I am new to scrapping, I have toyed with it for a while. Now I want to make a mini album of my grandsons. I have planned some pages and wish to print them. Should I put a shadow around the photos and the elements or just one of them. I have purchased DIP also have serif drawplus.I am very new to DIP but have printed off a few tutorials from this site which by the way I think is marvellous
Betty

Personally I think that shadows are a matter of personal preference. If you like your LOs to look hand scrapped shadows will take you a long way towards a realistic look. And that realism means that any that would have a shadown IRL should have a shadow in your LO. So when I'm scrapping for a paper scrapped looked all my elements (other than the BG) have a shadow.

That being said... if you like the way your LOs look without shadows, do it that way. This hobby is really about creating LOs that you like about memories that you want to treasure.

Here's a DIP tutorial that should help you get started with shadows.

Good luck on the album for your grandsons!

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Stacy
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avatar photo by Marja Flick-Buijs downloaded at sxc.hu

Thanks stacy
I am printing out tutorial as I write. I am definitely going to print album as I am giving it as a present. At the rate I'm going a christmas 2006 present. Next problem what do I print on gloss or matte? Oh well I'll get there in the end.
Thanks again
Betty

I don't have any advice better than what you got, but I thought I'd say WELCOME!! since I saw that the 2 posts in this thread were your only 2 - Welcome!

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Again the choice of paper is a matter of choice. Most printers work best when you use paper and ink from the same manufacturer as the printer (i.e. all Canon products). You could see if you can get a sampler pack of paper which has a mix of paper types and print out a sample on both glossy and matte.

Keep at it! You'll get done sooner than you think.

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Stacy
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avatar photo by Marja Flick-Buijs downloaded at sxc.hu

The paper thing really is a matter of preference. I lean towards premium glossy because the colors just scream off the paper! That is probably the most expensive. And some of the lower gloss papers might give you enough print quality to satify you. The matte papers tend to look less saturated (not as much color) and the colors will not be exactly the same as the color if you had printed glossy paper. Epson also has a Premium Art Matte and it has a bit of a texture to it. It will again be a little less bright looking than either the high gloss or low gloss papers. One thing I have experimented with is flattening my LO and then adjusting the saturation to give it more punch. This doesn't work the same everytime because there are so many elements to your layout and it works great on some--not so great on others--so I would use caution if you want to try that.

Using the same brand paper and ink as the printer manufacture is critical for the best results. Now I'm not saying that you won't be happy with the results you get with another combination ---but the ink chemistry is designed to adhere to the paper and the paper is chemically treated to accept the ink better. The way the ink prints; number of colors 4-6 colors, size of the piezo inkjet heads, pattern that the heads move in and minimum size droplet the heads deliver, have been taken into consideration in the design of the ink and paper. I could get more technical, but the bottom line is-it really does make a difference in the final color output. Not all ink and paper are created equally.

BUT all that being said, everyone needs to make up there own mind about what they consider acceptable print quality.

Hope that helps some?

Colleen