Customer Reviews

Nova Development US Scrapbook Factory Deluxe 4.0 [Old Version]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I wanted to get started with digital scrapbooking, but most websites I read focused on Photoshop Elements, and purchasing digital paper and elements individually. I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend that kind of time and money, so I decided to give Scrapbook Factory Deluxe 4.0 a try. I've been using this software for several months now, and I really like it! It comes with lots of ready-made templates, which really are completed layouts--just add pictures. The templates are fully editable, though, so you can still add, delete, resize, or move any element or picture. You can also start from scratch, and build your page using the wide variety of backrounds and elements that they provide. If you aren't satisfied with their offerings, you can use any papers or elements that you can find on various websites--the program recognizes most regular file types (such as .jpg, .gif, and .png). Though some of the provided graphics are typical clipart, and not really what most scrappers would use, they still offer quite a lot of backgrounds and embellishments that are wonderful. (And contrary to another reviewer, you CAN change the color--right click the item, choose "edit photo", then the "adjust color" tab.) The software also comes with a pretty good user's manual--that seems rare for software these days! Very useful for getting an idea of all the different things you can do with this software. You can also save completed pages as a .jpg or .pdf file for printing or to give to other people.
There are a few things I'd like to see improved. 1. I'd like a better tool for finding and importing the photos. 2. I'd like more templates in the landscape format. 3. I'd like a viewer that would show 2 pages side-by-side.
**Important Note** Read the system requirements carefully! The entire program gets loaded onto the hard drive, and takes over 3 Gbytes. It's also a resource-hog when running; if your computer is too old, you will NOT have fun trying to run it!
All in all, this program is easy to learn and use. It gives you as much or as little control over the layout as you want. And with all of the various graphics that are included, it's an incredible bargain!

I own just about every scrapbook software on the market. This is as photo realistic as you get without actually using real embellishments. It offers a wide variety of ready made templates as well as blank templates and projects. The negatives: The way the embellishments are organized is confusing and time consuming to choose. You cannot change the colors of the papers or accents; you have to use what is available. When you save your document, it will only save it to its own file, so you can't print it from another source...leaving you out of luck if you don't have a wide format printer. This software is good, but leaves much room for improvement.

I had a previous version of this software and really like the improvements they made to this version. However, some of the pictures are still very lame. I wish they had a free downloadable website for more pictures or allowed you to edit their pics. Other than that, I like the search they have now when you're looking for a particular pic - for example, you can just type in "dog" and it will show you all the dogs.

I also like that you can save as pdfs so you can share with others that don't have the software.

Overall, I like the product for what I'm using it for.

I have had this program for about 2 weeks and have loved it. It has totally changed the way I scrapbook. It is full of great and inventive ideas on setting up an attractive scrapbook page. You have so many choices whether you are creating one from scratch or using one of the templates. The photo editor is great as you can edit and crop photo's to just the size you need them. The only thing I was disappointed in at first was you couldn't copy and paste into another project from it, but after using the program for a few days I realized that I could copy and paste into it and it worked just fine that way. I had pages printed yesterday and they were so nice. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to be creative, design beautiful scrapbook pages but who doesn't like the clutter and mess of paper, scissors, ribbons, tags etc.

If you put a large graphic on the workspace, and it extends off the edge of the "page", the edge of the page gets lost under the graphic. I prefer to know where the edge of the page is so that I don't design a bunch of stuff only to find it is off in no-man's land somewhere to the left of where the page actually is. To remedy this problem you have to set guidelines to indicate where the page begins and ends, which is not a big deal...but it sure would be nicer if the graphics slipped under the "mat" that surrounds the "page" instead of just blopping off to the left or right. Know what I mean?

Background images always stretch to fit. So if you use an 8.5 x 11 image on a 12 x 12 layout, it will distort. I'd rather the option to expand the smaller image and "lose" some of it off the bottom or top of the page than have it distorted. You can get around this problem by treating background images like regular embellishments, but then you run into the problem I wrote about in paragraph one. Then it gets confusing because you only have this little tiny pixel-wide guideline telling you where the page REALLY begins and ends.

I can't figure out how to pin images down or lock them down or whatever you want to call it. I've hunted through the paper guidebook and the online guidebook that comes with this thing. Can't figure it out. I don't think this feature is available. This is a big problem, especially if you've chosen to avoid the background problem in the way I described in paragraph 2!

But here is my biggest problem and it was at this point that I decided to trash this program--you can't crop a picture and maintain aspect ratio. If you want a page with three pictures on it, and you want them all the same size and shape...well, you can't do it. Or if you can, the way to do it is so deeply hidden in the program that it's unfindable by me. You can crop the picture, but the cropping rectangle will get taller or shorter as you drag it inward, unless you're a robot with the steadiest hands on the planet. Holding down the shift key doesn't maintain the aspect ratio. There is no checkbox to click to make it maintain ratio. There isn't even a set of boxes where you can look to see what the dimensions of the photo now are! If there were, you could at least say, "Oh, well this photo measures blah by blah, I'll just make sure all the others say that same measurement."

The back of the box says you can return it within 90 days to their main headquarters. I'll be doing so. It's missing too many features for me to use it.

We've used Scrapbook Factory v2.0 for many years and finally upgraded when we went to Vista. The V4.0 product so far seems to be better in every way and is a pleasure to work with. We have a few kids who create stuff on it also and they figure out more than we do and create some incredible stuff.

Great software!

I absolutely love this software. Being a creative memories fan, I am now a digital convert. This software makes it extremely easy to scrapbook at a whim (especially with a laptop). No pulling out papers, cutters, worrying about mistakes. You can edit, make duplicate pages or books to share with others, save them on CD and put them in a fire safe for safe keeping in case of a weather tragedy or house fire. The embellishments are plentiful, the templates make getting started very easy to do or provide a few ideas to go at it yourself. I'm so very happy I've purchased it - I've created over 30 pages and am very happy with how they turned out. Only downfall is printer ink -- I get about 28 pages out of a tank of ink that cost me $25, but I guess when you figure costs of papers, tape, and time -- it likely evens out the cost per page.

Installation was easy, although rather long. It is a large program, taking about 3.5 GB of space on my hard drive for full installation. When starting the program, it starts quickly and gives the user the option to either start designing with a template or from scratch. The templates are high quality and creative, utilizing several different layouts, backgrounds, and elements. If you are designing from scratch, you will find a large variety of papers and elements to use on your scrapbook page. I had version 3 of Scrapbook Factory Deluxe and was pleased to find several new backgrounds and elements in version 4, as well as old favorites from version 3. Also quite useful is the included search feature so that you can use to find all papers and elements that match your desired theme without having to browse through every category on your own.

Overall, this is an excellent program for scrapbooking, though I'd say it is geared more towards beginning and intermediate scrapbookers. However, advanced scrapbookers will certainly find many uses for this program as well.

This review was posted by a member of the Nova Development User Community (NDUC). NDUC members are real people who use Nova Development products and share relevant feedback about the products they use in order to help other users. More information about NDUC, its programs and members is available on the Nova Development website.

I have owned 2 versions of this product and I love it. I love scrapbooking but was always frustrated with the time it took to cut and arrange and get the pictures the right size and of course buying ALL the product. But with this program, I can make a page in 30 minutes in the evening after the event I am scrapbooking. there are significant limitations to this program - it saves to its own file types which makes it hard to do anything with them. But it will save to a PDF which allows me to email them and print them at another location, so that is a redeeming factor. I wish I could search the backgrounds, embellishements, etc by type instead of having to search through the library to find what I want. But I usually find something different when I am searching so I personally don't mind that. The templates are very helpful and are fully adjustable to whatever I want. You are limited to what they have in their library or what you have on your computer (I often use my own photos for backgrounds) so that can be bummer. The longer I have used the program, the more options I find and the more I enjoy using it. I am sure there are more elaborate programs out there with more options. But this one is has a multitude of options and ideas that give an intermediate scrapper like me the ability to make MANY pages in a much shorter amount of time. I LOVE IT!

I've had this software since February and have used it for so many projects. I designed my son's birth announcement, professional looking Christmas photo cards, and many scrapbook pages for my kids. Some of the graphics are admittedly cartoony, but there are so many other positives to mention. There are plenty of backgrounds to choose from, but you can also design your own once you become more familiar with the software. The templates are a good route to go when you start b/c they offer creative ways to showcase your pictures. I find that I don't usually like all the background/embellishment selections in the templates but all you have to do is double-click on what you don't like and either delete or replace. I also learned a lot about the capabilities of the software by seeing the types of designs the templates offered. If you feel limited by the papers or embellishments offered, there are plenty of on-line sites that offer free page kits, backgrounds etc. My favorite site is www.scrapbookflair.com.
Also, another reviewer mentioned not being able to print on other sites like Shutterfly. This is not true and can easily be done by exporting project as a JPG image (make sure to select 300 dpi and raise quality bar to highest level)
All in all, the creative uses of this software are endless and you'll be thrilled with the professional looking projects you come up with.
One thing to note is that their DVD software did not work in our DVD drive and we had to go through customer support to get replacements. I received them within a week.