When I told my editor that I wanted to write an article about digital scrapbooking his response was less than excited. He asked me to apply a hipper spin to digital scrapbooking in my story, to show that it can be something young and fresh, instead of old and musty. After reading his email response, I felt indignant. Of course digital scrapbooking is in vogue or a la mode so to speak -- hence the word "digital."
Twenty-somethings are the most virtual people on the planet. Not always the most modest, we post our pictures everywhere from MySpace and Facebook accounts to iPods and text messages. With a camera always at an eighth of an arms length, we have more pictures than we know what to do with. So what do you do with all of those images? How do you make the thousandth picture of you with your arm around a changing slideshow of friends artistic? Well, scrapbook it!
I don't know what happened in 1984, but it seems everyone was having babies in August. Four of my friends have their birthdays in August, I was born in August, and three of my cousins are Leos. Instead of going bankrupt, I've become the friend that makes scrapbooks for everyone -- it's creative, it's fun, and unlike a fifty dollar sweater that will go out of style by the end of September, it's something that documents a moment in your life -- a cultural artifact that you can latch onto for years. And besides the sentimental stuff, digital scrapbooking is a good way to finally do something with the hundreds of pictures that lay dormant in your memory cards or on your desktop.
Digital Scrapbooks vs. Photobooks
The first question that comes to mind: How is a digital scrapbook different than a photobook? Photobooks, although also a good way to clean up your memory card, are the modern photo album. Digital scrapbooks on the other hand are like a modernized, digitized keepsake -- a craftier way of displaying your pictures.
Okay, so how do you do it? First you will need a photo editing program like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Digital Image Pro, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Corel Draw, Memory Mixer, or any application that supports .png files. Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Photo Shop Pro are the most popular brands which allow users to really customize their pictures. Both programs include in-depth tutorials on their websites, so you can better learn how to accent your pictures and put together an interesting book.
Just install the software, download your images, and the program does most of the work for you by creating templates and suggesting ideas for pages. You can choose which resolution you would like, the width and height you want, add layers to a palette, and manage your color mode. Features like reversing the text on a path gives shape to a word or a phrase. Making your own vignette lets you create a classic look. Cropping and adding depth of field are all unique ways of designing and inventing art through photo scraps. You can create pages or whole books, save scrapbooks, and add pages later, print (always in high resolution) or save digitally on a CD. Some applications allow users to save onto the web -- which will change the file to a .jpg or .tiff -- merging all layers into one single layer.
Emailing Your Scrapbook
My best friend lives in Spain, and instead of buying her a gift in the U.S., then shipping her something which she probably won't recieve for weeks -- not to mention paying an arm and a leg in shipping fees -- I just emailed her a digital scrapbook of our last vacation together in Madrid. She received it on her birthday and even posted the scrapbook on the web so others could enjoy it. In order to save to the Web or email a scrapbook, you must resize the images and save it as a.jpg --this will keep it under 100KB and make it easier to post.
There are thousands of websites featuring tutorials, scrapbook templates, graphics, and much more for both novices and advanced scrappers -- my best advice is to Google "digital scrapbooking" and decide for yourself where you fit in. A lot of these sites offer 30-day trial versions, so you can get a taste of the craft and see if it for you.
When it comes to these technological trends, the best way to decide whether or not it is something with lasticity is to judge its generational presence. Since the birth of digital, scrapbooking has made a huge comeback, and digital scrapbooking in particular, is the perfect bridge between the "Jennifer" soccer moms and those of us born digital, by creating an outlet for us to share our art and our pictures with others.