Best Buy Digital Scrapbooking Factory Deluxe Walmart

Chances are you have a large collection of digital photos cluttering up your computer. Scrapbook Factory Deluxe ($39.95) aims to help you turn those disparate images into artful pages with thousands of templates and clip art images. But this expensive application fell short of my expectations, with its awkward interface, limited tools, and buggy experience. Look to Editors' Choice MyMemories Suite 5( at Amazon) for stable and intuitive digital scrapbooking software.

Unlike several of the scrapbooking apps I've tested, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe is compatible with operating systems as new as Windows 7, which is what I use on my laptop. That's why I was surprised that the Scrapbook Factory Deluxe installer took 15 minutes just to start working. The app also supports Windows XP and Vista. Like Hallmark Scrapbook Studio Deluxe, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe not only available for download. You'll either have to order the boxed edition or find it in a brick-and-mortar store.

Building Your Scrapbook
Scrapbook Factory Deluxe puts its best foot forward by letting you choose from thousands of themed scrapbooks, cards, calendars, journals, and blank cut-out craft projects. Unfortunately, that foot just isn't good enough. I immediately noticed a weird rail to the right of the layout area that didn't refresh along with the rest of the page as when you zoom and adjust your view. It's clearly some kind of bug, and it's very hard to ignore.

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In modern scrapbooking apps like Panstoria Artisan 4, or the Web-based Foto.com, there's a media browser that gives you fast access to the photos you want to include in your scrapbook. No such luck with Scrapbook Factory Deluxe. Instead, you have to add your images one at a time. There is a media browser on the right rail, but it only includes examples of the numerous clip art images and embellishments. Weirdly, I found that when I dragged some items from the media browser, what came out was a completely different image. Another bug. Hooray.

As with Scrapbook MAX!, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe doesn't let you make changes to your layout in real time. Rotate, move, or resize an image and you only affect a preview image. Your changes appear only after you let go of the mouse button. Oh, and here's another bug for you: After Scrapbook Factory Deluxe locked up and I restarted it, I found that one of my images had been replaced by jarring purple and green lines I couldn't get rid of.

In addition to photos, shapes, clip art, and backgrounds (that sometimes appear and sometimes don't) you can choose from numerous photo frames, or add text to your page. Notably, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe includes over 100 word art effects, to make your text look like it came from Microsoft Word circa 2000.

I like that Scrapbook Factory Deluxe lets you add multiple pages to a single project, but I don't like that two-page spreads are only visible in certain templates.

Photo Editing
Scrapbook Factory Deluxe has little to offer in the way of photo editing, which is sadly par for the course as far as scrapbooking apps are concerned. The exception is Serif CraftArtist 2 Professional( at Amazon), which feels like a dressed-down Adobe Photoshop ( at Amazon) . That said, I think it's probably always smarter to retouch your images in a dedicated photo editor before laying them out for scrapbooking.

From Scrapbook Factory Deluxe's integrated photo editor, you can adjust photos' hue, brightness, and contrast with the appropriate sliders. There's also an option to create a custom shape for an image. You can also retouch your photos with scratch and red eye removal tools, along with a clone stamp tool. In my testing, I found that the red-eye remover had no effect on my test image.

You can also apply any of 39 effects to your images. I like that Scrapbook Factory Deluxe makes it easy to undo changes and save a new copy of the affected image, because the app provides little control over these effects. Annoyingly, clicking more than one effect will apply all of them to an image, one after the other, quickly turning it into an unviewable mush.

Printing and Exporting
Scrapbook Factory Deluxe lets you print directly to a local printer, or you can export your creation as a JPG, BMP, or TIF. There's also an HTML option, which turns your project into an embedded Web slideshow. You have the option to add music to your Web creation, but  Google Chrome doesn't seem to support that option. Unlike Foto.com Editor and many of the other scrapbook apps I've reviewed, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe doesn't have an integrated print store.

Scrapbook Factory Deluxe's installation disk also includes MemoriesOnTV, a basic video-slideshow creator. Simply dump in images, music, and MemoriesOnTV does the rest. I'm impressed with the app's simplicity, but it can only burn directly to disk or DVD and isn't tightly integrated with the scrapbook app. The problematic MemoryMixer handled video much better.

Start Scrapbooking
Like Hallmark Scrapbook Studio, Scrapbook Factory Deluxe hangs its hat on the thousands of templates and graphics included with the app. And like Hallmark, it falls apart with inadequate tools and a poor user experience. Worse, I encountered some very strange, buggy behavior with Scrapbook Factory Deluxe. Simply put, it's just not an application you can trust with your digital mementos.

Instead of shelling out for the pricey Scrapbook Factory Deluxe (and then waiting for it be delivered), try the free and very capable Foto.com website. If you're already a scrapbooking fiend and can spare the cash, Editors' Choice MyMemories Suite 5 is an outstanding tool.

Scrapbook Factory Deluxe

Pros

The Bottom Line

Scrapbook Factory Deluxe lets you turn your digital photos into scrapbook pages with thousands of ready-made templates and clip art images, but a buggy, awkward experience spoils the software.

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Best Buy Digital Scrapbooking Factory Deluxe Walmart

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/scrapbook-factory-deluxe

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