A Look at the World of Digital Scrapbooking

An Introduction to Digital Scrapbooking

What is Digital Scrapbooking?

Digital Scrapbooking is a variation on an older hobby that is gaining new momentum. Digital Scrapbooking is simply adding digital graphics to your photos. This can be done with very basic computer skills and an easy-to-use graphics program, or it can be elaborate with many layers and a professional graphics program. Any place you wish to begin is a good place. If you take digital photos or if you have your photos put on a CD to upload to your computer, then you have the basics for digital scrapbooking. There are many advantages to keeping your layouts digital, and this hobby is for everyone.

There are so many advantages to ‘digi scrapping’, for one thing, there’s no glue, no mess! If all of your photos exist on your computer, why not keep them there and scrapbook them? Other than an inexpensive graphics program, there is no further cost to digi scrapping. Once you have created your digital layouts, you can put them into a digital album, upload them to your photo sharing website, burn them onto a CD or DVD, and there’s no bulky albums taking up shelving space.

Software Programs for Digital Scrapbooking

So which graphics program is for you? It may be as simple as knowing which one you already have and enjoy using. Print Shop is a popular program that has been around for nearly 20 years, and its newest version (Print Shop v. 22) is already designed to create digi layouts. But the older versions will allow you to make 12” x 12” pages. And many software creators have seen the need for a user-friendly program for digi scrapping and have jumped on board to share their offerings. There’s Nova Scrapbook Factory, Creating Keepsake Scrapbook Designer, Hallmark Scrapbook Studio, Memory Mixer, and new ones coming out every day. These types of digital scrapbooking programs are all preset for you to “click and drag” your way to fun and easy layouts. You can create beautiful scrapbook layouts just by choosing your page size, digital papers and embellishments, and adding your photos. Then, with a few clicks you can “add text” and your journaling was never this neat and easy. With digital scrapbooking and easy-to-use digital scrapbooking programs, it doesn’t take long before you’ve created a memory album to last forever.

And what about all of those great digi kits you can download from the internet? They are all usable in any of these programs. Once you’ve purchased or found a free download, the process of using these kits is a fairly simple one and generally involves the following:

Step 1: Download, and unzip, (keep the name and location of the unzipped file in mind).

Step 2: Load up your graphics program, choose your page size.

Step 3: “Add Graphics” – “From File” (this is the usual terminology for most programs; your wording may be slightly different depending on which graphics program you are using).

Step 4: Find your unzipped digi kit file, and choose the ‘digi papers’. Scroll though and choose the paper you wish to make your foundation (bottom layer) paper. When you see this paper on your page, simply stretch it (by dragging the corners or edges) to the size of your layout page. Right here is the reason why quality digi papers are such huge files. When you stretch the image to 12” x 12” it needs to retain its beauty and not look blurred or misshapen. A quality kit will provide you graphics that are print quality even at the 12” x 12” size.

That’s it. Just repeat the steps to find your digi elements, and maybe some more papers for matting. Arrange them on your page any way you wish, then add your photos and some journaling and you’re done!

Sharing Your Digital Scrapbook Pages

What do you do with your digi pages once they are created? Many people recommend saving them in the program they were created in (they will have a file extension tag from that program. For example, a Scrapbook Factory file will end with .sbk). By saving them in their original program, it will make editing them later much easier. Then, for uploading to the internet or burning them onto CD or DVD, you’ll want to save them as .jpg files. Most of the aforementioned graphics programs have the option to do that in the “file” section on the far left. Usually the command is “export as”, sometimes it is “save as” and you choose “.jpg”.

Once all of your digi pages saved as .jpgs they are ready to use! You can have them printed (yes there are printer services that will print out 12” x 12” pages and there are also printers that you can purchase to print this size at home). You can burn them to CD or DVD – even add a music track, and you can send them to family and friends. Or, you can make viewing them even easier by uploading them into an online photo sharing website, where your family and friends can view them anytime at their leisure.

For anyone who has said “digi scrapping” is too hard, too expensive, or too time consuming – it simply isn’t true and it’s getting more and more exciting and easy as more and more people discover this truly wonderful form of scrapbooking.