Art Explosion Scrapbook Factory Deluxe

Rating:
Summary: Good at its main task, but a little frustrating sometimes.
Review: Of the scrapbook applications I've played with, this one is a favorite. It has straight-forward features and it produces handsome scrapbook pages and other simple projects with a generous variety of clipart, borders, and fonts. Frustrations include 1) the inability to crop the clip-art (only photographs can be cropped) and 2) the inability to do anything interesting with color-changing and clipart. i.e. If you change the color of a piece of clipart, it doesn't "colorize" (turn into shades of the color you picked). Instead, it does an opaque fill of the clipart, leaving just a blank silhouette. At this point, the 'Undo' features are very handy! In any event, provided you have another application to do anything subtle with your clip-art or your photographs, this application is fantastic for fun, simple pasteboard projects where you create layouts and print or save. Even the HTML export seems reliable. I wouldn't call this application excellent, but it's quite good!

Rating:
Summary: awful graphics & clipart
Review: Program is easy enough to use, but I am very disappointed with the graphics & clipart. Since it advertizes over 10,000 graphics I figured there would be something I liked - but it is all cheap cartoonish graphics. Nothing for the sophisticated look I was hoping for. It will not let me import graphics from other programs- so I am stuck with these cheap cartoon things.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the power user, but cute and easy to use!
Review: So many things you can't do -- but the things you can do? -- you can do them quickly and easily. The program is easy and fun. Nice, simple, results. Not for the power user, but for a point-n-click little app, it does a fine job.

Rating:
Summary: well worth purchasing
Review: There weren't many reviews out there when I first started looking, so I was a little afraid to try it,but I'm completely satisfied. It's especially nice for creating colorful fun scrapbooks for children; that's when the cartoonish clipart comes in handy. I think most people are used to clipart not exactly looking like art-gallery artwork,so I'm not disappointed at all with the clipart. The tutorial is wonderful; I highly recommend using it to get started. The manual doesn't go into as much detail as the tutorial. After creating scrapbooks from scratch and doing lots of cutting and pasting, I really appreciate being able to do it electronically. You have to do some eye-balling of the template frames to make sure you have the right picture to fit adequately into the template; after a while, it becomes very easy to do. I loved being able to have the software "cut" my photo into a circle; just make sure you don't try to put a wide-rectangle photo into a circle. Just as when you try to do it with a pattern when you are doing your own cutting, it won't work. I have been showing many people my completed scrapbook pages,and they are all amazed at how well they look.

Rating:
Summary: well worth purchasing
Review: There weren't many reviews out there when I first started looking, so I was a little afraid to try it,but I'm completely satisfied. It's especially nice for creating colorful fun scrapbooks for children; that's when the cartoonish clipart comes in handy. I think most people are used to clipart not exactly looking like art-gallery artwork,so I'm not disappointed at all with the clipart. The tutorial is wonderful; I highly recommend using it to get started. The manual doesn't go into as much detail as the tutorial. After creating scrapbooks from scratch and doing lots of cutting and pasting, I really appreciate being able to do it electronically. You have to do some eye-balling of the template frames to make sure you have the right picture to fit adequately into the template; after a while, it becomes very easy to do. I loved being able to have the software "cut" my photo into a circle; just make sure you don't try to put a wide-rectangle photo into a circle. Just as when you try to do it with a pattern when you are doing your own cutting, it won't work. I have been showing many people my completed scrapbook pages,and they are all amazed at how well they look.

Rating:
Summary: Art Explosion Scrapbook Factory Deluxe
Review: This is by far the best scrapbooking software on the market. It is extremely easy to use. It's not even necessary to read the user manual! Cropping, enlarging, moving, sizing and a trillion other applications are all readily acessible and simple to use.
This software has a wide variety of graphics and templates to use for almost any ocassion. Ulead photoexpress scrapbook edition does not compare in terms of ease of use and variety. I wholeheartly recommend this software. I have really enjoyed using it to make many beautiful and creative projects. This software is a must for scrapbook enthusiastics!

Rating:
Summary: Very good product
Review: This is pretty easy to use and I'm having fun with it. I can't compare it with any other scrapbook programs since this is the only one I've used. But from what I see, this is really all I need.

Rating:
Summary: Very good product
Review: This is pretty easy to use and I'm having fun with it. I can't compare it with any other scrapbook programs since this is the only one I've used. But from what I see, this is really all I need.

Rating:
Summary: Missing Graphic - no help from Product Support
Review: This program is easy to use, and helped me create a custom scrapbook page with little effort. One caveat: Once you select a size template, be certain to check the result with "print preview" before you expend any effort. I had trouble getting the first page I created to print in 12 x 12 size on a 12 x 12 sheet of paper. However, I called tech support. The first rep didn't help much, but then I got a follow-up call from Derek, who had gone to the trouble of downloading my Canon S9000 printer's driver! Together, we got the print function going and produced a perfect page. It's really refreshing to find a software outfit that really cares about the results its customers are getting! It is too bad that the templates supplied with this program are so cutesy and schmaltzy, and that more background "paper" isn't supplied. But if you start with a blank template, hey, it's a clean slate and you can let your imagination run wild. It'll let you drop in your pictures and graphics wherever, and help with the lettering for titles and journaling.

Rating:
Summary: Useful Tool for Creating Scrapbook Pages
Review: This program is easy to use, and helped me create a custom scrapbook page with little effort. One caveat: Once you select a size template, be certain to check the result with "print preview" before you expend any effort. I had trouble getting the first page I created to print in 12 x 12 size on a 12 x 12 sheet of paper. However, I called tech support. The first rep didn't help much, but then I got a follow-up call from Derek, who had gone to the trouble of downloading my Canon S9000 printer's driver! Together, we got the print function going and produced a perfect page. It's really refreshing to find a software outfit that really cares about the results its customers are getting! It is too bad that the templates supplied with this program are so cutesy and schmaltzy, and that more background "paper" isn't supplied. But if you start with a blank template, hey, it's a clean slate and you can let your imagination run wild. It'll let you drop in your pictures and graphics wherever, and help with the lettering for titles and journaling.