Hallmark Scrapbook Studio Deluxe

Even the most left-brained user will find it easy to put together birthday cards using the simple click-and-drag interface; choosing from hundreds of preset designs or creating new ones from the unique elements included is fun and easy. Some computer experience will be helpful to navigate the program's installation and interface, but the online help should be sufficient to get anyone started.

As with all creative endeavors, working with the Scrapbook Studio gets easier and more fulfilling over time. Placing scanned photos on pages, for example, is a bit challenging at first, but practice quickly offers results. The package also includes a large paper greeting card, envelope, and stickers for a one-time non-virtual scrapbook project; though it adds little to the software, it's a nice rainy-day activity.

Computer users who want to arrange and store their memories will enjoy the program, but the real aim of the program is to help users create a never-ending source of cards and keepsakes. --Rob Lightner

Amazon.com Product Description
Scrapbook Studio Deluxe provides an extensive collection of scrapbook templates, images, and phrases. You can discover thousands of possibilities for making and sharing scrapbooks by adding your own photos, images, and memorabilia. This CD-ROM features over 4,000 Hallmark art images, more than 500 paper doll accessories, original Hallmark phrases, custom fonts and alphabets, and over 500 scrapbook templates. Choose from a wide variety of themes and events, including holidays, birthdays, weddings, babies, sports, and school. Also included is SnapShot Express, to help you edit, organize, manipulate, and store photos, and add them to your scrapbook.

It has such great features -- you can even change the colors of the clipart to fit a certain color scheme you have in mind. That's a real rarity in scrapbooking programs that have pre-made template pages. It also has the greatest paper doll cutouts that you can use on your pages. You can create darling paper doll duplicates of any individual -- match their hair, eye and skin color, dress them up in the same clothes that are in the photos, give them things to hold that go along with the theme of the page, etc.

I can't say enough good things about this software. If you are a novice, you will want to actually READ the manual or at least go through the on-screen tutorials. If you've used similiar programs before, you'll probably be able to just install and start designing.

I did read one helpful hint that I'm very happy I know about on a Sierra help page. It deals with how to insert digital photos into a template. I thought I'd post it here so that someone who gets this great software doesn't get frustrated like some of the people who've posted reviews have gotten.

When you want to insert a digital picture into a pre-set frame or object, click inside the white space of the frame so that it selects this area. Right click and choose "Replace Picture" and the Graphics Grabber window opens. In the Graphics Grabber window select the "Import button". Select an image on your computer and choose the Import button. At this point it adds the image to the Graphics Grabber window. Double click on the image in the Graphics Grabber window, and it will replace the white space with your picture. Resize it if necessary, and you're done in a snap! I think that understanding how to insert pictures correctly was probably the main trouble people were having with using this program.

It sounds like this software has been a little hard for some people to figure out, but I thought it was pretty easy. And even if it does seem confusing or something at first, trust me, it's worth the effort to learn how to use it. THIS SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE IS THE GREATEST! You will love the pages you can create with it, even if you aren't artistic at all (like I'm not....) Everyone will be so impressed when they see what you've done with your pictures.


Big Disappointment   December 23, 2000
16 out of 17 found this review helpful

This program is EXTREMELY slow. I have had no problems running any software programs on my computer (and I own A LOT of them) until I bought this particular program. The graphics and templates are of great quality but the CD continually shuts my computer down and/or takes forever to run, when it does run (and this is not very often). I am constantly e-mailing back and forth with Sierra Software (the manafacturer)...SAVE YOUR MONEY. There are many scrapbooking programs available out there. I think that there were some "glitches" that were not worked out by the manafacturer before releasing this program. :-(


I was so disappointed with this program!   May 8, 2001
Michelle L. Herren (Las Vegas, NV)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful

I am an experienced graphic software user, and I had high expectations with this program. I was looking for a program with a variety of templates that I could incorporate photos from my digital camera. I then wanted to burn the finished pages onto a CD to give to family to review or print. I also wanted to print the full page with pictures on my HP printer.

I was immediately disappointed as soon as I tried to insert my first picture. The frames are not transparent, which is a HUGE problem. This means that you cannot size your photo and position it behind the frame. You have to crop and exactly size the photo to fit the white "insert picture here" BEFORE you import the picture to the page. This is a huge problem, as there is no easy way to figure the size of the frame!

The other large problem lies in the "vector graphics" programming of the software. Many frames are positioned at an angle. When you attempt to position a photo in the angled frame, it distorts the photo. The more the frame is angled, the more the photo is distored. However, you can tilt the graphics included in the program.

This program is designed for printing the scrapbook pages, cutting out the white "insert picture here" areas, and manually inserting the pictures on the page. While this is perfectly acceptable for "paper" scrapbookers, I found it to be bothersome. I was forced to print my pictures on photo paper, print the scrapbook page on scrapbook paper, cut, then paste. And the insert photo issue made it impossible to send the pages on CD to relatives.


I disagree with every review so far! I love it!   April 10, 2001
T. Wilson (Cumming, GA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

After reading the previous reviews of this product, I had all but decided not to buy this. But I did, and I am so glad! Other reviewers wrote about how difficult it is to use -- well, my 10-year-old daughter loaded the software and had created 5 beautiful layouts (complete with downloaded digital photos) before I even had a chance to look at it! The layouts are very appealing, and my digital photos print better from this program (with NO editing) than any other program I have. This completely gets me out of tedious "paper" scrapbooking - there is no need with this fabulous program. I can have a page done in a matter of minutes!


A little disappointed - slow product!   January 9, 2001
Janice W. Dahlstrom (Champlin, MN)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

After using the American Greetings Card product, and all its features, I was a bit disappointed with Scrapbook Studio which was supposed to work with so well with digital photos. There is NO photo editing, like croping, etc. like there is with the AG software. Adding text boxes is NOT user friendly and is very very slow. The grapics are nice, and so are the ideas, but it would be nice if you could work more with the digital photos.