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Wednesday, 07 February 2007 |
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HappyHolidays! photo cards can utilize Background Images and Tiled
Textures, as well as a Background Color. These adjustments can be made
in the Card Layout settings:

Changing the Background Color is simple. Just click on the color well to bring up the Color Picker. Selecting a color will immediately change the background of your photo card. To use a Background Image or to tile a Texture Image, click on the "More" button next to the color well. Drag any image into the image well and select a background image option. "Fill card" will take your image and fill the background while maintaining the background image's aspect ratio by clipping either the sides or top/bottom of your background image. "Stretch to fill card" will resize the background image to fill your card without regard to maintaining the aspect ratio. "Tile" will repeat your image across and down the entire card creating a tiled effect. "Center" will center the card over the background image without resizing the background image. Background Images are drawn over the Background Color so in most cases, the background color will be obscured unless you use a background image which has transparency. 
The "Fill", "Stretch", and "Center" options tend to work better with larger background images. The "Tile" option works better with small images.
There are many sources for great FREE background images and texture tiles. Simply search the Internet with keywords like "Background Images" or "Texture Images" or "Wallpaper Images". Many of the larger high-resolution images can also be used for the photo portion of your card. You can also find fee-based royalty-free artwork at sites like istockphoto.com.
Some websites we used for our included Templates and sample files:
http://www.allfreebackgrounds.com http://www.fg-a.com http://www.hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/ http://www.imageafter.com http://www.mayang.com/textures http://www.snap-shot.com http://www.texturewarehouse.com http://www.wallpapervault.com
Another place to get background images is already on your Mac! Open your hard disk in the Finder and navigate to the Library folder and then open the Desktop Pictures folder.
Here are some samples using Background Colors and Background Images:
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