How to Create Photo Greeting Cards with Photoshop Elements

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I’ve always enjoyed receiving Christmas cards, birth announcements, and other greeting cards with photographs. Pictures say so much and are much more personal, they tend to stick out against other greeting cards clinging to the refrigerator door. I know I could probably go the local Wal-Mart or Costco to get these photo greeting cards done, however I take pride in the do-it-myself so before I ran off to the local photo place I did some digging, luckily I found that Adobe Photoshop Elements (which I’ve been using for basic photo fixes) has a feature which allows you to create photo greetings cards from your own pictures. The software provides a good number of themes and layouts to customize your greeting card.

Below you will find the steps necessary to create your own greeting card, I will use a birth announcement as my example throughout this how-to. I hope you find this feature as useful as I have. If you have any comments or questions, please post them below.

Note: I used Photoshop Elements 6 to create this tutorial, however these steps should be similar in other versions of Elements. I’m not familiar with previous versions of Elements, however I can’t imagine them removing this feature in version 7.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

1. Open Photoshop Elements from the icon located on your desktop or Start menu, when the Welcome screen appears, click on the Edit button

Note: If the Welcome Screen is disabled, skip to the next step.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

2. On the right pane in the Elements window, click on the CREATE tab, then click on Greeting Card, this will load the Editing Workspace.


Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

3. The Editing Workspace is loading so give it a couple of seconds, this will open in a separate window.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

4. The column below the CREATE tab will make available a set of options to customize your greeting card, see the options below;

Page Size: This option specifies the size of the paper/print that you will working on. Make sure to select a size that matches the paper you will be using to print.

Note: You may be able to print more than one 4X6 on a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet, if you need help with this, let me know and I’ll write up the tutorial for you.

Choose a Theme (optional): I highly recommend choosing a theme, otherwise the picture will be set in a blank background. You can scroll down to see more themes.

When you are done setting the page size and selecting your theme, scroll down (see blue arrow)

 

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

5. The Choose Layout option allows you to customize the layout of the picture, you can change it so that the picture is slightly slanted, to the top, etc. Choose your desired Layout and click Done.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

6. The page generation will take a few moments…

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

7. Your theme and layout are ready to go all you need is a picture, to add you picture click on the Click here to add photo… text

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

8. The Replace Photo dialog box will open, browse to the location where your pictures are stored, select the picture you wish to use, click Place.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

9. Once your photo is inserted in the picture placeholder, you can zoom in and out using the slider to make sure you get the right fit.

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10. After you find the right fit for your picture, click on the green checkmark, this will make the change effective.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

11. To add text to your greeting card, select the Text Tool from the Tool menu to the left.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

12. Click on an empty area where you would like to add text and start typing.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

13. The text formatting options are all located below the standard menus and above your work area.

Note: The Text formatting menu is available only when editing text or when the Text Tool is active.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

13. Once your text is formatted the way you wanted it, we need to save your greeting card, click on File > Save As…

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

14. Name the file and click Save

 

Printing Your Greeting Card

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

1. Return to the Organizer by clicking on the Organizer button located above the right pane.

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

2. Select the greeting card you just saved, click on File

Create Greeting Card with Photshop Elements

3. Click on File> Print

Note: Print settings vary by printer, however make sure that you choose a setting that will comply with the paper you’re using (photo paper) and that you select the best print settings.

Picture of baby found via Google search from Glam.com