If you come across old photos that
are from the same time period in the past, how neat would it be
to use them on a background that matches that time period? Here
are some ideas . . .
We’ve shown on some past shows how to take an old faded
photo and make it look like new again, by using a photo scanner
that does automatic color restoration. Well just because you’ve
erased the age damage from the photo doesn’t mean you don’t
want to emphasize the era that it came from, right?
If you have a photo from the 60’s, it would be really cool
if you could quickly create a page to reflect the 60’s .
. . . Something with a background that looks like it came from
that time. You could create an elaborate page with a lot of ephemera
from then, but that’s a lot of work. Here’s a quick
shortcut that involves using your computer.
On the Epson website called “printlabseries.com”,
there are page backgrounds created for old photos, especially
once they’ve been restored to their original condition.
The site has ready-to-print templates that you can download for
free that look the part, for decades from the 50’s to the
90’s.
With some of them, you can even change the background color, but
the graphics tell the story of when the photos were taken, just
in case the fashion and hairstyles in your photos do not! These
pages are a simple and creative jumpstart to putting old photos
into a layout. Simply add your text, play with the color, add
your photos, and you’ve got yourself a finished layout.
The templates can be used to print either letter or for 12x12”
album size. You can choose to print out just the background on
8-1/2”x11” paper or, if you are lucky enough to have
a wide format printer like the Epson 2200, you can print it in
12x12 size. Then you could either glue photos and text onto the
background in the traditional way, or, create the whole page digitally
by importing all your photos and text directly onto the patterned
page file in your computer. If you did this, you could print out
the completed page, all in one layer.
Be sure to use archival scrapbook paper, so that these inspired
pages will last for many decades to come! |
