Archive for June, 2009

Making scrapbook photo corners (Desktop)

Monday, June 29th, 2009

smileblog_tips_lightbox_photocorners  You can use our range of cliparts to add scrapbooking elements to your SmileBooks. I like to make my own photo corners and have found an easy way to do it and make sure all the cliparts are the same size too:

Select a clipart and drag it onto the page 4 times.

smileblog_tips_photocorner01
Press the control key and click on all 4 cliparts, then click on one frame and, keeping the control key pressed, click on the remaining frames. The yellow „active image“ frame should now surround all your image fields.

smileblog_tips_photocorner02

This ensures that all image fields end up being exactly the same size once you click one of the corner red squares in order to scale the cliparts. 

smileblog_tips_photocorner03
Position and rotate the cliparts in each corner and you’re finished! Rotate bottom left corner 45°, top left corner 135°, top right corner 225° and bottom right corner 315°.

smileblog_tips_photocorner04

Spreading images across multiple frames (Desktop)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

smileblog_tips_lightbox_spreadimage

This effect is easy to produce and has a great impact. Simply select a page layout which has as many frames aligned to the edge of the page that you need for your effect. In this example I took a layout intended for 6 images, where 3 images were aligned to the top of the page.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage01
Delete the unwanted frames on the page.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage02

Then click on one frame and, keeping the control key pressed, click on the remaining frames. The yellow „active image“ frame should now surround all your image fields. This ensures that all image fields end up being exactly the same size.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage03

In this example, I now clicked onto the red square at the bottom of the frame and pulled it to the bottom of the page, elongating the image fields.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage04

Now take your image and drag it into each of the image fields.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage05

Move each image around in it‘s frame until you get the effect you are looking for. Sometimes you need to use the zoom tool (4th from the right on the tool bar). Just remember to enlarge each image the same number of times.

smileblog_tips_spreadimage06

If you move the entire image field by mistake (this can happen if your mouse moves onto the frame surrounding the image), just let go of the mouse and click on the „undo last action “button. It‘s the 3rd from the left on the tool bar.

Image Masks (Desktop)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

smileblog_tips_lightbox_imagemask

If you‘re tired of page after page of square or rectangular photos, you might want to try out the Image Mask function. To get to it you‘ll have to click on the „Layout“ tab in the left hand side of the editor. Then click on the tab „Image Masks“. You‘ll see a pull-down menu with different categories of shapes. You can choose from a huge range of shapes, oval, round, hearts, clouds, film strips, puzzle pieces, frames, etc. There are over 120 shapes and effects to choose from. Make sure you download the entire range by clicking the „Download more“ button under the pull-down menu. The files sizes are very small so it won‘t take long to download them all.

Avoiding Typos On The Spine (Desktop)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

smileblog_tips_lightbox_text-on-spine

A typo on the spine of your SmileBook can ruin an otherwise perfect project. To make it easier to read the text on your computer screen, simply do the following. Type in your text on the spine, go to the bottom of the screen and move the slider of the zoom bar to the far right. This will magnify the text and you‘ll easily be able to make any corrections. Move the slider back to the left to continue creating your SmileBook.

Dominic – General Manager SmileBooks USA

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

smileblog_lightbox_team_dominicI took this picture of Dominic at the Grand Canyon with a Nikon D50 the day after the CES ended. Dominic, Ralf and myself took a bus trip from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. We paid $30 each to go on the Skywalk and, a word of warning to all hobby photographers out there, once you’ve paid, you have to had over your cameras and cell phones. You can have official photos taken but they’re not cheap. If you look closely, you can still see the dissapointment on Dominic’s face! Apart from photography, Dominic’s hobbies include Sing Star evenings (he claims to be the company champ but this is hotly disputed by Gerd who you will meet when he gets his own profile) and travelling.