Section 10.8. Greeting Cards and Postcards


10.8. Greeting Cards and Postcards

Why stop at books and calendars? iPhoto 6 also offers greeting-card and postcard design modules (Figure 10-18). These items, too, are professionally printed using your own photographic material, look great, and don't cost an arm and a leg.

If you've read about how you design and order books or calendars, the description of the card- ordering process will feel like d j   vu all over againonly simpler.

  1. In your iPhoto collection, click the photo you want on the front of the card. Click the Card icon at the bottom of the window .

    The familiar Themes dialog box appears, this time showing card designs (Figure 10-18).


    Tip: If you select more than one photo in this step, you'll have the option of trying different photos on the card's front to see which you like best.
  2. From the pop-up menu at the top, choose either Greeting Card or Postcard. Then click the design you want .

    iPhoto offers 20 different card-front designs: holiday-themed cards, thank you notes, baby announcements, birthday and invitation cards, and so on.

  3. Click OK .

    You arrive in the now-familiar iPhoto page-design module, where you can adjust the photo, card background and text (Figure 10-19). You'll see two rectangles here: the inside and outside (of a greeting card) or front and back (of a postcard).

    An icon now appears in your Source list, too, representing the card in progress.

  4. Adjust the photo .

    If you double-click the photo, you enter the picture-adjustment mode described in Section 10.3.4.1. That is, you can drag the slider to enlarge the photo, or drag the picture to adjust its position inside the "frame."

    You can also replace the photo. If you had the foresight to choose several candidates in step 1, then a thumbnail browser appears at the top of the window. You can drag these thumbnails directly into the card's photo area to try them out and install them.

    (If you didn't think ahead, all is not lost. Click the album that contains the photos you want to try as alternatives, and then drag them onto the card's icon in the Source list. When you click that icon now, you'll see the thumbnail browser containing the designated photo choices.)

    Figure 10-19. The Background pop-up menu offers a choice of color schemes (and, in some designs, patterns) for the background and interior of the card.
    Greeting cards are 5 x 7 inches, come with a matching envelope, and cost $2 each (in quantities up to 24; discounts kick in at larger quantities). Postcards are 4 x 6 and cost $1.50 each. (Here again, they cost less if you order 25 or more, and even less in quantities above 50.)
  5. Adjust the background and design .

    The Background pop-up icon (at the bottom of the window) offers some alternative color schemes for the margins around the front-cover photo (and the corresponding accents on the inside or back of the card); see Figure 10-19.

    The contents of the Design pop-up menu, on the other hand, change depending on whether you've clicked the front of the card or the inside/back. For the front, you get alternative layouts of text and photo (like adding the option to type a caption on the front of the card, or rounding the corners of the photo). If you've clicked the back of a postcard, you get to choose a standard mailable postcard back (with lines where you can write in a name and address, for example), or a non-mailable design that looks more like the inside of a greeting card.

    (The Design pop-up menu doesn't offer anything special for the insides of greeting cards.)

  6. Edit the text .

    Double-click any bit of placeholder text on the screen to open its text box for editing. (It's generally uncool to send out baby-announcement cards bearing the legend, "Insert name here.")


    Tip: Don't forget that you can zoom in on any part of your card by dragging the slider at the lower-right corner of the screen.

    You can also edit the type styles and fonts, exactly as described in Section 10.3.7.

  7. Order the card .

    When the card looks good, click Buy Card. Your Mac goes online, and the Order Card dialog box appears. Here you'll discover that you're allowed to buy cards individually (you don't have to buy, say, 12 in a boxthanks, Apple!).

These cards are cheap enough and amazing enough that you should consider making them part of your everyday arsenal of social graces. After all, you're living in an era where very few other people can pull off such a thingand you'll be the one who gets credited with your computer savvy and design prowess.




iPhoto 6
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 059652725X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 183

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net