by Paula Gilarde

I’m always looking for scrapbook page ideas that give my page a great look and get me inspired. In this hybrid lesson, I’m going to show you how I created a photo strip for my page “January Snow.”

Instructions for doing this in both Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements follow.

How to make a photo strip in Photoshop CS

1. Create a new canvas 4″ x 20″, 300 dpi.
2. Open the 4 photos that you want to include in your strip, and crop them each to 4″ x 5″.
3. Drag each photo onto your larger canvas so that you have the 4 photos filling the canvas.
4. Make the top layer active, and add a layer style (by clicking the f in a circle in the layers palette). Select >Stroke (the last entry in the styles box) and choose a size of about 50 px. Set the position to “Inside” and change the color to white (unless you want a red outline!). You should now see a white box around the first layer.
5. Right-click with your mouse on that top layer and select “Copy Layer Style” from the fly-out menu. Again, in the layer’s palette, select the second layer and right-click with mouse to “Paste Layer Style.” Your second layer should have the white box around it.
6. Repeat step 2 for all remaining layers.
7. Flatten your image by selecting >Layer >Flatten Image.
8. Drag your flattened image onto a new 8.5″x11″ canvas, and resize for desired print size. A typical photo booth strip is about 8 or 9 inches tall. I printed mine at 10 inches.
9. Print, trim, and mount on page.

How to make a photo strip in Photoshop Elements

1. Create a new canvas 4″ x 20″, 300 dpi.
2. Open the 4 photos that you want to include in your strip, and crop them each to 4″ x 5″.
3. Drag each photo onto your larger canvas so that you have the 4 photos filling the canvas.
4. Ctrl+click on the top layer in the layers palette to make a selection from that layer (you should see marching ants around it).
5. Create a new layer above the selected layer (using the New Layer icon in the layers palette). Go to >Edit >Stroke, and select a Width of 50 px. Set color to white and location to “Inside.” You should now have the white outline.
6. You can copy this layer (right-click with mouse to select “Duplicate layer”) and move the copies over the remaining layers.
7. Flatten your image by selecting >Layer >Flatten Image.
8. Drag your flattened image onto a new 8.5″x11″ canvas, and resize for desired print size. A typical photo booth strip is about 8 or 9 inches tall. I printed mine at 10 inches.
9. Print, trim, and mount on page.

Paula Gilarde is an equal opportunities scrapbooker, spending most of her free time creating paper, digital or hybrid scrapbook layouts. She is on the creative team at Designer Digitals and Jillibean Soup and has been published in all the major scrapbook industry magazines. You can find out more about her and purchase her introductory digital scrapbooking class at her website: http://paulagilarde.com

Related posts:

1. Hybrid Scrapbooking: fill text with a photo
2. Hybrid Scrapbooking: make your own embellishments
3. How to get laser cut photo effects for hybrid and digital scrapbook pages
4. So that’s hybrid? Make a border of digital stars topped by gems
5. Hybrid Scrapbooking: Make your own embellishments for paper scrapbook pages with dingbat fonts