In past posts, I’ve talked about how I use a free graphic design software – Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition – for all sorts of projects.  I’ve used it to make a custom shower curtain from my own design of mismatched tiles, and to create a set of mugs for my father based on the punchlines of our favorite jokes.

I also used it to create our Twitter background featuring some of our favorite projects – you know what I’m talking about.  (Oh, wait, you don’t follow us on Twitter?  Well, you should go check it out now, and follow us while you’re there 🙂 )

Most free programs are just trying to get you to upgrade – they work for a short period of time before you need to pay, or you need to pay to export your image into a usable format, or something.  Don’t get me wrong, Serif would very much like you to upgrade.  There are some features that aren’t available unless you do, and there are upgrade ads that pop up if you click these features, and when you exit the program.  However, the free features still offer a ton of functionality, and you can easily get your images outside the program into usable formats.  I’ve been using it happily for free for 10+ years.

I know it might sound like I’m hawking this program, but I have no association with them, financial incentive, or anything of the sort.  I’m just a fan of getting away with free graphic design.

There are plenty of tutorials by actual graphic design folks about how to use this program for actual graphic design.  But as I’ve started blogging, I’ve found it to be very useful for basic blogging functions.  So I thought I’d share some of the ways this makes my life easier.  I’ll go through some of the basics and my most common uses in this post, and in later posts I’ll talk about some of the fancier stuff I use it for.

Serif DrawPlus Layout

Once you open it up and start a document, it looks something like this:

On the left (A) you have some of the basic stuff that you might remember from paint, including inserting text, shapes, drawing by hand, etc.  On the right at the top (B) you have your color options, both for lines and for filling the inside of shapes.  On the Swatch view (which you see here) you can switch to other palettes for more color options, and if you switch to the Color view you can do a lot more, like select by the RGB color model, adjust opacity, and more.  Lower (C) you have other functions.  Among them, Transform lets you resize items and Arrange lets you group, combine, and crop.

It is also important to know the difference between selecting things with the black arrow (Pointer Tool) vs. the white arrow (Node Tool).

The black arrow moves things around and lets you easily resize things while keeping the scale constant. The white arrow lets you manipulate images in crazier ways, like changing the endpoint of a line you’ve drawn or making it curvy.  It is very useful, but if you’re using it when you mean to use the black arrow, you’ll drive yourself crazy.

Adding Text to Photos

My most common use, by far, is adding text to photos to make them easy to share out of context. Take this image of Sage’s amazing hallway transformation:

When we were getting ready for it to be featured on Remodelaholic, we wanted to add to the image so it would explain what it was (transforming stairs with fabric), what it was for (sharing on Remodelaholic), and who did it (Sage Plaster & Disaster).

To start, paste the image into Serif, select the text option (Artistic Text Tool), and type in what you want it to say.

You are then able to change the font and colors, both for the whole text block and within it. The font options appear along the top when you select a text item. You can  also move the text to wherever you want it to be, and move the pieces around to a good arrangement.

To dress it up a bit, you can add a line down the middle to divide the title from the subtitle.

Draw a line by switching over the Pen Tool to the Straight Line Tool, and dragging it across for a straight line. You can then change the thickness of the line with options that appear along the top when it is selected.

To center it with the text, select both, and use the Center Horizontally option that appears along the top when two things are selected.

You can also get at this function via the Arrange section along the right hand side.

To finish, you can also help the title stand out by adding a box around it. Draw one using the shape tool along the left hand side, and adjust it by hand until it gets to a size you like.  You can change the fill color to white with the Swatch option, and the color and thickness of the outline.

In the Color section on the right, you can adjust the opacity of the fill so it will be a bit see through. (I usually go to about 65-80% for title boxes.)

Finally, using the Layer or Arrange options on the right, adjust the order so the text is on top of the box.

The final result!

Most of my images are not that involved – I just add a bit of text or our URL along the bottom – but I chose this example because it uses a wide range of options. There are a ton of possibilities in this program, and what I like about it is that it is very easy to keep tweaking or go back afterwards to make a change.

Grouping Photos

The other easy way that I use Serif DrawPlus for blogging is to group photos together into a collage. I did it for this post, for the collage of projects I’ve done with this program in the past.

This is one of my favorite uses for this program because it is so easy. Just paste the images that you want to use into a document…

… and resize them to fit together. You can do this with precision in the Transform section along the right – just select the little chain link symbol that ties the coordinates together to keep the proportions equal.

To make a collage with multiple columns of images, make each column the same width. In this example, I made both of my shower curtain images the same width, placed them close to each other, and then centered them with the option that appears along the top when both are selected.

For a column with more than two images, do the same as the above, but also use the Distribute Vertically option (which appears along the top when multiple items are selected) to space them evenly.  Then, group the column images together so the program will treat them all as one item cumulatively.

You can then use the transform option to make both columns the same height, place them close together, and finish by centering them to each other vertically.

You can then add text along the top and/or a watermark URL to finish.

Exporting an Image

Once you’ve done all the work and have an image that you want to use, you need to export it from the program.  You do this by going to File > Export > Export as Image.

You then get to a screen where you can adjust the size of the image (very helpful for web use!) and also select different file formats.

This also gives a helpful preview of what your final image will look like, which can be a real time saver when you catch things before you’ve gone to all the trouble of uploading them to your blog.  As you can see in the preview, any blank space that you leave will show up as white (at least for the basic JPG option).

Once you’re happy with the settings, you just hit the “Export” button, and it prompts to you name and save your file wherever you’d like.

The other super helpful thing is that you don’t need to export the full page – you can also export whatever you have currently selected.  Take our exercise in grouping photos, for example.  Remember how the final image was just chilling in the middle of a page?

To export it, I just selected all of the relevant content and then went into the export screen.

Tah-dah!

This makes it easy to flexibly work with images until you get to a configuration that you like, without needing to know the size or dimensions in advance.

This method of exporting also means that you can do multiple images in one document, which is faster for mass-producing images for posts.  For example, do you know what my document looks like now, after processing and adding the various arrows for all the images in this post?

Yeah, not pretty!  But I was able to keep everything in one place, use the same red arrow over and over again, and not save a million files as I was working.  It made it so much easier!

That is only scratching the surface with some of the easiest and most common ways that I use Serif DrawPlus for blogging – and this post is already too long!  There is so much more I’d like to share, but I guess it will have to wait.

If this was helpful, in the future I’ll talk more about some of the other ways that I use this program, like cropping photos to combine (for good or evil), making mock-ups of rooms and decor, and more.

(Sharing at Think and Make Thursday, Your Turn to Shine Link Party, Weekend Retreat Link Party,I Heart Naptime, Create It Thursday,  One Project at a Time, and Pin Worthy Wednesday.)