What is digital scrapbooking? How to get started with it? You may have done scrapbooking in the past or maybe you are an active scrapbooker who wants to learn more about the digital aspect of it. You will find in this article what is digital scrapbooking and how you can become a digi-scrapbooker.
WHAT IS DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING?
When you create your scrapbook layout on a piece of computer software it’s called digital scrapbooking. On your layout you use digital patterns and embellishments that could be originally designed as digital items, like illustrations, or they could be scanned/photographed items like fabric flowers, buttons, ribbons etc. What you produce is a flat, 2D -what I like to call – styled image which you can printout at home or at a copy center.
WHY YOU SHOULD MAKE SCRAPBOOKING DIGITALLY?
There are many great things I love about digital scrapbooking. But there are three stand out reasons for me. First, digital scrapbook supplies are limitless. You can use a kit over and over again without worrying about you might waste a piece. Second, it’s more environmental and cheap. You only printout your most well designed layout so there is no risk that you might end up with paper mess without even a result and lose all of your supplies. And if I want to make a traditional scrapbook layout, I can do that with digital scrapbook supplies easily by printing out some patterned papers, some stickers and labels without going to a craft store. You can use a well designed digital scrapbook supply over and over again until you get bored of it!
WHICH SOFTWARE TO USE?
When we talk about digital scrapbooking, software is the most important aspect of it. Depending on what software you use, you will have different levels of ability to reach your desired look. There are couple of online and offline software programs you can use in digital scrapbooking. Project Life App, Heritage Makers, pre-made photobooks by Mixbook andShutterfly are great examples of how you can make digital scrapbooking online. As offline software you can use Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, Forever, and My Memory Suite.
Which software to use for digital scrapbooking is totally up to your preference and your desire on how much you want to go advance on the subject. If you don’t want to spend too much time on layout design and details, you may find online scrapbook websites very useful. They come with premade pages, templates and some even include free elements to use in your layout. If you are thinking digital scrapbooking as a long-term hobby then you may want to use Photoshop or similar software to achieve advanced results. If you are a complete beginner and never done digital scrapbooking I suggest you to try the software I mentioned above, most of them has trial periods, and see with which one you feel comfortable and then decide whether to go with a free or online solution or purchase more advanced software.
My personal choice for software is Photoshop because;
- The possibilities you can achieve with Photoshop is unlimited comparing to other image editing software.
- There are a lot of resources to be used in Photoshop. Designers usually create digital scrapbook supplies to be used in this software.
- You can find much wider range of tutorials and workshops dedicated to teach how to use Photoshop.
- And also, according to your needs Adobe has Creative Cloud subscriptions where you can use one or all of their applications with monthly payments.
DIGITAL SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES
After you decide on which software you will use in digital scrapbooking now it’s time to look for some supplies and make some layouts. Before you spend big amounts into digital scrapbook supplies, start out with freebies during your learning process. There are a lot of free digital scrapbook kits on the internet. But be aware that not all are good quality supplies. So when you download free kits check if they are 300 dpi, whether papers/elements are well designed, check if the colors are matching and printable.
You can find free high quality digital scrapbook supplies here on my blog at Sahin Designs and you can follow along Quality DigiScrap Freebies where they direct you to high quality scrapbook supplies on the internet.
Once you are comfortable enough to work with diverse supplies start shopping as you need. You can checkout my online digital scrapbook store for wide range of digital scrapbook kits.
SIZES & PRINTING
Another important aspect to learn about digital scrapbooking is sizes and printing practices. Before you start on a layout first determine whether you want your layout to be printed or not because this decision will affect your finished scrapbook page.
If you want to print your digital layout you need to create your document at 300 dpi print resolution. And sizes of your page might be 12×12 inch, 11×14 inch, 10×10 inch, 8×11 inch, 8×8 inch. These are standard print sizes if you want to print your layouts at a copy center likeShutterfly, Persnickety Prints and Mixbook.
When designing your scrapbook page for print, keep in mind that the print companies will crop about 1/4 inch from the edges of your layout to get rid of white areas. So you might not want to put someting important near to that area (bleed area).
Not everyone likes to print digital scrapbook layouts and rather some choose to store in their hard drives and save as a digital copy. If you want to use your digital scrapbook layout as a digital copy you can save it at 72 dpi secreen resolution. Most softwares has option of “Save for Web”. Once you finish your page, save it for web and store it in a folder in your computer.
If you have any specific questions about digital scrapbooking and how to start memory keeping digitally you can ask in the comments and I will answer your questions as much as I can!
Here some useful digital scrapbook articles and freebies on my blog you can check out;
10 Photoshop Tricks Every Scrapper Must Know
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If you’re looking at creating everything digitally, then you can simply print out your whole scrapbook layout on photo paper. Then you can get a scrapbook album and slot your completed layouts into the page protectors.
Yes, exactly. Project Life type of scrapbooking also can be done digitally and in hybrid formats. Lots of possibilities!