When we travel to a fun vacation to the beach and ocean we probably try to get lots of photos to remember our wonderful vacation.
However, some of the photos we bring home aren’t digital scrapbooking worthy. Some of them need some improvement before we can add them to our digital scrapbooking projects!
Summer at the beach and ocean make extra fun photo opportunities, yet aren’t we so glad to have our graphic programs like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to improve our photos before we freeze them in time by digital scrapbooking them!
Read this beach adventure and see how post-editing the photos really enhanced the images, and made them extra nice and ready for digital scrapbooking.
Beach Adventures in Paradise and Digital Scrapbooking Helps!
by Denise Bell
Waking up to see the beach out my bedroom window 100 yards away was my dream. And my dream came true a couple of weeks ago when we took our four kids to Cancun, Mexico on vacation.
We had a lovely Villa at the Mayan Royal Resort. Our room was ground level and only one room away from being the beach front Villa.
How did we get so lucky? I have no idea but it was more than I could have ever hoped for.
I put my bathing suit on and that’s what I wore for the next two weeks!
Spending the majority of our time on the beach was a highlight of our trip. My husband was so surprised that the water was so warm that when you got out you were not cold at all.
We all played in the waves and even learned to body surf.
The girls’ favorite activity was finding sea shells along the way.
My nine year old actually had one wash up to her feet that would have sold for $5 to $10 in the stores or from a vendor on the beach.
I was glad I had brought along my digital camera to capture so much of the fun!
I did notice however, when I was relaxing on the beach and scanning the photos on my digital camera that I would have to fix some of the photos when I got home.
For example I took a photo of my teenage daughter that was delighted to have her hair braided with beads and flowers included. But I could tell from looking at the photo when I got home this photo would need some fixing, too dark, red-eye and more!
I didn’t want to delete the photo as my daughter loved the braided hair, because she didn’t have to spend all morning fixing her hair before we went out and played in the sand for two weeks… which was also to my delight. I wanted to save this photo and remember this special hairdo! Any of you that have had a teenage daughter can understand this I’m sure.
I knew when I got home I could use some of the photo editing techniques I learned when I took the “Digi” MakeOver tutorials so I could fix this precious photo! When I got back home I would plan to first fix the Red-eye, then I would lighten the photo so you could see her face more clearly, I also whiten her teeth so the braces were less noticeable. You can see by looking at the first photo of my daughter with braided hair that one might be inclined to delete the photo on ones digital camera. But since I knew I could edited this photo and bring out the beauty and preserve our precious braided hair memory – I kept my finger away from the delete button and as you can see we are really enjoying the edited version now!
At the end of the two weeks in Mexico, even after wearing massive amounts of sunscreen, we all came home with gorgeous tans and a new outlook on life. It was just the relaxing break we all needed so desperately before we head into a new school and work year.
I must say, it was a beach adventure in paradise and a dream vacation fulfilled.
It was an experience too precious to be kept all to ourselves as memories only inside our heads. The water, the sand, and our big smiles caught on camera were much too special to let linger as images left on a folder somewhere on my computer.
So, I digitally scrapped our photos, and I was done in no time! What was my secret to quickly digital scrapbooking my adventure? I used the Fun At the Sea Digital Scrapbooking Kit since it had so many elements already featured on each page like a shimmering sea, seagulls, and boats in the digital paper I really just added my digital photos and some journaling!
Oh, I did add some Wordart too and some fish embellishments but that was in the kit too so the scrapbooking was almost as simple as using Quick Pages (which are pre-made digital scrapbooking pages).
It was simple and fast and using the Fun At the Sea Digital Scrapbooking Kit, and this made it so I was able to show off our trip in no time at all!
This is a great time saving tip! Since there are so many details in the digital paper itself (ocean, sky, clouds birds), I really only needed to add some text and include my photos! I was done with a digital scrapbooking page in minutes! It was incredibly quick and easy (which is always nice when you’re a mother of four… time is precious) and soon after, I had created an entire 2009 summer memory book of our Cancun summer vacation filled with our favorite photos!
I was so glad to be able to preserve the the fun family vacation in a nice digital scrapbooking page and then ultimately a lovely bound printed album.
Another great tip to use for digital scrapbooking pages! On some of the digital scrapbooking pages I also used the ideas that I learned from the Adding Artistic Edges to Digital Photos tutorials to make the photos blend into the blue digital paper sky!
It really created a cool effect on my digital scrapbooking page!
I used these techniques to create artistic edges on my photos that took the straight edge off my photos and made them more interesting! Also, I used these same skills to make some color matting to highlight the photos too!
I look back at these special digital scrapbooking pages that I created and they make me smile.
Our trip to Paradise deserves much more than a regular old photo album, and I’m so glad I took the few minutes to digitally scrap our special get-away.
The kids have their seashell souvenirs, and we all can cherish this digital scrapbooking summer memory book.
Every page I scrapped of our summer vacation to Cancun reminds all of us what we did and how happy we felt every time we look at these photos combined with written highlights of the trips and text mentions of special memories. I’ll hang on tight to this book and in the meantime, I’ll be dreaming of making more family memories in Cancun someday soon!
I hope that each of you also had an opportunity to make special memories this summer- whether your adventure was abroad or in your own backyard.
-Denise
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Fix your photos using this Digi MakeOver Madness Tutorials like:
Removing “Demon-Looking” Red-Eye is the first Lesson in the Digi Make Over Madness Series for Eyes using Photoshop (or get it in Photoshop Elements).
In this Lesson we review the quick and easy red-eye removal tool and learn how to use it on Digital Photos filled with Red-Eye.
Removing Red-Eye makes the eyes look natural and brilliant once again… just like when you snapped the picture!
Check out other Photo Editing Training in our Scrap Shop!
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After the photo is taken you can edit and fix it or take it an edit it for more dramatic and lovely affects! Learn more about photo editing using Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
Check out these Photo Editing Tutorials:
Airbrushing Portrait Photos in Photoshop Elements 7
Removing Shadows and Lightening Photos in Photoshop Elements
Convert Photos to Black and White in Photoshop Elements
Removing Demon-Looking Red-Eye in Photoshop
Removing Demon-Looking Red-Eye in Photoshop Elements
Getting Rid of Wrinkles, Zits, or Moles in Photoshop Elements
Whitening Teeth within Photoshop Elements
Adjusting Skin Tones and Digi Tanning in Photoshop Elements
Removing Wrinkles, Lines, and Bags in Photoshop Elements
Also see these baby editing tutorials:
Happy Scrapping and Photo Editing!
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