General suggestions

[antoniaiv]

Hey,

I just started to use Scrapbbok Max and have several suggestions. Unless it's already there and I just missed it.

1. It would be nice to have an option to edit picture/image when selected. May be some general editing tools like zoom, brightness/contrast.
2. When you select shape for the image it would be great to be able to move shape or image around so you select particular area of the image.
3. Would be great to have a preview window when you select image, picture or a theme.
4. In font properties to be able to select defaul settings. For instance in advanced script area.
5. Is it possible to create your own Embellishment?

Thanks

[Sandy]

Hopefully I can help you.

1. There is no zoom tool at this time, but you can increase the size of your picture by selecting the picture and then using your mouse to increase/decrease the size. What I've been doing to make the picture larger is by cropping it. Select the picture, right click, then choose Effects > Crop.

2. Use the cropping tool for this effect.

3 & 4. Not sure what you mean here?

5. To create your own embellishments from scratch, you would need a program such as Photoshop, but it absolutely can be done.

I hope this helps.

P.S. You may want to check out Chapter 5 of the User's Guide.

[Corey]

Yes, creating your own embellishments is a breeze. For anything rectangular or square, just add it as is. For anything else, read on....

To begin with, I'm very familiar with the process and most modern graphics editing software and I'm happy to assist anytime. So keep that in mind if you ever have any questions. I'll give some general thoughts on the process here and then you just let me know if you have any follow up questions and we'll go from there.

1. The format we wish to publish our embellishments as is called PNG24 and we use this format instead of the more common .jpg or .gif because .png graphics can contain seamless transparent areas.

2. There are several ways to proceed but the most popular is to start with a photo which contains an object or image that you wish to extract as an embellishment. Take that photo/image and open it up in any graphics editor which is capable of publishing to PNG24 images such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

3. Now we need to extract the part of the image we want to use as our embellishment. The technique you use to do this will vary depending on your software and the photo you have chosen. Objects which appear on plain white or plain black backgrounds are easier to select than objects which blend in with the background. At any rate an overview of this process is that you would use the various selection tools within the software you use to select the embellishment area and extract that from your photo.

*Note- Adobe Photoshop (maybe elements too, not sure) contains an "Extract" filter which works surprisingly well for a lot of stuff. It's easy to learn too.

4. At this point you will have a layer with only your embellishment on it. Sometimes you have to play around to get rid of any "halo" which might exist, i.e. sometimes once you get your image extracted it looks good against white but when you place it against black it has some light pixels around the edge which make it look a bit jaggy, and vice versa. So some times you have to fool around with the eraser to clean up a few stray pixels.

5. Now that we have the embellishment image extracted and cleaned up all we have to do is save it as a PNG24 with transparency included and we're done! The finished PNG is ready to use. The method for saving to PNG will vary from software to software but just as an example in Photoshop you would goto FILE > SAVE FOR WEB and select PNG24 from the format pull down menu, make sure the "transparency" checkbox is checked, and then press "SAVE". Voila!

I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions. If you want to give it a try I'm happy to walk you through it, I come in here several times per day and I can guarantee you it's a lot easier than it may sound once you get in there and give it a shot.

In the coming weeks I'll do my best to get a couple video tutorials out for those of you who'd like to create your own embellishments.

[antoniaiv]

Thank you so much. You were a great help to me.

What I meant regarding shape, is that when you select custom shape it always applies to the center of the image. Say you want to cut a heart shape but your main object is not in the middle of the picture then you need to crop your pictures first. I just thought it would be nice to be able click and drug shape around the picture in the preview window.

The filters are great too. I just looked for zoom, contrast and brightness features.

Thanks again for your detail replies.

[Corey]

Ahhhh, OK I see what you mean. Good ideas. Certainly a brightness/contrast effect is a good idea which should be fairly easy to add. Maybe those ideas will make it into a future version of Scrapbook MAX!, thanks for the suggestions.

[Jessica]

This was useful for me too... I didn't know I could make my own embellishments out of any picture ! I tried it and it works with Microsoft Photo Editor, which is a very basic program. Cool !
Thanx Corey for the tips !!

[Corey]

Anytime.

[Darryl]

Hi antoniaiv,

In response to...

I just looked for zoom, contrast and brightness features.

As for the second feature you were looking for, take a look at the Advanced item under the Effects menu. I'm not sure if you've looked in there or not, but there are a bunch of effects you can apply, and I think the one you're looking for as far as the "contrast and brightness" goes, is the "Adjust Color" effect right at the top.

I hope that is what you were looking for.

Darryl

[Corey]

FWIW the adjust color effect offers brightness but no contrast. Yet...

[antoniaiv]

Yes, I saw the effects, sorry I called them filters.

I have another question/suggestion. I have two scrapbook files saved, and I need to transfer on the pages from one scrapbook file to another. Is it an easy way to do it?

Tonya