Comparison: The beauty of handmade photo books vs perfection of digital photo book?

A Photo Book, also known as Memory Book, or a Scrapbook, and sometimes known as a Keepsake is a collection of photos placed in a single book to cherish later. The primary purpose is to preserve the memories for future generations or to relive the old memories at coffee table.

With ever changing technology, it has become a lot easier to click pictures and at the same time forget about those pictures that are lying there in our phones and computers. It is as simple as possible to click pictures on every occasion and store them in the phone memory.

There are largely 3 forms of Photo Books:

1. Digital Photo Album: A collection of photos transformed into an online Album to be viwed online and has no physical presence.

2. Digital Photo book: A hardcopy book or a physical book of collection of pictures printed in a book form.

3. Scrapbooks: A handmade creation for the pictures stored creatively in a handmade book.

In this blog, we will talk about the Digital PhotoBook and Scrapbooks.  

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Handmade Scrapbook

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Digital Photo Book

Which form of Photo Book is good to have?

A digital Photobook is easy to get. There are many apps and sites available to get your pictures printed in the form of Photo Book and get it delivered at your place. It is as simple as ordering vegetables.

With many Scrapbookers around the world, it is now similarly easy to get a handmade Photo Album ordered at your door step.

However, the question arise is which is better option to have?

For the sake of simplicity and the available jargons across web, lets call the digital book as PHOTOBOOK and the handmade Book as SCRAPBOOK.

Lets discuss in brief the pros and cons of both Handmade Scrapbook VS Digital Photo Book.

1. Time Consuming: A Digital PhotoBook is easy to make as it has largely to go through a printing process only. So it can be ordered and delivered within 3-5 days only from most of the apps available online. However, Scrapbooks on the other hand are time consuming. It takes lot of time, creativity and patience to make a handmade Scrapbook and hence can take more time to be delivered. Though, at the same time, there are Scrapbookers who works with a team or work on a standard design to deliver more orders at lesser time.

2. Variety: Though there are vast variety of designs that can be created digitally, most of the apps that create Digital PhotoBook offers a standard design. The maximum design that can be ordered with digital photobook is a printed paper. However, on the other hand, the variety of designs can go upto the imagination of your thoughts. A creative Scrapbooker would not shy away in exploring and creating a new design every time.

3. Occasions: A Digital Photobook as of now does not vary depending on the occasions. All you can ask for is a message that can be added at the front or the back of the book. However, on the other hand, a handmade Scrapbook can vary depending on the occasions. For instance, a Baby Scrapbook will have a different theme as compared to an Anniversary Scrapbook. A spider man fan can opt for a different theme than a Princess Anna fan.

4. Flexible: Though one can order a specified number of pages and pictures with Digital PhotoBook too, however Scrapbooks comes with much other flexibility such as themes, layouts, dimensions, colors, occasions, purpose etc.

5. Personalized: This is one of the most important advantages with Scrapbooks. Since these are handmade, they are personalized right from the scratch and have further options in form of tags, captions that can be added to every memory/picture. However, with Digital PhotoBook, they are pre-made books that cannot be personalized further.

6. Economical: Digital Photobooks are economical as they incur mainly the printing cost. Though Scrapbooks on the other hand uses the variety of papers, adhesives, embellishments, ribbons, colors, etc and most importantly the time of the creator.

7. Long Lasting: Since both the PhotoBook and Scrapbook are printed on paper, the life of both the books depends on how safe they have been kept. We though believe that people tend to secure the handmade Scrapbooks with more care, as they are expensive as compared to Digital Photo Books.

8. Size and Shapes: A Digital Photobook might offer an option of horizontal or vertical shape and sizes, the current variety do not go much beyond. However, with Scrapbooks, the choices are endless and depend on the Scrapbookist’s imagination. The choices can include and not limited to a shape of a diaper, onesie, baby frock, box album, wallet shape, bag shape, ice cream cone etc.

9. Duplicate Copies: Though it is easier to order duplicate copies for Digital Photo Book, it is not really easy to get a duplicate copy for Handmade Scrapbook. Though a Scrapbooker can create a similar Scrapbook again, however a handmade creation is not at all easy to copy completely, even if it is created by the same person again.

10. Easy to carry: Though, both type of Books can be bulky and compact, depending on what you choose, Digital Photobooks are largely compact and easy to carry. Though, there are Mini Scrapbooks also available that are less bulky and easy to carry.

11. Flaunt: While Digital Scrapbooks are generally plain with simply pictures printed on it, the Handmade Scrapbooks are creatively made with lots of colours and embellishments, that you can flaunt to your family and friends and you will see the appreciation you get.

12. Gifts: As discussed earlier, it is easy to order a Digital PhotoBook and is less expensive too. Hence, anyone who is aware of the Apps can order a Digital PhotoBook. On the other hand, a Handmade Scrapbook can work as a great gift for your loved ones, be it your mother, spouse, baby, friends, boss, colleague or even to yourself.

Final Thoughts:

Though there are both pros and cons for both types of PhotoBooks, it largely depends on one’s opinion on what he wants to choose. Though, our final thought is that the Digital world has taken our personal space in MBs and GBs, leaving us with empty albums and lost memories. So it is "must to have" a physical album and "good to have" a Scrapbook Album.

Though, we have spoken about ordering these books online, one can also create both the Digital PhotoBook and Scrapbook on his own with right supplies. Read more about the basic supplies required for Scrapbook in my other blog at https://yourstory.com/read/163ce17d96-scrapbook-tools-and-ma