Fun Expressions Blog

Managing Your Digital Library

The Star-Telegram point us to three pieces of software that helps you manage your library of digital photos for scrapbooking. Two that they didn't mention are iPhoto and Flickr, both of which let you order prints from your digital library.

Companies Woo Scrappers with Digital Technology

Forbes is reporting how photography companies are focusing their digital marketing efforts on the scrapbooking industry at the 82nd Annual Photomarketing Association's conference:

As more and more people transition to digital cameras (approximately 52% of American households have one), the digital photofinishing industry has been eager to encourage consumers to continue their 35-millimeter habit of making prints. More sophisticated, easier-to-use and more affordable printing technology has begun to emerge, but the industry needs to work harder to identify the most likely adopters of large-scale custom printing projects.

The scrapbooking industry, a perfect match for such custom print use, has been batting its eyelashes at digital-imaging technology (scrapbook supply companies were first invited to the PMA conference last year) but hasn't gotten much reciprocation. Until now.

Dark Side to Digital Photos?

Nancy at Inside Scrapbooking has forsaken her oath not to take digital photos and "gone to the dark side." She has found though that going digital has saved her quite a bit of money!

When I added up the price of my film, processing and printing in the past six months I was stunned to discover the amount that I was spending. Further analysis revealed how much of that amount was waste. I paid for processing and printing of so many shots that didn’t come out or that were duplicates that will never all get used.

But what about some of the more experimental shots with some of the previously mentioned toy cameras here, such as the Holga? Fear not, here's an Action set for Photoshop that recreates a typical Holga shot! Googling for Photoshop Actions such as this will give you quite a few results. And with the amount of digital printing services coming to consumers this year, digital is an efficient way to go. Whichever method you choose (perhaps a combination of both?), digital photography has certainly become a realistic option for many.

Digital Cameras for Scrapbooking

Not only are digital cameras great gifts, they can also be great for scrapbooking! Engadget has recommended two good items to help get a scrapper started for digital photos in their Gift Guide (sponsored by Best Buy):

• Canon PowerShot SD450
• Epson PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition portable photo printer (great for crop parties).

Speaking of Best Buy, their site has a page devoted to digital photos for scrapbooking if you are looking for more information.

If you are looking for more higher-end quality digital cameras for crisper photos, PC World has a good ranking of top cameras as well.

Digital Scrapbooking Growing

The Boston Globe has two stories this week about the growth in digital scrapbooking. The first story details how one woman gave up physical scrapping for the digital world because it was so overwhelming:

"All of a sudden I didn't totally panic about finishing my layouts like I did with paper scrapping because I never really had to finish," said Armstrong, who has completed 240 pages in just more than a year. "It just created so much more freedom than paper scrapping."

The second article is a step-by-step guide for going digital.

Let's Get Digital

With storage capacity growing and a variety of tools to edit them, keeping your photos on your computer or online is a great option. If you use a Mac, then you probably already know how cool iPhoto is. Have you tried an online application such as Picasa or Flickr for sharing and printing your photos? Flickr has the ability to tag all of your photos, which can be a neat way to share your snapshots. Try searching on the tag scrapbooking for example, and you'll find all the public photos of Flickr users who have tagged their photo with "scrapbooking."

How often do you use your computer when scrapbooking?