How to use a Digital Scrapbook Brag Book

Supplies Needed:
Gotta Pixel Brag Book Album products
Photoshop Elements 6 or higher. You can use a lower version, however, this tutorial is written for Photoshop Elements 6 and higher.
Zip Program to unzip the product

Step One

A Brag Book is a pre-assembled layout that allows you to quickly and easily add a photo and print. The Brag Book will have openings where you can insert your photos. You can print these out and place them into any of the many different type of brag book folders that stores sell.

After you have unzipped your Brag Book product, open Photoshop Elements and on the top toolbar go to File > Open and find the directory where you unzipped your product to and open a Brag Book Page. For this tutorial, I am using Gotta Pixel's Ann Cobb's Springamajig Brag Book Album

Step Two

The Brag Book Page for this example has a place for one image. You can tell where the openings are by the gray/white blocks that show up on your canvas when something is transparent.

On the top toolbar go to File > Open and choose the photo you would like to add to this Brag Book Page.

Drag and drop the photo onto your Brag Book Page.

Step Three

You will now need to move the image behind the Brag Book Page. You can do this several ways.

Go to the Top Toolbar > Windows and make sure that Layers is checked marked. Find the Layers palette in your Photoshop Elements window. You are going to see 2 small thumbnails that show the Brag Book Page and your photo. Your photo layer should already be highlighted.

With your mouse, click and hold on the photo layer and drag it underneath the Brag Book Page layer. On the canvas, move your photo around with the Move Tool so that it is showing up in the picture box.

Resize the photo as needed.

Step Four

On this example, there is one area for adding journaling. Select your text tool and type in the journaling you would like to add. Make sure that your text layer is at the top in your Layers Palette otherwise you won't be able to see it on the Brag Book Page.

Step Five

When you're done with the journaling, save your layout as a .psd file so that you maintain the layering. If you need to resize for posting online, do so now and save as a .jpg.

Thanks for reading