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10 Reasons To Digital Scrapbook

By Lian Lim

What are you going to do with all those photographs sitting in your computer? Here are 10 reasons why you should start digital scrapbooking. Traditional scrapbooking is good too but you should seriously consider the advantages of digital scrapbooking.

1. You don't have to worry about making mistakes. If you don't like your design, you can easily do modifications. Come to worse, just start from scratch again. No harm done to your photographs.

2. You don't need storage space for scrapbooking paper, embellishments, tools etc.... All you need is a computer and a place to sit down to work on your computer. Maybe you'll need a printer and scanner too. That depends on what you want to do. If you plan to make a photobook, you can have a professional service print that for you. You'll need a scanner if you want to scan in old photographs and other memorable stuff.

3. No mess. Don't have to do any clean up after you're done scrapbooking.

4. You can easily make several copies of your scrapbook. Just print out as many copies as you want. With a traditional scrapbook, you are limited to just one copy. That makes it very precious and you will be hesistant to let any Tom, Dick or Harry touch it for fear they might ruin it.

5. When you digital scrapbook, you can share your work in many different ways. You can either print it as separate pages, make a photobook, burn it into a CD/DVD, create a calendar, put it on a greeting card, post it online on your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or email it to a friend or loved one. With a traditional scrapbook, you don't have those options.

6. Cool graphic effects. With the right software, you can manipulate your photos easily. You can change it to black and white or sepia. You can give it a dreamy look. You can crop it or make it into any shape you want. You can also enhance your photos: adjust the exposure, erase skin blemishes, get rid of red eye etc.... You can do all these to your photographs without having to step foot in a photo lab.

7. If you still want that 3D effect or the "pop-out" feel to your scrapbook, you can combine traditional with digital scrapbooking. Design and print out your page and then later add embellishments or memorabilia to it. This is also known as hybrid scrapbooking. You get the best of both worlds.

8. It costs less to do scrapbook digitally. You don't have to spend lots of money buying scrapbook tools and gadgets. Plus, you can only use the physical paraphernalias once. Whatever you purchase online for digital scrapbooking, you can use it over and over again. If you want to keep the costs down further, you can scout around for free digital kits, embellishments and background papers. Some sites allow you to create digital scrapbooks online for free. However, if you want to be a serious scrapper, it is best to invest in a good scrapbooking software.

9. You can finish your scrapbooking projects faster using the computer. A lot of the work is just clicking here and clicking there; Especially if you use pre-made templates or ones that you just plop your photographs in. Plus, you don't have to worry about anyone (especially young kids) messing things up when you're not looking.

10. I bet that most of your photos are digital these days. In this day and age, I think not many people use cameras with film. So instead of photographs piling up in shoe boxes, photographs are now piling up on our harddisks. Since they are already in digital format, why not scrap it digitally too.

These are 10 reasons why you should start scrapbooking the digital way. If you like to scrapbook the traditional way, that's great too. This is not a call for you to abandon one over the other. Knowing how to do it both ways will just make your scrapbooking experience richer.

I love to do digital scrapbooking. My scrapbooks are usually about my kids and their milestones. I try to have a scrap for every month of the year. I never really tried the traditional way because I'm not a crafty person. The idea of cutting, gluing, buying scrapbook stuff seemed expensive and too much work for me. My advise to those seriously thinking of doing digital scrapbook, get a powerful but user-friendly software for scrapbooking. It can make your digital scrapbooking efforts enjoyable. Choose wisely before investing your money in one.

Contributor's Note

I use Photoshop and Polaroid My Memories Suite to scrapbook. One is an image editor and the other is a software for scrapbooking. Go to my website to read my review of Polaroid My Memories Suite.

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Value Bookshop
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Thank you for this much-needed intel. My personal photos are a total disaster. They are spread between my laptop's hard drive, an external USB drive, some flash drives, and about a dozen backup CD's. Many of them are duplicate photos as I just downloaded them from camera and continued taking photos. It was SO much easier in the days of analog. I really needed this intel. I will take a week off from work and do some serious scrapbooking... soon.

I think many of us are like that Nick. We just keep clicking and clicking away without doing any clean up. Even blurry photos are still kept. Now I try to do some "spring cleaning" every year. Have fun scrapbooking.

A well thought out intel with great presentation, Lian.
This rates a 5 from me and I'll bet a lot of people will follow your great information.
Thank you for sharing.
Frederick

Thanks Frederick. Appreciate your support.

I really needed this intel! Like Nick, I have photos in a number of places. I even have photos in a program called Photobucket. I'm sort of held ransom by them as it used to be a free service and now I have to pay a yearly membership. If I stop paying, the lenses I have made at Squidoo will be minus the photos. Urrggg! I'm not sure what to do about that. Any suggestions?

Oooh, sounds like a tough situation. I don't have any suggestions coz' I don't use photobucket plus I've not face such situation before. You may have to do it the hard way and go through each of your lens to change the location of your photos. But I hope you find an easier way.

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