I think I've mentioned this before. I absolutely LOVE creating my own custom backgrounds in My Digital Studio (MDS). There are SO many spectacular Designer Series Papers available in digital form, and I'm making quite the dent in owning many of them as well, but with all of the great overlays and images available in MDS, it's so easy to customize/create backgrounds that work perfectly for what you want to do! Today I want to show you where to place your own custom background papers so that they are available for you to use in MDS, just like any other DSPs that you have!
I am NOT a computer geek by any stretch of the imagination, but I can find my way around and into trouble on my PC quite well!! For those of you operating on a Mac, hopefully you'll be able to see/translate some of this information to make it work for you as well!! I just learned how to do screen shots this week, so fair warning--this post is going to be EXTREMELY "screen shot" heavy. I haven't learned yet how to do videos of my screen for tutorials, so this is just one baby step in that direction!!
O.K., so when MDS opens, you'll see this screen pop up in front of your general working screen for the program:
Let me talk about the red circled image first. If you have not yet create a file for your created backgrounds, I would suggest doing that first. I think mine currently holds about 157 pages (thus far), as I don't delete created pages, as I may want to go back in to one that I've done, just re-color something and create a new page.
When you click on the Photobooks and Individual Pages button, this screen will come up:
You'll want to click on the 12"x12" Square Option (I almost always create my DSPs as 12x12s--even if you're going to be doing 8.5"x11" pages, I like to create at the highest quality/option, as I can always scale back, but you can run into pixelation issues if you're trying to go from smaller to bigger). So, clicking on that option will bring up:
And here you'll want to select "Create Your Own". Which then asks you what you want to name the file and where you want it saved:
Complete those steps and you'll have a blank document started and be ready to create!!
Now, for me, I already have a file on my computer called "12x12CreatedBackgrounds", so instead of going thru all of the steps I just listed, instead, I'll click on the 'More' button (yellow):
Which will bring up the project file, and I'll just scroll to the project I'm looking for and be ready to get started!!
Making sense so far?!
So, when you have MDS open and have your background created, you'll need to Export it as a jpeg to a folder somewhere on your computer.
When you click on the icon that is circled in yellow above, this screen will pop up:
Two things to talk about here. . . . I'm going to go backwards and talk about the Output Location first. This is the folder where you save your Exported Projects (this is NOT the same as your 'My Digital Studio Projects' folder that contains all of the 'raw' files you create). Check the location of where that folder is, and feel free to move it around to somewhere that is easier for you to find if you so choose. I put a folder that I created called "MDS Projects to JPEG" in my "My Documents" folder, which is where I send anything that I export, but choose an option that works for you!
Secondly, you'll notice on Pages, that it has 1-158 pages getting ready to export. THAT is going to take forever, so click on the 'Change Pages' button.
All of the pages are selected, so as a shortcut, click on the 'Clear All' button. This will remove all of the check marks, and then you can go thru and select just the pages you want to Export.
And click 'OK' in the lower right. Once the pages have exported, you'll get a message on your screen stating as much:
You'll probably want to just close MDS at this point. One little hint/trick I learned--if I do the following steps with MDS open, the program sometimes has problems 'finding' the things I just added. BUT, if I close and re-open the program, it will find things just fine!!
Next up you'll need to find the folder that you put your exported images into. For me, I went to "My Documents>Stamping>MDS Projects to JPEG" and got to the exported files.
You'll see my "12x12Created Backgrounds" folder right up there. I'm going to make a quick note on file names. . . . you may see that several of mine have an underscore "_" at the start of them. . . . for alphabetizing purposes, I like to use the underscore, as it will place files/folders I use frequently at the top/beginning of the folder, so they're quicker to get to!
And when I open the folder, highlight the image that was export, and copy THEN cut the image.
Now. . . . to get to the 'innards' of the My Digital Studio Program. MOST of you will likely find this by going to "My Computer>C:\>Program files:
For me, I've accumulated WAAAY too many components in my MDS program, that I had to invest in an external hard drive to house my program. While that's a different post for another time, it really is NOT a hard thing to do, so if you would like me to walk you thru things there, just ask!
But I digress. So, back to the program. When you click on the "My Digital Studio" icon in your program files, your screen will look something like this:
DO NOT panic if your screen doesn't have all of these icons--I've moved around/added a few things here/there, so it's highly possible that there are things here that you don't have! NOT a big deal! Anyway, the folder we're going for here is the 'Components' folder, which when you open, you'll see your folders for your Backgrounds, Embellishments, Punches, Stamps, etc.
Open up your 'Backgrounds' folder.
Select your 'Designer Series Paper' folder in there.
And finally, open the '_Designer Kits' folder.
Once you have that open, you'll see all of different DSPs that you have in your program. And you'll see my second icon there is "_SU! Created Backgrounds" (see now why I like to use that underscore?!--right up towards the top!)
When I open that folder, I'll paste in the copied/cut background (I haven't done any other 'commands' while opening up this stuff, so my 'paste' command
should work here)!
And you'll see that the image is pasted at the bottom of the screen. Now, I like to 'rename' my files, so that they'll come up in searches/etc. better, so then I just right-click on the image, and select 'Rename' and go from there!
DONE!!
You can now close all of those folder and re-open MDS.
On the upper right side in the Design Center, if you click on 'Backgrounds', you'll want to select the 'Designer Series Paper' option.
Which will allow you to scroll down (for SOME reason, in MDS, the underscore makes the files show up at the END of the list, rather than the beginning) to the "_SU! Created Background" folder and open that.
Then scroll thru and select whichever created background you want to use and click on 'OK'!
OR--SECOND way to add a background:
On the LEFT side of the screen, click on the left-most icon (the DSP icon) in the Resource Palatte, which will bring up your folder and you can again scroll down and find your "_SU! Created Backgrounds" folder to open, and then it will available for you to use and pull in from the left side of your screen!
WHEW!!
I told you there were a LOT of screen shots today!! I hope it wasn't too overwhelming, and if you have ANY questions, PLEASE ask. I was doing a bit of self-editing as I was going thru, and wound up leaving out several screen shots, which could explain some things better than I did!!
Are you hooked and ready to start creating backgrounds of your very own?! You can try My Digital Studio for FREE for 30 days by visiting
my online store and downloading it today!!
Happy Stamping!
Pam
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