Why I hate Digital Scrapbooking... Or wish I could make myself.

One of the hobbies I've picked up in the past year or so is digital scrapbooking, which for the uninitiated is quite a bit like normal scrapbooking only instead of using paper, glue, scissors, photos and other doodads, you use digital papers and elements that you can download (either as freebies or buy), digital photos and a graphics editing program. Doing it digital held greater appeal for me because the last thing I really need is a bunch of random stuff hanging around my house, and at least with digital... It's just a bunch of random stuff just hanging around on my hard drive... and I have plenty of digital storage space.

There is, however, one big drawback to digital scrapping if you ask me... There is a clause in most terms of use of most scrapping image packs stating that if you're going to post a layout you made publicly on the Internet, you are required to attribute where you got all your papers and elements and such... which means you have to devise a nice orderly system to be able to keep track of who you got your files from.

Since I didn't come to digital scrapbooking through the digital scrapbooking community (I believe I was introduced to it first on a wedding message board I belong to), I somehow missed this whole attribution thing at first. It wasn't until I joined a scrapping forum and asked about how people organized their files that I found out I was supposed to attribute (of course, if I'd actually read the terms of use in one of the packages I downloaded, I would have found that out... but who reads those?) Imagine my shock and horror. Thousands of images in folders that I somehow need to now figure out where the hell they came from.

I set out to organize my stuff by making folders for designer, and then putting the sets I have of theirs within that. In some cases, doing this sort of organization wasn't so bad... Some designers are kind and put their name in their file names or leave a test image inside with the name of the package and their name on it, and sometimes a URL to their website as well. But others? Hard as heck... I had a bunch of freebies that I downloaded from one site, none of them had names in them... at least I remembered where I got them so I could find out who made them.... and there were a small handful of sets that I had NO IDEA where I got them from.

To be perfectly honest, I find the whole mess irritating and almost a tad bit irrational. If you're talking about crafty things in the meatspace, this required attribution thing isn't a legal requirement. If you're paper scrapping and you share what you made in a picture online, no one's going to get their panties in a wad if you can't remember where you bought or what company made X, Y and Z thing in your creation. If you're dealing with yarn craft, no one's going to get upset if you post a picture of the socks you knitted and didn't post where you bought the yarn and where the pattern came from... With knitting, depending on the pattern, you might be prohibited from selling your creation. Sure, it's a nice and polite thing to do to tell people where you got your resources, especially since people might like what you used and want to use it themselves, but you're under no obligation to do so...

But with digital scrapbooking, you're under legal obligation by most designers to share where you got your papers and elements from... For the most part, I believe this is excessive. Prohibiting redistribution is fine with me. Only allowing personal use and prohibiting me to sell any graphics made with a designers papers/elements is fine with me too. But the forced attribution bugs me.... it bugs me less on freebies because I realize freebies are a tool to create buzz for a designer, and if I'm receiving something for free, it's not too far of a stretch to ask for something in return. It does bother me when I shelled out money for kits to have to turn around and be forced legally to share where I got my kits. I paid you. Isn't that enough? I'm now forced to be advertising for you too? It's a little bit much... Yes, likely now that I'm organized I'd probably share where I got my resources just because I'm a nice person and don't like to deprive people of knowing where I got things, especially if they like them and want to use them too. But... forcing me to do it puts me in a bad mood.

I'm likely bitter because I have had to waste hours of my time with the last bit of my organization....

As far as image editing programs for scrapbooking go... Most people use the standard ones... Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro... some people use open source programs like The GIMP... but there's also a handful of scrapbooking specific image programs which are designed to be easier for a non-graphic designer to use. Scrapbook Max, iRemember, iScrapbook... there's even a web based app one called Scrapblog.

Personally, I use a Mac specific one called iScrapbook. Even though I own Photoshop and know how to use it, I decided to go with iScrapbook because iScrapbook was more stripped down, it made things easier to resize and rotate without knowing too much info (most everything is drag and drop in iScrapbook) and more wonderfully, iScrapbook integrates with iPhoto's library. iScrapbook comes with a collection of it's own papers and elements which are built into the program, and originally, I was lead to believe the only way to import elements from elsewhere was to use iPhoto. When I originally put all my elements into iPhoto, it was before I knew I was supposed to know where everything came from so they were all put in an album called "Scrapbook Elements". When I discovered I needed to keep better track, I discovered that there's a feature in iPhoto which allows you to import to iPhoto while not actually having your photos in the iPhoto Library image directory... I originally thought this was my ultimate solution to my woes and I could import everything into albums by designer AND wouldn't have duplicate copies of things on my machine. No dice. Apparently, the iPhoto integration with iScrapbook only works if you have everything in the iPhoto Library folder. Lame. I wasted three hours of my life importing only to have it be all for not. I filed a bug report with iScrapbook which, since it's a closed source program, I don't expect to be fixed any time soon.

However, all hope did not end up being lost... There's a favorites tab that I never noticed before on iScrapbook which allows you to create collections of images for reuse, which works PERFECTLY for what I'm trying to do... Only problem, I need to spend three more hours organizing things into nice collections.

The things you do for hobbies, I swear... I'd hate digital scrapbooking by now if I didn't like doing so much.