Make a Smilebox photobook

I love the idea of scrapbooking and now with digital scrapping I actually love doing making scrapbooks. Smilebox is a free (with limited options) program that allows you to make scrapbooks, slideshows, and greeting cards right on your own computer. You can then chose to share your creations with friends and family, or if you purchase a Premium membership ($39/99/year) you can print your artwork.

I tried Smilebox because I was looking for a way to make a nice slideshow of my daughter’s first two years.. I took monthly pictures of her and wanted friends and family to see how much she has grown. The program is now compatible with Macs and iPhoto, so that was a huge plus.

Here are some of the most important things I noticed:

• There are many designs to choose from. You can find something to satisfy any occasion and you don’t even need to use PhotoShop to do so. However, you have to become a Premium member to take advantage of the designs.
• There is a pretty extensive music library with kid friendly songs. Again, you must become a premium member to gain full access.
• The layouts are predesigned and makes it very easy for you to drop pictures into the templates. Unfortunately each design has photo limits and those are different for each design.
• The iPhoto integration sis minimal at best. While you can drag and drop photos into the photo sidebar, you cannot see any dates or information about individual pictures. You have to make an album in iPhoto and arrange the pictures by date if that is important. Unfortunately, you have to keep programs running and they use a lot of resources so this slows down the response time on a computer.
• You can add titles and text, but only on the pages that have text boxes. You cannot add text boxes if you want or change font type, color, or size.
• You cannot use iTunes songs in your shows due to license restrictions.
• Reorder the pictures in certain layouts is VERY  difficult and at times frustrating.
• You can export your shows to share them on your blog, Myspace page, or through email.

All in all, I give this program/service 3 thumbs up. It’s got some issues, but the end products are beautiful.