GIMP

Digital scrapbooking is so awesome! It's far less expensive that traditional, "paper" scrapbooking because you don't have to buy all the tools, the organizers to store all your gear, and once you've bought a graphic (or better yet, downloaded it for free) you can use it as many times as you want! You don't have to print your photos, you just print the photos along with the rest of the page! As for printing, that costs about $1 a page, and you can even get them printed in a hard-bound book (so you don't even have to buy a scrapbook or page protectors!)

The one catch is software. Ouch, that can be pricey. I usually recommend Photoshop Elements because it's reasonably priced and does everything you need to get into digital scrapbooking.

But free is better! I have a lot of friends who think they want to try out digiscrapping, but are reticent to purchase anything before they try it out. So today, I downloaded GIMP and tried it out. It's free!

This page took forever and was uber-frustrating, but I stuck with it. This page is 100% GIMPy!


I think I ran it through its paces pretty well: Cropping photos to strange shapes (to fit behind the frames), extracting (that means cutting something out from its background--i.e. the big Herbie), cloning (there were stickers on Herbie's windshield, as you can see in the smaller photo), burning and dodging, rotating, writing text, and adding drop shadows.

I think GIMP would be great for learning to do digital scrapbooking. It seems a lot like Photoshop, meaning there's a steep learning curve. But I think you can all handle it! And I can help.

if you're interested in downloading GIMP for free, visit this link!
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html