The Digital Scrapbooking Revolution   by Stan Beck

Most of us have been as accustomed to the idea of scrapbooking as a blending of paper cutting, photo gluing and assembling bits of nice materials together. All these would be placed on a piece of cardboard, paper or any other foundation the scrapbooker would like to use as a medium.

But the world is changing all around us; computers are a big part of that change and the crafting industry is certainly not immune; not by a long-shot. Computers are ubiquitous and have penetrated almost every discipline, both personal and business - this includes the art disciplines, such as scrapbooking.

Computer scrapbooking, (also known as digital scrapbooking) is done by way of laying out pages with the assistance of computer software. Basically, this involves the manipulation of graphics, photos, text, borders and other add-ons using digital devices. Like with conventional scrapbooking, the pages may be printed on high-resolution color printers that the scrapbooker can then paste onto traditional scrapbook pages. And because the scrapbook lives in a digital format, copies of the scrapbook can be made at the touch of a button - with each copy just as beautiful and crisp as the next. Also keeping a scrapbook in electronic form allows you to more easily archive your scrapbooks as compared to bulky albums.

Printing your scrapbook requires the use of a high-quality color printer. There are two basic types of printers: Color Laser and Ink Jet. In my experience, Ink Jet, as far as quality for printing photographs goes far exceeds color laser. However, Ink Jet tends to be more costly when you factor in the expense of the ink. You always have the option to take your layout on CD to a specialty print shop like Kinkos, which costs a little more per page, but saves you from having to bear the cost of own the printer.

There are a number of computer programs that you can make use of when doing digital scrapbooking. The three most popular are Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0 and CS, Microsoft Picture It!, Lumapix, and JASC's Paint Shop Pro. All these programs are very effective in helping their users manipulate their designs. The basic features include photo cutting, background replacements, change of colors, text adding, border placement and over-all graphic designing.

The more comprehensive the program (more features), the larger the scrapbooker's learning curve and the higher the price tag. Therefore, it may be in the scrapbooker's best interest to start with a simpler program like Hallmark, CK, Scrapbook Studio, or Scrapbook Assistants and 'upgrade' to a more full-featured package as his or her skill level or need for features increases. Regardless, each package is going to require the scrapbooker to spend some time to master it to realize the full benefit of the package.

The Internet is teaming with websites that offer pre-designed digital templates at rock-bottom prices (some are even free) and more and more popping up all the time. The scrapbooking world is moving at light speed in the digital direction. There are so many benefits, you may want to consider making the jump yourself sooner than later.

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