How to Make Your Own Digital Scrapbook Papers

Who doesn't digitally scrapbook these days? Great for preserving memories in a fun and cost-efficient way, digital scrapbooking is here to stay. Many websites offer downloadable files filled with digital papers and accessories-some websites providing these graphics for free and others for a price. Sometimes we can find papers and trimmings that are perfect for what we have in mind. Other times, we just can't seem to find what we are looking for. And it's for those times that this tutorial is for.

Wrong Shape

Occasionally, we find a graphic we love but it is simply the wrong shape. The original image is a circle but we really would like a square. Even the most basic of editing programs can easily solve this problem. If you don't have a program like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, even a program like Paint or Microsoft Office Picture Manager would be a great resource for cropping items and changing the overall border and shape of an image.

Wrong Color

Have you located the most perfect design ever, but it's blue and your heart was set on pink? Not a problem. Microsoft Office Picture Manager has basic color-changing capabilities for simple tasks and other programs like Adobe Photoshop and GIMP can be used for more demanding projects. In Microsoft Office Picture Manager, you can click on the "Edit Pictures" icon featured on the top toolbar in order to pull up the Edit Pictures Task Pane on the right of the program. Click on the tool entitled "Color" in order to view and change the hue and saturation levels of your image.

If you don't love the results, try opening your image in GIMP and re-coloring the graphic that way. Clicking on "Colors" on the top toolbar followed by clicking "Colorize" in the dropdown menu will trigger the Colorize Toolbar to appear, giving you not only hue and saturation options (just like Microsoft Office Picture Manager) but also the variability of lightness, which will act as an additional aid in obtaining a specific shade of a desired color.

Wrong Style

Sometimes we just can't find a style that suits our tastes for the day. Maybe you can only find a simple design and you would rather have something more intricate--or perhaps more rustic looking, or more unique. For situations like these, often all that is needed in order to spice up an ordinary design is the addition of an interesting overlay.

Do you have a picture file sitting around of a wooden door? Or maybe an image of grass or blinds or some other random, everyday object? Inserting one of these pictures into your Photoshop or GIMP file as its own layer, and decreasing the opacity of the layer, can create a nice textured effect to an otherwise lacking graphic. In GIMP, the opacity tool appears at the top of the Layers Toolbar which becomes visible upon pressing "Control" and "L" on a PC. With the right opacity, what you like about the original graphic will still be visible yet enhanced by your added layer.