Are Digital Scrapbooks Better than Photo Albums?
Scrapbooking has become increasingly popular in recent years, and it provides an excellent and creative way to make the most of your photos. What’s more, it fits in nicely with the explosion in digital photography. But what about the good old fashioned snapshots stored in shoeboxes under the bed? Traditional photo albums have been used for years to organize photos, and no doubt that will continue. They’re just too low tech to ignore. However, as more and more people discover the benefits of digital scrapbooking, expect to see digital photo scrapbooks, slideshows and professionally printed photo books on the bookcase instead.
What are the benefits of using digital photos in scrapbooks?
For starters, crafty moms everywhere are becoming experts in digital photography and photo imaging. Digital photos can be altered, resized, cropped, and colorized endlessly using graphics software--changes that just aren’t possible when you use a traditional camera.
You can also take dozens and dozens more photos, as many as you need to get the perfect shot. You’re limited only by the storage capacity on your camera’s memory card.
With more photos to choose from and unlimited freedom in altering them, you can really let your creativity soar. With these choices available, traditional photo print albums seem well, a little boring.
Making your own digital scrapbook
There are plenty of different types of paper craft scrapbooks on the market today, not to mention tons of accessories, embellishments, papers, stickers and templates to keep even the keenest scrapbooker busy for months. On the digital side, everything you can find in the physical scrapbook world, you can also buy in the “virtual” one.
You can find digital embellishments like ribbon, brands, buttons, and tags, digital papers, and all-in-one templates for creating stunning digital scrapbook pages. All you need is a computer and graphic design software (like Photoshop or ACDsee Photo Editor), and the means to print your pages (more on that later).
For tutorials on digital scrapbooking, see www.designerdigitals.com or www.scrapgirls.com.
Using an online service to create a photo scrapbook quickly and easily
So, does digital scrapbooking sound time consuming? It is, or rather it requires just as much effort as traditional cut and paste. But if you don’t have the time to take on a digital scrapbook, there is another option. It’s called photobooking. In just a few hours, you can lay out your photos in a stunning photo book that looks completely professional when printed, bound and sitting on your coffee table.
Shutterfly is probably best in the business these days of creating photo books. Their online tools are easy to use—you can select different background papers for each page, add special effects to photos, change photo edges, and add text captions or whole pages of journaling.
Printing Digital Scrapbooking Pages
One of the downsides of photobooking is that once the book is produced, you can’t add pages to it. To print individual scrapbook pages that are compiled in a separate album, use Shutterfly’s digital scrapbook printing tools. The Shutterfly site has all the instructions for setting up and uploading your digital pages.
The service is easy to use and you won’t be disappointed. The advantage over your personal photo printer is that the print quality is superb and you won’t break the bank in ink cartridges.
For many people, their family photo history is an evolution that starts with vinyl pocket photo albums, then scrapbooks, and finally ends with digital scrapbooks and photo books where they get hooked for life. But truthfully, each one of these photo keepsakes has a right place and right time. Use them all!
Leanne Tremblay is a successful internet publisher who was amazed at how easy it was to create coffee table photo books from digital family photos. In no time at all, she was hooked. The result was
Photo Printing To Go, an idea portal for transforming digital photos into
photo books, all-occasion
photo greeting cards, and gifts.
Are Digital Scrapbooks Better than Photo Albums?
Last modified:
September 9, 2008, 7:44 AM
Contributed By:
Leanne Tremblay
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