Steps to Creating Original Negro League Baseball Cards

Steps to Creating Original Negro League Baseball Cards
**If you do not understand or get stuck on any of these steps, PLEASE see Miles or Hannah. They have done this in the past and can help you!

I have created a Jing recording of the following steps to create baseball cards in Photoshop Elements- WATCH IT FIRST!



The groups that I have so far:
Eva and Hannah
Molly and Esme
Miles and Jackson
Anika, Cassie, and Talia
Cian and Aidan


1. Download the baseball card template by clicking here. The link to the baseball card template is
http://www.op97.org/lincoln/reading/good one-baseball_card_template.psd
Save this in your documents folder. Make a folder called Baseball Cards in your documents folder to save all of your work.


2. Select 16-20 Negro League players from the spreadsheet – click here to go the page. It is located at http://lincolnreading1.blogspot.com/2011/03/honoring-black-history-monthnegro.html


3. Collect images from various websites for all of the players you have selected from the spreadsheet. I have listed some great websites below:
Negro Leagues Baseball Players Association
Negro Leagues Player Index
List of Negro League Players

Save these images to your Baseball cards folder- save as the name of player.jpg (for example: jamesbell.jpg).


Before you open Photoshop, please open your photo of the player in Preview and copy it.

4. Open Photoshop Elements (type in Elements in the search box in the upper right hand corner) and go to file and OPEN, go to your Documents folder and find the baseball card template.psd (psd stands for PhotoshopDocument). Click OK and it will open a new window with the baseball card.


Photoshop Tools Palette:

5. The first thing to learn about Photoshop is that everything is in LAYERS. Think of a cake with layers, one on top of the other, which we can see if we cut the cake in half. Look to the bottom right in Photoshop, that is where you will see the layers in the baseball card- you have several layers such as the banner layer, paste photo here layer…

6. Look at the tool palette, you want to select the arrow (move tool). Use that to select the PASTE PHOTO HERE layer in the bottom right hand corner. With that selected, paste the photo of the player you copied earlier from Preview. Now take the arrow and enlarge the photo to fit on the card. If you are having trouble, make sure that you are in the photo layer.


Go to file and save as now! Save in your documents folder as name of player.psd (example: hiltonsmith.psd).

7. Select the banner layer in the bottom right hand corner. Next click on the text tool (the T Tool) . With the text tool, click on the words on the card. You will now be able to highlight the word and delete them, do not click away. Type in the player’s name and nickname (or you can add the player’s team). You can change the size and type of font to the right on the tool bar.


Go to file and SAVE now! Make sure that you save your changes often!

8. If you do not want the ROOKIE sign in the right hand corner. Click on the text tool and click on the word ROOKIE, now you can delete it. It will ask you if you want to delete this layer and click OK. You can now change the border color, background, and also add filters to the player photo.


9. Make sure to save your final card in your documents folder. You will need to print out your cards when you are finished with all of them. These cards will be an important part of your game youa re going to create.


10. Make sure that your group has between 16-20 cards (groups of 2) and 24-30 cards for groups of three.


Have FUN and ask for help if you need it!
Mr. K