Get Creative with your Blog/Facebook Photos

Hello friends and welcome Crescendoh readers! So excited to have the opportunity to be Crescendoh’s blog curator this week.

Just stopping in for a quick tutorial to share ideas and techniques to embellish your photos/photo collages and re-size/save for blog/facebook/flickr/etc. posting.

On occasion you may have a desire to accentuate a favorite image with a touch of artistic flair or creative enhancements. Maybe you want to showcase a collage of photos in a non-traditional way, yet keep the focus on the images and not the scrapbook art.

Some creative ideas on embellishing your blog photos/photo collages:

1. Use tape, stitching, or staples to attach your photo(s) on the blog or other sharing site
   
   michelle shefveland. supplies: Scrap.Frames 3
2. Use our Scrap.Frame clusters, which are already embellished and include lifted drop shadows
   
   michelle shefveland. supplies: Scrap.Frames1, Miracle of Birth Pak
3. Transform a special image using our Nature’s Sketchbook Photo Art Blends or Naturals Paper Textures, giving a textured, painterly effect (also used in the first two images of this post). Play with layer blend modes for varied effects.
   
   michelle shefveland. supplies: Naturals 7 Papers
4. Add a flower, photo corner, or other accent
   
   michelle shefveland. supplies: Winged Hope Pak
   
5. Add a Scrap.Edge (tutorial here)
   
   
   
6. Add a quote or bit of journaling
   
   michelle shefveland. supplies: Butterfly Wings 2 Pak

Here’s how to create your enhanced photos and get them optimized for web posting (in Photoshop Elements):

1. Open photo(s)
2. If using one photo, choose how you’d like to embellish it. Open embellishments. Drag and drop embellishments on image; position. Add shadows, if desired.
3. Create textured Photo Art Blend, if desired. Tutorials are included with our Photo Art Blends.
4. If using more than one photo, a fun option is to use a Scrap.Frame Photo Cluster. Drag photos onto Scrap.Frame, re-size and position as needed. Make Scrap.Frame top layer in layer palette.
   
5. Save as layered PSD file to enable editing in future.
6. Merge all layers (Layer>Merge Visible)
7. Select collage by pressing Ctrl key while clicking on merged layer’s thumbnail in layer palette. Dancing ants should appear around collage.
   
8. Crop image to size of selection (Image>Crop)
   
9. Resize for web display (Image>Resize) and in dialog box choose 500 or 600 pixels as widest dimension.
   
   
10. Save for web display (File>Save for Web) and in dialog choose about 60-70 JPG quality.
    
11. Insert this optimized image into your blog on upload to Facebook/Flickr/etc.

These are just a few of the endless opportunities to enhance your photos with a creative twist for blogs, Facebook, Flickr, and other sharing communities.

Happy Creating! Michelle