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It’s a digital scrapbooking FAQ show with Tiffany Tillman of Simply Tiffany Studios joining the discussion! We answer the questions we get most often about digital scrapbooking.
Joining the Discussion:
Tiffany Tillman
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph
From the Mail:
- Digital Scrapbooking Ergonomics
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Katie’s wrist brace
From the Show:
-
Free Digital Scrapbooking Manual
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Free Digital Scrapbooking Tutorials
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Free Quality Manual for Digital Designers
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Peppermint’s Shadow Tutorial
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Peppermint’s Shadow Styles
Picks:
Tiffany:
Peppermint: Money As You Grow
Katie: MyFitnessPal
Steph:
Sponsor:
For the best deal in digital scrapbooking, become a member at TheDailyDigi.com.
Just gotta say I love the play in new window link.
Thought I’d chime in a few things…
What you need:
An internet connection, and if possible, a hi-speed one!
A backup solution: don’t lose your pages or photos. Be sure you’re backing them up.
Where to learn:
I also send everyone to The Daily Digi’s manual, but I also highly recommend Patty Debrowski’s book for learning digiscrapping in Photoshop Elements. http://thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com/
Then, I suggest learning your program from the ground up, even if it’s not a digi-scrap tutorial. Look for the PDF manual that comes with your install. And, I’ve been so impressed with Lynda.com for learning anything you want to know about your program. Once you know the basics, consider trying it out for a month and learning some more advanced general techniques.
Printing:
I get the 10×10 question a lot too! I know a lot of people who are printing 10×10, but storing in 12×12 albums for now. A 10×10 album would be perfect. I started printing 8×8 photobooks because of the price, but if 10×10 books had been around when I started, I totally would have gone that route.
Metadata:
Mac is CMD+OPT+SHFT+i to “get file info” and PC is CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+i just in case anyone didn’t write that down when they listened.
Text Tips:
Try to lower the opacity of the text itself a bit to let the texture through and leave the drop shadow off! Or, try using Tangie’s Paperworn styles to let the texture of the paper show through, more like a pen or marker on paper would look.
Steph, your pick is brilliant! Such a great idea!
I haven’t finished listening to the show but wanted to second the recommendation for Patty Debrowski’s book.
I do use google searches to find tutorials at various sites and forums, but if you like a nice organized class and pdfs to print out or put on a tablet reader, I recommend classes at:
Renee Pearson (I have taken several of Tiffany’s template classes and you get a nice collection of templates too!)
Jessica Sprague
Creative Passion (many of these are the classes Debbie Hodge used to offer at Get It Scrapped). Wonderful pdfs and you can download videos too with the newer classes. I love Patty Knox’s classes there.
Designer Digitals class pdfs
I love class pdfs
Leslie
Katie, I use MyFitnessPal all the time on my droid/laptop!
This was my first time listening and as I’m about 6 months old into the digital scrap world – it was so informative and fun to listen to. All the advise and resources (like where to print pages, etc) was very valuable! Thank you!
Another great show, ladies.
I really liked your detailed explanation of metadata. I always sort of understood what it was, and have learned about it in past shows as you’ve discussed it, but it seemed to be a more detailed and thorough explanation today. Thanks for that – I feel like the concept is more solidified in my mind.
Also – Steph! What an awesome pick! I’m always trying to track what my kids earn on a scrap of paper or something, so this will be much easier… if only I had an iPhone LOL. I’m going to do a search for something similar for android (there’s got to be something, right?) Totally going to check out Peppermint’s link as well.
I, too, have been pining for 10×10 layouts! My 8×8’s are starting to seem just a little bit to small, but I’m not ready for the wizard books
Wendy – when you say people are printing 10×10, do you know where? And where to get 10×10 albums and page protectors? (I know I could do photo books, but I MUCH prefer to print single pages.)
This comment is so disjointed – sorry – but I have one more question. Can we talk hard drives? My poor little laptop is so bogged down and I just can’t afford to replace it or add more hard drive space right now. I purchased a 1 TB Seagate drive last year, but it’s not really a portable drive. I mainly use it as back up (and to store old photos & kits that I’ve run out of room for but don’t want to give up yet!) So, I want to get a portable drive that will move easily with me as I do most of my scrapping from the couch or recliner. Any suggestions? I know this would mean revisiting an old topic, but honestly I think I just tuned you out in the past assuming any EHD talk didn’t really apply to me. If you would be so kind as to bring it up just for me again? (And I’m betting newer listeners might find it useful too?)
Thanks ladies. You rock.
MyPicTales will do 10x10s, and I believe Persnickety will as well. It’s just the binders and page protectors that are impossible to find!
Thank you Peppermint! I’ve been having the same Illustrator to Photoshop problem, and it has been driving me absolutely up the wall. And with the lack of info I’ve been able to find on it, I was starting to think I was the only one with this problem. So thank you, it’s good to know I can just go back a version in Photoshop and not have to worry about this anymore.
It made my entire year to find that out. I owe MAJOR credit to Renne Looney (ForeverJoy Designs) for cluing me in. She was using the Illustrator CS6 trial with her CS5 version of Photoshop and had no problems with seams, which made it worth my time to “downgrade” back to Photoshop CS5. I had already tried to downgrade my Illustrator and that hadn’t helped, so Photoshop seems to be the culprit.
I love your show and love to scrap digi. Thanks so much for the show. I listen to it while walking the dogs and after a walk I am ready to scrap.
One thing has been really missing at the show though. You never review digi products like kits! You very rarely choose them as picks. (The picks of the show are mostly iPhone apps or websites.) But you have never ever chosen the digi products as your main subject.
It would be so much fun to hear what kits you like, what’s have to be in a good kit, how do you scrap with the kit etc. I mean the similar show what you had with fonts! Is it too touchy subject? Paperclipping Roundtable has a lot of product talk but The Digi Show almost none, why? I love digi products and would love to get some product tips and product talk, not apps but the digital supplies!
Paivi from Finland
No one likes to hear me when I mention this, but since so many of you are suffering with inflammation (arthritis, joint pain, etc) I just thought I’d throw this out there…. Many people don’t know it but they suffer from wheat sensitivity which causes inflammation. I know no one wants to give up wheat/flour, such as pizza, pasta, bread, doughnuts, pretzels, crackers… wheat is in everything but some people just cannot tolerate it. What does it hurt to give it up for 30 days and see if some of your inflammation and pain decreases? It isn’t a natural part of aging to expect to have pain.
This topic is my other passion besides digi-scrapping, but, alas, Katie, I am not much further than the ‘collector’ stage! But with each and every episode I listen to I am that much closer to diving in… Thanks for such enjoyable shows!
I do think allergies make all of the symptoms so much worse and can also sometimes cause symptoms. I have several food allergies and have been tested for the gluten thing. I even went gluten-free for 10 months. I’ve now been able to figure out which foods make things worse for me (oats, corn, lettuce, really fiber intensive stuff, and high-fructose corn syrup).
Thanks for your comment!
I agree Marilyn and also a side passion
I suffered joint pain among many other ailments before giving up gluten and then grains. There are plenty of resources online if you search gor *Gluten Intolerance + Joint Pain/Rheumatoid Arthritis*. For anyone interested, this is a great starter article. http://www.fibrohaven.com/2009/06/08/gluten-intolerance-the-culprit-behind-many-chronic-illnesses/
Thanks Anna and Katie….
And sugar is to be avoided as well….esp HFCS….. Now I’m onto GMO’s as well. Just eat real food is the mantra I’m following.
As far as GPS metadata, Steph, you can set Flickr to never shown anyone that data. I think it’s a really fun feature, especially if we ever want to revisit place we have been. Is the map that they have in LR4 available in Bridge CS6? If so, I may need to upgrade.
Also, I love that site Peppermint picked, as our 3 year old throws us for a loop sometimes. My husband also read a book (and they have an app similar to Steph’s pick) called Bank of Dad. We really enjoyed it and will probably refer to it more as our kids grow up. Based on comments you both made, I think you would like it too.
Thanks for another great show!
Oh, I forgot to mention that 10×10 books and sheet protectors would be amazing!
I have a question. . .Tiffany (I think) mentioned that people often get a tablet in order to use their handwriting digitally on photos/layouts but the process is less straight forward than it would seem to be.
This is something I’ve been interested in trying so I’d like to know what to expect or how to make it work.
Thanks a bunch!
For me, there was just a disconnect between looking at the screen and writing on a tablet. First, it’s just not the same feel as writing on paper. Secondly, you’re not really looking at your hand writing as you would on a paper layout. Your looking on the screen while trying to write. Finally, the real estate doesn’t always match up real well. You’re writing in a small space on your tablet, but translating that into a larger number of pixels on the screen. Does that make sense? Finally, you have pressure sensitivity that affects things as you draw. You have to really control your pressure as you write to get the result you want.
Now, having said all this, I have not mastered my tablet! I really ended up using it for the wireless mouse, and ultimately dumped it for my track pad on my laptop.
If you are just wanting to capture your handwriting, you might want to look at something like the Wacom Inkling. You write on actual paper and it captures your movements into a vector file. It gets mixed reviews, but if you are using it on a small area, and you aren’t trying to do a ton of layers, you might be happy with it. It’s still something that’s on my wish list. I’m kind of holding out for version 2.0 on this in the hopes that they will improve on the settings.
http://www.wacom.com/en/products/inkling.aspx
In the meantime, you can always have your handwriting made into a font. Darcy Baldwin at The Sweet Shoppe offers that service at a very reasonable rate.
Thanks for your hints, Wendy. You are so generous with your vast knowledge. You’ve given me a lot to think about. . .
On the other hand, I could probably just pick up an ACTUAL PEN and ACTUALLY WRITE on my photos, but then I might like it and turn into one of those “paper scrappers”. Oh the horrors!
Jennifer, I think the easiest thing to compare it to is the digital signature you do when you sign for a package from the UPS guy… It never quite looks the same as your real signature, ya know?
If you have Illustrator, you can get a much smoother line easier than it is in PS or PSE, but it’s still possible. One trick I’ve found is to zoom in a lot, and write very slowly.
Thanks for the hints. I figured that using Illustrator would be the big factor in making it work. I’m not ready to invest (money or time) into that just yet, only for a little handwriting.
I guess I’ll be seeking additional inspiration.
I think that may have been me, I’d have to listen back to the show to find out for sure, though, and I actively avoid listening to the shows.
Wendy sums it up well from a technical standpoint. Using one of the small tablets in Photoshop or PSE is pretty much going to be like signing your name on the credit card machine at retail stores. It’s not going to be an organic pen-to-paper writing experience and I just find it really misleading that in the ads for small tablets like The Bamboo Create they make it look like you’re going to be a drawing maniac right out of the box. The reality is that everything you draw is going to look more like a three year old’s self-portrait.
You’ll notice they never shoot the lady over her shoulder so you can see her screen while she’s tippity tapping away on her tablet. I would imagine it’s more likely that the screenshots they feature were drawn by a professional digital artist in a program like Illustrator, using one of their more powerful professional-grade tablets.
It’s not to say that it isn’t do-able – a lot of artists do amazing things in Photoshop with a tablet – but it’s probably not going to be something you sit down and feel amazing at within an hour or two – or even a month or two. Which is why most people I know who bought the small craft-type tablets (myself included) tried it out, got frustrated that their drawings looked like a hot mess, then shoved it in a drawer somewhere.
BUT, the tablets are really great for things like photo touch-ups because you can do really fluid airbrushing with a tablet. They’re also great for extractions (if you do a lot of extractions in your design work or scrapbooking) once you get the hang of them. And they’re a great mouse replacement like we talked about a bit on the show.
Selling them as a drawing tool in Photoshop/PSE is just setting people up for feelings of inadequacy, IMO. I feel like it’s a really cruel joke that’s being played on the general public. LOL
Thanks for your perspective Peppermint. I am a middle school math teacher IRL, and I use a tablet with my interactive whiteboard so that I can teach from anywhere in the room and I am really comfortable writing on it from afar.
But I suspect (again) that the software is the difference. My school software is intended for “screen writing” and smooths things out pretty nicely. And like you said, that Photoshop/Elements does not and I’d be frustrated.
I feel like I keep coming back to the same conclusion, but I am still intrigued and want to try. I think I need to find a tablet to borrow. . .
I think this was one of my favorite shows! You are all so knowledgeable!
I would also recommend Patty’s book as well http://thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com/ I’ve taken her live classes and she’s a great teacher – very patient! Unfortunately, she is not going to be doing live classes after October. She still will be doing online classes though.
I always “pin” the tutorials from The Daily Digi… they are such fabulous information!
I want to let you know how much I enjoy your shows. When I first started listening, so much of what you were talking about was foreign to me, but just like immersing oneself into a foreign language, I’ve come to actually understand what you are all talking about now! Thanks for making me smarter!
I was inspired to hear Steph talk about her methods for helping her RA symptoms while continuing to scrapbook. I have multiple sclerosis and use technology to HELP me create. I love traditional scrapbooking, but it can be difficult at times. It’s then that I’ll do more on the computer and create digi layouts or go hybrid. We can’t let our illnesses get in the way of what we love.
Regarding hand arthritis: I buy “Hot Hands: by the box from Amazon. When my hands get cold, I have one or two to hold, I have even stuffed them into large socks and I can still use the mouse.
My husband does astrophotography and it gets REALLY cold. I use a sleeping bag on a lounger chair. Hot hands go into the toes area of my socks, in my pockets and on each ear under a knit cap. And of course, I can listen to the digi show while laying under the beautiful stars!
I’d like to second Paivi’s comment. I was happy to hear Katie’s pick a couple shows ago of a kit. Way back when you were with Paperclipping, I think you discussed your “digi essentials” in terms of elements and I remember searching for the particular button Steph recommended:) I’d love to have you revisit this and maybe give us all a peak into your “essentials” or favorites folder if you all have one.
Tangent—Steph, since you picked songrabbit a long time ago, it has been one of my kids’ favorite sites…and they seem to have closed! We can’t find any song lyric site that doesn’t have weird ads/pop-ups and an ick factor. Has your family found a new source?
BTW, I want to say again how much I love the Digi Show. This has been a rough year—started a new business, lost my mom, and I haven’t felt like scrapping much. But I still love listening and it has helped me stay connected to the hobby rather than abandoning it. And your random picks have added so much—my friends laugh because when they ask where I learned about something (my magic hairbrush, LastPass, CrashPlan), invariable I mention this podcast called The Digi Show.
Never mind introducing us all to Pinterest before the rest of the world had heard of it (hello, Katie), and actual digi scrapping lessons too, like metadata (I first heard of it here), how to shadow, backing up, and introducing us to great designers —love looking up your guests. Basically I just mean to say thank you!
photobooks or prints. the age old digi*scrapper’s dilemma. i have a whole YEAR to print so i am not sure what to do. ugh.
I’ve been digi scrapping since January (was all paper before that) and this show pushed me to take the plunge and print some layouts!! I had been debating – will I want photo books or single layouts, will I want 8×8 or 12×12, will I want to do paper layouts and put them in the same albums, will my albums be chronological or more theme style… THEN I JUST PUSHED PRINT! and I’m so happy I did. A long time ago someone on this podcast said that a starting scrapper should go ahead and print some layouts so they can see what the colors and shadows look like printed. I’m so glad I finally printed the layouts I made. I went with 8×8 from Persnickety and was pleasantly surprised how all my photos seemed plenty big even if I had 12 on a page. A major extra benefit was that my husband could finally “see” what I was doing and enjoyed the memories I had captured.
Now the question – I’m happy with the 8×8 format and bought a doodle bug album, but I’m disappointed in how much larger the page protectors are then the individual pages. I’m sure they were designed for the 3-D space needs of paper layouts but I feel like my pages are swimming around a bit within the page protectors. Any tips or other manufacturers that seem to have protectors that are a bit slimmer?
After listening to the Digi Show for a year and a half (starting at the very first show under Paperclipping), I’ve still to listen to a show within the first few days that it posted, so forgive my belated comment:
I wanted to offer another viewpoint on the “Wizard Manual” 12×12’s. I started as a Creative Memories paper scrapper way back in 1995, and now have 30-40 of those monsters chronicling 26 years of our 13 children, one son-in-law, and soon to be two grandchildren. With such a weighty heritage sitting there, I’m pretty well locked into 12×12’s for the rest of my life, and that’s OK with me, though I flinched to hear Izzy Hyman comment, on one early show, about grown children squabbling over who should get stuck with Mom’s 40-volume collection of paper scrapbooks.
Anyway, those albums contain many photos of 12×12’s spread across the laps of multiple siblings as they enjoyed the shared memories contained therein. I think large albums suit larger families that way, while only-child families can get by with a single-lap 8×8.
Also, I’ve always enjoyed the way each page spread opens as another room in what reminds me of a dollhouse. When we open a blank file and choose colors and papers and elements, we are furnishing a room that takes us back to that place and time and mood in our lives. I love the way the huge 12×12’s carry that feeling, allowing our eyes to get lost in the space we’ve created with our memory-keeping.
So, I just wanted to stand up for myself and the other lovers of 12×12’s. They may be cumbersome and a challenge to shelve, but they have merits of their own.
Thanks for a great show, guys!
Jenn.
Jenn, I love my 12×12 albums, too!! I can’t see going to smaller albums until maybe after the kids are gone
Ikea now makes a bookcase that is deep enough to house 12×12 albums beautifully!!
I loved that very brief moment of stunned silence after Peppermint mentioned the Digital Scrapbooking Manual. It was too funny that both Steph and Katie not only forgot about it, but haven’t even been offering it to their friends that ask for help getting started!
Tablet and Handwriting: I, too, bought a tiny (4×6 Bamboo) tablet “to try out” to see if I could put my own handwriting back into my layouts. It did work, but not the way I had hoped, and I’m actually pleased to hear that it wasn’t just me. I’ve tried to doodle with it too, but find it very hard to line it up on the pages just right, although I’m pretty sure that one can be fixed with more practice (and patience!)
It was interesting to hear Peppermint’s theory that it is people that move from paper to digital that have the most desire to retain their handwriting; my impression has been that most paper scrappers either print out their journaling or have someone else write it for them! (When they aren’t complaining about how much they don’t like their handwriting. LOL)
I should just have a font of my handwriting made, but I confess that I don’t think that having consistent letters (such as the “a” looking exactly the same *every time*) is any more genuine than the handful of pre-made handwriting fonts that I have been using.
My handwriting looks perfectly fine on my iPad — I need to figure out how to get that over to my computer!
Trackball: I have the Logitech wireless trackball (M570) at work and I love it! I used to have a regular mouse and mousepad, but the mousepad got a bunch of gunk all over it, which also got all over my mouse, so I quit using it and just used the surface of my desktop. Then my mouse got all gunky from my desk (part of the joy of working on a floor above a garage in an old building, I think). I bought myself this trackball so that I wouldn’t have to deal with icky stuff sticking to the bottom of my mouse anymore. The fact that it doesn’t need a lot of desk space is a bonus I hadn’t considered until I took it to a meeting. Highly recommend!
Print size: I print 12×12 and expect I always will since I still create 12×12 paper layouts and choose to put them all in the same albums together. I do feel like 8×8 photo books are too small (but don’t feel the same way about 8×8 pages in an album) and I am planning to try 10×10 the next time I print one. I got into digital scrapbooking because I could easily print gift albums although it seems most years I don’t have enough layouts done to fill one (despite my best intentions).