Tutorial: How to Use a Quick Page with Overlapping Photos

When I first started digital scrapbooking I was a huge fan of quick pages, actually, I still am! The times that I am the most busy are the times that I have the most photos that need scrapbooking, like Christmastime for example. Quick pages are a quick & easy solution to scrapping a bunch of photos in a short amount of time. Quick pages, sometimes just called QPs, are simply predesigned scrapbook pages that have a transparent box or frame for you to add your own photos beneath. All you have to do is add a title and a little journaling if you wish and you are done.

Using a quick page with one photo box is easy enough, but what do you do when there are overlapping photo boxes in the quick page and your photos aren't the right size? I thought I would put a little tutorial together for you on how to easily crop your photos and create a great layout using a quick page. This tutorial is written in Photoshop Elements, but can easily be followed if you are a Photoshop or GIMP user as well. The quick page that I used in this tutorial can be picked up on my blog for free here, so you can actually create your own layout from the quick page as you follow along.

Step 1: Open the quick page & photos you plan to use in Photoshop Elements.


Step 2: Select your first photo and copy and paste it into your quick page. Double click on the photo you want to use first in your file bin at the bottom of your screen, then simply press ctrl+A followed by ctrl+C. Once your photo is copied to your clipboard, double click on your quick page in the file bin and hit ctrl+V to paste your photo.




Step 3: Resize & Crop each photo layer as you add it to your quick page. First move your photo layer below your quick page layer by simply clicking and dragging the photo below the quick page layer in your Layer dialog box. Next select your move tool at the top of your tool box, we will use this to resize the photo and move it around. Click and drag your photo until it is under the photo box that you want to use. If you need to resize your photo, click on one of the upper corners and simply drag the cursor inward to reduce the size of your photo. Once it is the size you would like, click on the green arrow in the bottom corner. You may also use this same technique to angle your photo by clicking on the side of your photo and dragging in a circular motion around the photo.

Step 4: Get rid of overlapping photo edges. As you will see, some of my photo is overlapping into the other photo boxes. Make sure that your quick page is selected in the photo Layer dialogue and select your magic wand tool in your tool box. Click inside your current photo box and then go up to your menu bar and go to Select - Modify - Expand. Depending on your frame size, you will want to select an amount of pixels that will bring your photo's edges just to the outside edges of your photo box (we do this to ensure that there is no empty space between the photo & the frame). For this photo I will select 5 and then click okay. Now go to Select - Inverse. Now go to your Layers dialogue and select your photo layer (this is important to make sure that you are cutting away the edges of your photo and not your quick page) then to cut the extra part of your photo simply push ctrl+X. Viola, your extra photo edges are gone!

Step 5: Repeat step 2-4 for the remaining photos.

Step 6: Add title & journaling. Now is time for the personalization. You may add extra elements if you wish, or you may just simply add a title, date, or journaling. To add a title I make sure to select my top layer in my dialogue box and then over in my toolbox I click on my text tool. After selecting the text tool you may choose the font, font size, & color you wish to use. You may also choose whether you want your text to be centered or right or left justified. Then click on your quick page where you want your title to be and simply type in your title/journaling. Once you are done typing you can use your mouse to select your text layer and move it around until you have the positioning just right. You may make separate layers for your text so that you can independently move and resize them by simply clicking on a different area of your quick page while you have your text tool selected.

Step 7: Add drop shadowing to your text &/or additional elements. To make your page look more realistic and layered we add drop shadows to each layer. In your Effects dialogue box choose Layer Styles and from the dropdown menu select Drop Shadows. Select the upper most right drop shadow style and then apply that style to each text layer by selecting that layer in the layer dialogue box and then clicking on apply in the Effects dialogue box. Depending on the size of your text and the darkness of your background you may need to adjust the size of the drop shadow to give it a less harsh and more realistic appearance. Simply double click on the fx beside each text layer in the Layer dialogue box and you will be able to adjust your style settings. For this page I changed the settings to Size 8 - Distance 8 - Opacity 40.

Step 8: Merge & save. You are almost there, now all you have to do is merge and save your page. In your layers dialogue, select the quick page layer and right click on it. Choose Merge Visible. You will now have one layer that you will want to save as a JPEG file. To save simply type ctrl+s or choose File - Save on the top menu.You will want to change the format to JPEG and type in the file name that you choose to name your page and then click Save. You will then be asked for the JPEG options that you wish to save at. For nice print quality you will want to save at a quality of 10 or above and you can choose Baseline Optimized, as this will help compress the file and reduce the size it takes up on your computer.

That is it, you are finished! Here is my finished quick page layout.