Hi,

Just curious I am new to this site and trying to learn all PS, E3 and going digital scrap at the same time. I started out with E3, and will learn PS evidentually. My goal was to learn to fix photos, so I bought a bunch of books by Kelby then I found this scrapbook site. Question: How much work does the digital artists do on the picture first, before going with the LO? With cropping, red-eye, taking out Uncle Henry, etc., I can see a lot of time being spent with Phase I before even going to scrapping. Just curious. Thanks for a wondeful site!

Each person is different, and will probably have a different answer to this question. The better the original photo, the less altering you will have to do prior to scrapping it.

I feel that the better photographerss do not need to alter their photos as much as I do. I am more of a shoot from the hip type of person, and so usually I will crop my photos prior to digitally scrapping them. I am also comfortable using most of the other tools, when needed.

Kelby's books are great for working with your photos. If you want to get a jump start in digital scrapping, check the tutorials and classes that are available at this site and at digitalscrapbookplace.com

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Pat
Memory Box Artist

Sounds like you're in the same place I was a few months ago! I use PSE3 too, and here's the approach that seems to be working for me: I either scan in the paper photo and save it as an "original" (JPEG at quality 10) or designate the digital photo as "original." Then I make a digital copy of the "original" photo file on which I do my fixing. My idea is that I may well have better techniques in the future for fixing up photos so I keep an original "just in case" and backup.

On the copy I do any red-eye removal, basic cropping, levels adjustment, dust removal (from scanned photos), etc. I try to finish this part before moving onto scrapping my page(s). While I'm in the editting phase I keep the photo file in PSD format, though when finished I often save as JPEG or TIF to save a bit of space.

If my page needs the photo to be fairly radically altered (i.e. person/thing removal, extraction of the subject, application of artistic filters, tight cropping or cropping to a shape), I also do this as a SEPARATE file from the orignal and editted photo files. This way, if I really mess up doing something "artistic" I still have the editted photo version to go back to. (I like to make photos look like sketches or colored pencil drawings.)

THEN I start incorporating that last-stage photo into my layout. I may tweak the photo a bit more (if I've overlooked some dust specks, or whatever), but generally the photo layer of the page stays untouched except for maybe resizing and moving it around on the page.

Yes, this creates a number of different files for the same photo floating around in my computer, but I think it's worth it. Why? I have:

* an original photo to go back to in case I learn amazingly new and better photo enhancement skills,

* a decently editted photo that I can easily incorporate into other layouts, calendars, mini-albums, or whatever, and

* (maybe) have a third, more artsy version of the photo which may also be good for other projects.

The PSD layout files can get to be quite large, and I'm planning to flatten those all down to high quality JPEGs once I finally print out the layouts for my albums (on the assumption that I won't need to access anything specially on the layers down the road). If I flatten the file with my only version of the photo, then the photo won't be nearly as accessible and high quality as if I'd saved it separately.

Whew! This got long! (I used to teach computer classes, sorry for the pedantic approach.) Anyway, maybe it will help you decide on your own best workflow. I'm hoping others will share their own methods here too!

HTH

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Beth
my gallery

Nice path to the final product you have there... but - no need to worry about the larger file sizes for PSD files... Just burn your projects to CD once you finish a layout and remove the files from your HD. You should keep a seperate CD with each layout in order to ensure you have everything in a sinlge place.

I actually put the CD (which contains all the JPG, TIFF, PSP's, PSD's, fonts, embellishments, background papers, etc) into a sleve and include it behind the printed layout in my binder. This way, if I need to reuse an embellishment, I can easily just find it on the CD behind the layout. Also, it keeps my PC clean of stuff and the CD's are in once place. I then backup the CD's and keep them in a CD case... With CD's about .02 a piece.. this is a cheap and safe way to keep things backed up and my PC clean.

Wow, thank you all for your replies. I'm going to print this out and save it.

No problem... good luck!

I have a good camera that eliminates red eye, has great zoom and great settings. In addition, I can crop my pictures straight on my camera to eliminate too much background, etc. By the time I get the photos on my computer, I don't have to do any altering at all. The only changes I make are sometimes I make them black and white. Therefore, the only time I spend is just on the layouts!

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Heather

Sounds like you're on a roll!

Great questions. Just start digging in, scrapping, taking classes, online tutorials. I teach 3, working on 4, PSE classes online. Intro to Advanced. Resources are what you need, and the web is an amazing source of it!

*email removed*

Welcome to Digi Scrapping!!! You'll love it

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Emma the Pal
GALLERY Web Page