What is Digital Scrapbooking? The Basics

The aim of digital scrapbooking is essentially the same as paper scrapbooking, which is to create layouts and share memories.  The same principles used in paper scrapbooking are applied to digital scrapbooking; however, the process is completed digitally. Digital scrapbooking pages are digital files which can be displayed in many ways.

Many scrappers print their layouts, either at home or professionally, and place them in albums or even frames, and when pages are created digitally, they can also be displayed in many other ways. Some scrappers upload to on-line galleries or blogs so that family and friends can share their creative memories.

Also digital layouts can be burnt to CD and mailed to family and friends, music can be added and slideshows created for playing on computers or through DVD players to television. People print their pages out as calendars or cards, there are even places that will print on canvas so that you can actually have your layouts printed and used as art to decorate your home. Your imagination is your only limit on deciding how to share these precious memories. A digital scrapbook page is created by adding digital photographs (or scanned photos), journaling (text) and various graphics until you have created a layout that captures your memory.

Digital Scrapbook Kits

There are many on-line scrapping shops that sell digital scrapbook kits. A digital scrapbook kit is just like a paper scrapbooking kit; it includes what you need to create a digital scrapbook layout. The difference is a digital kit is just that, digital. All the elements are made digitally, from staples to tags, papers to ribbons, all pre made for you to use and create your own unique scrapbook pages. Digital scrapbooking kits can be purchased on the internet and downloaded instantly, and the best thing is, you can use everything in the kit over and over again. However these kits are not essential to creating your layouts and in this course we don’t actually use kits to create layouts, digital kits that are available to buy are usually created from scratch in Photoshop anyway. With a little know-how you can create almost anything you need. Most digital scrapbooking sites offer free sample kits, it’s worth looking for the freebies at each site, as the quality of these is usually excellent and it will give you an idea of what is available.

A word to the wise, digital scrapbook kits can be very large files, ranging from 60 megabyte to 400-500 megabyte, depending on the contents. For this reason I recommend a broadband connection with a large monthly download limit, this is an addictive hobby, so take this into consideration!

Digital Scrapbooking Advantages

• Several layout styles are harder/impossible to achieve traditionally (grunge/blend)
• Lower or no costs (other than the cost of software which can be very high)
• All papers and embellishments can be used repeatedly
• No space requirements other than your computer and it’s storage capacity
• No packing up when friends drop in, no mess, no waste
• The UNDO! If you make a mistake, just correct it and move on!
• Layouts can be shared many ways (See ‘What is Digital Scrapbooking?’ above)
• Freedom to experiment, not having to worry about gluing that beautiful paper or cutting up precious photos. There is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained!

Styles of Digital Scrapbooking

There are many styles of digital scrapbooking, some are a more graphic style, with highly stylised and in many cases, manipulated photographs. There is also paper style scrapbooking, which use more traditional scrapbooking elements created digitally. There is also a grungy/overlay/blend style scrapbooking technique, which is also popular, but can be sometimes hard to achieve. I tend to go for the more graphic or grunge style layouts, but have also used paper style in some commissioned work I have done for scrapping websites and a magazine. Below is a sample of all 3 styles to give you an idea of what’s out there.

File Format

While working on files I recommend saving them as TIF files as most programs recognise this format and it will also keep the layers intact if you intend to do more work or edit the layout further, this is also a lossless format, which means the image isn’t degraded each time you save it (this happens with JPG files). TIF format is just my personal preference and if you don’t intend to use other programs then saving as PSD (standard Photoshop file) is absolutely fine and will also maintain layers within the file. If you save a file as JPG and then edit and resave, each time you save the file it loses information and is degraded, it also flattens the image so that individual layers are lost, which makes editing almost impossible, particularly if you want to edit type for spelling errors etc. I suggest you don’t save the file as JPG until you are sure you are finished working on it - if you are sure then save it as a JPG at the highest quality setting (12) to ensure your layout is at optimum quality. If you decide to have your layouts professionally printed then you will need to save them as a JPG as this is the recognised format that m­­­ost common photo printing services use. TIF/PSD files are usually large files as they maintain every layer for editing. I recommend regularly burning these to disk or saving to an external hard drive to clear the space on your hard drive.

Layout Size

You can scrap in any size you like but the two most popular sizes are 12x12 inch (traditional Scrapbooking size) or 8.5 x 11 inch which is roughly A4 size. I tend to scrap at 12 x 12 inch as I like the square format and when I print my layouts at home I print them at 8”x8”. (I dream of a large format printer!) Obviously, if you scrap at 8x8 and then decide to print at 12x12 the quality will not be as good, therefore I suggest always scrapping at the larger size to avoid losing detail when printing.

Resolution

Always use 300PPI/DPI (Pixels per inch/Dots per inch) setting, as this is the accepted print resolution, using a lower DPI will result in pixelated images when printed. Be aware that files sizes can sometimes be very large, depending on how many layers, photos etc are used on a layout.

Layers

Layers are essential to creating scrapbook pages in Photoshop. The easiest way to explain layers is to imagine a stack of clear sheets, each one would have something on it, one might have a photo, another a background paper, another a graphic and another text.  Every item you place on your layout is a layer; to make it visually correct, you need to have the layers in the correct order, for example, if you insert a photo, and then put a background paper above it, you won’t see your photo because the paper ‘covers’ the photo.  By changing the order of these two layers, you will see the photo is now displayed on top of the paper.

Photoshop Help Function

Remember that if you get into trouble at home, or are a little confused about using a certain tool or function, look at the help section within Photoshop. There is a lot of information here that can help you, most sections have diagrams or pictures and for the most part this section is clear and concise and usually will solve any problems that you might have. There is also a great help section online, with written and video tutorials at Adobe Studio this is a great resource and you should check it out, there are also lots of free Photoshop actions, brushes, custom shapes, filters and more. All free for you to download and use.

COMING SOON - Part 2, where we will look at basic Photoshop functions to help you create your first digital layout.