Adding a photo to a greeting card template in Photoshop CS2
 

I have found several tutorials on how to make greeting cards with your own photos. I always seem to come unstuck when adding the image to the template. It all appears to be ok until I print when the image often appears either too large or small. Any ideas on how to achieve this or perhaps a pointer to a good tutorial please
Thanks

Not sure what software you are using to create the card? If you have a word-processor program like Word, WordPerfect or one of the free office programs then use that to create your card, as you can resize the box/photo to fit. Any drawing programs would also allow you to do this. Before printing just use the preview option to check that it all fits. :D

Generally, and this might or might not work for you, but when I go into print from PS I get a dialogue box up where I can set printer colur or photoshop colour etc. I always choose the printer colours if not sellected. There should also be a box which says Scale to Fit Media. Check that and watch your image fit where it should. Give that a try.

Thanks for both replies, I am using Photoshop as my title suggests, I should have put it in the main body of the text as well. I think I do have the scale to fit media box ticked when printing but will double check. I have been successful several times but it's probably something simple that I am missing??
Thanks to both

If you have a template, check the size of it, maybe it's too big for your media that you're out putting to.

Also you've probably checked this but I'm covering all bases here, you don't have it set up in landscape but are printing portrait.

If you have the template on screen and then open the picture you want in a new window, select all, copy, close picture window, then paste into the template, does it come in at the right size or do you need to free transform it ? ( Edit > Free Transform ). This will put a bounding box around the image you have just pasted in, drag a corner holding shift to constrain proportions, then hit return ( or enter ) to size it. Save your newly created card as something else.

You should be good to print then, but before you do I'd go to document set up, check everything is okay, and then print preview which should give you a perfect example of how it will print.

Aside that maybe you could post some images of your problems on here to help us get a better idea of what's going wrong, if you're on a mac use 'apple>shift>3' to screen grab the page or on a pc, use the printscreen button on your keyboard, then make a new psd doc and paste your grabbed screen in there, that way we can see everything you do and maybe help out more if my above idea doesn't sort it for you ?

Good luck.

Adding a photo to a greeting card template in Photoshop
 

In answer to Eyeayen

I have tried to make a screen print but it does not seem to work

When I put the paste the image into the template I need to free transform it it is small.

I then check it in print preview and it still prints out half of the image. It is portrait so that the left hand half of the image prints out on the right hand edge of the card. I hope I have explained this ok?

I thought I might have cracked it as I found a tutorial which suggested selecting the area that I needed to put the image in on the template first, which I did but it still comes out as said above.

I am wondering what to try next?
Thanks in advance for any help
Anne

Sorry I'm afraid the link doesn't work and I can't seem to make a screen print for some reason
Anne

OK, so you are using photoshop to produce your card, well it can be done but it's not easy, as photoshop is for images not producing cards.

Open photoshop, but make sure there's no photo present, and select File and click on new. From the window that opens select Preset-International Paper and for size select A4 if that's what you are using. Click OK and a new blank document should appear in Photoshop.

Now open the image you was to use for the card and select Windows-Arrange-Vertically, which will put your image next to the open Document in Photoshop. As the blank Photoshop document is A4 therefore it's 297mm by 210mm, so you need to resize the photo to fit this size. I'm guessing you want to fold the card in the middle, so to resize the photo to fit, click the photo and Select Image-Image size. When this Window opens make sure the Constrain Proportions box is ticked then go to Document-Size-Width and click the dropdown box at the side and select mm for millimeters and change the Width number to 210 or less if required. Then select the Bicubic Sharper from the dropdown box then click OK.

Now you have resized it to fit the Document, select the Move Tool, at the top of your tool palette, right click on the image and hold and drag the photo to the blank photoshop document and position as required. If you are printing as a half card, by folding the document in half, then you need to change rotate the image 180 degrees and reposition at the top. This is because when you print it and fold in half it will appear the right way up. :D

Hope this helps and you can adjust what I have said as required. :)

When you select to print in Photoshop a Window will open showing your image on a A4 document. You can tick the Scaled Print Size-Scale to fit media box but it should make any difference as the instructions above have already done this.

Thanks a lot I will try this out. I am using blank cards ready folded 8.25 x 5.75 so will have to change sizing you have given me and this particular image is portrait. I thought I was being clever making a template?? I will let you know how I get on.

[QUOTE=AnneBennett;32592]Thanks a lot I will try this out. I am using blank cards ready folded 8.25 x 5.75 so will have to change sizing you have given me and this particular image is portrait. I thought I was being clever making a template?? I will let you know how I get on.[/QUOTE]

Change those sizes to millimeters so it's 825mm x 575, as it's easier to work with. Good luck and glad to help. :D