How to Create Photo Album Templates From Scratch in Photoshop

today we're gonna learn how to create an album template in Photoshop whether that's a wedding album a family album or even your portfolio and this is gonna save you so much time that once you create that album template all you have to do just drag and drop your photos and you're good to go and weeding is the very simple concept of clipping masks it's super easy so without any further ado let's get started [Music] so Before we jump into Photoshop we need to first determine the dimensions of the album that we are printing right how big the album is what are the dimensions was the aspect ratio right it's simple just complex stems so first off all you have to do go to file new now in this case today we are printing two sides at once okay so we would go to file new and then whatever size that is a dialog box will appear and once a dialog box appears new document dialog box and then it will ask you what size do you want so choose print just and you can see the size the presets that are already available but suppose you want to print square album right and your dimension is say 12 inch by 12 inch so just dial that in so it would be 12 inch by 12 inch now here's the couch since we are printing two sides at once and we are designing two sides at once that will open up like that so suppose this is the album and you design the cover separately the back cover separately so when you open the album it's just like this so you need to design these two pages all together right so instead of the width being 12 you need to double it up so what's the double of 12 24 right once you double that off it's all right make sure the orientation is landscape and column mode you can choose CMYK of course if you are printing but I'm going to choose RGB because I'm gonna show you in the screen so you can choose CMYK and 8-bit is fine white is fine let's create it okay let's name it something simple design now why to name it though I personally used to think this is not important but go ahead to file export you already get that option right to retype and rename the file rename from untitled but here's the thing if you name it right now every time when you export it this name will come as a default and this will save you time especially if you're exporting multiple times right and you will be doing that if you're into the photography business you want to export it for the web export it for save print right so name it right now whatever the album name is okay let's go ahead and create it okay that looks fine let's zoom out a little bit so this is like that now it's time for us to draw the grids okay first off make sure you go to views and Snap is checked okay once Snap is checked then you're ready to draw the grids so let's draw a grid drag it from the left and put it in the center if you cannot see the ruler press the shortcut ctrl or command R R for ruler so ctrl a command R this hides the ruler press that again controller command R this brings back the ruler so click and drag from the ruler and it will just snap in the centre okay done now we need to draw the margins how do we do that go to view and then new guide layout okay so you can save a lot of presets if you want and I have this already have this margin already so make sure columns and rows is not checked because you don't want that and you can have created this lines with columns and rows but let's make sure this is unchecked and make sure margins is checked and make sure these two are unchecked clear existing guides we don't want to clear this guide right this is unchecked clear columns we don't want to clear that columns so you can choose whatever margins you want 100 pixels from the top or 150 pixels whatever you want so make sure all of them are the same choose 150 for bottom and right as well now once you choose click OK now make sure whatever design you make it doesn't go out of this this is just a safety line think of it as a bleeding line if you're into printing you'll understand this okay now let's start creating our design so first of all let's do some random design let's make this page a little group bit greenish so let's create a rectangle and maybe we can probably fill it with green okay so first let's fill it with green create a new solid color adjustment layer click on this adjustment layer icon and choose solid color choose whatever color you want I'm gonna choose maybe this color I like this color click OK if you satisfied and I just want the left page to be of this color remember this is to page setup this is not just one page this is to page and this is the dividing line now once the printer prints it like this it it's gonna fold it and staple it from the middle right you get the idea bind it from the middle now you want only this page to be color and this page we can mask it out really simple so select the rectangular marquee tool right click on it and click on rectangular marquee - if you cannot see it select that and select this area see how nicely it snaps to the middle right why does it snap because we checked snapping when we went to view we checked snapping now once you select that click on the mask button and fill it up with black okay so press d for dunkey to reset the swatches and then press X and make sure the foreground color is black now fill this area with black you can fill it by pressing alt backspace okay option delete if you are using a Mac now press ctrl or command D to get rid of the marching amps now our basic design is ready any time you want to clear the guides just hide the guides you can press ctrl + : right shortcut is on the screen control and : again to bring it back really simple right if you want to bring out the grids ctrl + ' ctrl + ' again right if you're using a Mac that would be command right command + : commander ' okay so this design looks amazing now if you want to create placements for the photos so to create the placements let's use simple gray rectangles so we're gonna choose the rectangle - and then draw a rectangle simple right but you cannot draw any rectangle you have to make sure that you maintain the aspect so what is the aspect ratio of your image right most cameras use three is to two aspect ratio you can always change it crop it do whatever you want but if you want an aspect ratio to be maintained you can use the aspect ratio of your camera in most cases which is three is the two and Whiteley's to do let me just explain it to you or two is two three for that matter right so if you go ahead and take an image with your camera let me just switch the brush let me destroy okay so if you take image say increase the flow with a landscape orientation you will have a ratio of 3 is to 2 right normal cameras why 3 is to 2 and how does that make sense so suppose your camera has 24 megapixels so you would see when you click a picture like that your dimensions are 6,000 pixels by 4,000 pixels now what are these 3 into 2 right if you reduce it it's 3 into 2 it's 3 x mm which is 6002 x mm which is 6,000 and that's how that works if you click an image like this that would be 3 would be here 2 would be here no matter how many megapixels it is if it's 64 megapixels you can make the calculations that way but the aspect ratio remains the same okay so you can create a rectangle choose the rectangular to click here once and it will ask you the width and the height and you can put any width just make sure the ratio is being followed so width would be safe to into 200 or height would be 300 pixels right click OK now that is small right we can make it big and we can keep the aspect ratio maintained so select the move tool press ctrl or command T and hold the shift right if you hold the shift what does it do it maintains the proportions right and if you hold the Alt key or the option key with the shift key it makes it larger from the center so if I just hold the shift key to make it larger if I hold the Alt key along with it okay shift an altogether and make it larger it will make it larger from the center okay so this looks right okay so this would be in the image we can place it in the center and if you want to Center it on this page it's really simple select the rectangular marquee to make a selection till this okay just make a selection and make sure this layer is selected select the move tool and then click on this center button and it is centered right now once you've got the right size again you can also Center Center it from top and bottom by making the complete selection controller command a and then Center it this way it's already centered pretty much nice now you can color it gray by just double-clicking on the thumbnail and select color any on that you want I'm going to choose gray because it's indicated of that area being empty can choose any color doesn't matter it's gonna be replaced by an image and let's add a white border so how do we add a white border now you might think okay let's make a copy of the rectangle and just bring it down and maybe color that white and make it larger controller command T and make it larger this as a white border no that's the wrong way to do it in Hawaii because that kills the aspect ratio look this is 10 this is thick we need it to be uniform that kills the aspect ratio that's the wrong way to do it okay in this case so here's what you need to do you've a right make copy of it okay now you can fill it fill it with white if you want you can fill it with nothing if you want so let's fill it with white just to be sure okay filled it's it's white now we need to add some stroke so that the borders that we add our uniform so to add a stroke select the rectangle tool and here you have a lot of options so far stroke we're gonna choose white again so click on it and you just can click on it and choose white or you can just click on this one pretty much good and make sure the stroke is on the outside so click here click on more options and make sure a line is set to outside gaps but note that whatever that is it's good click OK and just keep on increasing it once you're satisfied you stuff is okay so suppose you like say 75 pixels that's fine for you and once you select that once you're happy with that you can move that back just under the gray one and there you have it so now let's add some more placements and once you have added this placement to select this and by the way if you want the guides to snap to a particular kind of shape or image just select that layer and then when you drag in the guides see how it snaps very nicely with the image with that rectangle right just it feels snap with that if you want the guides to snap at something else just select that layer and just bring in the guides okay now we want to add some placements right here and this ones would be say you want to add some placements in the ratio of 16 is to 9 so if you'd simply go 1600 by 900 click OK that's fine and you can make it as big as you want if you want so ctrl command T make it bigger just like this and make a copy of it okay and by the way I just forgot to tell you how to make a copy of it hold the alt or option and just click and drag and leave therefore you have a copy now you have two placements right there now here's the thing if you want the space if you want to be super design specific if you want the space between these two to be equalized with the space of this here's what you need to do simple drag a guide and make sure it's on the center ok it's in the center now select the rectangular marquee tool now this is super complex thing guys you can skip it and hold the shift key and just make a square just like this it's just a simple trick ok this doesn't matter now drag the square right here and make sure the square is in the center of this guide it will snap automatically ok now once the square is there and since it is a selection to create two more guides right and then press ctrl or command D we don't need the square anymore and we don't need this guide anyone select the move tool and just delete this guy delete a guide it's simple just drag it all the way up and it's gone now you need to make sure that your placements are within this so now it's very simple select any of the one rectangle delete one let's delete the top one select any one of this and press ctrl or command D now if you want to make the rectangle smaller from this point so drag the anchor point right here and then make it smaller by holding shift and alt okay now make it bigger and just when it reaches this guide stop hit enter right now why did we move the anchor point there here's why we moved it if the anchor point was say here and we held shift and alt it would become smaller and bigger from that point and we didn't want it to exceed this point and that's why we put it that way okay let's go back control the command T drag the anchor point place it here and shift and alt just drag it to this and that's pretty much good now make a copy of this it'll fit right in just like that isn't that beautiful now you have two placements right here and you can also place some background images if you want so I have an image let's open up the folder I have an image say this one let's open this up in Photoshop just here let's unlock the background lake and unlock the background layer by simply clicking on the lock and you're good now let's make a quick selection of this you can take your time as much as you want let's make a quick selection of this let us make the selection of the sky and then we'll just invert it because that's much more easier so and by the way we chose the quick selection tool right click on it choose the quick selection - if you cannot see it if you can see it just directly click on it and make a selection of the sky this did a pretty good job and everything that you see will be available for download check the links in the description ok and make a selection of this and that's all now let's inverse the selection how do we inverse the selection ctrl shift I command shift I if you're using a Mac if you cannot remember the shortcut can go to select and then inverse just click on this and now we have inverted the selection all you hack all you have to do just click on the mask button you need good this is done now you can copy this click and drag and just place on this one now it's already kept there and you can make it as big as you want now you could have just applied the mask but I didn't want to applied you can apply the mask you can just right-click on the mask and then apply layer mask so lair max layer mask goes away and this deletes the background image and controller command T and you can make it as big as you want just like this probably like this and you can take it back drag it and take it back step up this and this is fine if you wanted something like this make it a little smaller like that and maybe decrease the opacity you can also place it right here depending upon your taste whatever you want I would place it here just like this and maybe I'll decrease the opacity just like this ok 40 is good and your images are ready to come before your images are ready make sure everything every placement you have put it inside a group select the bottom most placement layer hold the shift select the topmost placement layer press ctrl or command G now inside of this you can name this placement 1 P 1 P 2 P 3 whatever you want and then what you can do let's name it b1 okay I mean why is that name it be why b1 ok b2 let's name it b3 actually this is P 3 right P 3 this is P 2 you can name it anything you want I'm just having fun do you want and put it inside of separate groups sing there layers inside of separate groups why this will make sense later ok select this one press ctrl command G and you can name it b1 which one G controller command G ok you can name it right 3 2 1 ok right now this is done you can name this group placements and you're good to go you can save this as a PSD now your images are ready to come so I'm gonna go open the folder again and select this layer by the way just for the first placement let's open up select this and then open up the folder where your images are and I'm gonna import this image just drag it and drop it inside of Photoshop just above this okay now this will import like that just above this layer you can place it anytime you anywhere you want just like this and hit enter now all you have to do hold the alt or option and then click on the line between this this will create a clipping mask once you do that have a look done isn't that wonderful now you can again press ctrl or command T and then resize it crop it do whatever you want with it and if you're done let's zoom in and let's have a closer look at it have a look right have a look at this isn't this beautiful now you can also skip the transformation on import if you want all you have to do just go to edit preferences and then general right and then you have this option skip transform when placing okay just check on that it kind of fastens up your process if you want that option to be there right let's select some other images maybe we'll select this one just click and drag it right here let's see how that looks and by the way we forgot to select that layer and it doesn't matter just we'll just go ahead and place it into so we'll just place it to and create a clipping mask alt click on the line between this and you're good so let's place it right there controller command T and that is fine right so that is done now let's do with the above image and let's minimize that and let's use this one all the images are available for download and before you import this image I just forgot to tell you all you can do you can select this layer so placement number three just select the placement number three select the rectangle and then just drag it and drop it and there you go now since we checked skip transformation it won't open up with the transformation right it doesn't open up with the transformation bars and handles so it just skips it now you can create a clipping mask alt or option click on the line between these two layers and boom actually what happens in clipping masks will understand in a minute so let's just adjust it the way we want it there we go just like that let's zoom in quite a bit okay that looks nice now let's select this one to you let's move it to the side now have a look at the rectangle now if we choose rectangle this rectangle has a stroke of one pixel so if you're looking for strokes you can get it so let's go ahead and increase the stroke so this is the stroke you can get the stroke you can also delete the stroke if you want just select it and just cancel it right we don't want any stroke even in this rectangle we don't want any stroke I just wanted to show you if you want you can have some stroke in that rectangle in this rectangle too let's go ahead and delete this stroke click on this and click on this cancel button okay now that looks nice so there you go it's hot and ready for print and by the way if your drop shadow fan you can also add some drop shadow effects to it so select the rectangle that you want you I want to add effects to and supposedly we will add effects to all of the rectangles so select the rectangle just double click on the right hand side of the layer and then we can add some drop shadow to it by checking the drop shadow and there you go it add some drop shadow not so much but let's give it an angle decrease the distance and decrease the size just like this if your drop shadow fan you can do this just like this and maybe a little more right and once you add drop shadow to this one you don't have to add it to every one every one of your M uses separately all you have to do just copy the effects hold the Alt key right click and drag it on P to right and fill apply the effects on P to and hold the Alt key or the option key for using a Mac click and drag it and drop it on b1 and actually when he added to p1 in actually as a drop shadow to this one but we wanted the drop shadow to be on the boundary right to be on the stroke so that's the wrong place to be just click and drag it here to this rectangle there you go to this one okay that looks fine actually it made a copy so we would have to delete the effects from p1 so delete there Fitz okay that looks nice if you're a fan I'm not a fan of drop shadow so I'll just go back I don't want ruptures so there you go it's all ready to go if you want strokes you can add it now let me show you one other design if you're interested so only next time you open this just let's go ahead and delete all these photos let me show you how to save it okay so it's simple to save it just go to file save as and save it as a PSD right select PSD and simple design see by default the name came and that's why I asked you to name it in the beginning right now once you save it and let's save it in video works I have a folder for all my videos as source stored and simple design let's save it right there okay so once you close it it's saving and once you close it all you have to do let's just close this know so I will go file open that file open or open recent simple design and it's all ready to go p1 p2 p3 everything is ready just select the one drag and drop the image create a clipping mask and you get to go now let's understand what clipping mask is because that is important right let's open up any document and this is just for demonstration purposes so we would go to anything art an illustration doesn't really matter 100 pixel grid okay now what is a clipping mask film let's create any shape or draw anything ok let's create a new layer take the brush let's draw anything with say any color that you want okay simple I drew this now create a new layer open an image or draw something else maybe something with green or right draw something okay now if I create a clipping mask this layer will just be limited to the boundaries of this layer right okay so if I hold the alt or option click on the line between it watch the green gets limited to this there think of it like this think of layer 1 just as a shape okay just like this and layer 2 is rock solid okay it's rock solid now once you convert this layer 2 into a clipping mask this rock solid layer transforms into sand and it falls down okay everything falls down but everything that was just above this layer stays it falls on this layer and everything just outside this just falls off okay and that's what a clipping mask is given that wind is not blowing okay so now let's show you some other examples I actually created one more yesterday so let me show you that okay not gonna create it all over again so this is one that I created and by the way if you want some awesome forms and I'm gonna give you this template it will just check the links at the description so if you want some awesome ones I didn't paint it gray I should have just click on it and paint it gray and you get the idea I just painted it black just for fun I just painted it okay so I was looking for some fonts and I just wanted to give you this tip so for example this font is one of my favorite fonts I found yesterday so I was looking for a serif font and the best place to look for fonts is fonts google.com so once you're in the website the link is in the description you can choose whatever font you want serif sans serif everything is free to use display so I'm gonna choose serif let's check all of this off and what is serif serif means that in the corners at the ends you have these extra decorations these extra lines these extra things jewelry like things I don't know the correct terminology but you get the idea right sans serif sans stands for without okay without cereth so if I chose choose sans serif see at the ends we don't have those embellishments so let's choose serif I wanted some service and I wanted the title to be say happy day okay how does happy day look in this font I can choose applied to all fonts now you can just scroll down and have a look which one looks good so I was just scrolling down see liberate Baskerville is looking good so for me which is scrolling down and for me Metallica looks good and one if you want to download it all you have to do sis click on the plus button and then click on this and click on this download button you can also customize it and select different font weights some fonts have a lot of weights bold extra bold ultra bold you can select all of them and click on this download button and it will be downloaded ok so similarly if you look back and look into this design if you want to import a photo and by the way if you are wondering how did I do this this border thing I just drew a rectangle turned off the fill and turned on the border let me show you you will get confused ok so this was the rectangle that I drew so you just bring it back to normal so this was it and I added a stroke and clicked on the fill and clicked on the cancel and that's all there is so suppose you want to import an image L select this rectangle right here and there I'll select whatever image that I want to import so this one I'll go ahead and drag and drop it here that's fine that will be imported and then alt click right click on the line between this these two less and then controller command T T for tiger or tigress and let's make it a little bigger there we go and we can add little images here and there and you get the idea and that's how you can feed some awesome album templates in Photoshop just by using the simple concept of clipping mask and by the way don't forget to download this template links in the description reminding you again and also just a quick recap first off determine what the dimensions of your album are if you are printing it what's the dimension if it's all you can also give the dimensions by pixels right and just double up the width if it's two-sided if you're designing two-sided designs double up the width and do not fear to place images in the center okay you can also do something like this this is not a part of the template but you can also do something like this for example if you want to place an image in the center that's also fine let's just square turn this off you can also do something like this and place the text right here you could have done that and it folds from the center so what advertisements do that you can also do that don't be afraid to do that okay so just double up the width and you're good to go and after that you can create rectangles you can also create circles if you want so let me just quickly show you what that actually means so you could have also created some circles or ellipses with the ellipse - you can creat something like this and then you could have just here and just cancel to cancel the clipping mask hold the Alt key click on right here and there select this clipping mask you can also read something like this if you're interested so it doesn't limit to rectangles okay so create those shapes and then hold the alt or option click on the line between both of those layers and it get to go and then you can save it the way you want to save a template it's very simple file save as save that as a PSD and once you have added the images once everything is ready you can go to file export export as and you can save it that way or file save as and save the format that you want you want to save it as JPEG or PNG what are these choices and make sure you choose the correct color profile if it's printing CMYK if it's online RGB hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bells that you my friend don't miss a thing I'll see you guys in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 512,229

Keywords: album template photoshop, wedding album psd template, album photoshop, minimal design, design photo book, design template, album design templates, portfolio templates, photobook photoshop, piximperfect, photoshop tutorials

Id: 5CZbBugw7Dg

Length: 30min 33sec (1833 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2017