Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Printing Digital Paper

Day two in Dawn's digital adventures, and I thought I'd tackle printing digital paper...and of course creating something with it!

This pair of cards was created using the Spring Argyle Digital Paper Pack available now at www.wplus9.com for just $2.00! Super simple layout, as is my usual, and I pulled the colors straight from the paper. After printing the paper, I used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch, and a little DMC floss for the butterfly bodies. Notice how well that paper coordinates with existing product colors! I used SU!'s Chocoalate Chip and Baja Breeze.

I practiced printing the papers a couple of different ways so I could share the methods and results with you. Here is a shot of three of the patterns printed three different ways:

The two smaller prints were both printed straight from my Windows Photo Gallery. I just double clicked on the file from Windows Explorer (double clicking My Computer icon on my desktop and navigating to the file on my PC) and it opened in my Windows Photo Gallery by default. From there I chose print from the menu. For the middle far right pattern, I chose premium paper as my paper option from printer settings. I noticed that it took longer to print and the colors came out very saturated and sharp. So for the next one I tried using plain paper as my paper option, and it came out much softer and faster. I actually prefer this as it gives the paper more of a real paper look and not a digitally perfect print.

Now for the larger print, this is actually identical in size and pattern as the other two. But for this one I printed it using Word 2007. Starting with a new blank document, I chose Insert; and then Picture from the menu, navigated to the file on my PC and selected it. After the image was inserted, I extended my margins running across the top and down the left side of the document, all the way to the edges so that the paper image covered the entire document. Now here's the good part, since this files are all created and saved out at 300 dpi they scale exceptionally well. I selected the image on the page, this automatically brings up your Format menu at the top, and in the size box, I typed in 26 inches for the height. This increased the size of the paper image, which in turn made the pattern a larger scale. See the screen shot below:


Hopefully I have helped and not confused you more. Or if nothing else, provided you something pretty to look at! ;o) Thanks for stopping by, as always, and I'll leave you with a parting shot of those butterflies in all of their argyle glory.

4 comments:

  1. lovely... i think i shud try the digital paper .... :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are so cool Dawn. I love those cards!

    P.S. Loved using your stamp last night!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yup! You DEFINITELY inspired with something EXTREMELY beautiful to look at, no doubt about it! I'm SUCH a digi phobe! But these came out beautifully.... Very inspirational, sweet Dawn! I might have to roll up my sleeves! Thanks for enabling me! hee hee

    ReplyDelete
  4. so sweet! i had no idea how to print out digi files--thanks dawn!

    ReplyDelete

Connect with us:

Follow Us on Pinterest