Simple Photo Matting for Scrapbookers

Most photographs can be enhanced by fixing them to coloured cardstock. This process, known as matting, is one of the most simple and effective ways to display your photographs.

Mounting a photograph on cardstock is easy. Begin by choosing a colour which complements or contrasts with the basic colours in the photo. A mat ought to add interest and definition. If you are unsure what colour to pick most photographs work well with strong plain backgrounds. Black can be particularly effective. Once you feel confident in your choice you might like to experiment more with patterns to produce original and eye-catching effects.

Simple Steps to Mat a Photo

1. Apply tape, photo stickers or adhesive to the back of your photograph.


2. Fix photo to your chosen cardstock by placing it on one corner. Line up the edges of the photo with the edges of the cardstock. Ensure that you leave a small border on the bottom and side of the photo.


3. Once the photo is adhered to the cardstock use scissors to cut around the image. Make sure you leave enough of a border of backing card to work with.


4. Finally trim remaining sides of cardstock to the same amount of border all the way around. A guillotine, if you have one, is very useful for this purpose.


5. You are now ready to use your matted photo in your layout.

Scrapbookers Guide to Cropping Photos

Not every photo that you will want to use in your scrapbooking pages will be perfect. Once processed you might be disappointed to find that your best pictures have distracting backgrounds or other features that detract from the overall quality or effect you are looking for. One very simple way to immediately improve your photos is to crop them.

Cropping is a very easy technique whereby unwanted details of the photo are eliminated leaving only the parts of the image that are desired. Professionals use heavy pieces of black card cut at right angles which are placed on the photograph to help them decide how much of the photograph to crop. Simply by moving the corners closer together different amounts of cropping of the image can be tested. Once the desired result is achieved the corner points are marked and joined on the image with a sharp pencil. Using the pencil lines as guides the image is then cropped with a paper trimmer or guillotine.

You can achieve great effects with cropping too by creating your own "croppers."

How to Make Your Own Pair of Croppers
Using stiff black cardstock and starting in the righthand corner cut out one right angle measuring 10cm x 2.5cm. Then repeat this process using the same dimensions as before but this time starting at the bottom lefthand corner. You will then have two right angles to use with your smaller photographs to help you with your cropping decisions. Croppers can be any size you wish. Another useful size for larger photographs is 15cm x 3cm.