Here we get technical.....resizing layouts for the web

Oooops! I forgot to post this when I was sharing my digi stuff!!!.....

A little something I learned, that I wish someone had told me about digital layouts.....they take up room! 

I like to create my layouts as 12x12 at 300 dpi, but then I resize them to 8.333 x 8.333 inches (or 600 x 600 pixels) and 72 dpi (for posting on the internet), which will usually shrink the file size from 10 MB to about 192kb - a HUGE savings on space.  I save all my layouts in PSD (the type of file created by Photoshop and Elements) and as a smaller JPG file, for sharing. Why save that big PSD file? Read on.

One big reason to save your layered file is that you can see what you've used. When I started out, I'd post my completed layouts without giving credit to the designers who make the elements and kits that I used....a no-no and just bad form. Since I saved all the layered files before squishing them into a merged file, I could go back and see what I used and properly give credit where I posted. 

Another reason? Um....typos! I've made more errors in spelling on my layouts than I care to share, and though I'm all about "being real", I can't get past a typo on my work. With the layered file, I can go back in and edit that layer, rather than starting over or just "dealing with it".

I also find that if I want to print my layouts at home, I'll have to resize to 8x8 @ 300 dpi to get a crisp image that my home printer will print. For this reason, I suggest saving your layered PSD file (the type of file created by Photoshop and Elements) as a full sized layout @ 300 dpi, as it gives me the ability to re-open that file and merge layers and resize the page to what I need. Once all the layers are merged (which I do by right clicking on the bottom layer of my completed layout), I Save As a .jpg file, which I can then share on the web, in email, on Facebook, on the blog....

Additionally, some of the galleries you can post to will limit the size of the file you post.  For example, MyScrapbookArt is 154 kb max....which I can rarely do...I'm sure I just need to work at figuring that out, but Photoshop Elements does have a feature called Save for Web, which allows you to define the optimal size for your layout, which is much better than the guess and check method I started out using.


I've just re-read and I can see how this would be like reading Chinese if you aren't familiar with all this. Sorry!!! Once you start playing with it, it'll make more sense, I promise (no, I hope!). Those tutorials I shared with you earlier in the week will help, too.


So, here are my steps:
File - New - Blank Page
....create something layered (see previous posts for sites that have tutorials on how to do this.....)
Save PSD file with all layers open
Right Click on bottom layer and Merge layers
Image - Resize - Image Size (see sizes I use above) and save as a JPEG to post, print, etc.

Are you still with me?