How did I start? At one of my baby showers for R, my step-mom gave me a couple of magazines for scrapbooking, one was a digital scrapbooking magazine and the other was a baby one. I loved both of them, even the digi scrapping one because it had a lot of tips to use the computer for traditional layouts. But I kept scrapping my usual way. Then I had R. Boy! Do babies change everything! No time, first of all, but then, how in the world am I supposed to keep her away from all this hazardous/expensive stuff? And I can no longer hide away in a room to scrapbook, I have to watch her. So the scrapbook ended at my ultrasound. For over a year my scrapbooks sat untouched. Until R was 9 months old and I was planning her first birthday party. We had just moved back to our home state, so most of our family hadn't gotten to watch her grow up, and I was panicking about getting her scrapbook done to showcase her first year. AAACK! Stress does not induce creativity or productivity in this mama! My very intelligent husband suggested that I try digital scrapbooking. I had no idea where to start so I got out my (very worn) magazine and started looking up every website that I could find, even the tiny print ones in the layout credits. I found lots of great websites to look into and started stumbling around finding some common themes. What programs to use, where to get 'supplies,' etc. So, I told my very loving husband some of the things I'd found, and most importantly, how much stinkin' money I'd save doing it this way and he was 120% on board (the extra 20% was to convince me!).
So I bought Photoshop Elements v5. Version 6 had just come out, so I found 5 on Amazon for a great price. I chose PSE because most tutorials are written for that program, most 'supplies' are made for it, and it was said to be pretty user friendly. Well, it is user friendly....kinda. I love PSE. Seriously. I have a problem. I use it for anything and everything. Even 'word' documents, I'd rather do in PSE because I have so much freedom and I can get it just the way I want it in half the time. But, user friendliness does not mean that there isn't a learning curve. It took me about 6 months of intense scrapping (remember, I had to catch up those books!) to feel comfortable with it, and I still learn new things. I personally really like version 5. It's still available and I still recommend it. In my humble opinion, version 6-8 had some features that weren't digi scrap friendly. I recently upgraded to version 9 and there aren't any features in it that I like more than 5, but I can't use 5 on my Mac. And 5 is stinkin' cheap now. So I have 9 on my Mac, and 5 on my PC.
So how should you start? Probably the same way I did. Get PSE and start playing. Check out a "for dummies" book from the library just so you can find your way around the program. One that I used for a couple weeks was the "Manual that should have come in the box" book. I can't remember the title, but it was something to that effect. Those books are written for photo editing, but it will help you become familiar with the tools and layout of the program.
That's probably enough for today. More tomorrow :) Part 2
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