Scrapbook Factory Deluxe Review

Overall Rating

Fun, easy to use, powerful.

Installation doesn't prompt for 2nd disc, must manually install extra pics and fonts.

While I admit some of the problems people have mentioned with Scrapbook Factory Deluxe (cutesy art, not installing 2nd CD, proprietary artwork, inserting new pages, can't copy and paste from a different program, and can open only one page at a time) THIS PROGRAM IS SIMPLY AMAZING!!!

The scrapbook pages I create are mainly MY photographs with the other nonphoto capabilities of SFD 2.0 (squares/rectangles as picture mats, text boxes, custom shapes, borders, lines, etc). Rarely do I even think about using "clipart" in my pages.
Some of the things that are really cool about this program:

1. You can edit your layout! One of the things that's frustrating about real scrapbooking is there is no undo button. You have to be soooo careful not to mess up your layout when working with real objects.
2. Auto alignment of grouped items. What a time saver! Even lets you set equal spacing between items, horizontally or vertically.
3. Customize the shape of your photo, circle, oval, rounded corners, heart, arrow, etc., over 20 shapes available, plus flip and rotate.
4. Add a border to your photo, two tools: one is similar to MS word insert arrow options adds a line border (any color, varying thickness, varying styles) and the other is to make the border from Nova's clipart or ANY other graphic or photo.
5. Edit your photo. Amazingly powerful for a $29.95 program! Adjust color, focus, tone; fix flaws (clone tool, red eye redux, dust/scratch tool); paint tools; and special effects tools (blur, emboss, grainy paper, pixelate, antique, tile, puzzle, 40 effects in all)
6. Lighten or darken the photo, great for watermarking!
7. Dual-layered page (foreground and background) effects you apply on one layer don't affect the other.
8. MS Word-type spellchecker, very powerful!
9. Export your complete project as a graphic file.
10. Put your completed project on a CD and share it with family and friends.
11. Create a label for your CD.
12. Prints OUTSTANDING 12 x 12 pages with a wide format printer like the Canon i9000 and Epsons's 12 x 12 matte photo paper, absolutely stunning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tell you, if you like digital scrapbooking, THIS PROGRAM IS FOR YOU. It is so easy and fun to use!

Some of the things that are NOT cool about this program:

1. Cannot cut and paste from another program. You must save the graphic/photo to your hard drive and use the insert graphic from file option. I am scrapbooking my 22-year Air Force career and I like to capture pics of places I visited over the years from the Internet (e.g., reenlisted on the USS Arizona Memorial and wanted one of their pictures as my background)
2. I created subfolders under the default graphic file location and added the graphics/photos from disc 2, but there evidently is an SFD-imposed limit on the number of subfolders. I don't recall the number (about 20) but once you exceed that limit, SFD doesn't see the extra folders when you insert a graphic from the SFD library (default graphic file location).
3. SFD doesn't support transparent backgrounds. One of their graphics from the second disc is a torn page, but there is white space to the right of the tear. So you can't send the torn page to the front and have a different colored background other than white, or you see the torn page, white space, and the colored background. It doesn't look like a torn piece overlaying another piece at all unless you leave a white background.
4. No search feature for the graphics.