Some philatelists make album leaves as a way of organizing collection. I usually make album leaves only for the exhibit works. A bitter experience in creating leaves by hand a long time ago made me pursue a way to create album leaves easily with computers and printers since early 1990's and I'd like to show you my latest way to create leaves.
(1) Use a software for layouting
It's useless to say which software is good because theere're not only windows but mac. What is important , I think , is to use a software for layouting.
Layout software can specify the printing points like DTP and design software. Otherwise, you can't get the same printing result with different computers and printers. This is why I don't recommend MS-Excel and MS-Word.
(2) SCAN materials and place them into a leaf.
If you place stamps and covers on the leaf, you can understand how the work will be. However, it is dangerous because there's a possibility to damage materials.
Thus, I scan all the materials and don't use the genuine stamps and covers for making leaves. What is important is to scan the materials as low resolution as possible. 72 DPI is enough and you don't need 600 DPI at all. 600DPI makes the file size of leaves heaby as well as harm stamps by lighting stamps heavily for a minute.
The scanned images can be cut at some software (for ex. Preview in Mac.) and you can place it on the digital leaves.
(3) A3 color printing of 16 in 1.
In order to be aware of 4 x4 leaves in one frame, I think it's better to print the color image of 4x4 leaves on A3 paper. "16 in 1" is also costless and even 8 Frames cost you around $4. Please compare the printing image with iPhone at the right image.
I made eight frames of my exhibit work of German States newly and it took me only a three days!
