What's the Deal With Digital Scrapbooking? With digital artwork becoming more mainstream, digital scrapbooking is as well. Certainly most of us understand what digital art is all about, but what's the deal with digital scrapbooking? Is it the same thing as digital art? They are similar -- but different in several ways. However, let's focus on the digital scrapbooking as an alternative to the traditional scrapbooking. Traditional scrapbooks are made by hand using different materials including paper, pens, letter cut outs, adhesives, as well as lots of other embellishments. The main principle of scrapbooking is to design and create a beautifully decorated page that helps to give meaning to whatever memory you want to save. Digital scrapbooking is basically working with the same principle since you're creating unique pages using decorations to enhance the information you're keeping for future reference. What's different between these methods is how you go about achieving these principles. Traditional scrapbooking uses all the material previously mentioned, but digital scrapbooking uses computer graphics rather than traditional physical materials. Some may think it's more difficult working on a page design using a computer rather than on a physical piece of paper, but the reality is, it's no more difficult and for some people, it may actually be easier. For example: A traditional scrapbook works on a background or layout or template, using pictures, text and other embellishments. The process is all about placing pictures on the background, adding some embellishments to your type, and writing some texts to go with the pictures. Digital scrapbooking works using software with digital embellishments and texts. You may have scanned your pictures so you can place them on your chosen background. Then you add some texts and more design and perhaps additional editing of the colors and borders -- and you've designed and created a scrapbook page. You'll discover there are a number software programs that can create digital scrapbooks including Microsoft® Digital Image Pro, Photoshop® Elements or Adobe® Photoshop®, Ulead PhotoImpact®, and Jasc Paint Shop Pro®, among others. It's often a lot easier creating a digital scrapbook than a traditional one because software lets you create a digital scrapbook with ready made templates for both texts and backgrounds. In addition, the software provides lots of editing tools so you can let your creativity go wild. With all these features available, it's a lot easier to create a unique page. You can download templates online to give you much more variety of choices for text, embellishments as well as background, unlike traditional scrapbook where you have to make everything, from backgrounds to the cutting of the decoration. To further illustrate how software is used to create a digital page, here are the steps: • You first create a new image from a blank canvas • Then define the size of the page • Enter the settings you want • Add a photo Photos will determine the color scheme of the layout, so you want to dermine the picture you'll be using ahead of time before setting the mat of the canvas. Before adding a photo, you'll need to first save one in a a file. There are many sources of pictures including scanning your photos, or load them from a digital cameras. You can add photos from many different online photo and clip art sites as well. • Now create your background After choosing your canvas and photo, select your background -- the choices are endless since you can download images from various internet locations or use your own photos for the background. You can edit the texture of the background to match whatever theme you're going for. • Now create the photo mat Photo mats let the background and the photo meet on a certain point. • Add your text and embellishments Having ready made texts and embellishments is a great benefit of digital scrapbooking software since it helps you put lots of unique touches quickly and easily. • Now apply a few finishing touches Your final editing will be as important as getting everything placed in order. You have lots of featrues such as shadows, embossing and various other effects, so use them and let your creativity flow.

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