I spent some of my misspent youth making scrapbooks. Between the dog eating my homework and ignoring my mother, I managed to fit in time to cut up pretty pictures and paste them together. When I moved out of home the content had changed but I was still at it, with many of my photo’s ending up in huge wall collages. I hadn’t thought about scrapbooks for years until I received a polite email from Alex asking if I knew anyone who was into scrapbooking. Erm.. Me! It seems scrapbooking has gone all digital, so I was a bit cautious about whether I’d still enjoy it!

The Digital Scrapbook Artist is fairly easy to use. You download it onto your computer, start using it without needing any instruction and eventually get confused. How did that become a frame? And why can’t I delete my photo?? Eventually you open the instruction booklet and realise that it is long – 168 pages long in fact. Luckily it's very easy to follow and about half of the pages are pictures. If the manual ever goes missing, you can always read one of the many Scrapbook tutorials that are available when you first open the program and are also in [Help].

Another added feature of the Digital Scrapbook is the Daisy Trail DVD. Daisytrail.com is a site which allows you to share your scrapbook with others. It is also a source of new themes and embellishments for your scrapbooks, such as Cupid, Dolls House, Wedding and more recently Spooktacular! Despite all the layouts being themed, that doesn’t mean you have to stick to a theme. You can easily mix and match with every page.

So you’ve opened a blank page, what do you do now? On the left side you’ll see all the folders, into which to add your photos and other things you intend to use, such as background and the photo frames. Across the top is the Digital Scrapbook Toolbar, with controls allowing you to add shapes, cut pieces out of your work and include text. On the right is a colour wheel and your menu for ‘layers’. This is possibly the most interesting thing I’ve found with this scrapbook, the fact that it allows you to have several ‘layers’ under your work and to work with each layer individually. You can have your background on one layer, your leaves, flowers and lashings of glitter on another, and your photos untouched on a third. It can also be fun to see what the final effect is when you put them all together.

The Scrapbooks themselves can be custom sized into 8x8, 12x12, letter and A4. You can use the program to retouch your photos – including ‘cutting out’ individual people. You can rotate your canvas, add 3D effects or colour, or use the transparency controls to blend your photos right in. When it’s done you can then upload the Scrapbook and print it in high resolution.

What is the appeal of Scrapbooks? Essentially, it enables you to drag out all your holiday photos from St Lucia or The Lake District, spend 3 days cutting and pasting, and eventually end up with a hugely artistic collage which you can then mail out to all of your friends. Of course, why stop there? A quick scan of my Facebook friends shows me that they all have around 20 Albums each with about 60 photos in every album. If you’re like my friends that could potentially be a lot of collages.

As much as I love the Scrapbooks and now have an entire folder full of them, this is not something you can use right out of the box. If you have time, attention to detail and a computer full of photographs then this is going to amuse you for hours, possibly days. If not, then this would make a great gift for someone in your life who does.

Available from www.serif.com for £29.99.
or, if you'd prefer, a cut-down version is available free from www.daisytrail.com