Easy greeting card template to speed up your design and print process
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- A step by step tutorial on how to design a greeting card template in Photoshop, so that once it's set up, you can reuse for different designs of greeting cards and will significantly speed up your production process.
Although I'm 100% transparent with my process here, I know some of you may not be familiar with Photoshop enough to follow this tutorial, or just don't want to spend the time.
To save you time and as a way to support my content, I have offered this template ready to use in Photoshop on my online shop for only $5 USD.
Now available in multiple sizes: www.easysundayclub.com/collec....
This template is meant to print 2 A2 sized greeting cards on a letter size paper. I've mentioned in my other video on How to Make a Greeting Card ( • How to Make Greeting C... ) that A2 is my go-to size for cards because a letter size card stock makes 2 of these cards perfectly without any waste.
Toward the end of the video, I also recommended cheaper alternatives to Photoshop that do not require you to pay a monthly subscription fee and tips related to each program. These 2 programs are:
Affinity Photo (most similar to Photoshop): affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
Canva: www.canva.com/
--------------------------
Greeting card materials:
- Card Stock in larger quantity/less $: Classic White Linen - www.thepapermillstore.com/cla...
- Card stock in smaller quantity, as little as 25 sheets (cost per page is higher):
100lb white matte card stock: www.cardsandpockets.com/heavy...
80lb linen card stock (we prefer the heavier 100lb cardstock):
www.cardsandpockets.com/white...
*Make sure your printer can handle the paper weight.
- Clear Cello Sleeves A2 Sized: amzn.to/2Ub3vYl
- Inexpensive A2 Envelopes: amzn.to/2RVJ52x
Equipment:
- Epson V600 Scanner: amzn.to/3aMT0QB
- Manual Scoring Board (what we were using before): amzn.to/37w2YUx
- Euro Flap A2 Envelopes: (This site allows you the enter the exact number of envelopes you need so you don't have to commit to a large pack. The price is slightly higher but the envelopes are premium/wedding invitation quality) www.cardsandpockets.com/a2-eu...
- Electric Creasing Machine: amzn.to/2vw9Djt
- High precision Rotatrim paper trimmer: amzn.to/3jL40C1
-----------------------------------------
Cathy is a self taught watercolor artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Easy Sunday Club was started by Cathy and her husband Nam and is a collection of Cathy's modern paintings, art prints, and baby/children's soft goods that showcase playful interpretations of subjects in her expressive painting style. Prior to art, Cathy got an MBA and worked in corporate for 10 years and Nam is an attorney. This channel is our way of giving back to the art community and covers Watercolor Tutorials, How To Videos, Product Reviews and the Business of Art.
----------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: Some links included here might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting Easy Sunday Club and enabling me to provide you with free educational content!
------------------------------------------
Shop: www.easysundayclub.com
Instagram: / easysundayclub
Facebook: / easysundayclub
Patreon: / easysundayclub
Donate/Tip (Paypal): tinyurl.com/y3kkxs54
------------------------------------------
A full list of the equipment we use is available at our website here: www.easysundayclub.com/pages/...
------------------------------------------
Other Popular Videos:
- How to Packet and Ship Fine Art Prints Cheaply & Safely: • How to Package and Shi...
- How to Design, Source and Sell Your Own Enamel Pins: • How to Design, Source,...
- How to Make Greeting Cards for Home Stationary Business: • How to Make Greeting C...
- How to Make a Fine Art Print: • How to Make Your Own A...
You guys are amazing!! I have searched all over UA-cam for this task! Thank you so much!
You’re welcome! Happy to help demystify some of the behind the scenes tasks.
Hi, all I can say is awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Thanks for all the information.
You are both so helpful and encouraging. Thank you fo the great videos.
Be well Jeanne :)
Hi Cathy & Nam,
Your tutorials are very helpful and also very intuitive plus they are very much appreciated, especially the one named (- How to Design a Greeting Card Template in Photoshop | Speed up your design and print process -), Thank you and please keep the tutorials going, as always best wishes.
Thank you Mac. Excited to see how you progress on your art journey! Our next video dropping Wed will be about how to clean up a watercolor painting in photoshop. It is a long time coming!
Hello your channel is such an oasis for us artist who want to physically show and sell our art as greeting cards.. Thank you soooo much. Blessings!
Thanks so much for your videos I am learning photo shop on my own. You make it so easy I ordered the template and giraffe card I want to support you and your family. You are an amazing artist! 😊
Thank you for the support Jodi! Let us know what else u would like to learn or how we can improve :)
You have been such an asset to my soon to be card business.
Thank you HHH :)
Thanks for this helpful video!
you’re welcome!
thanx! I love the various meanings/spellings of one word, and here at home (which is as far as I've gotten),I'm amazed at how that alone, can be the germ of an idea. I won't make you read my idea for a get well card.
Thanks for binge watching our videos in the past week! Looks like you’ve gone through a lot of them and hope you find many of them insightful.
@@EasySundayClub yes, thank you, absolutely. I don't understand everything. all I know is, drawing cards ,and sometimes surprising myself w/ original ideas. when I'm in a creative mindset, I come up w/ these "too silly not to be funny" cards. Larson ,Piraro, are 2 very silly guys I admire. and Bill Griffith. I definitely want to soak up more from you 2 guys. the word "introvert" has been thrown around this site, and that describes me. I've had a blue collar business for a long time (which won't hurt),
but the hands on work was what I was always good at. not really the business side. I appreciate that you 2 are very busy, but you're reaching out to inexperienced creatives. thanx!
Watch until the end for 2 cheaper alternatives to Photoshop for template making 🙃.
Thank you so much, I can’t afford Photoshop right now and Gimp is too confusing. I downloaded Affinity’s free trial and I like it. Btw... it’s $49 now. Maybe they will run a sale.
Thank you so much Guys. Love the video
Thank you for the feedback Nakeisha! Anything else u would like to see?
@@EasySundayClub i will let you know as soon as i think of it. Thanks again.😀
Very helpful❤️
Thank you for the support Cindy :) Best of luck on your art journey!
great channel! I'm so happy I found you, because I'm trying to turn my graphics into cards :) any chance you'll make a tutorial/template for a one printable card 5x7 with borders to cut off?
Thank you so much my friend
Thank u for the support always!
This was an awesome and very informative tutorial! Just wanted to let everyone know you can also accomplish this in Adobe Illustrator if you don't have Photoshop. :)
you definitely can!
Thank You 😊
That's a very nice fiddle leaf fig you have! ;)
😭 😭 😭
I am learning Photoshop Elements on my own. This is a great video. I was able to create the templates. I am struggling with how to size the scanned images to fit the A2 size. Keeping the aspect ratio the card does not fill the template. The original painting was in a 5 by 9 watercolor journal. Do I need to create the original painting a certain dimension? Thanks for any guidance or direction on how I can size my paintings to fit into my (thanks to you) card templates.
You can also use GIMP which is a very capable image and animation program.
It is free and open source and cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux).
good suggestion! I forgot about this free option.
Hey guys, thanks for your videos! I'm having a really hard time with printer settings to make it print true to color as I see on photoshop. Do you have any videos where you show your color settings?
Here u go Dakota. Best of luck and ty: ua-cam.com/video/h1DIdPAAgCg/v-deo.html
if i wanted to get this printed at office depot or staples, what kind of paper would you recommend? great tutorial btw
Love the video! Have recently tried to create some cards with my art through photoshop but found when printing that the colours are very grainy and even appear more dull.
Is there any way to make sure the colour's print solid instead of in pixels (even though its solid colour!)
THANKS!
Here are our printer settings ua-cam.com/video/teaDULHKKPA/v-deo.html
Thanks for this video!! When you print the card, do you have any lines on the printed version to mark where to cut out the card accurately?
no lines. we measure where to cut using our paper trimmer, which I think is more precise than printing.
Thank you again! All your videos have been exactly what I’m trying to figure out. Photoshop is so expensive at my stage, although I know it is industry standard, so thank you for recommending Affinity Photo. I’m debating between Affinity Photo and Photoshop Elements, which is the lighter version of Photoshop with less functions, but is still only a one-time purchase. I believe it does not support CMYK at all though. Do you have any thoughts or advice on which is more suitable for greeting cards, template making?
Hi Chica. Based on my research it seems that Affinity has more features and is a better value ($50 vs. $100) than Elements. The only reason I would think about Elements is so you can be familiar with Photoshop when you eventually upgrade to that. I would look for coupons / sales with both programs and Photoshop and also see if there are any student discounts available for all of the programs. If the Affinity sale is still at $25 it seems like a worthwhile investment and good way to dabble in this area. Be well :)
Easy Sunday Club thank you sooooo much!!
@@chica418 FYI There are many in the art and illustration industry who've completely transferred their process over to Affinity Photo and Designer. Honestly there is no need for Photoshop or Illustrator. The only "upgrade" is the extra cost for something you don't own. In the end, so long as what you're producing is the correct format, resolution and file type no one cares what you're using to produce your work. But please don't take my word for it do your own research so that you feel confident with your decision ;-).
Love your video - thanks for the information but can you type on the inside of the card? If so how would I get to it. I purchased your template for photoshop. Thanks
Similar use of the template. May have to make a vid but basically put text in middle of blank template instead of card design and u have to pass through a printed card so the text shows up on the side of the flap where u want it
good content friend
Thanks for the visit
Love your videos. I had a problem therefore have a question. I have the Epson p800 and I'm working with photography. I set everything up exactly as you stated and chose no border but once I printed I still ended up with a small white border. I see on your art work, a small white border would not show, but on a colored photo it does. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Diane: check out our settings here. Might help:
ua-cam.com/video/h1DIdPAAgCg/v-deo.html
Great tutorial! Is there a way to create the template so that images will snap into the grid?
If you turn on Guides in photoshop (View>Show>Guides), you should see that your art will snap into grid when you move near it.
Hi Cathy and Nam,
I really enjoyed this video as I've been trying to figure out how to create greeting cards without outsourcing. Thank you so much for mentioning Affinity Photo! How do you score the fold on your cards?
Check out our creasing machine video :)
You’re welcome! We have a video on our scoring machine, ua-cam.com/video/Ry2BaZqEB0U/v-deo.html. though we know it’s not for everyone. You can also just get a manual scoring board.
Great tutorial. Wondering if you adjust the template for full color images that go right to the edge of the paper when you choose borderless printing. I tried it on my Canon TS9520 printer (found on your $500 set up video) but borderless printing either prints off center, leaves a bit of white edge or cuts off part of the right side image.
Thanks again for sharing.
This is exactly what I have experienced! Have you found a solution to this problem? I keep wasting my card stock 🙁
@@akhtarayesha21 Sorry I haven't. I decided to use designs without borders or that do not go all the way to the edge of the paper. My other thought was to put two different images on one card, maybe one that goes to the edge and the other with the a center image only. Haven't tried it yet. Love to hear if you find a solution.
@@patriciabentham1192 I did a lot of research but there’s no sure-shot solution to this problem. I recently found out that there are specific printers that are made to do borderless printing. Even if some printers have borderless option doesn’t mean they can do borderless printing without cutting part of the artwork. I was lucky enough to figure out different different settings that worked for all sorts of artworks I have. It did cut a bit of the sides , but again it worked fine with the kind of artworks my husband made for our small startup. I have Epson.
For A2 cards with white borders I used “with border” setting to print 2 A2 cards on a letter sheet. And for rest of our artworks used borderless to print 2 cards on a letter sized card-stock.
Also I learnt that if you are giving a print command from your phone - chances are you will see alot of conflict with your original artwork. So always give a print command from your computer device.
All the very best !
@@akhtarayesha21 Thanks for the info and yes mine was sold as "prints borderless". I'll keep playing with it and look for settings similar to yours.
Do you print directly from photoshop? Or do you save to a different filetype first? Thank you for this comprehensive video!
Yup print directly from Photoshop! We have another video that shows our print workflow and printer settings.
Video thats shows our settings here: ua-cam.com/video/h1DIdPAAgCg/v-deo.html
@@EasySundayClub Oooo! I'll definitely check this out. Thank you so much!
Is there a way we can add letting inside the card with this template?
Hi just followed this and also converted the image to cmyk but the result color is not the same to the image on screen. Is there any settings that i need to set or change of my printer? My printer is canon pro 100s..thank you.
We have an Epson so are not too familiar with the ICC profiles on Canon but what we learned is the paper profile that goes with your paper type isn't always the best match. I also leave my image as RGB and let our printer manage the conversion. Check out this video where we share our printer workflow and print settings: ua-cam.com/video/h1DIdPAAgCg/v-deo.html.
Another alternative for photoshop is Photopea... Its almost the exact same thing and free!
Thank you I'll look into it!
Hi! I loved your tutorial, as I am a beginner at PS, and I was so excited that I could follow your directions and end up with the perfect result in front of me on the screen. But, every time I try to save the project, I get an error program message!!!! So now I am stuck again. Have you heard of this problem before, and do you have a solution?? :-(
OK...so I spent an hour on the phone with a lovely young man, Rahvanan, on Adobe support this morning (in India!! How cool?). The problem is a bug in the latest version of PS (22.10). First he had me "hide" all the layers in the card. Then he helped me change back to an earlier version of PS (22.01), which enabled me to save the card. Then he advised me to turn off the auto-upgrades for at least 60 days. Hope this helps anyone else who gets stuck like me!!!
thanks for sharing and maybe it will save someone else a call!
I know you save your original image in TIFF do you save the template with the same file type?
Yes I save greeting card templates as TIFFs too but I think Jpeg is fine too at 300dpi. I’m less concerned with the quality of the print at this size than fine art prints.
If you plan to use the cards as instant downloads, what file format do you recommend - PNG, JPG or PDF?
PNG or JPG is best, but make sure Dpi is at least 300 to optimize for print.
Hi Cathy! All of your paper links are "page not found". Could you update those?? Or give a brand and style so we can find them. Thanks so much! Your vids are great!
Hi Sue, all the links are fixed now. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
@@EasySundayClub Thanks!!!
HI Cathy and Nam
I am having a print problem.
The colors are not printing correctly.
Do you know of some remedy for this problem.
Is it my printer , does it need to be configured or is there a printer that you can recommend that will give me better results within a $300 or less range.
I am not a tech person so what I read about configuration plus extra equipment I might need seemed a bit scary.
I am useing your guidance to print my greeting cards.
But they print much lighter which forces me to
darken my art work but then I'm not satisfied with my original.
I really would appreciate any help you can give me.
Hi Cathy and Nam,
Will your A2 template work with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021?
A few people with older versions of Photoshop Element said it didn’t quite work, so prob not :(
@@EasySundayClub Thank you for replying so quickly! And much thanks for your informative videos!! Your videos have really helped in answering a lot of questions I’ve had! 🌺
Do you recommend any other software? PS is expensive :-(
Yes Affinity Photo has very similar features for a one time fee! at least for now.
@@EasySundayClub As it happens, I have Affinity!! Thank you, I should start using it 😊
I can't find your template to purchase, where is the link?
It’s the first link in my video description.
@@EasySundayClub thank you. I found it. I have a card I have done and want to put my name on the back, can you help me with that? I have word and also ps, both are not user friendly, lol
I purchased the template but can’t get the instruction layer off to add photos. Yes, technology challenged. Can anyone help. I have windows and not a Mac.
were you able to watch the instruction video? If you can locate your Layers window, you will be able to delete the instruction layer.
I finally hide the instruction page but the folders are locked and said I can’t edit them. 🤷♀️
Hey guys! How come you chose RGB and not CMYK for print?
in short, I prefer designing/editing in Rgb and rely on our printer’s ICC profile to do the Cmyk conversion when we print. Our epson printer has 9 ink cartridges and is good at capturing the many colors of my watercolor art well.
Easy Sunday Club thank you so much 🙌🏻 I’m very happy I came across your channel :)
How do you stop people copying your ideas?
In short you have to copyright it with copyright.gov and threaten to sue them :). This is a video topic that I plan to do in the near future. Stay subscribed and stay tuned!
@@EasySundayClub Yes I would be very greatful for a video on this subject. I am in Wales in the United Kingdom so I am aware there may be some differences but also a lot of similarities. Thank you again for taking the time to respond. Love your work, love your channel x
@@butterfly4875 Hi FYI we just released a video that talks about art copyright here: ua-cam.com/video/ALXb1Y4Ead8/v-deo.html
#XO
Xxxo!!!
How to design a logo?
I hired a logo designer for mine!
Great information thank you very much Question How would I do a picture of my wife for her birthday ?
'Made in...' Still wrong way up
oops!
pp