A Glance at Digital Scrapbook Software

The virtues of a digital scrapbook are fast becoming recognized by many traditional scrapbook and digital photography enthusiasts alike. Those of us addicted to scrapbooking (aren't we all) and with a digital camera can enjoy an element of control not found elsewhere. With the array of digital scrapbooking software choices available to the computer savy, scrapbook artistry is easy to achieve.

Compare it to poor grandma's scrapbooks which were often just a basic black book, neatly laid out with photos; set into small triangular pockets, with little hand written captions. Over the years the non acidic paper played havoc with the glues, resulting in staining, ink bleed and holes in photos from chemical reactions! Yet they still retained their interest and charm and are great to look back on aren't they?

What about scrapbooking digital software and hardware? To do this craft, you need digital prints and quite a lot of hardware and software. You'll probably have much of it already, but access to a computer, a digital camera or scanner (ideally both) are recommended. You'll also find that a color printer, a CD or DVD reader/writer and, the mainstay of the craft, photo editing software (eg Adobe Photoshop) will also be necessary to work with this medium.

Photo editing allows you to achieve a myriad of effects. You can retouch your digital prints in a number of ways. What are some of the things you can do? You can delete objects or people, straighten up a photo and reuse it. Black and white digital pictures may be colored or converted to sepia. Prints can simply be scanned and the colors toned down if they're too bright. The list goes on.

With journalizing captions no longer need to be cut and glued; they can simply be affixed with a click of the mouse. You can easily try different font styles, notes, captions, quotes and poetry can all be integrated quickly and effectively; much the same as using word processing capabilities.

Once completed, simply email or upload your scrapbook to a simple website for all to view. Google provides free web space if you're challenged, with its 'googlepages'. You can send it off as a CD-Rom and/or personalize it further with the addition of music and movies.

How many fire and flood victims have lost their photo albums and paid dearly for not keeping a copy elsewhere? When you replicate or share your pictures in this way, they're less likely to be lost, if something should go wrong. This is one of the hidden benefits of digital as opposed to traditional scrapbooking.

So let your ideas flow and grow. Investing in the right digital scrapbook software will produce beautiful results that speak for themselves.