A Question for the Community - Help/Advice Wanted
 

How do you save your layouts - i.e. how do you get to the finished image that you upload online? Do you add any lighting effects or filters, adjustments or sharpen before saving? Do you flatten, save to web, save at 72dpi or do you do something else entirely?

I'm just starting out (less than one year scrapping) and I'm convinced I'm doing it all wrong. I feel like I'm missing something that the people-in-the-know, know (lol).

If you could give a brief outline of your own processes, that would help a lot.

I don't do anything special. I know a lot of people use a resize action that will resize to web size and sharpens etc.

I don't have time for all of that....rofl
I use PSCC so I just use the Export > Save for Web legacy > resize to 700x700 and adjust my quality number so that it's below 375kb (per our max gallery size) and click save. That's it.

Me too! Exactly, except I've memorized the keyboard shortcut, so I lost where they moved it in the drop-down menu a long time ago. Thanks for letting me know about that Kianna. Wondered where it went :D obviously I didn't look very hard :D

I run an action that duplicates, flattens, then sharpens a little and boosts saturation just a touch. Then I do what Kiana does.

My action is from so long ago (over 10 years), I'm surprised it actually still works. It was the first action I ever bought. It's a bit finicky now, but does the job in the end.

What Heather said lol.

The action was originally from a CT and it was for a smaller size so I gave it an update :D

I do the same. I save for web and then I also save an original full size with 300dpi for printing. Once I have shared my page and moved it to my to be printed folder I delete the web version (700x700)

I do similar to those who've posted. But I wanted to say that I checked out your gallery and I don't think you're missing anything. Your pages look great!

I do sharpen a bit before I export. My total process in PSCC:
Flatten layout
Image>Image Size and set resolution to 72 and height and width to 700
Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask and set at 30%
Then File>Export>Save for web and then select optimize to file size (499K)

I'm one of "those" scrappers... lol.
https://media2.giphy.com/media/9rhNJ...Ltnz/giphy.gif

When I'm done with a layout, I do a couple extra steps. It literally takes 2 seconds.

First, I add a layer on top for lighting. I add layer, fill with black, then with a large soft round brush, add a white to my focal point. Adjust opacity of layer to 10-15%.

Next, I add a photo filter. I usually end up using the 1st warm filter at 15-20% opacity or Sepia at 25% opacity.

Lastly, I made actions that I run. 1st action Flattens, add credits to metadata & saves full sized. Then I run my smaller sized actions, I have one for 600, 700 & 900 due to CT/different store preferences. Those resize, sharpen a smidge & save.

It sounds like A LOT- but it's just part of my work flow & seriously doesn't take much time at all! :wub:

Thank you for responding Kiana. This is what I usually do.

Memorizing shortcuts is the best fail-safe for when Adobe plays musical chairs with their toolbar :D

Heather that sounds like what I've been missing. Thanks for the info.

I've visited a few blogs and saw that there were a lot of free legacy actions but unfortunately the download links don't work anymore but I'm grateful for the information you ladies are sharing with me now. :)

That's such a good tip. I'm not as confident with my scrapbooking as I would like to be so I haven't printed any yet but I'm hoping to get there one day.

That you Sara. That's sweet of you to say. I did learn a new trick recently using an adjustment layer curve. I've used this technique on my last three layouts in the gallery and I can see the difference/improvement. I'm a member of a graphic design forum and every once in a while they post a great tip that can be applied to scrapbooking. It's great for when images look dull, desaturated and 'cloudy'.

https://i.ibb.co/g68SNSj/Screenshot-...t-15-53-21.png

I knew you existed.....lol. Thank you for the insight into your process.

I have been reluctant to use the sharpen feature as I didn't know where to begin. Thank you both for also adding the values now I can try it out for myself. :wub:

Each of my LOs have three versions saved.
1. The TIFF layered file. Incase I need to fix a typo... or reuse the style of the LO...
2. One flattened 12x12inch (3600x3600pixels) For printing
3. One Flattened jpeg saved at 72 dpi and 700x700 pixels. For posting online. I used to have an action for "saving to web" but it was smaller and now doesn't seem to work well...

I do not add any filters or any effects... sometimes I might blur personal information in the journaling for the online jpeg.

I don't do any processing... I just change the dpi to 72 and the pixel size to 600 x 600, although I have been thinking that maybe I should make them 700x700 lately. When I post the smaller ones on Instagram they look so bad full size.

@Stacy and @Karen, thank you for sharing your process.