Scrapbooking software

photocrazy

photocrazy

Sugar Cookie : GingerScraps Praise Team
Hello ladies!

What scrapbooking software do you use, and why? Would you ever consider switching to using a different tool for digital scrapping? Does your computer system (PC or Mac, or other) play a huge factor in your decision?

For me, I've always used Adobe Photoshop (CS2 was my first one way back when!) but my hubby had some recent observations that is making me consider switching to Affinity. Do we have any Affinity users here? I recently switched from PC to Mac a few years ago, but am still learning how to master my Mac.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
 
I have a PC and use a very old version of Photoshop Elements. I like it and I'm comfortable with how it works so I keep it. Not sure if or when I'll upgrade.
 
I use the Adobe Creative Suite, both at work and for personal. Adobe Bridge / Photoshop for photos, and PhotoShop for digiscrabooking. After using the Adobe products for 20+ years, I don't know if my brain could use another program. LOL!
 
I use Photoshop Elements 2023 but have used a version of it for over 10 years. Thinking of upgrading to 2024 and have downloaded a trial version to see if I like it.
 
Another PC/PS2024 user here. I too think I'd have trouble learning another program--I have used PSE or PS for over 15 years. There are Affinity users here though.
 
I started out with Paint Shop Pro and loved it but, as I was trying to learn about digi scrapbooking, I found there were way more resources out there for Photoshop so I switched to that and have been using it ever since. I'm on PhotoshopCC2017 now and dont have any plans to change anytime soon....getting on in age and all that..lol
 
I started with Serif Webplus to learn/make an online webstore. They had Craft Artist which I started doing to do scrapbooking. They had Daisy Trail (like Gingerscraps) and they closed within the first year I started learning. Took time off and decided to delve into digital scrapbooking again and My Memories Suite was what I went to because I didn't think I wanted learn photoshop from how hard it was to learn. I plan to stick with My Memories Suite since I have learned the software (well, kinda learned it, still finding more things I can do with it as I explore more than the basics). would enjoy connecting with other MM users.
 
I use Photoshop CS6 and hope I never need to change to something else as I am so used to it and it does all I need.

I have heard of others really liking Affinity but you cannot use Photoshop styles with it but I think you can use Photoshop brushes in that program.
 
I'm an Affinity user and happy with it. I can do everything I need to and more.

I changed from PSCS6 because it would no longer work properly with Mac OS and I wasn't prepared to pay the subscription prices. Affinity Suite was a much cheaper prospect and I can use it on both laptop and iPad. I didn't find it too difficult to transition on the laptop but find it more challenging on the iPad. Many of the keyboard shortcuts were the same so that helped.

Anne-Marie is right PS styles don't work in Affinity. I have read that if you open up a psd in Affinity Designer that already has the styles applied to a shape then you can then save the sty as an Affinity style. I haven't played with it much but it isn't foolproof because the styles settings aren't the same in both.

You can open psd files so you can still use templates that you have (or buy) but you can't save as psd.
 
photocrazy said:
Hello ladies!

What scrapbooking software do you use, and why? Would you ever consider switching to using a different tool for digital scrapping? Does your computer system (PC or Mac, or other) play a huge factor in your decision?

For me, I've always used Adobe Photoshop (CS2 was my first one way back when!) but my hubby had some recent observations that is making me consider switching to Affinity. Do we have any Affinity users here? I recently switched from PC to Mac a few years ago, but am still learning how to master my Mac.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Click to expand...


I am an Affinity Suite user and love it.
I started my digital journey scrapping only on my phone using the Project Life app but found it was far too limiting to me and then I switched to Studio by GoDaddy so I could do more but still scrap on my phone, but found I still wasn't able to do everything that I wanted to do, so finally gave in a switched to my laptop for scrapping. After lots of consideration, but mainly due to price, I decided that Affinity (over Photoshop) was the way for me to go. The Affinity Suite is great and they recently had a sale where I could get all 3 apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher), in all 3 formats; Windows, Mac and iPad; for one greatly discounted price (one fee, no subscriptions!). I now scrap only on my Windows laptop but hope one day to get a new iPad so I can easily scrap on the go again because I do miss that aspect of it and it will be nice if I do get my iPad because I already have the software licenses paid for.
 
Julia said:
I'm an Affinity user and happy with it. I can do everything I need to and more.

I changed from PSCS6 because it would no longer work properly with Mac OS and I wasn't prepared to pay the subscription prices. Affinity Suite was a much cheaper prospect and I can use it on both laptop and iPad. I didn't find it too difficult to transition on the laptop but find it more challenging on the iPad. Many of the keyboard shortcuts were the same so that helped.

Anne-Marie is right PS styles don't work in Affinity. I have read that if you open up a psd in Affinity Designer that already has the styles applied to a shape then you can then save the sty as an Affinity style. I haven't played with it much but it isn't foolproof because the styles settings aren't the same in both.

You can open psd files so you can still use templates that you have (or buy) but you can't save as psd.
Click to expand...

Yes, there are some Photoshop files, such as the Styles and Actions that don't work in Affinity, but the Brushes (ABR files), do work. Since I was never a Photoshop user I guess I don't know what I am missing since I have never used those styles and actions so don't feel like that is a negative aspect of Affinity. I don't even know what a PS Action does but Affinity does have their own styles, but don't really have much reason to use them and rarely even use brushes. It seems most of those options are more for the artsy side of designing pages and I don't do that kind of a page very often.
 
I am a My Memories Suite user as well, not sure I have the patience to learn a new program. I would love to connect with you, Debra. Maybe maybe we can learn something new from each other?

DebraB said:
I started with Serif Webplus to learn/make an online webstore. They had Craft Artist which I started doing to do scrapbooking. They had Daisy Trail (like Gingerscraps) and they closed within the first year I started learning. Took time off and decided to delve into digital scrapbooking again and My Memories Suite was what I went to because I didn't think I wanted learn photoshop from how hard it was to learn. I plan to stick with My Memories Suite since I have learned the software (well, kinda learned it, still finding more things I can do with it as I explore more than the basics). would enjoy connecting with other MM users.
Click to expand...
 
I am a Photoshop / Adobe Suite user. I am pretty proficient in GIMP, which is free, but I like all the fun features of Photoshop. I am also pretty comfortable with Elements. I used JASC Pro (which I think became Correll) for a while at work. I used MyMemories, but I wanted something more flexible.

I am okay with anything if you give me a little time to use it.
 
I've used Paint Shop Pro (PSP) since I started digital scrapbooking and continue to use it today. I don't think there are many of us PSP users left. :)
 
I use Craft Artist Pro and I love it everything is much easier to do in it than in any of the other software currently offered. That being said it has been discontinued and is unsupported now, Affinity replaced it and personally, I don't see any difference between Affinity, Photo Shop and Paint Shop Pro Ultimate (which I use for Photo Editing).

Affinity will work on my Ipad and you don't need a paid subscription so I will probably go with it, if I ever have to switch.
Photo Shop works on Ipad and they have a basic free version for Ipad which is what I am playing with on my Ipad but I prefer Craft Artist so I do all my scrapping on my desktop.
Paint Shop doesn't work on any Mac products and their tech support is very snooty. I have an older version that is no longer supported and my graphics card isn't good enough for their newer versions. I suspect my desktop can't handle any of the newer versions of Affinity, Photo Shop and Paint Shop
 
I started with Photoshop Elements about 18 years ago (could be longer) I used it for a few years and then made the jump to Photoshop CC. I used Photoshop CC exclusively until about 2 years ago when I added an iPad and Affinity Photo.
I still use Photoshop daily for everything work/GS related but for my
own personal scrapping, I use my iPad and Affinity Photo.
I don’t like photoshop on the iPad, it needs a lot of improvement in my opinion. I’m still learning Affinity but it’s pretty easy and I really enjoy it!

I personally like to have my iPad be for fun, I purposely do not put work related stuff on it because I know myself and if it has work on it… I will get drawn into work. So I schedule in personal time, I can close up my work laptop, open up my iPad and disconnect and create!
It’s made a huge difference for me!
 
Julia said:
I'm an Affinity user and happy with it. I can do everything I need to and more.

I changed from PSCS6 because it would no longer work properly with Mac OS and I wasn't prepared to pay the subscription prices. Affinity Suite was a much cheaper prospect and I can use it on both laptop and iPad. I didn't find it too difficult to transition on the laptop but find it more challenging on the iPad. Many of the keyboard shortcuts were the same so that helped.

Anne-Marie is right PS styles don't work in Affinity. I have read that if you open up a psd in Affinity Designer that already has the styles applied to a shape then you can then save the sty as an Affinity style. I haven't played with it much but it isn't foolproof because the styles settings aren't the same in both.

You can open psd files so you can still use templates that you have (or buy) but you can't save as psd.
Click to expand...

So….then tell me…how do you do text…that is the only thing I haven’t figured out! I really like Affinity otherwise!
 
elora46 said:
So….then tell me…how do you do text…that is the only thing I haven’t figured out! I really like Affinity otherwise!
Click to expand...
There is a text tool [T]. I just draw a text frame, type and format. Your options depend a bit on which piece of software and what kind of text you want. If you search 'text in affinity software' you'll find lots of tutorial options (including Affinity ones) for text in designer and publisher. There were some for text effects in Photo but much further down the search results list.
 
I use 3 different apps lol. I use Craft Artist Professional (discontinued now, but mine still works) for my personal scrapbooking pages. Then I use Affinity Designer for most of my design work. Then I have just added PS into the mix. I am absolutely loving all of the extras that PS can do. I probably should retire CA. But I can scrap without thinking on there, and I love that. It's so cool to read about what everyone uses :)
 
I'm a GIMP user, when Windows announced that it would be retiring Windows 7 (which in my opinion was the best version), I decided to delete the entire program and replace it with Linux, and along with Linux, I got GIMP. It took some work, first to put the editor into a single piece because it comes in three separate parts, and then to learn from scratch, which I learned thanks to youtube videos and a retired designer friend of mine who had the necessary patience to teach me everything I know about shadows, angles, design, and templates. Later together with a friend who's a computer engineer, I've learned how to make videos (with an add-on) using GIMP, but it's easily taken me three years to achieve all of this.
 
asl styles and actions don't work in GIMP, but the ABR files, do work perfectly.
 
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