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!
Rating: 5 / 5

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.
Rating: 4 / 5

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.

Rating: 1 / 5