Stroke Outline

Have you ever had film pictures developed with a white border around the outside? In this layout, I was able to create that look digitally on my photo.

Credits: Thinking of You by Sherri Tierney, word art by Carole Neale, font: French Script

By adding the border around the picture it really makes the photo pop on the page. Often, I see pictures done in this way with a white border, but you could also use a different color. Even if you decide you want white, you should play around with some shades of light off white, tan or gray. On some layouts these duller colors will work better than a bright white.

Let me mention two ways that this effect can be accomplished. First, you can create a white rectangle shape in a layer behind the photo. Size it so it is slightly larger than the photo. The second option is to add a stroke outline around the photo. In PSE this is done by going to Edit - Stroke Outline. You can then select a color and size for the outline.

Fun ways to journal

Take a "stroll" through some galleries and look at the different ways to journal. Sometimes a layout has a lot of journaling that tells a great story, sometimes there is only a few words. Sometimes the journaling is on the background paper, on a tag, or made with an alpha (like individual letter stickers). Check out the layout here:
http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=58646&limit=recent
I just saw this today and noticed all of the great ways the author used journaling. The date is on tags and there are sentences horizontally on ribbon, vertically on the paper, and in the shape of a half circle.

Let me take a minute to talk about the circle text and talk to PSE users. Writing like this is usually referred to as "text on a path," which PSE does not have the ability to do; however, there is a way to achieve this effect. First, go ahead and type out the text you want. Then click back on the text tool "T" on the left tool bar. Look in the top right for this symbol:



Clicking on it should open a box. Click the drop down arrow on the top box to select Arc.


Click and drag the top bar (between "Wrap Text" and the closing X) to move the box so that it is not coving your text. Then move the sliders in this box back and forth until you get the text as curved as you want and click OK.



You can of course then rotate the text around on the page until you have the text where you want it. And you can alway reclick the T curve button in the upper right to alter the amount of the curve.

And here is a tip to get the text to go all the way around in a circle: Type the first half of the text and follow the steps above. Then do the same for the second half of the text, but finish by rotating it 180 degrees. Then push the two text pieces together so that they form a circle!

To everyone: On your next layout try journaling in a way different from your norm. Look through a gallery or two to get some ideas!