Hi there, Erin here with another Pocket Scrapbooking tutorial.

I LOVE photography, and I really like to emphasize my photos on my pages.  One way I do this is by using a larger photo.  For a long time I was reluctant to do pocket scrapping because I felt it put too many restraints on my photos, but that is just not true.  The only restraints are the ones we put on ourselves.  Now when I want to use a big photo on my pocket pages I do it by stretching it across multiple photo spots. Now I am sure many of you already know how to do this, but for those who don’t I want to show you so you don’t have to go through all the trial and error I went through to figure it out.

1. Choose and prep your photo. This is important.  You want your photo to be simple clear and eye catching.  A busy photo will be distracting and you will have a difficult time sectioning it onto the photo spots. You also want your larger photo to be one that is important to the story you are trying to tell.  Portraits make great choices here, but are not the only photos that will work.

Once you have your photo you will want to go ahead and do any photo editing that you are planning on doing so that the photo you pull onto the template is ready to go.  We will be duplicating this photo so any changes you make later will mean you have to redo this entire process.

2. Choose your photo spots. You need to decide how much of your layout your photo is going to take up.  You also want to find spots that line up as closely as possible in a rectangle.  This is not necessary, and you can certainly be artistic by using photo spots that don’t line up, but is it much easier if the spots form a rectangle or square.

 I chose these spots on the Life Captured January template for my layout.

3. Now you are ready to drag your photo onto your layout. I have found it is easiest to drag onto the largest mask so that I can easily scale the photo down to the right size, but you can technically start on any spot you want, really it is up to you.

4. Line your photo up where you want it and clip it to the photo mask. You can always adjust it some later, but go ahead and try to place it where you want it to go if possible.

5. Duplicate your photo layer and WITHOUT moving it adjust the new layer up or down in the layers palette until it is over the next photo mask. Clip the photo to the photo mask. You should now have two photo spots covered by your photo and aligned so they look like one photo that has been cut apart.

6. Repeat step five for each additional photo mask in your chosen area. If you decide you need to adjust your photo placement make sure that you have ALL photo layers selected in the layers palette before moving them so that your photos move as a group and stay aligned. When you finish you should see the photo in all of your chosen photo spots.

7. Check to make sure that your photo is lined up the way you want. You want to make sure that the divisions between your photo masks fall in eye pleasing ways. Try not to divide up bodies any more that you have to and when you do have to divide a body try to place the breaks in natural places. For example, you don’t want to have a photo break on someone’s face.

In my layout, if I place my subject in the center of my photo area, my son’s body will be split into multiple sections (see below).  This really disrupts the picture and I want to avoid that, so I positioned the photo slightly to the right, with most of his body on the far right mask and a break at the waist (see image above).  This leaves a lot of empty space on the left mask, but creates a more pleasing photo.

8. Finish the rest of your page as desired.

So there you have it.  This is how I go about using a larger photo on a pocket page.  Here is my finished page. Notice I ended up going black and white on my main photo – that means I had to go back and redo those first steps (hence my advice to do photo editing in step 1).

Credits: Life Captured January Templates and Fun Fair Collection

I hope this inspires some of you, give it a try and see what you think!