Digital or Computer Scrapbooking

Well, I know we have readers who are strictly traditional paper scrappers and we have readers who are new to scrapbooking in general, so we'll talk briefly about what digital scrapbooking is. Digital scrapbooking, I believe can be grouped into two categories the first is using your computer and software programs to create elements that are printed and added to your paper scrapbook and the second would be using the same tools to create full pages that can be printed and put into a book, shared with online albums or put onto a DVD and shared on TV. For the sake of keeping this post to a readable length we will focus on the first category of using digital to embelish or assist your paper scrapbook. First, items that are digitally created for your paper book are often referred to as elements, for this post we will use elements as our reference. There are many, many elements you can create and a few different options you can use. One of the most basic elements would be to do your journaling or page titles in Microsoft Word or a like program. With this you can vary your font type, size and color as well as different color backgrounds. Additional options here would be clip art and word art also. You could then print and attach or cut out the words and attach. Very basic but a nice option if your penmanship is not the most elegant. To move on to a little more advanced and I must say time saving methods you will need a photo editing program or a scrapbooking program (examples: adobe photoshop, adobe photoshop elements, Microsoft image pro, HP scrapbooking creative assistant, etc).
If you are a digital photographer but paper scrapper you could start with adding captions or borders to your photos before printing them. Most programs come with some really neat element creation functions like shapes, paper tearing and sewing. Some of these can be done as a one off element you print and use in your paper book or you can combine some of these on to layouts for what I believe is the best feature of digi scrapping and that is to have an endless supply of paper backgrounds always available. You can use basic layouts that are included with most programs and create your own and save them for use over and over again. You'll never have to worry about not having the right color or patterned background or card stock because you can always pull up one of your digital opitions and print it. Well that's enough about using digital elements and believe me we just touched the tip of the ice berg here. I encourage you to explore on the internet for more info. and free trials of many software programs. Our next post will focus on creating full digital scrapbook pages and converting from a paper scrapper to a digi scrapper. Enjoy