Hey there Stamp & Scrapbook Expo friends and fans, Becki here, for another edition of Inspiration Station. As scrapbookers, we’ve all got them, poor quality photos. I have such a hard time working with photos that aren’t bright, clear, and well composed. I’ve realized that by not using the poor quality photos I have I’m not telling some important stories. And missing out on important stories because of a silly little thing like the quality of the photo is NOT okay with me. 
The photo I’m working with today was taken in a middle school gym, at night, when there were a lot of people around after a concert. If you’ve ever tried to take a photo at an event in a school gym, you know this is a recipe for disaster. Especially if you’re trying to take a photo with a phone (which I was). The worst problem with this photo is that the coloring was off (the photo was too yellow) and that it was too dark. I lightened the photo a little bit, changed it to black and white, and printed the photo on matte photo paper. By printing on matte photo paper, the details are still in the photo but the imperfections aren’t highlighted by glossy paper.
Not only was the coloring in this photo off but so was the composition. I don’t know why my daughter’s friend was partially cut out of the photo but she was. There wasn’t much I could do to fix how the photo was composed but I could place embellishments at the edge of the photo to balance the composition of the layout.
Another way I brightened up the layout and make this poor quality photo shine, was to add a pop of gold (on the title and a few embellishments). That little bit of glimmer catches the readers eye and guides it around the page so it lands on the photo. 
Overall, I was able to make the photo a better quality photo but most importantly, I didn’t let a poor quality photo stop me from documenting an important memory. By using these tips and tricks I hope that you won’t let a poor quality photo stand in your way of documenting your important stories.
Note: I used the new Chasing Dreams collection by Maggie Holmes and Crate Paper to create most of this layout.
I am thrilled to see the topic about what to do if one has a “bad” photo that is priceless. I hope that this topic can be repeated because we all think that our pictures are great when looking at our digital immediate lookup and after developing we find that the photo did not turn out the way we had hoped. There was an article in a magazine about how to scrapbook a bad photo and it was described as “How to Make Lemonade When Your Photo Is a Lemon.”
I think these are great ideas, but I wish you had gone further. I have a lot of old photos that have ‘faded’ but are important. I would really like to know how to scrapbook these. Any suggestions?