How to make bookmarks with your photos
Bookmarks with one of my photos. Ulla Hennig August 2011
Tnis is the first time I used one of my photos for a bookmarks template. The image above has been sized down for the web, but I think you might get an impression of the final product.
- The first step is to create the bookmarks file. This one has 1400 pixel width and 1000 pixels height, with a resolution of 200 ppi. This resolution will produce a nice print. Either fill in a colour or leave it as it is.
- Then you draw a line in the middle. Make it thick enough to function as a cutting line. Doing this will produce a second layer.
- Open the photo you want to use and chose a selection which might look good on the bookmark file. Copy and paste. If necessary, scale the selection. You will have got a third layer by then. Repeat until you have got the same part of a photo below and above the line.
- Now go back to the first layer. Take the colourpicker tool in Photoshop and pick a colour of the photo. I first had a lighter green but then decided to go for the darker green. Take the colour bucket tool and fill the layer with the selected colour.
- Voila! You’ve got two nice bookmarks on one file. You can now print it out on a photo paper. Cut along the line with a paper cutter, not a pair of scissors!
Some Rather special Bookmarks
I love to read real books, and I love to put bookmarks between the pages. Bookshops offer wonderful bookmarks, but I wanted to design my own bookmarks, either for me or to give them away as a present.
Zazzle does not offer a proper bookmark template. Most of the people there use the rather tiny business card template, but I was not very happy with that. My favorite books are the big and heavy ones, and I could see the tiny bookmarks getti9ng lost in them.
So I asked some very experienced Zazzlers (a wonderful group of helpful and supportive people on Facebook) and I did a research on Zazzle’s marketplace (for non-Zazzlers: That’s the webpage where the products are shown) and I found three additional ways of creating a bookmark:
- Bookmarks based on the rack card template. They are big enough, but who wants 50 bookmarks at one time? And 50 bookmarks with the same design? Not me!
- Bookmarks based on the note card template. Well, you’ve got the two bookmarks on the front if you cut the front page, but what about the back page?
- Bookmarks based on the postcard template.
I decided to have a go with the postcard template, and here they are, my first bookmarks done this rather special way:
