Digital Page Protectors
Yes or no?
Many designers produce what looks like a "real" plastic page protector along with their templates. This will usually be an extra photoshop layer although some designers create a stitched effect on the background. Do you actually need this?
The point of a digital page protector is to make the page look like it's in a "real" page protector when it's on a screen. I never see the point of trying to make digital scrapbooking look like paper scrapbooking. It is what it is! It doesn't have to pretend to be paper scrapbooking, it's not "second best"!
Here's a page from my 2011 album. Both fur babies are now, sadly, at the Rainbow Bridge.
The point of a digital page protector is to make the page look like it's in a "real" page protector when it's on a screen. I never see the point of trying to make digital scrapbooking look like paper scrapbooking. It is what it is! It doesn't have to pretend to be paper scrapbooking, it's not "second best"!
Here's a page from my 2011 album. Both fur babies are now, sadly, at the Rainbow Bridge.
Here it is again with a digital page protector layer. It basically looks murky, don't you think? You can click on it to get a larger image. Still murky! Go and ask a normal non-scrapbooking person to come and look at this article and ask them whether they would like to look at the first picture through a fog. They will think you're insane. I like to print my digital pages at 12" x 12" and put them page protectors in a regular scrapbook album. So that would make them look doubly murky!
You can play around with opacity levels and moving your page protector down the layers until it's just above the background but essentially what you're doing then is just altering the background.
If you want to make your page look more divided up into actual pockets I suggest you use put stitching on it. There are various types of stitched templates available and also templates that look as though they have the welded plastic seams you would see in a "real" page protector.
Here's a version with stitching:
If you want to make your page look more divided up into actual pockets I suggest you use put stitching on it. There are various types of stitched templates available and also templates that look as though they have the welded plastic seams you would see in a "real" page protector.
Here's a version with stitching:
And here's one of the reasons I don't use a page protector effect. I like to step outside the box!
The great thing about digital scrapbooking is you can change anything. If you're using Photoshop/PSE you don't even have to delete the layers you don't like, just hide them by clicking on the little eye icon next to the layer. Try it all ways and see which effect you like best! Then come and show us your pages on the Facebook group.
