Sidebar Feature in MMS V2 adds Convenient Access to Elements!

A great new feature of MMS V2 is the great sidebar Resource Gallery.  Located on the left-hand side of the screen, you can quickly find photos, embellishments, shapes, photo layouts and papers.  You can also select a variety of predesigned wordarts to your layouts from this gallery.

The photos section of the resource gallery can link to any folder on your computer, which adds ease and speed to locating the perfect picture for your page. The Embellishment option of the resource gallery conveniently displays embellishments in folders.  Change from folder to folder without any delays.  Drag and drop your embellishments to your layout with ease to create the perfect layout.

The Shapes option lets you quickly select the perfect shape to compliment your layout.  Edit your shape and add a paper for pizzazz using the shape menu on the right hand side of the screen.  You can also add shapes made from your favorite papers using the paper option on the resource gallery.  Just click the box that says “Add a Shape Object” to choose the background and shape you want in one click.

The Photo Layout option lets you easily place photos on your page.  You can choose photo layouts with multiple photos and fill in the photo boxes with papers to create a different look when using the same photo layout on multiple pages in the same album.

The Background Papers option lets you easily select backgrounds for you page layouts and also lets you easily add shapes made with your favorite papers.  Consider using the square-rectangle shape to make ribbons from your favorite papers.

The WordArt option provides a variety of premade wordarts using features from the wordart menu.  This helps speed up the wordart feature by letting you select a format that will best fit your layout without having to go through each option of the wordart menu.

You can make your memories into a suite album in no time at all!!

So make every day a SUITE day!

Sarah B.

Have you ever wondered…?

Have you seen ads featuring My Memories Suite and wanted to know more? Do you have Version 1 and wanted to check out Version 2 before you buy it? Well, now you have the chance! We are hosting LIVE interactive ONLINE workshops nearly every week for those of you who want to see what MMS can do! These fun workshops are also great if you already own MMS and want to learn some of the “tips and tricks” to help you get going quickly and COMPLETE some of those projects that have been sitting on the shelf! This is also a great way to introduce your friends, who haven’t gotten in on MMS yet – to the most exciting digital scrapbooking software out there!

We invite you to join us at one of the upcoming workshops. The “Intro to MMS – Version1″ and “Intro to MMS – Version 2″ are both completely online, and completely FREE. Please send an email to me if you would like to be notified of the next round and we will get you signed up! You do NOT need to have My Memories Suite (either version) installed on your computer to attend. The workshop is held in a “GoToMeeting” format and you can see and hear everything on the host screen as they give an overview of some of the major features of each version.

Please check it out and see for yourself – we hope EVERYONE learns something new, or brings something new to share to each and every workshop!

Email me if you are interested – and we will get the link information to you for the next round which will be coming up soon!

…and don’t forget to make a memory today!!!

Lisa J.
lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com

Don’t be afraid of *Exposure*!!

Here is the latest in the Photography series from our fabulous *Suite Chick* Mary – who is our resident Pro!  Another GREAT article on things we can do to improve our photographs ~ which just makes our pages better! 

So,  I’m late with my May article because I decided to change my topic last minute.  I had prepared a 4 series article on Action Photography.  I recently taught a class on Action Photography to some of our varsity baseball moms and realized – before I can get these ladies off auto mode they MUST learn the importance of exposure.  We started the class with exposure and there were several “ah ha” moments and “the light bulb just went on” comments.  THEN, we were able to move on to Action Photography.  Stay tuned for the Action Photography articles next month!

In one word – “exposure” – is what photography is all about. Exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the image sensor. In Greek, Photography means writing with light.  Exposure is the combination of three factors (ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture) that determine what the light writes… hence the Exposure Triangle. ISO measures the image sensor’s sensitivity to light. Aperture determines how much light enters the lens and is registered by the image sensor. Shutter Speed determines the amount of time the level of light enters the lens and is registered by the image sensor.

Why Does Exposure Matter?

Overexposed Images = loss of highlight detail, that is, when the bright parts of an image are effectively all white, known as “blown out highlights”.

Underexposed Images = loss of shadow detail, that is, the dark areas that are indistinguishable from black, known as “blocked up shadows”.

These terms are technical rather than artistic judgments; an overexposed or underexposed image may be “correct”, in that it provides the effect that the photographer intended.

The Exposure Triangle – ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture

Each one of the three elements of the triangle relate to light and how it enters and interacts with the camera. The combination of these three elements results in a given subject’s exposure value (EV). What is critical to remember is that any change in any one of these elements will cause a predictable impact on the other and consequently impact the final image (i.e. by changing the Aperture, you change depth of field; by changing ISO rating, you change the amount of light required to obtain an image, and by changing the Shutter Speed, you effect how motion is captured). You will never be able to independently control a given element, because you have to take into account how the other two elements will interact for the final exposure. Fortunately, the mathematics of photography just so happen to work in such a way that each element in the Exposure Triangle has a relative “stop of light” value. If you increase the light by one stop by reducing the Shutter Speed, you can regain the original EV by either decreasing the Aperture by the same stop value and/or adjusting the ISO rating accordingly.

A Little More Detail

ISO.  The measure of a digital camera sensor’s sensitivity to the amount of light present.

- The lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the image sensor and therefore the possibility to take pictures in low-light situations.

- Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds (for example an indoor sports event when you want to freeze the action in lower light) – however the cost is noisier shots.

Aperture.
The size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light. The aperture is like a pupil.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’. You control the aperture by setting the “Aperture Opening”, also known as an F-Stop i.e. f/2.8,f/4,f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens and therefore the amount of light getting through.

Smaller F-stops = larger openings. Larger openings = more light

Shutter Speed. The amount of time that the shutter is open.

Changing each element not only impacts the exposure of the image but each one also has an impact upon other aspects of it (ie changing aperture changes depth of field, changing ISO changes the graininess of a shot and changing shutter speed impacts how motion is captured).

Using Automatic or Manual Exposure?

Automatic Exposure (AE) mode automatically calculates and adjusts exposure settings in order to match (as closely as possible) the subject’s mid-tone to the mid-tone of the photograph.

Aperture Priority mode gives the photographer manual control of the aperture, whilst the camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed to achieve the exposure specified by the TTL meter.  

Shutter Priority mode gives manual shutter control, with automatic aperture compensation. In each case, the actual exposure level is still determined by the camera’s exposure meter.

Manual mode is where the photographer adjusts BOTH the lens aperture and shutter speed to achieve the desired exposure. Many photographers need to control aperture and shutter independently because opening up the aperture increases exposure, but also decreases the depth of field, and a slower shutter increases exposure but also increases the opportunity for motion blur.

Keep in mind that Aperture controls Depth of Field, Shutter Speed controls

focus/blur and ISO controls graininess.

So what is correct exposure?  When the camera effectively reproduces a subject on the image sensor where the most uniform amount of picture information is visible in the highlights, midtones and shadows. Most dSLRs today have an EV meter in the viewfinder that provides an EV on the subject that you are metering. An effective way of ensuring a correct exposure is to employ Exposure Bracketing. This is a technique in which you’ll be taking at least 3 exposures – one at the designated exposure value (EV), one 1/3 of an f/stop above, and one at 1/3 of an f/stop below. On some features-laden cameras, you set the ISO, f-stop and shutter to acquire an exposure value (provided by the TTL meter), and press the shutter release. The camera will automatically shoot the upper and lower bracketed exposure. When you review the bracketed exposures, you’ll be able to see subtle, but key differences in the images – most specifically if there is any over- or underexposure.

The wonderful thing about digital photography is that you can continue to experiment at no cost to you as you learn and master the three elements of the Exposure Triangle, going from semi-automatic to full manual. It takes a certain amount of practice and storing a great deal of information in your head… but master it you can!

Mary M.

Adding Music & Narration to your Slideshow! :-)

Congratulations!  You have some great pages digi-scrapped and you’re ready to create a DVD.  Before you burn it, consider adding music or narration to really add a special touch (and quite honestly make it that much more interesting!).  Adding music to your pages adds more depth and can create a mood that is like the bow on top of the package.  It makes the show fun to watch and listen to!  The hardest part?  Deciding WHAT song to use, of course!

Do you want light-hearted, fun songs, songs that tell a beautiful story or music that has a special meaning?  What genre?  Country?  Classical?  Rock?  Christian?  Pop? Jazz?  The possibilities are endless and can create whatever mood the pages are intended to portray. It’s all personal preference and limited only to your music library!

The best part is that it is quick and easy to do and can be added to ANY album matching any theme!  Christmas pages?  Carols of course!  Baby/kids’ pages?  Play your favorite lullaby or your child’s favorite song.  Wedding album?  Play classical music or the love song that you and your spouse danced to the very first time.  Remember, it’s not just pictures that create memories but sounds, too.  Music and voices can bring back memories the moment they’re heard.

Another way to add a special touch to your albums is to add narration.  Does your computer have a built-in microphone?  Use it!  I created a “movie” for a client’s surprise party for her husband’s retirement.  Many years ago, her husband composed a beautiful heart-felt poem for her and she wanted that included.  I scanned it and placed in the movie.  The writing was too small to have all the guests read from the projection screen so I recorded my husband reading it (obviously it would have been better to have HER husband read it but because it was a surprise, well, you see my point!).  It brought tears to every eye in the room.  Had we not added that narration, no one would have been able to read it and

Other narration could be the sweet sound of your child’s voice, a grandparent reading a favorite story for your child, you and your family sharing memories – ANY voice adding narration can create an unbelievably special memory, one that is worth preserving and sharing.

If you haven’t placed music or narration into your albums, first create your album (I LOVE Ettes Designs in the Design Shop at My Memories Suite) and consider the mood you would like your album to portray.  Songs will just pop into your head as you go along because you’ll tend to use songs that are your favorites!  Once you’re ready to add music, follow these easy steps:

1. At the top menu bar, select Insert > Add music.
2. Navigate to where your music is stored on the computer and select the song you wish to add to the album; select “open”.
3. That’s all you have to do!  You’ll see the name of the song at the bottom of the screen!

Want to add narration to a page?  Select the page you wish to narrate (make sure you’re open on that page) and follow these steps:

1. At the top menu bar, select Insert > Add page narration.
2. Select the “record” button to record the narration (you even have the option to re-record if need be!).  At this point, notice that there’s a box at the bottom of the page to have music that may be in the album playing softly in the background.  If you’d like this option, select the box “background music (faded)”.  If this box is not selected, the music will automatically stop when the narration begins and will begin playing once the narration is completed.  Once the narration is recorded satisfactorily, click “ok” and it will be added to that page.

Have fun adding these special touches to your DVD!

Jackie L. ~ Creative Team

Capture the Moment…

Last month we talked about the Rule of Thirds, the most well-known principle of photographic composition.  Now let’s talk about other aspects of composition…

Composition, the act of composing the image in the viewfinder, is the visual process of organizing the elements and individual details of a scene into a balanced and pleasing arrangement.  It is largely a matter of personal taste. What one person finds pleasing, someone else may not. A composition that clearly and interestingly conveys the photographer’s intended meaning is an effective one. A composition that doesn’t or that confuses the viewer is not effective and can make or break an image.  Below are some popular composition guidelines:

Change Your Angle. Not only does changing your shooting angle impact the feeling of size of your subject but it can also have a real effect upon the light and shade and patterns on it.

(In these 2 images, I climbed higher than the boys so I could get a better view of what they were looking. If I would have taken the shot at eye level you would not have been able to see the rocks under water that they were looking at through their goggles.)

Fill the Frame. A person’s facial features tend to disappear when you move more than a few meters away from them. While it can be appropriate to take shots that put a person in context with the environment that they are in – they often get lost in the scene.

(Almost all subjects will look more interesting close up. Just look at the detail in the flower that you don’t notice in the image where the flower doesn’t fill the frame.)

Watch your Background. You don’t always want to fill the frame with the subject. Sometimes you want a little space around the subject, or you want to show the environment around your subject. But make sure you keep distracting, or unappealing things out of your viewfinder. Be sure that you don’t miss the occasional tree (or other object) appearing to stick out of your subject’s head. Simply moving the camera angle slightly usually eliminates the unwanted object. Look around for a plain and unobtrusive background and compose your shot so that it doesn’t distract or detract from the subject.

(These images of the boy swinging were taken on the same rope swing. I walked a few yards around the pond to get the view without all the distractions. How easy is that?)

Simplify. Don’t try to include too much in the image. The viewer won’t know what to look at. Try to keep only those things that are essential to the subject in the frame. Remember that the outer edge of the frame is also part of the picture and don’t let something distracting on the fringes take your viewers’ eyes away from your intended subject.

(I didn’t include the little girls face in this image because my intent was to focus on those adorable little chunky legs and that gorgeous sunlight in the background. Simple!)

There IS more to good composition than the placement of elements. Lighting, shutter speed, depth of field and other considerations contribute to a picture’s mood and clarity of what the picture is saying, and therefore the effectiveness of its composition. We’ll cover those topics soon!

Once you start observing the principles of composition, employing them will become second nature to you. The best way to learn and to improve your composition is by practicing and experimenting. With the dawn of the digital age in photography we no longer have to worry about film processing costs. As a result, experimenting with our photos’ composition has become a real possibility; we can fire off tons of shots and delete the unwanted ones at absolutely no extra cost. Take advantage of this and experiment with your composition – you never know whether an idea will work until you try it. Your images will greatly improve and people will start commenting on how great they look! So go ahead and… capture the moment.

~ Mary M.

CONTEST!
If you have an image that you feel is well-composed, post it on the Facebook page for our fans to see and our FANS get to be the voters! The top 5 winners will receive the textured images below via download from Mary Moseley Photography. Your images will also be highlighted on Mary’s Blog. If you have any composition tips of your own feel free to post them too!

What the heck is “Clustering”???

Layout – You can use a cluster to draw attention to a certain part of your layout. For example, if you have a layout of four photos, but one is more sentimental or has more meaning than the others, use the cluster around that photo to draw your eye there first. Just be careful to not cover up your special photo. A scrapbook is in essence all about the photos (the actual memory) and the rest, although very important, is not the main reason why we look at a scrapbook! It’s OK for embellishments to be under the photo, half hidden. Plus, embellishments don’t always have to be used the way they were intended to be used! Here, I clustered stars, a ribbon mat, bracket, and stitching to create this page. My attempt was to draw attention to the bottom left picture first as I love how my daughters expression shows complete and utter satisfaction.

Shadows - Not all your embellishments are going to have the same kind of shadow! One tip I read said to use “real life” shadows. Embellishments on top will have more of a shadow than those on the bottom. Play around with the shadows and use what looks most natural. Most find it best to add shadows after the cluster is assembled. I used My Memories Suite version 2 to do these pages. One really neat feature in My Memories Suite V2 is that you can move your shadow around on the x & y axis. This way you can create a shadow as if the light was coming from any direction! It’s hard to tell with shadows, and I’m still practicing using them, but below I added shadows to my cluster.

Angles – Again go with what looks best. Some people like to use different angles for their embellishment cluster to add character. You can create white space, which is pleasing to the eye, by spreading the cluster out. I have a harder time doing this as I seem to like things in a conformity. It’s something I’m trying to overcome! Photos - You can create a cluster out of your photos as well. You’re not limited to just embellishments for this technique! Choose a photo that will be your focal point for the page. Then add the other photos under and around yet keeping the one photo the focal point. I think we do this more often than we think about it. The above page is a good example of a cluster without realizing you are doing it. My intent was to make the bottom left picture the focal point of my cluster. My husband commented that the first picture he saw was the top left, mostly because it was a close up of our daughters eyes. To fix this, I added a shadow to the bottom left photo, decreased the size in the picture that drew my husbands eyes, and make all but my focal point picture black & white.

Kits- It’s easier to use embellishments that you find all in a kit, and this is a great way to practice the technique. This way you have a great idea on what is available and you don’t spend hours just picking out embellishments you might use. Then once you feel you have a feel for what “clustering” does for your page, use several kits to draw from.

Let’s practice!!

Start small. Just choose a few embellishments that you want to use. Put them all on your page. It’s easier to imagine the end product when it’s all sitting right in front of you. Look at what you have on your page and decide what looks bulky and what looks flat. Put flat embellishments on the bottom and bulkier on the top. Play around. The nice thing about digital scrapbooking is that if you don’t like it, delete it! If you decide you did like it, add it back!!

Here are the steps I used to create my first ever attempt to cluster thanks to Scrapping Sarah’s Scribblings.

1. Pick your photos. Sarah suggests getting your background first, but I have a hard time seeing a background without the pictures on the page first.
2. Add/move your picture to the bottom right.
3. Add a frame on top of the picture
4. On the bottom of the frame add a ribbon. A curly of wavy ribbon works well.
5. Next add an swirly embellishment on the lower right hand corner of the frame – This could be a stamp or a glittery swirl. Make sure it will overlay the frame corner on bottom and the right hand side.
6. Add greenery on top of the swirl. This will be the base for a flower or flowers.
7. Select a flower or flowers and layer it on top of the greenery.
8. Add a title, journaling and a date.

I didn’t follow these instructions exactly, but it gave my a guideline to follow.

Don’t know where to start???

Maybe you are new to the world of Digital Scrapbooking…  maybe you are wondering,  “What do I do first?”  “What does it take to create a really GREAT photo album?”  “How do I get my albums to look like those in the pictures?” “What if I get stuck”!!!???  First of all, remember that even the best designers and scrapbook artists ALL started at square one.  They all had to learn.  They all made mistakes!  So, don’t give up before you get going!  YOU CAN DO THIS!  There are some great tools in My Memories Suite to make sure that your photos are preserved and your family’s story is told and that you create something very special that YOU can be very proud of!

First, realize that the PERFECT album will look different for everyone.  Even with the same photos, and the same page kits and embellishments, each person will see the story a little differently and build their       pages in a little different way.  The wonderful thing about My Memories Suite (whether you have version 1 or 2) is that this program puts YOU in complete control!  You have the ability to decide what goes where, your page order, your background paper, and your embellishments – EVEN on the Designer Template pages.  It is easy to make sure your story comes together in just the right way!  So, decide what story or event your album will include.  This can be anything from a general collection of photos by theme, or a group of photos that commemorate a particular event or holiday, and some will just be for fun.  A great way to give your album a coherent feel is to select a theme or kit to serve as the backdrop or foundation to build a great showcase for all your photos.  This is SO easy in the My Memories Suite Design Shop because there are TONS of great collections to choose from that will instantly give your album that “put together” feel that we all want.  So, gather your photos, pick your theme and you are READY to get started!

Make sure to stop by and check out the My Memories Suite Design Shop and take a peek at all the wonderful Designer Template pages and paper packs and embellishments sets.  Start with one that really strikes your fancy or suits the “feel” of the album you are trying to create.  Even if you build your own album from scratch, choosing a coordinated set of papers instantly unifies your pages.  Pair the set of background papers with a few of the photo only templates already built into your My Memories Suite software and you are well on your way to your own wonderful work of art.  I have included a few pages here from the “Drama Queen” paper pack from Dana Zarling to show you how the background papers pull the pages together.  See how the coordinated background papers and mat pull the pages together?

Your friends and family will be amazed at the impressive, professional results you will achieve, from your very first project.  How easy it was… well, that can be our little secret!  And remember, if you get stuck, or ever need help, we are only an email away.  Remember, you can also check out the Facebook fan page or Flickr gallery for some great inspiration, too!!  We have some very talented friends and fans who have posted wonderful pages that they have created quickly and easily in their MMS program.

So, what are you waiting for???  Your photos are waiting to tell your story!  Let them OUT of your computer, and off your memory card and into the hands of those you want to share that story with!

Have a happy scrappy day!

… and don’t forget to make a memory today!

Lisa J.

lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com

Organizing Digital Scrapbooking Supplies!

Here is a GREAT article from Katie the Scrapbook Lady on how to organize your digital scrapbooking supplies! Check out this great thought from her blog:

I created a folder just for my digiscrap supplies. I now keep this folder on my external hard drive because it is pretty big – I am a Scrapbook Lady you know! This is what it looks like inside my digi scrap folder:

Here’s a list of all the subfolders – the numbers in front of them are to keep them in a certain order since windows likes to organize the folders in numerical and alphabetical order automatically. I wanted the first folders to be related to the months of the year (holidays) so I numbered them that way. I decided to put Birthdays at the beginning of the year.

1 Birthday

1 Winter

2 Valentines and Hearts

3 St. Pats

4 Easter (even though sometimes Easter is in the 3rd month)

6 Summer and Beach (June is the first month of summer)

6 Travel and Camping (This just seemed to fit next to the summer and beach file)

7 Independence Day

8 School/Art/Music (August is back to school month around here)

9 Fall

10 Halloween

11 Thanksgiving

12 Xmas

Does that make sense so far? It’s pretty straightforward – these are the folders for holiday or theme specific stuff. If I have a full kit that is a Back to School kit, it goes in the file marked “8 School”. If I have a cute little heart doodle it goes in file “2 Valentines and Hearts”. I like to select “Large Icon” view in my window so I can see the folders. I also select an image to represent the folder by going to the folder properties and changing the image if needed.

Next I have files of individual elements. I put a 13 in front of all of these so they stay in alphabetical order based on subject; alphas, buttons, frames, etc. So continuing on with my list of files:

13 alphabets/numbers/dates

13 animals

13 buttons and brads

13 flowers

13 frames

13 journaling/quotes/tags

13 misc. elements (the ones that just don’t fit anywhere else)

13 overlays and masks

13 ribbons/trims and bows

13 shapes and borders

13 staples and fasteners

13 stitches

Next up are papers and kits. Let me emphasize here that I always keep a kit together when I first buy it and file it under “full kits” unless it is a theme kit that fits in one of my earlier categories. Kits are designed to have the pieces go together. Yes, that file is really big! But because I have “thumbnail view” selected for every folder in it, I can browse through my kits in a flash. I do keep subfolders within that file that I will show you in a minute.

My paper and kit files all have a 14 in front of them to keep them nicely in place behind the element files.

14 full kits

14 paper prints and packs

14 paper solids

and here’s a peek into my rather large full kits file:

There are several ways you could organize this folder. I have folders sorted by designer. Each designer gets a folder if I have more than one of their kits, otherwise the single kit will go into the misc. sub-folder. I was surprised that some of my favorite designers didn’t show up here, then I realized that I only bought embellishment packs or theme kits from them. This is an easy way to evaluate what kind of purchases you make.

I do have an Asian sub-folder because I’m collecting Asian style kits to use on pages for my husband’s Japan layouts. Perhaps you might want to set up some folders for boy kits and/or girl kits? It can be difficult to categorize some kits. Most of the kits I buy have flowers in them – does that mean they should all be filed under flowers? You can definitely overthink this step. I suggest just finding a method that makes sense to you and won’t take you to long to browse through. I used to keep this file full of individual kit folders and I did like that approach as it was easy to browse through them. It just got too unwieldy though so I needed to create a sub-folder system.

I strongly suggest that you keep kits together though. I read an article by a very popular digi scrapper who said she breaks up all her kits and puts the flowers in the flower file, the ribbons in the ribbon file, etc. I tried this and not only did it take me an eternity to do, but then it was nearly impossible to scrap. It took me months to undo this mistake!

The next category for me is templates. This is probably the area that took me the longest to organize but it is the one that has had the biggest payoff for me! If you read my Power Scrapping Secrets article at The Daily Digi you will see how having templates sorted by number of pictures they hold can save you oodles of time. I will give you a peek into my template folder so you can see what I’m talking about.

I have filed all of my templates by the amount of photos they are designed for. I realize that some templates might fit in more than one file depending on how you use them but I just tried to stay basic with my filing system. I can’t tell you how useful this system has been. Even if you think the rest of my digi organization is bunk, I bet you will find this part useful.

When I go to create a page that needs to have 4 photos on it, I just open up that folder and start browsing. Even if I don’t use a template, it at least gets my creativity working!

I don’t use subfolders here and all I keep is the preview of the template and the actual template file right next to. Sometimes I have to rename them to get them to stay next to each other in the file. Every once in a while I have to make a jpeg image so I have a preview of the template so if you are a template designer – PLEASE include a preview of each template! My very favorite templates are in TIFF format because you only need that one file to serve as a preview and the actual template. This really isn’t as complicated as it sounds – basically, I just like to see what each template looks like at one glance through the folder it relates to.

Now we are getting into sort of the misc. area of my organization. I have a 16 in front of the next few folders which are for downloadable magazines and tutorials

16 albums and quick pages

16 magazines/newsletters and tutorials

17 actions (even after you load them, it’s helpful to have a place for the instructions)

18 memorabilia (scanned items)

19 AMM (my amazing month of memories files)

19 CU (commercial use stuff from my designing days)

20 photos * will deal with this in a future post

21 layouts * will deal with this in a future post

Organization will pay off in many ways. If anything, it helps you avoid duplicate purchases. The best part for me is that it makes me a more efficient scrapbooker which means I get more done in the time I have and I enjoy it more! The only downside is that it is truly a boring task. I mean all you are doing is moving files around – so my solution is to take my laptop out to the couch for this one and watch tv with my family while I’m digi organizing. It’s nice to have something else to think about while you are staring at the screen. And you don’t have to feel guilty about watching tv because you are cleaning while you are doing it!

Making a Designer template yours! :-)

Here are some great tips that you can use to help you make the most of the Designer Templates available with your MMS program! There are tons of great templates that can really help speed up the process of creating family keepsakes for you. Let’s face it ~ we creative people have a big struggle when we approach a project. We want to get it done, we want to enjoy the process, we want to enjoy the results, and we want it to look like it’s ours! The flip side of that however is, most of us have INCREDIBLY busy lives! We have children and families, we work inside the home and out, we volunteer, we are there for those around us – and we TRY to squeeze out a little time for ourselves in there somewhere! Well, I have found that using Designer Templates really help me to get through a project quickly. Now, sure, there are still some times and some projects that I start from scratch, because there isn’t a template that quite matches the look I want or I really do want every element added to be of my choosing. That’s one of the things I truly LOVE about MMS. I have the flexibility to choose either option every time I add a page to a project I am creating. But for today’s post, I really wanted to show you some quick tips you can use to start with a Designer Template and truly jazz it up and make it yours! A couple quick steps and you will be DONE before you know it!

So, first I will show you the template page, completely as is. All I did was drag in the photos from one of my folders. In this example, I am using some photos from a project I did for my aunt for Christmas. We live in Florida, so we don’t see much snow – but there is a wonderful exhibit called “Ice!” at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando every year and I have some cute pictures of her family that I am going to use in these two pages.

As I was saying in the first page, the “before” page – I simply chose the page I was going to work on, and dragged each picture into one of the photo boxes that were placed on the page. This is so quick and easy the page literally creates itself in less than a minute or two. Drag, drag, drag, DONE! Looks great, sure! I could move on, sure! BUT… I want to “snazz up” the page just a bit so it better suits my taste. So, I choose a few simple options from all of those available in my MMS software. Now, most of these additions are available whether you have Version 1 of MMS or the newly released V2. They are SIMPLE to do and whether this is your first page or your 1,000th – YOU can do it!

As you can see, I used the ZOOM tool, to really get the pictures more “close up” so you can tell who’s in them! Click on the picture you wish to zoom, then click the ZOOM IN button until you get close enough in. You can also adjust the visible portion of the picture with the CROP tool, which allows you to move the part of the picture that is shown. This is one of my favorite things to do to really get more of the subject in each picture on the page. Okay, so now that I have done all three photos, I move on to the next little change. I choose to add a MAT to my photos. Again, all under my control, for these photos I choose a thin white mat to frame them up a little, and click the “APPLY TO ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE” so they all match exactly. You can choose the color of the mats to suit your taste – you can also color match them so they are a perfect fit for your page! Then, I move on to my FAVORITE little change – SHADOWS. I can’t say enough how much I just LOVE shadows and what they can do for your page. They literally POP your pages to life. I pretty much use shadows on just about everything on the page! What I love about the shadow option in MMS is that it is COMPLETELY under your control. It’s more than just “do I want a shadow or not?”. It’s how much shadow do I want, where do I want the shadow to be placed, how dark do I want it, how much of a drop do I want? Everything is under my control! So, I first click on one of my photos and click on the SHADOW box in my Control Panel. That brings up the SHADOW PROPERTIES box. This is where you control the appearance of the drop shadow of your selected item (the shadows for embellishments work much the same way). So, you choose how opaque you want your shadow, how much blur (which affects how “soft” or “hard” the shadow appears). Then, my favorite part is to decide the offset. You can use either your mouse, by clicking on the actual shadow in the preview box and dragging it around until you like the way it looks, or by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Either option gives you the flexibility to show a little or a lot, drag it more to the side or the bottom, etc. I just LOVE that option! You can even choose the COLOR of the shadow! Then, I click the little box that says “APPLY TO ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE” so that all the pictures look the same. You can do each photo individually, but this will save time.

Then I moved on to a little more personalization – but not too much, just to keep this short and sweet! I change out the text that says “Dec 2010” for a little “Ice!” so it fits more with the page. Remember EVERYTHING that is included in a Designer Template is completely under your control. You can move it, resize it, reshape it, duplicate it, eliminate it, whatever you like. I chose to just leave the little shape and embellishment and change out the little words. So, I created a new text box (you can create this in “WORDART” in V2). Used one word to help define what is going on in the pictures on the page. Of course, I add shadows to each of the three parts of this little set. The white circle SHAPE on the bottom, the little blue MAT embellishment, and the text. When I am adding the shadow to the little blue MAT embellishment, I click “APPLY TO ALL EMBELLISHMENTS ON THIS PAGE” so it also adds the shadow to the snowflake embellishment along the left side of the pre-designed page, as well as the shaped strip at the top of the page (that you almost don’t even notice until the shadows makes it pop!)

Then, finally, I add one line of text at the top of the page, and the year at the bottom, to really just define it better and fill in some of the empty space at the top and bottom of my page. I add the “Gaylord Palms Orlando” and the “2008” text. I choose a cute font (this one is called “Tingle Institute” – cute!) and add the text in black, of course add my shadow also. Then another one of my favorite little tricks is to create the text like I just described, then I click the COPY button up top and paste and exact duplicate of my text line, so now I have two. Then I click the WHITE button (or you can choose ANY color) to change the color of the duplicated text to white (or whatever color you selected). Then I just “layer” it over the previous black text and it really POPS your text off the page. Some of this can be done in fewer steps with the word art options in V2, but I still like the double layer look!

To finish up, I enlarged each of the pictures, just a bit, to fully utilize the space on the page and maximize how much of the picture I could show.

NOW, I can say, “I’m done!”. I am happy with the layout of the page, and a few simple, QUICK little changes that really just bring it to life for me. Now, you can spend a ton of time working on each little detail, and many of us love to do that – I love to do that too, but sometimes you just WANT TO GET IT DONE! And this is a great way to combine your own personal flair and the ease of the Designer Template options.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or need a little more help with the instructions for anything I talked about here, just ask away! You can always reach me at lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com or find me on the Facebook page at “Polaroid My Memories Suites”!

Good luck with your New Year’s projects and Happy Scrappin’!!

Lisa J.

New Features Video Tutorial from Lesley @ The Pink Toque

Happy Sunday, and have I got a treat for you… introducing My Memories Suite VERSION 2! That’s right, you heard me correctly. Not only is there a new version to My Memories Suite with all new features, I created a video tutorial to explain it all and show those new features off!

Last month, StoryRock unveiled an all new version 2 of its famous and very popular digital scrapbooking software, My Memories Suite. Version 2 is packed with all new goodies and awesome new features that we were dying for in Version 1. It’s like StoryRock read all of the feedback of features and ideas that its users over the years have been wanting out of the software and put it in one neat little package that will make digital scrapbookers the world over very happy.

If you’ve been to the Pink Toque Craft Blog before, you know I am an avid user of My Memories Suite. I got the software over 3 years ago when it first came out, and I have been in love ever since. I don’t want to babble on forever (because the new Version 2 goodies are exciting!) but if this is your first visit to my blog and you’re wondering what all of the excitement is about and why I love this software so much, be sure to go and read my review. My Memories Suite has been the best digital scrapbooking program to ever come along and with Version 2, it just got better.

Version 2 includes 1500 new background papers, 1300 new embellishments and 20 new layouts that come built into the software for your use right out of the box. On top of that, new features such as the zoom ability, Resource Gallery, and WordArt Designer make creating beautiful digital scrapbooking pages even easier. My favorite new feature is that your text can now be curved and follow shapes. This was not something you could do in Version 1, and I love that I can create text in beautiful circular shapes or to follow the edges of a photograph right on the page. It was probably the most requested feature and question I got from readers of my blog. Before I had to tell people they could only do something like that in Photoshop, but now My Memories Suite allows you to edit curved and rounded text on the fly right in the program instead. Hooray!

Another highly-sought-after feature that a lot of people asked me about was how to view pages side-by-side so they could build double page spread layouts. Unfortunately, this was not something you could do in Version 1, but now in Version 2 it’s easy. You can also now share your digital scrapbook in a wider variety of ways, including trading cards or calendars. They’ve also streamlined the Photobook process to make it easier to create beautiful photobooks of your finished albums.

I received Version 2 last month and have been trying hard to squeeze in some digital scrapping time with it so that I could show off the new features here on my blog. I finally got around to it today, and created a new video tutorial that highlights all of the major new features available to you in Version 2. I walk you through the new things and how to use them, and it makes it easy for Version 1 users to pick right up where they left off in the old version, or for new users to My Memories Suite to see just how awesome the software really is so they can get it for themselves.

Version 1 users will love that all of the photo albums and pages they’ve created in Version 1 will be converted for them into Version 2 compatibility and that the transition will be seamless. You won’t lose anything and all of your old albums will be right there for you in Version 2, ready to go and waiting for you to use the new tools and features to enhance them even further. When you’re adding embellishments or papers, you’ll be able to easily see what items are new to Version 2, and all of the old embellishments and papers from Version 1 are collected together in a folder labeled as Version 1, so you can quickly find all of your old favorites or check out the new stuff.

Speaking of Favorites, another new feature that I just love is that I can “bookmark” the embellishments and papers that I use most often and mark it as a favorite. This means that it’s added to a special “favorites” folder so I can access those favorite items quickly anytime I want to without having to search for them every time I want to use them on my digital scrapbook page designs. I show how this works in the video tutorial.

The WordArt Designer allows you to create fun and professional looking word art for your pages easily, and is built right in to the side tab of My Memories Suite now. Type in the text you want to create into word art, select the font and sizing, line spacing, colors, fill, stroke, etc. You can add shadows or a bevel and design the perfect word art accompaniment to any page you’re working on. I also demonstrate this in the video tutorial!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m really excited about the new features in My Memories Suite Version 2! I just recently finished up Family Life 2009 digital scrapbook and am eagerly looking forward to working with all new designs, layouts, and features with Version 2 in 2010. If you want more details about what Version 2 has to offer, check out the info on mymemoriessuite.com. Original users of Version 1 will be able to upgrade for a nominal fee to get all of the new features, papers, embellishments, and layouts that come packaged with Version 2 and brand new My Memories Suite users can get on board and pick up Version 2 for themselves!

I’ve spent most of the afternoon recording the latest tutorial and getting it uploaded for viewing. It ended up being 18 minutes long! Since YouTube only allows videos up to 10 minutes each, I split the tutorial into 2 parts:

Link to YouTube Video Tutorial Part 1

Link to YouTube Video Tutorial Part 2

Enjoy! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or comments on the new video tutorials or you need help with My Memories Suite Version 2. Hope you’ve had a great weekend Happy scrapping!

Lesley  thepinktoque.com