How Did I Do That?
After several questions about the Back Porch banner, I decided to put this little tutorial together. Making banners at Typepad has proven to be a challenge. It isn’t an easy task, but I have been pleased with the results, each time I’ve created a new banner.
First, if it is compatible to your computer, download Picasa. It’s free and has lots of options. I’ve used it for many years. After trying several editors, Picasa is the one I use most of the time. Photoscape is another editor I use. For this particular banner, I used Picasa.
A third free editor is Photofiltre. I’ve had this editor for several years. I used Photofiltre for text on the red geranium banner, I put together for this tutorial.
Begin With a Mosaic
I made the mosaic in Picasa.
Choose a photo or several photos from your files.
I used the Picture Pile option and lined the photos in a row, with one at an angle.
Please forgive the dusty screen and these poor quality images.
I loaded the mosaic onto Photofiltre, added a frame and text.
After adding a frame and text I cropped and sized the mosaic and saved it to my pictures.
The size needs to be adjusted a bit more, so that it stretches farther across the top. The template name is Clean, the same template I use for BPM. Since it is the test blog for this tutorial, the measurement will be fine. The sizing has been challenging on this template. Sooner or later, I usually figure it out.
You will need to use your template banner requirements to achieve the correct measurement for your blog.
The banner was added to my test blog at Typepad. The sheer overlay appears over the banner automatically. You should be able to experiment with this overlay idea on your template.
When I was working on this tutorial, I noticed Typepad has added a couple of new templates I might experiment with, on my test blog. I recommend test blogs. If you don’t have one, it’s a good idea. You can keep the test blog private. It’s a great place for experimenting with different templates and banners before using them on your regular blog.
Most of my banners begin in Picasa.
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