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How to Customize Your Family History Project with Effects
How to Customize Your Family History Project with Effects

Guide on customizing photos, embellishments, and text with brightness, sepia, grayscale, shadow, & corner radius (rounding).

Janelle avatar
Written by Janelle
Updated over a week ago

Here's a step-by-step guide on customizing photos and embellishments with brightness, sepia, grayscale, corner radius (rounding), and shadow with the poster, book, and calendar editor.

Open the project you'd like to edit. If you're working on a book or calendar, click on the page you wish to edit to enter edit mode.

The "Edit" tab below the book pages will also take you to the editor.

Click here to learn more about the book editor tabs.

You'll have edit access immediately if you're working on a poster.

GETTING STARTED!

  • From the editor, click on the photo or embellishment you want to edit so it's highlighted in blue.

  • Select the Effects button from the top white toolbar.

ADDING BRIGHTNESS TO THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT

  • Toggle on the "Brightness" option.

  • Slide the brightness scale to the left to darken the image or to the right to lighten the image.

CHANGING THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT TO SEPIA

  • Toggle on the "Sepia" option (you can use the brightness scale to darken or lighten the image in sepia).

CHANGING THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT TO GRAYSCALE

  • Toggle on the "Grayscale" option (you can use the brightness scale to darken or lighten the grayscale image).

ADDING A BORDER TO THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT

  • Toggle on the "Border" option.

  • Click the number box arrow keys or enter a number in the box to increase or decrease the border thickness.

  • Click the color box to change the border color.

SHAPING THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT

  • Toggle on the "Corner Radius" option.

  • Use the Corner Radius sliding scale to change the image to the desired shape.

Here are a few examples where the shape of an image was changed using the corner radius.

For a more circular photo or embellishment, you must first crop the image square before rounding it. Click here for our step-by-step guide on adding, replacing, cropping, repositioning, resizing, and rotating photos.

ADDING A SHADOW TO THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT

  • Toggle on the "Shadow" option.

BLURRING THE SHADOW ADDED TO THE PHOTO OR EMBELLISHMENT

  • Use the Blur sliding scale to increase or decrease the shadow blur thickness.

  • Use the Offset X sliding scale to move the shadow to the left or right of the image.

  • Use the Offset Y sliding scale to move the shadow above or below the image.

  • Use the Opacity sliding scale to increase or decrease the shadow opaqueness.

  • Click the color box to change the shadow color.

Here's a step-by-step guide on customizing text stroke, text background, and text shadow with the poster, book, and calendar editor.

  • Click on the text you want to edit so it's highlighted in blue.

  • Select the Effects button from the top white toolbar.

ADDING TEXT STROKE

  • Toggle on the "Text Stroke" option.

  • Click the number box arrow keys or enter a number in the box to increase or decrease the text stroke thickness.

  • Click the color box to change the text stroke color.

ADDING A BACKGROUND TO THE TEXT BOX

  • Toggle on the "Background" option.

SHAPING THE TEXT BOX BACKGROUND

  • Toggle on the "Corner Radius" option.

  • Use the Corner Radius sliding scale to change the text box background to the desired shape.

  • Use the Padding sliding scale to increase or decrease the text box background padding.

  • Use the Opacity sliding scale to increase or decrease the opaqueness of the text box background.

  • Click the color box to change the text box background color.

ADDING A SHADOW TO THE TEXT

  • Toggle on the "Shadow" option.

BLURRING THE TEXT-SHADOW

  • Use the Blur sliding scale to increase or decrease the shadow blur.

  • Use the Offset X sliding scale to move the text shadow to the left or right of the text.

  • Use the Offset Y sliding scale to move the text shadow above or below the text.

  • Use the Opacity sliding scale to increase or decrease the text-shadow opaqueness.

  • Click the color box to change the text shadow color.

Here's an example of what happens with the text-shadow when using the Blur sliding scale.

HOW TO CHANGE THE TRANSPARENCY OF AN ELEMENT

  • Click on the photo, text, or embellishment you want to edit.

  • Click the "Transparency" icon in the upper right side of the white toolbar.

  • Use the sliding scale to increase or decrease the element's transparency.

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