Get creative this year by crafting your own beautiful photo cards. It’s the perfect way to add your own personalized touch to a holiday greeting your friends and family will love!
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use a Rip Studio Project to add your own photo, customize text, and replace background elements for a completely new and personalized Happy Holiday or Merry Christmas card.
Tutorial Includes
Trial Version of Rip Studio
Holiday Card Project: Holiday Card 01—Photo Card with Red Holiday Design
Step-by-step Instructions with 6 Videos
Free Stuff (Download links for Holiday Paper Textures, Christmas Fonts, and Stars)
Also, includes…
Two Alternate Holiday Card Projects
Holiday Card 02—Photo Card with Blue Snow Design
Holiday Card 03—Red Holiday Design (No Photo)
1. Download the free Holiday Card Project using this link: Project Holiday Card.zip
2. Uncompress the Project file
3. Launch Rip Studio
4. Choose the Open Project button (lower right corner) on the Create a New Project window. Use the Open dialog to navigate through to the Project Holiday Card folder to get the file labeled Holiday Card 01.jrp NOTE: Files with (.jrp) extensions are Rip Studio Projects and can only be opened using the Rip Studio application.
To replace an image move the cursor over the image to be replace, then select. If you don’t see the selection box, go to the tool box at the top to choose the Selection Tool. Now hold the cursor over the image and click.
2. Next, move to the Shape Layer panel on the right, scroll down to Background Style, and select the Image Box on the right. Navigate through the Open dialog to find your image and Open. NOTE: In this design a Shape Layermwas used to create the circle. Use the Background Style to place an image inside the shape. 3. To adjust the image go back to the tool box to change the tool to Move Image, use the corner dots to resize. Reposition the image by clicking and holding the center of the image to move it.
4. To view the project without selection boxes, click on the light grey area outside of the document to hide it.
1. To replace text, use the Selection Tool to select the text box. Move right to the Text Layer panel, scroll down to the text editor then hover over text box to scroll to the bottom. Highlight the text and hit the return key to erase. Now you're ready to type, remember to use the Apply Text button to update it on-document.
2. Resize the text using the corner dots.
3. Repeat process to edit the Happy Holiday greeting.
1. Saving a Preset is a great way to store work for future edits. Do this by clicking the plus button on the Preset browser (located on the bottom), then name it and hit ok. The preset is now in the browser.
2. To load a preset, click the one you want and watch as all the layers and settings are restored.
3. Your card is ready so it’s time to Save Image to your desktop or an external folder.
1. To replace an image, go to the top to choose the Selection Tool, then hold the cursor over the image you want to replace and click.
2.Move to the Paper Layer panel on the right, scroll down to Background Style, and select the Image Box on the right. Navigate through the Open dialog to find your image and Open. NOTE: You can replace this with your own image, or use the ‘art-snow-bkgnd.jpg’ included in the Project Holiday Card folder inside the Image folder.
3. Remove the ‘red art paper’ by clicking the delete button on the top of the selection box.
4. Remove the glitter ‘shape’ under the tree. If you find you can’t select it go to the layer panel on the right to find it. You can either turn off the Shape Layer or use the Minus Button on top to delete it.
5. Adjust the composition by moving the tree and star together. This is how you do it: Hold the ‘Command’ key (Mac) or ‘Control’ key (Win) while clicking on the layers you want to move together. Continue to hold the command (or control key) as you move the items. To keep the items constrained vertically or horizontally, use the shift key as they are moved.
6. If needed adjust the elements on the page to balance the composition
7. Add an edge to the text to make it stand out against the design by first selecting it, then going to the Text Layer to add a Cut Edge style (this option creates text that looks like it was cut out of paper with scissors), now increase the edge area around the text by scrolling down through the control panel until you find the Edge Area slider and increasing it to the desired amount.
8. Add shadows to the cutout text by going back to tool area to select the Light tool, then check on the Render Shadows box to see them.
9. To adjust the shadow, go to the on-document light bulb and click the edit button next to it, Here you can adjust the shadow strength, height and softness.
10. Repeat. One more time I’ll show you how easy it is to replace paper elements with textures from your own collections. Select the element, go to the Paper Layer control panel, scroll down to Background Style, choose the Image box then navigate through the open dialog to find the new one. As an example I’m going to retrieve the glitter paper out of the image folder that is included with this project, or you can navigate to your own library or folder.
11. Finish up the composition. Try adding shadows to the new elements for more dimension (step 8). Also, try moving the on-document light to change the shadow direction. In this example I moved the light towards the center of the document to render more shadow around the edges, however just note when you move the light source sometimes you have to adjust the strength and height of them. Remember to do this in Edit button on the on-document light source.
Feedback
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Have any tutorials that you would like to see in later posts? Feel free to tell us and show us your creations on our Facebook and other social networks.
