1. I need to change the wording on my holiday card templates. How do I do this?

Fonts are a little tricky - this is how they work. When we include text in a template, such as your holiday cards, we turn the text into an image layer. We do this because some versions of Photoshop will substitute out a font that is not installed on your system for one that may look completely different, thereby changing the entire look of your template.

We would love to include the fonts as part of the template download, but since fonts are protected under copyright, we cannot do this. The text is technically only there for reference so if you would like to change it you will have to have the exact same font that we used installed on your machine. We try very hard to use only easily obtainable, free fonts in our templates so that you may go directly to the font artist and obtain them yourself. On a happy note, we have now obtained the licenses several gorgeous fonts, so in the future, we will be including the fonts used as part of the download.

Before changing the text on your templates, take a few minutes to get the following fonts: (A quick search on Google for 'Name of Font' font should turn up a download link in no time)

Series 1

Style 1 - Zurich EX Regular (18pt)
Style 2 - Zurich EX Regular (12pt)
Style 3 - Front - Zurich EX Regular (18pt) Inside - Zurich EX Regular and Zircon (beautiful font)
Style 4 - Zurich EX Regular (24 pt)
Style 5 - AndantinoJF (30 pt) Inside - AndantinoJF (18 pt)

Series 2

Style 1 - AndantinoJF (14 pt)
Style 2 - Zurich EX Regular (12pt)
Style 3 - Front - Zurich EX Regular (18pt)
Style 4 - Zurich EX Regular (24 pt)
Style 5 - Front - Zurich EX Regular (18pt) Inside - x_angel (14 pt)

Now you may go in and use the Text Tool in Photoshop to create a text layer with the wording of your choice.

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2. My client loves the design but wants different colors. How do I change them?

Since all of our holiday templates are un-flattened PSD files, you may change virtually anything about them. Each template has at least one pattern layer (usually located just above the background). As you have probably noticed, some of our patterns are quite complex, and separating every single pattern element as a separate layer could make the layers a little confusing.

However, changing one or more colors in the patterns is a snap with the following technique: (you may also use this to change colors of wording, backgrounds, and image borders)

Step 1 - Select the pattern layer in your "Layers" Pallette

Step 2 - Go to Select --> Color Range at the top menu

Step 3 - A dialogue box will appear. Select "Sampled Colors"
Select -->Image/Preview --> None
Make sure that "Invert" is not checked
(experiment with the fuzziness setting to your liking as each pattern will be different)
With the eye-dropper tool click on the color of the pattern that you would like to change. We'll change the brown dots in this example.




Step 4 - You will now have "marching ants" around those colors.

Step 5 - Now create a new layer just above the pattern. Layer --> New Layer. Make sure this new layer is highlighted in your Layers Palette. When this new layer is highlighted, select Edit --> Fill. Set the drop down menu to "Color".

Step 6 - Choose the color you would like to substitute for the brown. You will now have a separate layer with that color replaced. We have chosen red just for illustrative purposes.

Repeat these steps for any other elements you would like to change the color of. Don't forget to create a new layer for each color you would like to change so that you may futher tweak the color to your liking without disturbing the surrounding colors. And, as always, be sure to save the template as a Copy so as not to overwrite the original.

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3. I'm brand new to Photoshop. How do I insert my photographs into the templates?

Inserting images into your templates is also very simple. Perform the follwing steps:

1.  Open the template in Photoshop.

2.  Open the image you would like to insert into the template.

3.  Drag the image onto the template.

4.  Look at your layers palette and spot your image.  Position your image so that it is on the layer just above "IMAGE LAYER".

5.  Now, making sure your image is still highlighted in the layers palette, right click your mouse and choose "Make clipping mask".

You will see that your image is now within the box.  You may now move your image around, enlarge it, etc.  Repeat this step for any subsequent images in the template.

To resize your image choose Edit --> Free Transform and move the handles inward (hold down shift to maintain perspective)