)

Also, you can drag the style altogether from one layer to another by clicking on the little fx and dragging it to the desired layer. By holding the "alt" key and dragging the fx to a new layer you are copying the style to a new layer. Both of these are keyboard commands I use all the time. 

Also if you click and hold shift you can add a second style, which is great if you want to add a drop shadow with another style that doesn't come with a drop shadow. 

[SodScrap]

2 minutes ago, ladyscrapalot said:

Also if you click and hold shift you can add a second style, which is great if you want to add a drop shadow with another style that doesn't come with a drop shadow. 

 

1 hour ago, mimes1 said:

SCRAPPING TIP: Another tip that I thought of in the night is that when adding styles to my projects, I can add styles to multiple layers at once by highlighting them (CTRL click) and clicking on the style button. The style will go to all highlighted layers. (In PS)

Also, you can drag the style altogether from one layer to another by clicking on the little fx and dragging it to the desired layer. By holding the "alt" key and dragging the fx to a new layer you are copying the style to a new layer. Both of these are keyboard commands I use all the time. 

Ohhhh....great tips ladies!

[mimes1]

6 minutes ago, ladyscrapalot said:

Also if you click and hold shift you can add a second style, which is great if you want to add a drop shadow with another style that doesn't come with a drop shadow. 

Ohhhh! I will try that!! I knew there was a way to do that but my brain couldn’t process the request!   I will give that a try! Thanks for the tip!

[April Showers]

7 minutes ago, mimes1 said:

Ohhhh! I will try that!! I knew there was a way to do that but my brain couldn’t process the request!   I will give that a try! Thanks for the tip!

Combining styles with the shift key doesn't for me anymore in CC2022. 

[SodScrap]

Just now, April Showers said:

Combining styles with the shift key doesn't for me anymore in CC2022. 

Oh no......

[mimes1]

3 minutes ago, SodScrap said:

Oh no......

Uh oh.  Easy come, easy go, I guess?

[April Showers]

I shared this in the clusters tutorial challenge, but it saves me so much time when I'm putting pages together-

When I create a particularly satisfying cluster on my layout, I select all the layers and drag in into a new document. I then crop it and save it as a .tiff file. I can reuse them on my pages by dragging the .tiff file into my layout. It goes in like a png file, but when you double click on the layer, it opens in another window where you can still move things around. 

[mimes1]

Very cool. I’ll have to give that a try. 

[MariJ]

7 hours ago, April Showers said:

I shared this in the clusters tutorial challenge, but it saves me so much time when I'm putting pages together-

When I create a particularly satisfying cluster on my layout, I select all the layers and drag in into a new document. I then crop it and save it as a .tiff file. I can reuse them on my pages by dragging the .tiff file into my layout. It goes in like a png file, but when you double click on the layer, it opens in another window where you can still move things around. 

Thanks for the great tips, April.  I never quite understand the advantages of or what a .tiff file is.  From reading this, I'm wondering if it's that it saves like a .png with no background, but when you double click you can move the pieces around?  Is that what a .tiff file is or just in the case of a cluster/multiple pieces?   

[Boatlady]

On 5/6/2022 at 10:44 PM, Laura said:

Like @MariJ, I keep my kits together in folders- all of the kit in one folder. And like @mimes1, I love Picasa. . . but really wish it was supported!  I was lucky to find it for my new laptop last year.  I keep all of my photos organized by event. Each event is in that year's folder. I would love something like an online photo storage. That would take so much data to upload. I take TONS of photos.  For example, I took over 7,000 photos on my trip to Alaska/Seattle, WA.  It was only 13 days lol. @Celestine I love that idea about converting layouts into templates! 

I agree with all your comments...I really need to use the shortcuts more. I only use a few. @Laura 7,000 photos...Yikes. I wonder how many I will take on our 4 month trip this summer...I will try to limit my snapping.

[Boatlady]

I put my photos in folders by date. If there is an event I put that in a folder. I have folders for each grandchild so finished pages go in those. My supplies are in folders by collection name. I used Picassa but it stopped working so now have to search with PSE and it's not as good.

[April Showers]

6 hours ago, MariJ said:

Thanks for the great tips, April.  I never quite understand the advantages of or what a .tiff file is.  From reading this, I'm wondering if it's that it saves like a .png with no background, but when you double click you can move the pieces around?  Is that what a .tiff file is or just in the case of a cluster/multiple pieces?   

• The main reason I use tiff files instead of psd files is that I can see a thumbnail of the image when I'm looking through the folder.
• I haven't tried dragging psd files into my layouts like I do tiff files; it may work the same way. It goes back to the thumbnails, I like to see what I'm opening.
• A tiff is It is still a layered file so it is much larger file than a png file. While I tend to drag and drop the tiff images into my layouts, you can still open them like normal in PS where you can select the layers and then drag and drop them from the layers panel into your layout. 

[MariJ]

4 hours ago, April Showers said:

• The main reason I use tiff files instead of psd files is that I can see a thumbnail of the image when I'm looking through the folder.
• I haven't tried dragging psd files into my layouts like I do tiff files; it may work the same way. It goes back to the thumbnails, I like to see what I'm opening.
• A tiff is still a layered file so it is much larger file than a png file. While I tend to drag and drop the tiff images into my layouts, you can still open them like normal in PS where you can select the layers and then drag and drop them from the layers panel into your layout. 

Thank you April for the information, I learned a lot!  I appreciate you taking the time to explain it all.  ?