Customer Reviews

Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist [Download] [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

First to be clear, I am NOT a scrapbooker. This program fit this requirement: that is be as much like creating in the "real world" as possible. That meant if I wanted to cut something, I did not mess about with a bunch of arcane sounding tools and levels and masks and all that (bitter from trying to learn Gimp and Photoshop!!), but that I just clicked on some scissors, dragged and cut! Serif's Digital Scrapbook Artist does exactly that.

The great accomplishment of this program is it's ease of use to the beginner and it's depth of tools to the advanced artist. There are variety of filters, a cut-out studio that does a great job (the plainer the background the better though), excellent set of included brushes (and not hard to make your own!), and lot more. I have read all the help and really dug into the depth of the program and will be occupied for some time! (By the way, the program does have levels and masks, but you do not need to mess about with them at first to get a nice page going.)

The program allows upload to DaisyTrail, a scrapbooking community. It is very easy to upload, and see what others are making. A good community but it needs to work out some kinks and offer better ease of use.

If you have downloaded a lot of scrapbooking content, you can still use that in the program. You can import the pngs and jpgs as photos in the content manager (must be done each time you start, IIRC) but an *easier* way is to just tile the DSA window and the folder with your content side-by-side and then just drag and drop whatever, say a flower embellishment png, right into DSA. Maximize the DSA window again and keep working away!

Must give a kudos to the frames. You drag a photo frame (some really neat ones included for all tastes) onto the page, then drag your photo onto the frame and it instantly inserts itself into the frame. You can still move the photo about to position it all you want. If the Serif sold frames separately, I would definitely buy them!

THE DRAWBACKS:

The program is, at the fifty or so I bought it from directly from Serif (wasn't available from Amazon yet - came out in the UK first) overpriced! Even now, with the rebate bringing the price down a bit, I still believe it is overpriced.

Digikits: These are packs with ten kits of separate themes including embellishments, papers, frames, color schemes, etc. But at *forty!* bucks a pop, they are DEFINITELY not worth it. You cannot pick and choose what you install from these packs. In fact, you cannot even see all that is included until AFTER you buy. So if you do not want that sports themed kit on your hard drive, you're out of luck. They would be much wiser to break up each pack into separate kits and that can be bought for 2-3 dollars each AND offer a way to buy embellishments, frames, and papers for .25-.50 each, so you can pick and choose exactly what you want.

Other little niggling annoyances:

.There is no way to turn off something from popping up when you open the program. You can turn off the Startup Wizard, but then Content Manager pops up.

.The program crashes a LOT!! I have set the auto save to two minutes in my settings to save losing work. And I have a six-week old brand new computer with 4 gigs of ram. So no reason why it should crash.

.Not enough customizability! No way to add buttons to your toolbars (why no print button, fer goodness sakes?)

.No way to minimize to tray.

.No way to use Photoshop brushes, so all those brushes collected over the years are no good here.

.Can't choose colors by hex! A most common method! *scratches head*

*********************

Overall, a great program that needs a few more features to make it really worthy of five stars. But if you are looking from something that is easy, but not insulting so and gives you some very pretty and nice content with the program give this a go.

Lastly, don't let the silly pink box art sway ya. That was a bad design decision, like putting a good Subaru engine in a plastic Malibu Barbie convertible!

When I had the opportunity to download this software for free from Amazon I decided to give it a try. I create scrapbook sketches for my blog using Photoshop Elements 3. I'm self taught and it can sometimes be tedious. PSE3 is also not totally compatible with my system so it can be frustrating to use at times. The Scrapbook Digital Artist download itself took about 20 minutes start to finish. When I opened the SDA program I was very pleasantly surprised to see how easy it is to do a page. You scroll through the kits, select what you want to put on your page and it organizes everything into separate tabs labeled embellishments, backgrounds, materials, etc. You simply click on the individual tabs, grab what you want and drag it onto your page. From there you can resize the selection by grabbing a corner and moving it in or out. You can also rotate the selection by grabbing the handle at the top and moving it left or right. I prefer to work in layers but from what I can tell so far, that's not necessary with this program (but the option is there). I've only played with it for a few hours but this will become my new program for creating my sketches. The only thing I couldn't find is a way to convert things to grayscale. I can't find a color mode option. I have to export the document as a jpg file, then reopen it in Photoshop Elements to convert it to grayscale from there. It's an extra step and the reason why I gave this review four stars instead of five. Maybe newer versions of DSA have a color mode option.

I am new to digital scrapbooking and recently purchased this product. It has been somewhat easy to use, but does take a little practice on getting used to it. There is a free update that is provided on the daisy trail website (in the user guide) that allows for a little more. My only negative is that the user guide is not as explanatory as it could be. After referencing how to use a tool, sometimes I still had difficulty. With that being said, I emailed customer support and within the day I always had a detailed answer to my question. Now that I have been using it a lot, it gets easier and easier. I have found many websites that have free downloads for kits, pages, etc. I have spent very little money and have made 35 pages (an entire family album for 2008) in less than a month. I would recommend this product.

At first I had problems finding the product code. When I received my invoice from Amazon there's a link for "Your Games & Software Library". If you click on that it will bring up your order. You'll find a box to click on that says Product Code right below your line item. Reinstall if you need to. It will just overwrite what's there & then continue the installation w/the product code. Hope this helps.

I am an avid scrapbooker and business person who makes a living from the things I love. I do scrapbooking, card making, posters, and signs for businesses. All the girls on my Yahoo sites were raving about this new software so I had to have it. YES, it is the best thing since sliced bread ! I have made all my Christmas cards and several gifts using this software.

If you do any kind of crafting with paper at all then you NEED this software.

Mary Stanley

I really can't say enough good things about this product - it's so worth the money. The developers at Serif are making upgrades all the time, so many of the issues from previous reviews are now taken care of. I never did any paper scrapping and don't have much familiarity with Photoshop or InDesign, but learning DSA was a breeze. The program has a great range of abilities, so more advanced designers can tweak with things to their heart's content and newbies will be able to get up and running in no time. There are also video tutorials on the DaisyTrail site to help you learn the more advanced stuff as you grow, and the community of scrappers there is just wonderfully supportive.

DSA comes with a number of kits. You can also use the software to work with kits available for free download or purchase at various sites on the web. And from what I understand, a new free upgrade in August will make this even easier. Pages can be exported as jpegs or pdfs and are customizable to any size you'd like - perfect for doing greeting cards or 4x6 brag book pages.

The only downside is it does often crash. There's an autosave component, but I still save my work quite frequently. And even so, I find it hard to imagine being happier with any other product.

I am new to digital scrapbooking and found this product to be simple to use with fantastic results! It will allow you to convert their .sbp pages to pdf files also so you can easily download them and have them printed professionally. I am hooked! Great product!

I've been a digi-scrapper for about 10 years, but not a "pro" - even PSE7 has more features than I can figure out or will ever be able to use. I've used several other programs, both on their own & in combination - Picture It, Publisher, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe, etc. etc. - but DSA does it all!

DSA is awesome! Tons of features that are easy to use, and the selling point for me was that it has "digital scissors" - so now I can crop pictures, papers, etc. like I used to do with my fancy scrapbooking scissors. It really is easy to use, and when I can't figure something out, the instructions in the book are clearly written.

They have a lot of "digi-kits" available that work specifically with the program, though I wish they'd offer a lot more; however, you can import papers, embellishments, letters/alphabets, etc. from any program and use them easily as well.

My sister isn't into digital scrapbooking, but is an artist who loves computers - I showed her the potential of this program for collages, "drawing/painting", etc., and she's since gotten her own copy.

Definitely recommend for anyone who knows how to play around in software & loves to create!

This is a very fun program, it's easy to use and the website offers free sets once a month to add on. I would recommend this for beginners or experts alike.

Chose this program after looking at several and have not been sorry. Bought one for my daughter also and she loves it.. in her words "there's nothing you can't do" with it. I agree. It is an awesome way to showcase your digital pictures (and your printed pictures by scanning them to your computer). You can also use the program to edit pics; it has a cutout studio that allows you to cut out backgrounds, etc. I'm saving pictures of grandchildren sent to me by my grandma friends. At Christmas time, I will make electronic cards for each grandma using the pictures they've sent me. And, of course, I make pages for each of my grandchildren to chronicle their lives. You can print pages, or even books of pages. You can also create DVDs and wallpapers for your computer. I will be scanning old family photos to my computer, scrapbooking them, and making DVDs for my cousins.. a more ambitious plan for when I retire.

This program is a really fun way to relax for a little while, or for hours on end. It's inexpensive and doesn't require the space or supplies of traditional scrapbooking. Once you have the program, you don't have to spend another penny if you don't want; you can download free digikits from [...] or several other websites.

I would recommend visiting [...] or [...] to look at some of the beautiful pages people have created. And I HIGHLY recommend this product.