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Epson Computer Tips: Quick layouts for old and color restored photos

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!

Sponsored by: Epson America



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