Add Video To Your Project Life! 01/05/13
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What do YOU do with all the cute little videos you take on your cell phone? I know mine get uploaded to my computer and if I’m lucky, they won’t disappear into the depths of my hard drive and we’ll maybe watch them again a few years later. Well, I’ve decided that’s not good enough for me, so I’m here to show you how you can incorporate video into your project life or regular digital or paper layouts quickly and easily, plus I have a fun free set of cards at the bottom to help you do just that!
Add Video To Your Project Life: A Tutorial
Step 1: Take your video and upload it to the server of your choice, whether it be YouTube, your own family website, or other photo/video sharing site. If you’re worried about the privacy of your videos on youtube, you can set them so that only people with the link can see them.
Step 2: Visit the QR code generator and follow the steps to create your QR code, it’s a 1 step process so don’t stress!
Step 3: Save your QR code and open it in Photoshop. You’ll notice that it’s really too small of a resolution, but don’t worry, we’ll fix it!
Step 4: Little known fact: If you increase the size of a low resolution image 5% at a time, the image will maintain most of it’s integrity, as long as you don’t make it too large. So, increase the size of the QR code by hitting ctrl (or cmd) +t and typing 105% into the top tool bar for width and height. Hit enter to accept the transformation. (see below)
Step 5: You’ll notice it doesn’t get that much bigger, but if you hit ctrl (cmd) + shift + t to transform again a few times, it will fill up the box soon. Do so until it’s the size you want it to be. It WILL be a bit fuzzy, don’t worry, we’ll fix that.
Step 6: Once you’ve filled the box with the QR code, It’s time to sharpen! Go to Layer>Sharpen>Unsharp mask and use the following settings, see how much sharper that looks?
Step 7: Now comes the fun part! If you’re using the PSD template, decorate your card to match your spread, otherwise, skip straight to printing.
Step 8: Once your card is printed, use a free QR code reader app like QRReader on your phone and scan the QR code. I haven’t printed mine yet, so I’m going to read straight from the computer, but here are a few screen shots of what happened on my phone when I did so!
Scanning the Code
Code Lead Me to YouTube
And I can play the video right there on my phone!
You can actually use this technique for all kinds of internet content, maybe you want to go to a certain song or website? You can make a QR code for that!
Aww, here’s the video I linked up to..half naked baby playing video games LOL
Here’s the link to download the free layered .psd and .png cards, both 3×4 and 4×6, enjoy!
P.S. If you use this technique or the cards, I’d love it if you came back and linked me up so I can see!
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Traci Reed
Traci is a surface pattern and scrapbooking designer who lives in Northern California with her husband Patrick and 3 sons, Karsten, Josiah and Finn. With 8 years of experience, she's quickly becoming a veteran in the industry. Plus, she owns this awesome site you're browsing!
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January 5, 2013 at 12:26 pm
This is so AWESOME! Thanks for sharing, Traci
January 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
OMG! Thank you so much for this idea! My kids are always taking videos of themselves, and they are usually hilarious! And thanks for the free journaling cards, I am definitely going to have to add this to my project life this year!
January 5, 2013 at 6:43 pm
Love this idea! Thanks for the share!
January 6, 2013 at 12:41 am
Traci, this is genius…I will be using this a lot for sure!
Thank you!!
January 6, 2013 at 6:34 am
WOMAN, that is AWEZOME!!!!
January 6, 2013 at 7:17 am
Brilliant!! Thank you for preparing this tutorial and presenting the information clearly.
January 6, 2013 at 6:54 pm
thank you so much for this fantastic tutorial. I have wanted to know how to do this for months! You are an awesome person!!
January 6, 2013 at 9:11 pm
I already do QR codes to include videos in my Project Life album, but I love your cards! Thanks for sharing!
January 6, 2013 at 9:34 pm
I added quite a few QR codes in my PL album last year (and in albums of our Disney trips). I LOVE your journaling cards and will definitely be using them this year
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January 7, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Thank you so much for this!!!! I love the cards and the step by step on getting this done. One big thing for me to figure out was how to rotate videos from the iPhone. I can do it in Windows Movie Maker – just rotate right and save!
January 7, 2013 at 2:02 pm
You’re welcome! I shot mine vertically and uploaded it to youtube straight from my phone and didn’t need to rotate it!
January 7, 2013 at 2:05 pm
Are you kidding me?! This is BRILLIANT!!! You’re so smart! Now if only I had a smart phone!
January 8, 2013 at 1:07 am
OMG that is such an awesome idea!!!! Thank you so much for sharing.
January 12, 2013 at 3:40 pm
I saw this over the summer with a disney project life album and she used http://zxing.appspot.com/generator and they download pretty big…just a little fyi. I love the cards they are awesome!! Thanks so much!
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January 14, 2013 at 8:08 am
This is great ! Love the idea, thank you !
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January 17, 2013 at 7:07 am
YOU are amazing Traci! Thanks for the download! I’ll be using this technique for SURE!
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January 20, 2013 at 2:26 pm
I’ve been incorporating these codes for awhile now and they are just awesome. Thanks so much for the cards! They are wonderful!
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January 26, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Love the cards, they make putting qr codes in my PL much prettier now ! Thank you.
January 27, 2013 at 8:08 am
Love the tutorial! I tried to follow you using your RSS feed but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ll check back!
February 1, 2013 at 7:59 pm
Traci.
Thanks for this tutorial, I found it from the digi show comments, this is what I have been looking for to add to my girls gymnastics scrapbooks. How cool to have her routine forever (or as long as this technology is around)
I rally appreciate you showing how easy this is.
February 13, 2013 at 4:07 pm
thank you! it was so easy!
February 16, 2013 at 1:17 am
Thank you for this great info on adding videos! And, thank you for the PL cards!
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February 27, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Oh my heck this has just changed my life!!!! THANK YOU!!!
March 4, 2013 at 9:22 am
I love this and we use QR codes at work but you, my dear, have opened my eyes to new techniques! WOW! Thank you!
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March 10, 2013 at 8:24 pm
Thank you for doing this. Here’s a page I just did using your instructions
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/mom2triplets04/2013-project365-week10_zps41707c3e.jpg
March 11, 2013 at 11:21 am
Wow Traci, This is an awesome idea and I have often wondered what do with all those videos I take. Now I know thanks so much for sharing this.
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March 12, 2013 at 8:41 am
HI,
This is wonderful!! I really want to do this but I don’t have photoshop. Can I still do it? Thanks for the help.
Candie
March 13, 2013 at 10:43 am
Hi there! You can! You can print your QR code directly from the site and adhere it to your project life card instead
Hope that helps!
March 18, 2013 at 6:25 pm
OMG! Technology is amazing!! Thanks for sharing this with us!
March 25, 2013 at 8:10 am
THANK YOU! So fun!
March 27, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Hi Tracy!
just wondering if there was another way to do it. I’m just not sure if I want videos of my daughter on youtube…
One question…is there a way to do this and still keep your videos private? I made my video private, then scanned my qr code from my phone and it came up private (obviously, haha)
Kristin
March 27, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Would you label it as “unlisted”?
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April 11, 2013 at 11:23 am
Thank you so much!!! I just did my first one last night after talking about it for weeks! Love that this is psd to cutomize! Thanks again!!!
April 27, 2013 at 8:55 am
THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! So simple and it WORKED!
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