How to Use Layered Quickpages

in Adobe® Photoshop® and Photoshop® Elements

In this lesson, we’ll show you how to create a beautiful scrapbook page from a Layered Quickpage.

About Quickpages

First, let’s talk about Quickpages.

A quickpage is pre-designed digital scrapbooking page. Since much of the design has already been done for you, quickpages are an easy and fast way to create digital scrapbook pages.

Most quickpages available are PNG quickpages which are flattened images that include a transparent frame or frames where you can add your own photos. You can also add your own titles, journaling and embellishments to the quickpage. PNG quickpages are wonderful for making fast pages. But, because the quickpage is a flattened image, the quickpage can’t be changed. You can’t change the paper or move the elements or photos around on the page.

That’s where layered quickpages come in. Although PNG quickpages are great for making fast pages, when you want to create a digital scrapbooking page quickly, but you also want full control over the page layout and design elements, a layered quickpage is the way to go. In a layered quickpage, all of the papers and elements are saved on separate layers. This makes layered quickpages wonderfully flexible. Each layer can be moved or changed as you like. And, you can use all the layers, or you can hide some of them. You can even replace some of the layers with your own paper or elements. So, you can make any change that you would like to make the quickpage suit your needs. And, you can reuse a layered quickpage several times and get a new look each time.

How to Use A Layered Quickpage

Now, let’s look at how to use a layered quickpage.

For our tutorial here, we’ll be using the ScrappyDigits Spring Things Layered Quickpage 12.

Open your layered quickpage in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You should also open the photo or photos that you’ll be adding to it.

The first thing you’ll want to do after you open your layered quickpage is to save it with a new name so that you don’t write over your original with any changes that you may make to the file.

To do this, choose File>Save as.

When the ‘Save As’ dialog box comes up, type in a name for your new file. Make sure that both ‘Layers’ and ‘ICC’ are both checked under the Save Options and then click ‘Save’.

Now, that we’ve saved our file with a new name, let’s look at what our file looks like.

Over in the Layers Panel, you’ll see a number of layers. All the layers will be marked with a description that will help you know what is on that particular layer.

This particular quickpage has 13 layers. These layers contain everything that makes up the digital scrapbooking pages, from the background layer and paper strips to the stitches. There are also layers here for your photos. These photo layers are clipping mask layers that you will clip your photo to. You will know these layers by their title in the Layers Panel. The title of a photo layer always begins with ‘CLIP – PHOTO’. If there is more than one photo layer, you’ll also see a number behind this title.

Now, let’s add our photo.

To do this, first select the photo layer by clicking on the layer titled ‘CLIP – PHOTO’ in the Layers Panel.

With the photo clipping mask layer selected, I’ll click and drag my photo, which is already opened, onto the page.

And then click and drag the photo over the photo shape on the clipping mask.

Now, it’s time to clip my photo to the clipping mask.

To do this, I’ll hold down the ALT key in Windows or the Option key on a Mac and hover my mouse over the line between the photo layer and the clipping mask (CLIP-PHOTO). My cursor will change into a double, intertwined circle.

I’ll click my mouse buton when I see that intertwined circle. My photo is now clipped to the clipping mask and my photo will adhere to the photo mask shape.

I want to move the photo around a little bit and resize it to make it smaller so that more of the photo will show. I’ll make sure that the photo layer is still selected and I’ll press CTRL+T in Windows or CMD(z)+T on a Mac to get a transform outline. Click and drag from a corner to resize it and then click on the green checkmark to accept it:

There, I’m done! My photo is on my page and sized and moved to where I want it. If I had more than one photo on this page, I would repeat this process for each one.

All that’s left is for me to do is to add titles and journaling if I want.

Now, let’s look at some of the ways we can change this layered quickpage to make it totally different.

Let’s say that I want to add two photo to my layout instead of one.

To start, I’ll duplicate three layers on my layout. I’ll select the following layers: CLIP-PHOTO, photo mat and custom shadow. To select more than one layer at a time, hold down the Ctrl button on a PC or the Command key on a MAC and click on each layer that you want to select.

Then, with all three layers selected, right click and choose ‘Duplicate Layers’ from the flyout menu.

Then, I’ll click ‘OK’ in the Duplicate Set dialog box.

This adds a copy of these three layers in above the layers that are currently there. The new layers will have the word ‘copy’ added to their names.

Now, I want to make my additional photo smaller and move it over to the right of the original photo. Using the Move tool and the Transform function (CTRL+T in Windows or CMD(z)+T on a Mac), here’s my new layout.

And, after I add in my photos.

I think I’ll remove the stitches from this layout. To do that, all I have to do is turn off the visibility of the two stitch layers.

And, that’s it!

I can now add my journaling and titles and I’m done.