Welcome to part 3 of the blog collage series of tutorials…if you haven’t read the first two parts, you can see them by clicking below:

• Creating a Template
• Creating and Using Actions

So, first can I rant for a minute? I HATE nothing more than to go to a site or blog, then sit there for 20 minutes while the images load…optimize people! Optimizing file size is really quite simple, and adds just one small step to your workflow (maybe two depending on the final size of your image). In order to dispell the notion that you might lose image quality by reducing file size (as long as it’s done correctly), I’m going to show below two images, one before and one after – both are the same size (600 x 900 px), but one is optimized for file size…betcha can’t see a difference!

Before

After

So any guesses on what the difference in file size is for these two identical images? The “Before” images weighs in at nearly 550 KB, while the “After” is a measly 150 KB!

So, how does one achieve this modern day marvel? First, determine how wide (in pixels) your images are on your blog. There is absolutely no reason to upload images that are larger than the blog will allow. If you do, you are letting some tree full of internet elves resize your pictures for you…and trust me, they don’t care what your file size is, and the result will most definitely be sub-optimal. There are several ways of determining the width of the images on your blog, but the easiest is to take a screen shot of your blog, paste it into a new photoshop document, and crop it down to a horizontal image in your screenshot. Once you’ve cropped your image, just press Cmd+Alt+I (Ctrl+Alt+I on a PC). The width and height will be displayed at the top of the dialogue box that opens. The most important number to note is the width. Any image you upload with a width greater than the maximum allowed by your blog will be resized by gypsies. Don’t let it happen! From this day forth, you will resize your blog images to that maximum width.

Now for the final step – optimizing file size – the step that will win you awards in heaven and earth (OK, maybe not, but it will make you way cooler than everybody who skips this step). Once you have your image resized, click File>Save for Web and Devices. A dialogue box will open with several options. All you need to do is select the preset “JPEG High” then click Save. Ta da…you’ve just saved all your fans precious moments of their lives waiting for your images to load…and maybe even saved their souls from the devil by preventing the foul words that might have spewed from their mouths while waiting to view your masterpieces.

Now if you’re real smart, you’ll create an action that will do all this for you…play around with the information you learned in the last tutorial to save yourself a little time in this area as well!

Looking for our current contest and giveaway? Click HERE. Otherwise, read below for the tutorial.

For the second phase of the blog collage tutorial, we’ll be discussing how to create a set of actions to quickly place images in your blog collage templates.

Create your Templates

Before we begin, it will be necessary to have at least one template created. You can learn how, or download my template, from the first tutorial in the series by clicking here. Because we built our templates using adjustment layers, modifying the templates to create new ones is a very simple process. I recommend creating a variety of templates, just be sure to remain consistent in the way you name your image placeholders (img 1, img 2, img 3, etc).

Creating the Action

The action we are going to create will a) open the correct template, then b) place the images in their placeholders.

If you have never used Actions before in Photoshop, you’re missing out on a HUGE time-saver! Actions are basically a set of recorded steps that allow you to automate your workflow and replay it with the click of a button, making everything you do more consistent and much more quick.

1. To access your actions palette, click Window > Actions
2. At the bottom of the actions palette, click the folder icon to create a new action set
3. Name the set “Blog Collages” and press OK
4. With this new Blog Collages action set selected, click the new action button (looks like a paper with the bottom left corner folded up)
5. Name it “Blog Collage 01″ and press Record. At this point, your action is being created by recording everything you do
6. Click File > Open and navigate to your first blog collage template. Select it, then click Open
7. Click on the “img 1″ layer to select it, then Cmd+Click (Ctrl+Click on a PC) on the “img 1″ thumbnail to create a selection around the placeholder (this will center your image over the placeholder)
8. Click File > Place and select the first image you’d like to place in your collage, click Place, then press the Enter to complete the placement
9. ***Important*** Next to the action steps (on the left-hand side) you should see a check box and a small blank box. For the “Place” step you just created, click on the blank box. You should now see a box with three small dots in it. This will allow you to choose the images each time you run the action, and not just place the same image each time it is run
10. Press Cmd+Alt+G (Ctrl+Alt+G on a PC) to create a clipping mask (don’t worry if your image is cropped incorrectly right now, you’ll resize it later)
11. Follow steps 7-10 for the rest of your image placeholders
12. Press Stop (the small square at the bottom of the actions palette)

Congratulations! You’ve just created your very own action. You can now resize your images by clicking on the image layer, then pressing Cmd+T (Ctrl+T on a PC). Remember, the images are smart objects, so any changes you make are non-destructive.

Now the beauty of this is you don’t have to go and recreate the action for every template you have.

Duplicate the Action

You can create duplicates of this action and modify it very easily to run on your other templates.

1. To duplicate the action, just drag the action over to the “New Action” button at the bottom of the actions palette and drop it.
2. Double click on the new action to rename it.
3. Double click on the “Open” step of the action to specify the correct template to open
4. Add steps by clicking the Record button at the bottom of the Actions palette and then following steps 7-10 above.
5. Delete steps (in the case that your new template has less image placeholders than the first) by selecting the steps you want to remove and dragging them to the trash (at the bottom of the actions palette)

The concepts from these tutorials can also be easily applied to storybook templates, greeting cards, announcements, etc. Also, try to modify the action to be used with templates you have purchased.

Next week, I’ll complete the blog collage series by discussing some ways of optimizing your image filesize for the web. Feel free to email me with any questions on the tutorial at travis@bokastudios.com.