Saving for Gallery and Actions/Scripts

One of the awesome things about making digital scrapbook pages is the ability to post them into galleries and share your pages with others. It's possible with paper pages, but that involves scanning or trying to take a picture of it without losing quality. So we digiscrappers have a huge advantage!

Most galleries require 150kb maximum size, though there are a couple with larger (or smaller) limits. 500x500 is the typical dimension requirement. If you're posting on a site that allows larger dimensions, I recommend leaving it at 500x500 because otherwise people (myself included) can't see the layout all at once; it's larger than my window!

I got directions for saving for web for PSP from a friend at thedigichick.com (thank you, Val!).

PSP has the option of making a "script," and Photoshop has the option of making "actions," both of which are basically the same thing. They're very easy to set up, and once you make one, you don't have to go through all these steps again. I use little actions for anything I don't want to keep doing...resizing paper when I'm making a card, brightening up eyes in pictures, and saving for web. So I'll put both the script/action basics in here, as well as the directions for saving for web.


PSP:Make sure your 'scripts' toolbar is open by going to view > toolbars > script.
To start recording a script, click on the button with a circle on it, it says "Start script recording".
Right-click on one of your layers in your layer palette > merge > merge all (flatten).
Go to image > resize. change the pixel dimensions to 'percent' and make it '100 percent'.
Then to resolution, and set the resolution to 72 dpi. then click the button in the scripts toolbar with the the little disk on it, for 'Save Script Recording'. Name your script, and hit save.

Anytime you want to save something for the web you just select that saved script and hit the play button.


Photoshop (I believe Elements can do actions too, so hopefully these instructions are pretty close for you as well):

With your layout open and ready to be resized, make sure your actions palette is open (it's listed in the "windows" dropdown list, if you need to find it). Click on this button:
And then select "new action." Name it something you'll remember ("save for web", maybe)

That's the hard part. (seriously!)

Now to resize. Remember, everything you do will not only affect the layout on your screen, but also show up in your new action.
Here's what mine does.

Flatten image. This is important, otherwise when you resize it, your shadows will be all screwed up, and it will look like everything's floating on your page. Don't believe me? Go look at my first few layouts in the gallery. They really didn't look that bad at full-size! (not exactly magazine-worthy, but not that bad)

Now go to "Image>Image Size." Make sure the "resample image" is unchecked, and then change the resolution to 72 pixels per inch. Hit "OK."
You have one of two choices. (read both before you decide) You can go back to "Image>Image Size," click "resample image" again so it's checked, and change the width from 3600 to 500 (make sure it's constrained though so it does both the width and height). This is easy, but it apparently doesn't do as good a job at keeping the look of your layout (though it's shrunk enough I don't usually notice much difference).
The other option is to transform it (Edit>Transform>Scale) to 13.9% of the original size. (make sure you hold down shift while you resize so it keeps the proportions the same). Hit enter. Crop (Image>Crop) and it's the right size!

Just a note again about the action:
If you make a mistake when you're recording an action, don't just back up a step or two. Make sure you delete that step in the action too.

Okay. Now turn off the action. (click the square, the stop button, on the bottom of the action window.)

Ready for the coolest part???

Time to save for web. Click on "save for web" (or "shift, control, alt-S," if you like to use keyboard shortcuts like I do.) You'll see a preview of the layout. Click on the small arrow here:

You'll then see a few options. Click "Optimize to File Size." Type in 150 (or 125 or 100, if the gallery you're posting to only allows file sizes of 125 or 100 kb). Then click "OK." Photoshop sets it at as close to 150kb as possible without going over. Click "save" and give it a title you want (and make sure you remember where you put it).

You're done! Go post it to a gallery now!

I'd love to see if you've posted a layout using the things I've written about here...please come give links! It will definitely motivate me to keep writing this.



What would you like to learn next? I have a few things I've thought of covering, but if people suggest something specific, I'll cover those first.