Using Digital Layout Templates to Make a Greeting Card

Note: Tutorial written with screenshots from PSCS2 on a Mac.

Open all of the .pngs of the digital layout template of your choice. (I’m using the 8.5×11 size of the ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates Layered: Drawn, Layout number 2.)

Holding down shift, drag all of your .pngs on top of each other into the same window. Holding down shift helps the layers to line up properly.

Create a new document at the size you want your card to be. I like to make my cards 4.25 x 5.5 so I can get two cards out of one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. So I created my new document at 11 x 4.25, 300 dpi.

I added a guideline to the center to show me where my fold would be. To do this I went to View>New Guide and chose to add a new vertical guide at 5.5 inches.

Holding down shift, I highlighted all of my layers in the layer’s palette. Then I chose Link Layers from the drop down menu of the layer’s palette.

I want my digital layout template to fit on the front of my card, so I’m going to resize it. To do this I go to Image>Image Size and change the width to 5.25, making it just slightly smaller then my card size.

Then using the move tool, drag the template into the blank document.

You can close your other document, but DON’T SAVE, or you’ll overwrite one of your digital layout template pngs.

Now you can follow the digital layout template instructions to create a custom card. Add different papers, embellishments and alphas. And feel free to delete any of the digital template layers you decide you don’t need. Make it your own card.