Taming the Lines (Photoshop Elements)

I realize with this title, you might think this tip is about the dangers of Christmas shopping! No, I’m not talking about those lines. But there are lines sometimes in digital scrapbooking that need to be tackled. In fact, there are some things in digital scrapbooking that, if done the hard way, are pretty tedious. But once you figure out the easy way to do it, it is oh-so-simple! This is one of those areas!

Here I have a tag from the December 2009 Premier kit, Holiday, by Dianne Rigdon. When I put my type on it, it looks like this.

Ok, not too bad, but notice how the type sits on the line at first, but the further I go down, the more it floats above the lines? If you want to fix this the hard way, you’ll have to put each line of type on its own layer. (Please don’t try it that way.) If you want to fix this the easy way, follow along!

Step 1) Highlight the type

Double click on the thumbnail of the type layer in the Layers panel. This will highlight all of the type on that layer.

Step 2) Adjust the leading in the Options bar

We’re going to adjust the vertical distance between each line, called the leading (pronounced “ledding”). To do this, find the leading adjustment in the Options bar–it probably says “Auto”. Use your mouse to highlight the word “Auto”, then press the up arrow key. At first this will make the space between lines really small and you will probably have lines overlapping. But keep pressing the up arrow key to increase the leading until your type fits. If you go too far, you can always press the down arrow key to decrease the leading.

Step 3) When you want to be picky…

As you can see from the image above, at 18pt it looks pretty good, and 17pt was not enough, 19pt was too much. But if I could decrease the leading from 18 just a tiny bit, it would fit perfectly. So, I highlighted 18pt and typed in 17.9pt.

Ok, I know that was being really picky, but there will be times when typing in an amount like this will make a big difference!

Step 4) Accept the changes

Click on the check mark in the Options bar to accept the changes to your type.

Now my page is complete, including the type I easily and quickly fit on a tag with lines. Of course this method will work for anything with lines—tags, journaling mats, and paper. Give it a try and you’ll see for yourself how easy it is!

Credits: Tutorial and page by Jenny Binder, www.HeirloomScrapbooks.com. Page created with Dianne Rigdon’s kit, Holiday, this month’s Premier kit. Fonts used: Orator Std, and CK Ali’s Hand Official.

Download a PDF version of this “Taming the Lines” tutorial.

Windows: Right click on the link and choose “Save Target As” or a similar command.
Mac: Click on the link to download the file.

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