Scrapbooking - Digital Scrapbooking

For generations, scrapbooks were made of paper and plastic. And those still make for great media to record your memories. But since the invention of the personal computer and, even more so, the Internet, scrapbooking has reached new heights. Scrapbooking has gone digital.

Not so much a replacement for offline scrapbooking, digital scrapbooks expand the range of options. New forms of creativity, easier production and manipulation of images and text, and all sorts of other benefits flow from digital scrapbooking. But before talking about some of them, it's best to explore just what digital scrapbooks are.

Digital scrapbooks either create or store those treasured photos, poems, journal entries and more on a computer. The source of the images can be either from a digital camera, some photos scanned by a scanner or off the Internet itself. The text can be a old diary scanned or re-typed, created using word processing software, or copied from any of the millions of sites around the world.

Many scrappers prefer a mix of offline and digital scrapbooking. That allows them to use all the tools for creativity available - image manipulation software, text editors, as well as craft skills like coloring, sewing, hand illustration or calligraphy.

Many software packages exist to help the scrapbooker create and manipulate images on a computer. Photoshop is one of the most well known, but there are many others. Mastering one takes practice, but most can be picked up and used in no time for basic functions like copying, cropping and changing basic attributes.

You may want to change the resolution, the image size, select and mix portions of the image or change the colors and contrast. With image software, that's easy to do. And it can be done with more than just photographs.

Scrapbooks contain all kinds of images: copies of reality, pure imaginative inventions and a mixture of the two. Image software provides a range of functions for integrating drawings with photos, zooming, layering text over images and much more. Very high-end packages like the pros use cost hundreds of dollars. But there are many others that range from free to just a few dollars.

Fortunately, both image and text can go both ways using a computer - in or out. You can use a digital camera to create an image, then upload it to the computer using supplied hardware and software. You can use image manipulation software to alter or just print it, then put the output into your offline scrapbook.

But you can also create text off line, scan it into the computer and store the results forever. You can use word processing software to make it easy to copy huge blocks of text, change fonts and print it out to add journaling to your hardcopy scrapbook.

Computers add sound and video capability to go beyond a manual scrapbook. You can record the baby's first word or first step. You can store those experiences forever on the hard drive, on an Internet storage area or burn them to a CD. Store the CD inside your offline scrapbook and you have a complete album containing text, photos, words and video.

The possibilities are limited only by your boundless imagination.