UPDATED: For anyone who has not had a chance to try digital scrapbooking, but would love to get their feet wet I am going to be offering a giveaway later this week. STAY TUNED!!
Many of you have mentioned that you love seeing all the different digital layouts, but you don’t know where to begin. So I thought I would write this post for when people ask “How do I begin digital scrapbooking?.”
1. You need to make sure you have enough storage on your computer or have an external hard drive to store everything. Many digital scrapbook pages are large files especially if you want to print them out for an album.
2. One thing I found out is not only is storage important but so is RAM, RAM is what makes things run a bit faster. Once I upgraded my RAM I did not have to wait 10 minutes between each thing I did.
3. Software: you need the right software to be able to do the digital layouts. To list a few:
- A.The big time graphic artists use Adobe Photoshop (I have not graduated to this, because it is so expensive, but it is on my “want” list).
B. Adobe Photoshop Elements
C. Corel Paint Shop Pro X2
– I have not used this personally but I have heard many good things about it.
D.Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9.0
E. ACDSee Photo Software
F.GIMP (which I believe is free
G.Online Program
4. Once you have enough computer storage and the right software, now you need to either load or scan photos into your computer.
(I only have experience with Photoshop Elements 6.0 & 5.0, so I can not personally vouch for the others. Well except Adobe Photoshop….I know that is good =)
5. Now the fun begins!!
Below is a list of sites that have great tutorials (both on the software programs & how to begin scrapping) and also offer freebies to get you started. I warn you it is addicting and fun. This list is far from inclusive, if you google “digital scrapbooking” you will get a nice list of other sites as well, these are just ones I have had experience with.
- SDK (they give away a free kit every month in their treasure hunt)
Gotta Pixel (Getting Start Place)
DST (this is where all the designers hang out, and you can see a bunch of freebies announced in their forum)
Scrap Artist (they have a freebie section)
Misty Cato has excellent tutorials on her blog.
Hummie’s World is EXCELLENT for tutorials
Shabby Princess
Peppermint Creative (usually have a free kit download a month)
Digital Freebies
Fun and Free
5. Once you learn how to make and save your pages. Shutterfly offers photo books for you to upload and have printed out. You can also print out the pages yourself and make your own book. The options are endless. Hopefully for anyone who did not know where to begin this gives you the right direction. If you have any questions I can try to answer them for you, or possibly my friend Iris can help you also (she is an expert scrapper!)
Then when you want to get really good you can begin lurking on sites like Just Creative Design. If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, once you get the hang of things, you can start to make some really cool stuff. Speaking of Jacob, he is offering some REALLY COOL PRIZES on his site right now, you don’t even need to be a designer to want some of this stuff. But I have to tell you that camera makes me drool. And your probably figured it out but digital scrapbooking leads to photography, but that is whole other post. Check out Jacob’s site to enter some of the neat give aways he is having and let me know if you decide to begin digital scapbooking!
All proceeds go to charity! Order your copy today!
