Photoshop: Our Ah-Ha Moment

Ann says: Remember when Oprah used to say she had an "ah-ha" moment? It was when she suddenly came to realize something astounding.  Alison and I had one of these when we discovered that you don't have to make an Internet book using the templates a particular book gives you.  Sometimes there's a better way to do it.  You can make the page in Photoshop Elements, then save it as a JPEG and insert it in your book as a single picture.  We have made several books that are totally Photoshop pages.  Ann likes to make a book with some Photoshop pages (when nothing in the book software works for a particular event) and make the rest of the pages from the book templates.  Here are some samples of Photoshop pages.

This a page from my book on the Northern California coast.  The entire book was made on "blended" templates in Photoshop. I love how these pages come together.

This is a double page spread from one of our yearly books. This would have been impossible without Photoshop.

OK, there were several pages in the California Coast book that are not blended.  This one uses some delightful aged frames.

This is one of the pages from our Family Proclamation book designed by Alison.  The entire book is Photoshop pages and was really Alison's first attempt at designing.  She obviously has quite a knack for it.

We were so excited when we learned how to make an "out of bounds" picture such as this one. Nope, there's not an option for this in the Internet book templates.

This is the cover of the book about the Northern California Coast.  Ann did the entire book with "blended" templates using Photoshop.  Notice how some of the pictures blend into the background.  Others are attached with staples.

When President Hinckley died, the LDS gals in the scrapbooking world were making pages to honor him.  I did it by illustrating something from my life for each of the six B's.   This is a double 12x12 spread and took me a long time to complete, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

This isn't showing up too well because of the white on white, but it's Alison's beautiful design for a 12x12"  book she made about her husband, his brothers and father, and their hiking expeditions.