What is Digital Scrapbooking?

Basically, it is just another form of scrapbooking. 
You use a graphics  or photo editing program to design your pages.
The most commonly used programs are Adobe Photoshop (PS), Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE).  There are others out there, but these are the most common.
Whether you choose to go 1% or 100% digital is up to you. There are no rules here.  Many people even do "hybrid" scrapbooking where they combine digital and traditional elements into their pages.

Simply put, a lot like traditional paper scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking is the process of combining photos and digital papers, elements and journaling into scrapbook pages. Once you make digital scrapbook layouts/pages they can be saved and printed either at home, a local or online photo developer and placed into page protectors just like a traditional scrapbook album. OR if you prefer you can have them made into a book through many different online stores.

What are some advantages of going digital?

Photo Enhancement:  Photos can be uploaded from your digital camera right into your computer. Or, you can scan your photos & edit them in your photo editing program.  With the programs that are out these days, you can apply various techniques, filters, add text or even create collages with your photos.  You can change a color photo to black & white, leave it black & white but only have a small area of color, create a sepia photo, or add designs & artistic photo edges to your photos. Do you have old photos that you want to preserve or edit? This can be done digitally via photo restoration processes.

Printing Options:  A huge plus for digital scrapbooking is the ability to print out layouts multiple times to put in different albums.  No longer do we need to duplicate the entire page for each album, we can just print out multiples.  Printing options are phenomenal.  Once you have the page complete, you can either upload it to an online picture printing source, such as scrapbookpictures.com or persnicketyprints.com, or you can print them at home.  If you want to print out 12x12 pages, you’d need a wide format printer.  A lot of digital scrapbookers have found that 8x8 pages or 81/2 x 11 pages are great, too, because you can print out on a regular format printer.
Another great idea, is to create a book.  There are many online companies that will let you upload your completed layouts & print & bind them into your very own book.  I did one for each of my kids so that they can each have a memory of a specific vacation we took while only having to create once!I love this!

Undo:  How many times have you made a scrapbooking mistake & either had to throw something out or tear it apart?  Well, in Digital Scrapbooking, if you ever make a mistake or place something you don’t like, there is the magic ‘undo’ button.

Mixing Digital with Paper:  This is a huge advantage.  How many times have you wanted to personalize your pages with names, places, events, special memories?  You can use your trusty Text Tool to add text to photos, journaling strips, etc.  Mixing the two is becoming more & more popular.  I know I still have lots of paper and traditional scrapbook materials that I don't want to give up just yet. So I can use BOTH digital and my paper elements on my pages. A perfect blend of the two mediums!

Digital Kits: Have you ever run out of supplies when you were making a page? With digital kits you never run out. The beauty is you can recolor ribbon, papers, elements to fit your photos. If you don't have what you you need for your page you can always create your own or you can just hop online and buy and download instantly what you need to complete your page. There are also lots of free items out there online to try out digital scrapbooking to see if it's for you.