Photoshop
Elements 3 Tutorial
Vellum - Digital
Scrapbooking
One of the easiest kinds of traditional
scrapbooking papers you can create for your
digital pages is vellum. Basically, you create a
shape, change the transparency, tear or outline
the edges, maybe add some solid text or a
pattern, save it as a .png and you've got vellum
you can re-use in all your projects. If you save
your original vellum papers as .psd, you can
create unlimited variations for your projects
from just one file.
Start with the size you want. For the purposes
of this tutorial, I started with a pattern
background so you could see the transparency and
created an area 200 x 200 pixels on a new layer.
To save your vellum for re-use, create it on a
transparent background and save the finished
vellum in .png format.
Then I selected a lighter rose foreground color
(you could use white), and using the rectangle
tool drew out the shape leaving a border around
the edges. Right click on the layer and simplify
it and take the opacity slider down to about
50%. You don't have to 'tear' the edges unless
you want to. When real vellum is torn in
traditional scrapbooking, it makes a thin opaque
line along the tear. I'll show you how to do
that. I select the eraser tool and erase the
edges of the vellum kind of jagged (example 2).
Then, use the magic wand tool to select your
vellum and select 'Edit | Stroke (Outline)
Selection' from the drop down menu with the
settings: 1 px, color white, inside, normal,
100%, and make sure 'preserve transparency is
not checked. That will put a thin opaque tear
line around the edges as shown below. Now you
have your vellum. You can stop there if you want
to, but we're going to take it a step further
and get a little fancy, so create a new layer
and select the text tool. Type your text on top
of the vellum layer. Example shown is 'Dauphin'
but you can use any pretty text you might have.
You can also use preset shapes and lower the
opacity for a subtle print pattern on your
vellum and I'm sure you can think of lots more
ways to use vellum to add dimension to your
scrapbook layouts. Some variations below to get
your creative juices flowing:
It's fun to play around with bright colors and
learn new things. With digital scrapbooking,
it's always best to remember that the photos in
each layout are the most important element on
the page. Your scrapbooking designs should
enhance the your photos and not overwhelm them
or be so busy in color and design that they
actually compete for attention and take away
from the photos you are trying to showcase.
A good rule of thumb is that your digital
designs should not be more colorful than the
brightest colors in your photos. Scrapbooking
pages are at their best when they enhance and
support the theme and mood of the pictures
you're showing off. If you look at a scrapbook
page and don't see the photo first, you probably
need to tone it down a little.
|
Template Support |
FAQ
|
Contact | 
Polygonal Lasso
Brush
Tools
Eraser 
Healing Brushes
Crop Tool