Find Information About Lots of Great Topics

Using digital scrapbooking software for your scrapbook projects has many advantages over traditional paper scrapbooking. There’s a huge cost savings since you’ve eliminated the need for all those expensive tools and supplies, and you no longer have to pay for costly papers and embellishments that you use only once. Plus, there’s the potential to save time as well. It takes more than just a few minutes to set up and prepare your paper scrapbooking workspace. With a digital scrapbooking software program, you boot up your computer, and you’re ready to go.

As you can imagine, not all digital scrapbooking software programs have the same features or even the same ease of use. While some scrapbook programs look OK in their marketing material (some even have fancy boxes!), when you get them home, they’re not quite what you were hoping for. Even worse, some digital scrapbooking programs are extremely confusing. They have cluttered interfaces and more tools than you can imagine what to do with! Programs like that aren’t you’re best choice for scrapbooking. Oftentimes those products are just rebranded image editing applications, that have been re-marketed as scrapbook software…

On the other side of the spectrum are digital scrapbooking software programs that are very easy to use, but are incredibly restrictive. You find that you are limited to using a handful of templates and have little if any creative control over how your pages look. Though probably most digital scrapbooking software programs are less expensive than what many spend on paper scrapbooking, there are even some digital scrapbooking software programs that are prohibitively expensive for many scrapbook enthusiasts.

So, the question becomes “How do you find digital scrapbooking software that’s creative, affordable and most importantly, will give you excellent results?” Here’s the checklist you’ve been waiting for! The top 5 things to look for as you evaluate your choices in digital scrapbooking software:

1. Free downloadable trial. Do you really want to put down your hard earned money, and just hope that what’s in the box is going to do what you want it to? Would you buy a sweater without being able to see the style or even know what color it was? Download the trial version of whatever digital scrapbooking software you’re interested in, and try it out!

2. Full Creative Control Over Your Pages. Your digital scrapbooking software should have options to let you begin a new scrapbook from either a blank page or from a fully-editable template. This gives you the flexibility to really express your creativity, yet when you just want to create a quick page or brag book, you’re able to still add your own creative touch to it.

3. Professional Digital Scrapbooking Kits. Some products come with a lot of “clipart”. Some even have tens of thousands of pieces of it! However, clipart isn’t a great selling feature in digital scrapbooking software. Instead, you want to find a product that has real scrapbooking content, made by top digital scrapbooking artists and designers. The product you choose should come with top quality scrapbooking content, like digital papers, embellishments, backgrounds, and template pages made specifically for scrapbooking. In this case, quantity isn’t nearly as important as quality. You should also be able to see *everything* that comes with the software on their website.

4. Online Support Forums. It’s essential that you choose a program that includes access to an online forum, so you can ask questions about the software, submit technical support questions and get answers from both the company’ and fellow users of the software. Be wary of any digital scrapbooking software program that doesn’t have a free and open forum for users to discuss the software. The best programs have large communities, with many thousands of members. That by itself shows how popular it is!

5. Scrapbooking Tutorials and Instruction. Look for free digital scrapbooking tutorials on the company’s website. You want to see visual demonstrations about how to use the software. Also look for an extensive User’s Guide and Help File available from within the program. That way you can always get answers to questions, at any time (even if you’re scrapbooking on a plane!) that may come up as you go.

So, don’t just walk into your local big box store and plop down your cash for the mystery software in the fancy box! Use the above list to narrow your selection, and you’ll end up buying a digital scrapbooking software program that you really enjoy! Once again, it should have a free trial download for you to test out, it should have fully customizable pages so you can express your creativity, it must come with real “top quality” scrapbooking elements, it should have an open and honest forum for you to interact with other scrapbookers and the company should provide tutorials for you on their website. If you look for these 5 things, you’ll find a great scrapbook program that you’ll enjoy for years to come!

Learn more about digital scrapbooking software. Visit Gracie Madsen’s site to find out all about digital scrapbooking and how much fun it is.

Popularity: unranked [?]