Today's Tips: Saving for the Gallery!

Hi everyone!!!! It's Jenn... aka jk703 here to share a little tidbit for you today! When I first started scrapping digitally, I was so green and so baffled most of the time! Things get easier as you learn more about your program, play with features and try new things out.

So, when I first started, I was so confused about saving for the galleries that I literally no clue what I was doing! Today's tutorial is to help you Save for a Gallery Upload! Hope you enjoy it!

For my example, I've used Chelle's Blessings Kit. It is a beautiful kit and perfect for many milestone pages, such as births, weddings, communions, and other events you would like to scrap! My layouts end up being 600x600 at 72 dpi. I usually scrap double pages, and will convert each side to it's own file for the web as well as a file for my album uploading.

This is my layout, it is linked to my Page 1 in the gallery, if you want to see how it turns out:

First, you should have your layout open in Photoshop.

Flatten the image by right clicking on the topmost layer in your layers palette and choosing "Flatten Image."

Duplicate the layer. You should have a Background layer and a Background Copy layer. You can re-name this Sharpen if you like or something you prefer.

Next, you will run the High Pass Filter on the duplicated layer (Background Copy or Sharpen if you renamed). Click on the Filter in the Menu bar > Other > High Pass.

My pages usually use a figure between 1.4 and 4. More than that makes my layout look off. Click ok. You should now see a grey box on the layer above your layout. Do not flatten at this point.

Next is the addition of a Color Pop, though this is optional. To add a Color Pop, add an adjustment layer to the original layout layer, Background.

Your adjustment layer is an adjustment in Hue/Saturation, and you will be changing the saturation specifically. My mouse moved, so my screen print changed when I took the "picture," so your Hue/Saturation should be highlighted on your screen. Click on Hue/Saturation. You will be brought to this screen.

The range can be anywhere from +1 to +10, depending on the colors and brightness of your photos or kit choice. Once the Color Pop is added, you can change the opacity to lower how much of a POP you want. Just make sure you have the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer selected in the layers palette, so you are adjusting the correct layer's opacity.

Flatten the image. Depending on your needs, you can save this version as a jpg since it is still full size. It will be ready for uploading to an album. If you are going to upload to a gallery, here is what I do.

First, choose Image on the Menu Bar, and choose Image Size. Change the 3600 x 3600 sizes (or 12 x 12) that are there to 600 x 600 (or 2 x 2). Click ok.

Next, choose Save for Web and Devices from the File Menu drop down. You will be brought to a different screen from your original layout.

In the top right of the Save for Web Screen, you should see an options panel or menu drop down, click on this. Click and choose, Optimize to File Size and a menu will pop up.

Enter in the number you wish -- I always enter 149.5, just to be sure I am below the 150kb limit. Click ok, and your image re-sets to the correct highest quality for the size.

Click save, and save your WEB version. That's it.... nice right sized, sharpened, gallery layouts - ready to go! There are multiple ways to sharpen and re-size, I just thought I'd share this one, as it is just my own method. That is a great time-saver to use that optimize feature, right?!

Once you get used to these steps, try to save them as an action! Then all you have to do is click the button and presto! :)

Hope this helps you get more of your layouts up in the galleries! We would love to see them!

Thanks for visiting today! Have a great week!

Jenn (jk703 or The Typative Scrapper)

PS... I saw the request for extractions in the comments.... I've put it on my list to complete a tutorial. Thanks for the input!