Digital Scrapbooking Software

Which one to use? It takes some "soul searching" to find the right digital scrapbooking software that suits you. Just kidding.

But if you're all confused about the many digital scrapbooking programs, or you just want some suggestions on some programs, I'll share my experiences with you.

From the moment I started digital scrapping in mid-2007, I quickly realized that Photoshop and Photoshop Elements by Adobe.com got mentioned a lot by many digital scrapbookers and they are hugely popular. Except that they have a much steeper learning curve to get over. And these aren't what I'm personally using. To find out what I'm using, you'll have to read the rest of this article to find out. ;)

Digital scrapping should be fun and I don't want you to get all stressed up about choosing the perfect program. It's my hope that by sharing my experiences with you, you'll find a software that suits your needs and budget.

I probably have to tell you that I'm a simple digi-scrapper. I'm not big on effects and I'm not a fanciful technique person. Somehow, after 50 digital layouts, I still see myself as an amateur digital scrapper!

So what I'm going for when choosing my digital scrapbooking software is that it must be easy to use, serve my needs and fits into my budget.



ScrapBlog - Easy Online Builder for Beginners & Anyone

This is not a digital scrapbooking software. Rather it's a very popular online scrapbook builder site which allows you to build multimedia scrapbooks with great ease and in quick time. It's a free service. It practically turns digital scrapping into easy play for anyone.

ScrapBlog also allows you to easily share your creations with family and friends, post them up on your blog, or share them with the ScrapBlog community itself.

The reason I brought this up first is to let total newbies who has never tried digital scrapbooking before to have an instant go at creating a "professional-looking" digital layout. You'll find it fun and easy.

I've been recommending ScrapBlog to my friends who are hesitant about digital scrapbooking, or who have never scrapbooked either traditionally or digitally ever. The results? All of them successfully created many digital layouts and had a blast with this service!

This is a wonderful site for beginners to start creating professional and pretty digital layouts right from the start, without having to pay for any digital scrapbooking software.

It's great if:

You are a beginner

You like simple "drag and drop" technology.

You are short on time but yet want to create many creative layouts quickly.

You like to work with "ready-made templates" that you can customize with easy editing. With a collection of themes, backgrounds, shapes, text elements, stickers, and photo frames, you can pick and choose to personalize your pages.

You don't want to spend time learning to use a more complex scrapbooking program.

You like the idea of incorporating not only photos but also video clips into your layouts.

You want the ease of sharing your creations with a community, on your blog or email them to family and friends.

But ScrapBlog does have its limitations.

You won't have that much flexibility as with digital scrapbooking softwares.

If you export and download your own creations for printing, the resolution isn't that sharp.

It has an off-standard scrapbooking page size. Not 12"x12" or 8.5"x11". I'm not even sure what size it is.

You might quickly "outgrow" this online digital layout builder and want to move on to a proper digital scrapbooking software.

You might want more digital papers and elements than what's offered in their collection.

I see ScrapBlog as a great service that promotes digital scrapbooking to a much wider audience, and allows anyone the chance to be involved with preserving their memories through creative layouts.

Its fabulous ease of use is probably what makes ScrapBlog one of the top ranking digital sites in the world! Click here to visit ScrapBlog.com.



Photoshop/Photoshop Elements - Excellent for Serious Digital Scrapbookers

OK, these two digital scrapbooking softwares are probably "THE digital scrapbooking software" used by most digital scrapbookers worldwide. There's so many online digital scrapbooking tutorials written especially for these two programs. I have to mention them even though I'm not using them.

The learning curves for these programs are much steeper but they offer much more flexibility and endless design possibilities. If you get really good at this, you can even learn how to create your own digital scrapbooking papers and elements! Isn't that amazing?

So yes, if you're serious about digital scrapping, you can consider investing time and money on Photoshop Elements, or the very pricey Photoshop.

I've used Photoshop on my friend's computer before and there's really lots of functions and I love the idea of being able to create my digital elements. Hang on, that's just daydreaming on my part! Right now, I'm just happy if I can find time to digi-scrap. ;-)

Photoshop is the enterprise version and costs a lot more than Photoshop Elements which is a lower-end consumer version. So I think for a beginner digital scrapbooker, Photoshop Elements is more than good enough.

To start off, why not grab a trial version of Photoshop Elements and see how you like it? Get your trial version here.



Paint.NET - What I'm Using Right Now

If you're wondering what I'm using to create my digital layouts, I'm using the free Paint.NET. It's a free image and photo editing software. It runs on Windows.

I first chose to use this because it's free, supports layers, has unlimited undo, has been compared to Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and the hard to navigate GIMP. I like the good reviews from various sources.

Featuring an intuitive user interface, it's relatively easy to pick up. With an active and online Paint.NET community, I'm able to look for tutorials and plug-ins to make my user experience better. This program is uncomplicated and after some getting used to, I find its simplicity refreshing.

Some caveats though. So far I've not seen this software recommended on digital scrapbooking sites. I've not come across digital scrapbooking sites providing tutorials for Paint.NET also. These reasons almost stopped me from talking about this great program here. Oh, I also wish that it allows editing of text after confirmation.

Otherwise, I'm happy with using Paint.NET. I did try downloading the free GIMP which has been recommended by other digital scrapbookers. But I gave up almost immediately as the user interface looks much more complicated. Well, maybe I should have given GIMP another go but that's for another time.

If I do try out another digital scrapbooking software, I'll update about my experience on this page. Meanwhile, I think the above will keep you busy checking them out!

Happy digital scrapping!

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