Scrapbooking SuppliesOrganizing and preserving your personal and family history

digital scrapbooking magazine

What Kind of paper do you use when digial scrapbooking?

Ok. I'm not even started digital scrapbooking yet. I'm waiting for my MICROSOFT MS DIGITAL IMAGE SUITE to arrive in the mean time I am totally confused at what kind of paper to use. Do I use scrapbooking paper and will the picture show up or "bleed"? Or do I have to buy photo paper?

I do regular scrapbooking, as well as some pages done completely on the computer with my scrapbooking software. I used to use good quality photo paper for this purpose... but I ran into a problem. I found that in my case, the photo paper would "stick" to my sheet protectors in my scrapbook, especially in the dark areas where a lot computer ink was used. I didn't like this result at all, because the page looks glossy and darker in the areas where it was "sticking" to the cover sheet. So, after experimenting with a lot of different papers, I found that using Epson (or probably any brand is fine) matte brochure paper works great. That paper isn't glossy at all. The photos look pretty good printed out on this, and it is even a little cheaper than photo paper. My outlook on this is, if the photos start to fade over time, I can always re-print them out years from now. I save my scrapbook page files forever on an external hard drive.

Hope this makes sense. If you don't use sheet protectors, or you are not witnessing the "sticking" problem, then use some high quality photo paper.

One other option, if your scrapbooking software allows you to export your scrapbook page as a "jpg" or "bmp", and doing so doesn't lose too much quality.. you could get an 8x10 photo developed of your scrapbook page at any online photo developing place... the cost will be more but you'll get a nice glossy photo of your entire page and not worry about using up paper and ink. My software doesn't allow me to do this though.

Digital Scrapbook Artist with Scrapbook Dimensions at CHA Winter 09