There are available many methods of making your own Cards for a whole variety of purposes. Magazines publish articles on this topic usually giving you special templates to use. Software manufacturers usually have a section on 'how to make Greeting cards'. Manufacturers produce special paper for the purpose too. However the methods and ideas are so simple that it is not necessary to use these. In fact having tried quite a variety it is often found that they are never quite right for your needs and are hard to alter successfully. Also the designs are usually American and of the sickly sentimental type that Americans seem to like.

        With this in mind we hope to lead you to designing and making your own cards with ease and satisfaction using two methods.

METHOD 1

Step 1.	Choose the right paper size. In practice this comes down to only two. Namely A4 and A5. For A5 the simple way is to use half an A4 sheet. Or better still make two cards on one sheet. Note also that standard paper thickness is adequate for most purposes.
Step 2.	Open your photographic software e.g. Photoshop. Decide now if you want an overall background colour for your Card. Let us assume that it is a delicate green. Double click on the background icon in the toolbox. Select the colour you require. One tip here is to make it much lighter in shade than you think you want. Otherwise it always seems to come out overpowering.
Step 3.	Now pick File>New from the top menu bar. A box appears. The top of this box has a highlighted name for your new file. Since it is highlighted you can immediately start typing in a name such as card. You will see that the original name vanishes. This idea applies throughout Windows.
Step 4.	Now TAB down to the Width box. Again it will be highlighted so just type in 21 for the width in cm of an A4 page. The units you are using will be shown to the right. If in inches this can be altered by clicking the black triangle. This will only be a temporary change. For a permanent change go to Edit>Preferences>Units and Rulers.
Step 5.	TAB down again to the Length box. Overtype with 29.7. Again in cm.
Step 6.	TAB down to the Resolution box. Choose say 200 dpi. Beware that pixels/cm is not selected.
Step 7.	TAB down to Contents area and select BACKGROUND if you have previously chosen a colour. Otherwise choose white.
Step 8.	Press OK when you are happy that you have the dimensions. You will notice that here the new image shape is portrait. This is to make two A5 cards on one A4 sheet. One above the other. For an A4 card the Width and Length dimensions are reversed.
Step 9.	To make our life easy we now construct a framework for the card using Guides. They are not visible when printed. These can be dragged out using the mouse from the rulers surrounding the picture area. (Ctrl + R to show the rulers and again to remove them.) It is much more accurate, however, to use the following means. From View>New Guide a box appears. This is preselected for vertical guides. We shall need vertical guides at 1, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5 and 20 cm. Do these one at a time.
Step 10.	Similarly we make horizontal guides at 1, 13.8, 14.8, 15.8, 28.7 cm. For an A4 card slightly different dimensions are used. Here we are getting a 1 cm border and centering the images. One more tip is to ensure that the Guides ares snapped to by going to View>Snap To and click on Guides and then View>Snap ensuring it is ticked.
Step 11.	It is handy to make a fold mark on the half way vertical line. Select the pencil from the BRUSH tool box. Ensure the width is small, say 2 pixels wide. Using the cursor position the cross hairs on the vertical half way line within the top 1 cm guides. Hold down the SHIFT key whilst dragging the cursor along the vertical line. You will only need a very short line say 0.5 cm. Repeat this at the bottom. Magnify to 100% to draw these small lines.
Step 12.	At this point save the work with a suitable name like Card. We will use this as a template for the inside of the card.  An example of what you should have at this point is shown here.
Step 13.	Now from your extensive list of images you have in stock select the one you want and open it. Adjust the resolution to 200 dpi to match the card. Then adjust the size to fit remebering that it is not a good idea to increase your image size. In the case of the A5 card this will be 8.5 cm wide by 12.8 cm high. Make sure that neither dimension exceeds these figures.
Step 14.	Using the Move tool ( press V to select rapidly) drag the image onto the card. Release the mouse. Then reposition the image. The Snap system should make this very easy.
Step 15.	Applying TEXT. Pick the TEXT tool and drag across the area for your text. Type in your message. Define all the options e.g. font type colour and size. There are many options in Photoshop available - have fun exploring them. ALWAYS press the TICK on the right of the Options bar. Otherwise whatever you try to do next will affect the text adversly.
Step 16.	Blending options are also available to add Drop Shadows etc.. To select this click on the curly f symbol at the bottom of the Layers palette when the Text layer is highlighted. Then make alterations to the parameters. I like Blend Mode = Multiply, Opacity = 40%, Distance = 15, Spread = 0, Size = 10.  To see an example
Step 17.	Save As a name different from Card and Print.
Step 18.	Well now we have the outside of the card. The next step is to design the inside. This can have a picture but often a message is all that is needed. The idea is exactly the same as before. So open the file Card.
Step 19.	Using the Text Tool drag out the area for the text within the guides. The write text you want with all the text formatting as steps 14 and 15. Then print on the other side of the paper. Take care to get the paper the correct way round. Clearly you will require double sided paper. This is not expensive. Available from Jessops.

METHOD 2

        The idea here is to print many small versions of the same thing on a single sheet. Then cut these out and stick onto a separate piece of stiff paper already folded. Also the inside message can be multiple printed on one sheet and then cut and pasted onto the inside. Consider the envelope sizes available before going too far on this route or you can come a cropper.

Step 1.	Since printers do not like printing to the very edge of the paper let us leave a margin of 1 cm.  Select File>New. In the box name the file Card2.
Step 2.	TAB down to the WIDTH. Type in 19 cm.
Step 3.	TAB down to the LENGTH. Type in 27.7 cm.
Step 4.	TAB down to Resolution. Type in 200 dpi.
Step 5.	Select White background. Press OK.
Step 6.	Open your chosen Picture. Press Alt+ I + I to bring up the size box. With the Resample Image box NOT checked type 200 dpi in the Resolution.
Step 7.	To use the previous methods card template a picture of 8.5 x 12.5 cm maximum is needed. To get say 3 images across and down the A4 page (currently 19 cm) a dimension of 6.33 cm x 9.23 cm or (at 200 dpi) 498 x 727 pixels is needed. This will give you a 3 x 3 array of pictures. Naturally your image will not fit this size and you have to be clever with the Image Size box. First click Resample OFF. Alter the Resolution to 200 dpi. Click Resample Image ON. Change Width to 498 pixels or 6.33 cm or 2.49 inches. If the height is now wrong you can try Clicking OFF the Constrain Proportions and then changing the Height to suit i.e. 727 pixels or 9.23 cm or 3.63 inches. However do not make too big a change or you will see a distorted image. If the height is not enough it will give you room for Text.  For a 4 x 4 array of images
Step 8.	Now Select All your image so that the crawling ants surround the picture. Then Edit>Stroke. A box appears. In the Stroke width type in 4 px. Double click on the colour rectangle to bring the colour palette up. Select White. Select Inside. Press OK.
Step 8a.	A refinement here is to repeat step 8 but type in 1 px, colour black. Then OK and a black line will be drawn round the very outside.
Step 9.	Still with All selected go to Edit>Define Pattern. Choose a name and press OK.  To see an example
Step 10.	Now go to the empty new file 19 x 27.7 cm in size. and Select All (Ctrl + A).
Step 11.	Edit>Fill will bring up a box. Under Contents select Pattern. You will now see your new pattern in miniature. Click on this to select it. Then click OK. The pattern should now precisely fill the page with 9 images all separated by white lines.
Step 12.	We must now increase the page size to A4. To do this select Image>Canvas Size. The first size will already be highlighted. Type over it from 19 to 21.
Step 13.	TAB down to the Length. Type in 29.7.
Step 14.	Ensure that the centre square of the 9 squares is selected. Press OK. A white border 1 cm round the set of nine images will be drawn.
Step 15.	Save and print the images. Cut between the white lines. Paste these small images on to card cut and folded to the correct dimensions.  To see an example

OR

for 16 images on an A4 page

Step 1.	Since printers do not like printing to the very edge of the paper let us leave a margin of 1 cm.  Select File>New. In the box name the file Card2.
Step 2.	TAB down to the WIDTH. Type in 19 cm.
Step 3.	TAB down to the LENGTH. Type in 27.7 cm.
Step 4.	TAB down to Resolution. Type in 200 dpi.
Step 5.	Select White background. Press OK.
Step 6.	Open your chosen Picture. Press Alt+ I + I to bring up the size box. With the Resample Image box NOT checked type 200 dpi in the Resolution.
Step 7.	To use the previous methods card template a picture of 8.5 x 12.5 cm maximum is needed. To get 4 images across and down the A4 page (currently 19 cm) a dimension of 4.75 cm x 6.93 cm or (at 200 dpi)  374 x 545 pixels is needed. This will give you a 4 x 4 array of pictures. Naturally your image will not fit this size and you have to be clever with the Image Size box. First click Resample OFF. Alter the Resolution to 200 dpi. Click Resample Image ON. Change Width to 374 pixels or 4.75 cm or 1.87 inches. If the height is now wrong you can try Clicking OFF the Constrain Proportions and then changing the Height to suit i.e. 545 pixels or 6.93 cm or 2.72 inches. However do not make too big a change or you will see a distorted image. If the height is not enough it will give you room for Text.
Step 8.	Now Select All your image so that the crawling ants surround the picture. Then Edit>Stroke. A box appears. In the Stroke width type in 4 px. Double click on the colour rectangle to bring the colour palette up. Select White. Select Inside. Press OK.
Step 8a.	A refinement here is to repeat step 8 but type in 1 px, colour black. Then OK and a black line will be drawn round the very outside.
Step 9.	Still with All selected go to Edit>Define Pattern. Choose a name and press OK.  To see an example
Step 10.	Now go to the empty new file 19 x 27.7 cm in size. and Select All (Ctrl + A).
Step 11.	Edit>Fill will bring up a box. Under Contents select Pattern. You will now see your new pattern in miniature. Click on this to select it. Then click OK. The pattern should now precisely fill the page with 9 images all separated by white lines.
Step 12.	We must now increase the page size to A4. To do this select Image>Canvas Size. The first size will already be highlighted. Type over it from 19 to 21.
Step 13.	TAB down to the Length. Type in 29.7.
Step 14.	Ensure that the centre square of the 9 squares is selected. Press OK. A white border 1 cm round the set of nine images will be drawn.
Step 15.	Save and print the images. Cut between the white lines. Paste these small images on to card cut and folded to the correct dimensions.  To see an example

Happy Christmas
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