How do I use my own decorations/clip art?

On your system, set up a folder to house your own backgrounds and decorations for quick access in your projects. 

Click on General in the top left corner, then choose User Preferences. Under the Advanced tab, specify the folder where your decorations are located.

To access your collection in the editor, use the dropdown in the photo collection pane to access My Decoration. In the example below, a collection of background textures has been added from a local source.

Decorations versus Normal Images 

Images designated as decorations do not behave like photos. If a new layout is applied to a page, decorations will not change position. Images originating from My Decorations or Style Decorations in the Photo Collection will automatically be recognized as decorations. You can tag any image on your canvas as a decoration as well, useful if you are using a photo as an embellishment.

To tag an image as a decoration, select the image, then access the General Properties option. Change the type from normal to decoration. In this example, an image has been placed on the page to be used as a gradient background.  After tagging it as a decoration, this image will not move when a new layout is applied.

Style-Aware Decorations

There are two types of decorations: regular and style-aware. Regular decorations simply are images that are not applied into layouts. Tag photo-realistic clipart as a regular decoration.  Style-aware decorations are line-art graphics which inherit properties as set out in the Style editor.

When you apply a new style to a page or the entire book, style-aware decorations will change properties to respect the selected style.

Embellishments which require transparency (like clipart) are ideally saved as png file formats, but other common image file format types are supported. As a convenience, any png image with transparency and set to 100% white will automatically be set to a style-aware decoration, like those found in the Memento collection.

MementoPix strongly encourages you to use only commercially distribuable graphics in your projects and to respect the usage rights posted on any downloadable image files found on the Internet. MementoPix respects that graphic designers and photographers are skilled professionals with the right to distribute their creations as they see fit, and encourage our customers to do the same.