Photobook tips and tricks

Earlier this week, I posted on Amber LaBau's blog about some tips and tricks for printing photobooks. One of the things that I miss when I made the switch to digital scrapbooking in 2014 was the ability to have pages done "in real time"... or at least in chunks like I had been doing with my Project Life albums in 2012 and 2013.  My family loved to look at these books and flip through all the photos and relive the memories that they represented.  I was able to keep up pretty well during those 2 years and I loved it.  Part of the reasons I moved to digital was the ability to scrap traveling or commuting so that I could scrap current memories.  Plus with photos in digital format it was 1 less step to take to take in my process.  So let me talk about my evolution of getting my digital creations from my computer to a physical version that my family and friends can enjoy.

Here is my 2nd half of 2014 12x12 album (p.s. - this is a Becky Higgins Project Life album and is still available at Michael's  - make sure to use a coupon!) I was able to fit Jan-August in the first album and this album holds Sept- December including our 13 day trip to Spain...

Now I don't often have such a fabulous trip to add to my yearly album ( I wish... right??) but I couldn't jam the whole year into 1 album so this was my compromise.  I can still print these into a separate photo book later on if I want - but more on that later.

A 2 page spread from our trip to Spain using The Lilypad's Memory Pockets Monthly products

In 2015, I decided to move to printed 10 x 10 photobooks in lieu of printed 12x12 individual pages slipped into page protectors.  I saw how hard it was for my older relatives to look at those big and heavy books - plus I still had so many scrapbooks I wanted to complete (both older and future stories) that I could not imagine where I could store all those albums - you see I already have about 40 12x12 albums in IKEA Billy shelves (similar to the current Kallax - they don't make this size of the Billy anymore :-( ... and I easily have 20+ albums I wanted to create of older stories, heritage, vacations etc that I had rolling around in my head plus 2 albums per year for Project Life adds up quick!

Using Amber LaBau's Project Life 2016 Edition for my cover

See how thin this 50+ page 10x10 book is!

I save all my pages to my normal storage places first, see this post on Amber's blog regarding the importance of backup.   Next step in my process is to upload to my preferred photo book provider.  I have used Shutterfly to date on all my books and I have been fairly happy with the results.  I know there are other options out there - including printing from the Becky Higgins Project Life app, Adoramapix, Mixbook and Picaboo. They have all have different page limits, costs and quality issues that you need to account for.  But there are some tips I have learned along the way printing my photobooks/scrapbooks that I will share to make your process that much smoother. Plus I have come up with a few ways to incorporate some fun "paper" elements into my printed photobooks as well.

Using Amber's Project 2016 Project Life Collection

I have used actions in the past to help create consistent borders to avoid bleed issues when printing out my books. Studio Wendy has some great actions to create bleed for 10 x 10 books specifically for Shutterfly.  She has some great options for other sizes and printers as well.  But what if you don't want to use an action - what are your options?

Page on right doesn't use an bleed action - and the borders are inconsistent. I am ok with this sometimes, but other times not.

A page with a "solid" background can often hide the bleed issues more easily

Trying the lay flat option on my most recent photo books - almost identical height and depth only slightly wider

Binder is just a bit wider to include this extra portion to make it lay flat

Below is the comparison of the lay flat versus non lay flat.  Lay flat does help with the bleed of the center, but does not necessarily adjust for borders on top, bottom or sides.  There are several printers that offer lay flat options - but generally they are more expensive than standard binding  - sometimes much more expensive.  This expense might not be worth it for you - or may only be worth it for special event books - printing can be a very personal decision based on your budget and goals/objectives.

One tip I have for everyone regardless of your preferred printer is to assemble the book as you go - that is, don't wait until you have every page done until you start uploading into their book making tool.  Most places have special sales which can lower the cost of your photobook.  In some cases you can save 40%-60% during a sale  - but you often don't have a lot of warning.  If you are close to finishing a project it might be worth putting in a big push to take advantage of a sale - but it's a lot easier when the book is almost assembled

Non lay flat

The way I am currently dealing with bleed issues is to adjust all the pages after they are placed in my "draft" Shutterfly book.  If you go into "Advanced Editing" you can adjust 1 page to 95% or 90% and have this adjustment applied to EVERY page in your album.  I don't mind the black border around every page and it resolves the bleed issue on every page. Other photobook printers have similar tools which can be used to help create a consistent border.  Now this book above and below is a special book I did for my son's Marching Band trip to Ireland.  My hubby and I went as well - but did some different activities along with some of the same.  I created 2 photobooks - with about 1/3 of the pages the same and 2/3 different.

Lay flat option - excellent at the center but can still cut off top, bottom or sides.

Finally, I have used both washi tape and some label holders to help create dividers within my photobooks for interest or to highlight a special section.  You can do this by using a 6x8 template or even a large single 6x12 template.

Using some cute washi to highlight an important section of my photobook

Here using an 8x10 template - with an Avery self stick label. I still upload the full page and then trim with a paper trimmer after it arrives

Hope this gives you the confidence and motivation to go out and get your pages printed in photobooks or even in single pages - whatever form you decide.  The most important thing you can do is to get your pages out of the cloud and into a physical form where everyone can see your beautiful work and share your memories.

As always if you have any questions - or there are other things you would like me to share about my process - please let me know.

The Importance of Backup!!

Up on Amber's blog today is my recommendations for the incredibly important but oh so boring computer backup tasks and some recommendations. Now that school is out and the temps are warm your mind tends to be filled with all the summer fun bucket list items that you want to check off!  Time at the pool, ice cream cones, vacations, hiking in the woods, bar-b-ques and long walks all seem more important than that dreaded activity...backing up your computer!  I would argue that summertime is actually the best time to take on this dreaded task.

From the beginning of my scrapping journey - I have been paranoid about losing my photos. I have been lucky that I haven't actually lost photos but I have come very close a few times... in ways that don’t have anything to do with hardware failures (like external hard drives or desktops) although I have had that happen as well!

We have so many photos that we take everyday - at least I do! For example, on a recent girls weekend I took well over 250 photos. Not that I recommend that you keep all those really bad photos - way too dark or very blurry. But you need to be able to save the ones you want to keep safe and secure so that you can access them to scrap with. I don't know about you - but even though I do keep up pretty well with current "project life" type scrapping, I have lots of older projects and big vacations that still need to be documented.

The best recommendations that I’ve seen are to maintain at least 2-3 copies of every element and that at least one of those copies should be in the cloud. Right now I have photos and supplies on my computer’s hard drive (although almost maxed out on space there), 1 external hard drive (EHD) and several cloud systems – Dropbox, Backblaze, Google Photos and some big trips also backed up on Flickr. Plus, since I have doing digital pages beginning in 2014 – those are all uploaded to Shutterfly and Persnickety Prints – although those are not true backups… Some of these systems are newer to my process and some I have been using for a long time so let me explain about a few of them.

My biggest challenge is keeping this all organized though. In my mind I would love to have everything beautifully organized but that is just not a reality for me at this point in my life. Hopefully one day the organization can occur - but until then I want to be able to find things at least by using the search functions.

My longest used system - and the one I feel most comfortable utilizing is Dropbox.  Dropbox can automatically backup your phone photos and syncs your files across your devices (PCs, iPads, Tablets etc.) - you can selectively sync your files even if you are short on space on one device over another.  I love the ability to share the files or entire folders with anyone in my family of friends.

However a word of warning for sharing - this is where I almost lost all of my trip pictures to Arizona from 2015...thanks to sharing a folder with my mother. You see you have the option to have Editing or Viewing capabilities with whoever you share with - this is true of many other cloud based services as well.  Make sure you don't give folks Viewing options unless they know what they are doing.... I almost lost 350 family photos (plus almost 6-8 hours of editing) when my mom ran out of space in her free Dropbox account! Luckily I caught it on the 30th day - where you can still recover files, and now I pay for the 1 year archive option (instead of the default 30 day option) in addition to the 1 TB of storage.

Another great based cloud system that I have found recently is Google Photos - also available for PC, iOS and MAC products, and Android based products. This tool also allows for easy photo sharing and the creation of separate albums - however since this has the power of Google behind it - you can easily search by person's name or location too!  It has smart logic and algorithms that get smarter the longer and more you use the tool.  I have found pictures of my children at a young age that I didn't even know I had scanned. There is a great free class available at Modern Photo Solutions that teaches you about all the advantages to this tool.

Now I know that I have shared primarily photo and digi supply storage solutions so far (which also work on your phone - either Android, Windows or Apple) I also wanted to share that I use Backblaze for backing up my Desktop at home.  Here I back up all of my files in addition to all of my photos and digital products. There are several products out there that do the same thing - In fact I had previously used Carbonite for this same reason.  But there are a few important reasons why I made the switch.  First of all - Backblaze is a little cheaper - yay for more money for digi supplies!! The time it took to back up my whole computer initially was not too long and most importantly - they offer the option to ship you an external hard drive with your complete backup on it for $149 which is refundable when you return the EHD.  That alone was worth the switch as I have had several computer failures which required me to reinstall EVERYTHING on my computer!

One drawback that I have noticed, at least between Carbonite and Backblaze, is the ability to search your backup and selectively restore files (or use them for digi scrapping in my case).  With Carbonite - I was able to see thumbnails of my backed up files and selectively restore - say those 2011 Disney pictures.  With Backblaze, there are no thumbnails and selectively downloading is much more difficult.  While it was a nice option for Carbonite - overall Backblaze has better options for full restoration.

Finally a note on External Hard Drives - I currently use a 5 TB Seagate EHD (gotta love Costco!) The standard software that is included with the EHD is all that I use.  There may be a better way - but that research is on my to do list this summer. And here is the advantage of having all my photos in one space - I am able to quickly and easily find older pictures - like these of my husband's graduation from his Master's degree from 2005.

I hope this helps you get started with taking this on as your "summer" project. If you have any other questions - please let me know and I'd be happy to help out any way I can.

How to load and use Styles in PSE

When I started digital scrapping - there were so many things I needed to learn. I was so excited to get started that I didn’t necessarily learn too much before I started on my first few pages. Of course, I had been a paper scrapper for many years and I had been collecting freebies and some basic supplies for a few months before I started. Of course, being the organized person that I am (or at least hope to be..) I wanted to start my digital pages starting in January 2014. Over at Amber LaBau's blog today I am sharing some of my insights in how I was able to improve my scrapping skills by using Styles.

I have been working consistently on Project Life since 2012. As much I love the physical products – I loved the ease of being able to scrapbook on the go because I spend a lot of time commuting/traveling because of work and family commitments. I certainly am able to be much more prolific as a digital scrapper as well (for example I was able to print my second half of 2016 at the end of January).

As a point of reference I am using Photoshop Elements 11. I keep thinking about moving to full Photoshop but I need to better understand how this works offline (since I mostly work offline). The directions will be very similar in full Photoshop.

For me having the photos and kits in “one space” has been life changing in terms of design flexibility – but that of course was only the first step in the design process… There are so many options and tweaks that are possible in digital. I feel like I am still learning something new everyday – I love watching live scraps and working on challenges. There are many challenges available at The Lilypad and you get discount coupons, too! Anything that grows and stretches my design skills is useful – always want to be learning!

One of the first challenges that I had in digital scrapping was learning how to do shadows. Not that I feel like I am an expert yet, but I certainly have come a long way. I look at some of my original layouts and the shadows are super harsh or too large! Here is an example… (please be kind)

A very early digi page, not using styles (kit from Penny Springmann, retired)

From watching some live scraps at Scrap Orchard (which is now closed) I learned about shadow styles – wow!!!! What a difference – plus it provides the consistency that I really, really love... and it also taught me how much how I could learn about digi scrapping.

I love the styles at The Lilypad - the most important and most basic ones are the shadow styles.  Amber has a great set called My Shadow Box

After you purchase and download and unzip, In the Expert panel in PSE- go to the Fx tab on the bottom right.

On the top right of the screen with the 4 lines and the down arrow is where you load styles

Just have your styles (.ASL files) someplace easy to find.  I try to keep them in the same folder in case you need to reinstall (like I am currently in the process of doing :-(...

Now you are all set to start using your new style!

Let me give you an example of the difference that adding styles can make on your page.

Here are the some of Amber's Elements from one of her recent kits - Cake Smash. You will see that these are very cute even without the shadows - but they look much more realistic using the shadows.  Just select the layer the elements is on - and double click the "style" that you want - just hover over the different square and a description will pop up. Literally just 1 click!  You can also select several layers at a time and apply the same style to multiples.

Before

After

In fact here is a recent layout that give you idea how it can all come together

Using Cake Smash by CT Holly

Notice the candle and the flower and how they look like they are popping off the page? Realistic and consistent shadows.  That is what styles can help you achieve easily.  And there are so many options - just take a look around some of your favorite digi stores - The Lilypad is stocked with lots of options.  Many times you need to combine various sets to get the look you really want!

Hope that this have given you a beginning primer on how to install and use styles to get your digi scrapping to the next level! If you have any questions - don't hesitate to reach out - we have lots of experts on our team and many suggestions to help you advance your skills when  you are ready.

How to Stretch your Digi stash

I shared some ideas on Amber La Bau's blog today  on how to stretch your digital kits

Hi there everyone!

I know that even though we all have a large stash of kits in our digital arsenals - I also know that we all like to use our kits several times for creating to maximize our crafting dollars. There are several ways that we can do this - which is one of the biggest benefits for digi scrapping. In fact, this was one of the primary reasons that I switched to digital scrapbooking back in 2014.  I was a dedicated paper scrapper before then, but the ability to stretch my stash (in a non-space taking type way) was one of the most instant benefits of digital scrapping.

So let's look at a few ways that we can stretch our stash and our digi kit dollars.

• Use Neutral colored kits to be able to document lots of everyday memories or even bigger stories. Use key elements of your photos or background to pick a primary color - then shop your stash to find a similar predominant color in the kit.

  

  Stories to Tell kit  - neutral colors and elements. Word art can be used for many different kinds of stories.

  

  Have Coordinates Will Cache - although this is an outdoor kit - there are lots of great neutral papers and elements to use with any kind of photo.

• 

  The Blackbird kit has lots of great neutrals and bold neutral patterns that can be used for many different kinds of stories.

• Use flexible templates that can be combined and modified.  These templates can be used for patterned papers, photos or even artsy treatments.

  

  This example reduces the template and then mats with a large border and highlights some of the great patterned paper

  

  Story Grids Anthology Vol. 2

  
  
• Use "themed" kits off theme.  Not every kit needs to be used for the theme that it was initially designed for.  For example, I used this Christmas/Winter kit, A Season to Remember to document some travel photos from our trip to Spain.

  

  Use a Season to Remember to document some vacation photos.

  

  A Season to Remember

  I hope this gives you some ideas on how to use your kits again and extend your stash even further.  Have fun documenting your memories!                                        

Birthday Calendar Reference Cards

Do you like to use calendar cards in your Project Life Scrapbooks? I decided to incorporate them this year. I always liked the look, but don't always have photos every week, and sometimes I have tons of photos in one week. I'm just all over the place, so I never really included calendar cards. However, I decided to just flow with it this year. I'll put them in when it makes sense! Now that I have the cards for 2017, I thought I could use the 4x6 version that Amber LaBau designed to create a printed reference set that has all the birthdays of people in my life (are you also a card maker?). I will keep this for years, not just 2017. 

First, I did some work in Photoshop Elements. I used a pack of "Labely Bits" from Amber LaBau's shop at the Lilypad to add some pops of color to these cards. One thing of note, the calendar cards are in grayscale. You need to change them to color mode (RGB) before adding color. I also recommend picking a scale for the elements you are adding and actually scaling them down on each card, so they are all the same size. You can place them all and then select all at once to scale. (From menu bar: Image>Resize>Scale) Those nice big labels came in a tad too large for the scale of the card. I scaled everything by 50%.

Do you like to send snail mail to family & friends on their birthday? I want to do that more. I thought having this handy (note to self: put it in the pocket of my planner) would help remind me. I used Canon Matte Photo paper. One thing I learned about this paper is that it has two different sides. One side is bright white and the other is cream. Make sure you put your paper in your printer correctly!

Happy New Year!

Holly Genc