Creating a 'postcard'

This tutorial will show you how to create a 'postcard'. What you need: some photos, Posterino and 5 minutes time.

Overview

Here's the quick version of the tutorial, for the experienced user this may be all she needs. More detailed instructions follow.

  1. Create a new document and choose a 'postcard' template.
  2. Select an iPhoto album from the image picker at the sidebar. See Importing Images if you want to use other image sources than iPhoto.
  3. Drag & drop the images of choice into the postcard image placeholders.
  4. Double click the images to change the visible portion.
  5. Enter the text into the text field.
  6. Click the Mail toolbar button to render your postcard and open it in 'Mail'.

Next we will shed more light on each individual step.

To create a 'postcard':

  1. Choose a template

    Start Posterino or create a new document by choosing the New... command from the File menu.

    A new document will open and display a sheet of templates:

    The Template Chooser
    The template chooser.

    From the list of templates select the one named "Card in Blue".

    Press the Choose button.

    A new "Card in Blue" document will open. You see a postcard with an empty image frame and a text field to fill:

    An new poster document.
    An new poster document.
  2. Select an iPhoto album

    On the sidebar of the document window you see the image picker:

    If the image picker is not visible, press the Show Image Picker button. button at the bottom of the sidebar or choose Image Picker from the View menu (or press Command-1).

    At the top of the image picker is a popup menu. From this popup menu choose the iPhoto album holding the photos you would like to use for your postcard. In our example we choose the "Lago Maggiore" album holding images from our last weekend trip. See Importing Images if you want to use other image sources than iPhoto.

    Choosing an iPhoto album.
    Choosing an iPhoto album.
  3. Choose an image

    Now choose an image from the image picker and move it onto the empty image frame using drag & drop:

    Moving an image via drag & drop.
    Moving an image via drag & drop.
  4. Clip the image

    Next we will ensure that no important part of the image is clipped off by the frame. For example, we improve the clipping of the image below:

    Bad clipping.
    Bad clipping.

    Double click the image. The image bounds are displayed and you can grab the orange knobs to change the size of the image, the green knob to rotate the image and the white knob or any other visible part of the image to move it.

    In our example we grab the white knob and move the image a bit to the right.

    Good clipping.
    Good clipping.

    Now we can see the Madonna del Sasso in all it's glory.

  5. Enter some text

    To enter some text, click into the text area. The text field will highlight:

    Select the placeholder text.
    Select the placeholder text.

    And enter your message:

    Enter some text.
    Enter some text.
  6. Send your postcard via Mail

    If your are done with the design of your postcard, press the Mail toolbar button. toolbar button (or press Command-Shift-K). The mail options dialog will apear:

    Mail Options.
    Customize the postage stamp.

    In our example we want to send our postcard as email, so choose Send as E-Mail. Posterino will stamp your postcard with a postmark, render it and open it with the Mail application.

Tip: Customize the postage stamp

You can easily customize the postage stamp by dragging one of your own images onto the stamp:

Customize the postage stamp.
Customize the postage stamp.
Tip: Customize the postmark

You can customize the postmark to a very high degree. To change the postmark go to Posterino > Preferences > Postmark:

Postmark preferences.
Enter some text.

The postmark and postage stamp position and rotation are altered at random every time you create a new postcard or send your postcard.

You can control the degree of randomness on the General preferences panel under the headline Postcards.

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