Project Life: It will change your life, they said.
- Krista Schweiss
- Mar 22, 2017
- 7 min read
I scrapbooked, and then I digitally scrapbooked and THEN CAME PROJECT LIFE, the game changer. I mean, it was meant for me. Every digital designer jumped on board and I was swimming in the most adorable pocket kits. I had a million templates. Here is the problem, as easy as pocket scrapping CAN be, sadly, it wasn't going to be for me. I laugh in the face of simplicity ("Baahaa") as it is habit for me to make things more difficult and complicated than they NEED to be. So needless to say, pocket scrapping did not make things any easier on me. Even the beautifully designed Project Life app didn't seem to fit for me.... so until recently i have struggled with the best fit for me and my over-committed lifestyle.
I think I have found it. It's a mixture of things really. As is with so many things in life, there was no one way. So I have a picture of my most used photo apps for my phone below. And then, I supplement this with a few desktop programs/apps for designing more interesting pages if I have the time
I will give more detail about each app later but here is how I break it down:
DESKTOP APPS | MOBILE APPS
Getting Photos TO my phone: (for on the go memory making)
1) Facebook's Moments
2) Eye-fi and RawDroid Pro (to get photos from my Canon DSLR)
3) Creative Cloud (to share between my computer and my phone)
4) Google Photos for obvious reasons :-)
Photo Editing on my Phone:
1) Aviary
2) PicMonkey
Layouts on my Phone
1) Photo Grid ... this has been a REAL game changer for me. Lots of versatility and options.
2) Becky Higgins Project Life App
Finishing Touches on my Phone
1) Rhonna Designs (she offers an entire suite for Apple devices that I plan on checking out)
2) Over
Layouts and Finishing Touches on my Desktop:
1) Rhonna for PC - I love this option, keeps it simple and fast.
2) Photoshop
3) PicMonkey
4) Canva
5) Gimp
Alright, now for your breakdown of each App/Program
Facebook Moments
I am not going to spend a lot of time on this. It's a great application, Kudos to Facebook. You can share pics and collaborate and then download the whole album. I love this for family vacations, kids birthday parties where multiple mom's are snapping away. Most people are probably already using this. If you aren't, well, I give it my personal recommendation.
Eye-fi (around $99.00) and RawDroid Pro ($4.99)
I have the Eye-Fi Pro x2 and i have the settings to transfer images that are "locked" on my camera to my phone (this prevents all your bad takes from transferring and wasting battery and space on your phone).
RawDroid is a fairly Primative app that simple opens the RAW image, which you can then send to another app for editing.
Adobe Creative Cloud ($49.99/month)
I pay for the entire design suite ... Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Lightroom, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Pro and many other programs I haven't even breached yet. Adobe Offers $19.99/month options if you just want Photoshop or just Lightroom, etc. Creative Cloud space comes with this monthly fee. They just recently came out with Adobe Photography which includes both Photoshop and Lightroom for $9.99/month!!!! That's pretty amazing!!!! It doesn't come with Cloud Space but something called CreativeSync.
Google Photos (free) or iPhoto/iCloud (???)
Just your phones native cloud storage. Primitive editing capabilities. The end.
**UPDATE: You can create collaborated albums but they haven't made it very easy to download the images to your phone.
Aviary
This might be the premium for photo editing on Android. Being that it was recently purchased by Adobe I am excited to see how (and if) it is integrated into their suite of photo editing tools. Tons of filters, borders, overlays and stickers its fun for simple photo editing for facebook or for your scrapbooking images. There are no "layout" options or collage options. This is strictly for editing your images and it's great at it.
PicMonkey Mobile
Currently this is a REALLY paired down version of PicMonkey Web. It has basic photo editing capabilities but no collage functions or any of that fun stuff. I would put money on the possibility that there is a future for this little guy. The big reason I use it currently is to simply pull from the PicMonkey "Hub" in the event that I have done editing or layouts in PicMonkey Web.
Photo Grid
I am really excited about this app. It gives the most versatility for layouts of all mobile collage apps out there that I have tried. You can choose your ratio (for example, I love scrapping 8.5 x 11). I like to do a 2:3 ratio for my planner (A5). It allows for a collage layout or freestyle. There is a lot to be desired with their stickers (say: embellishments) and backgrounds but that's why we have these other apps :-) This app changed my scrapping workflow. Photo Grid is what made everything so much easier for me. I simply choose 1-15 (yeah, I said 15) pictures and send it to grid (for those "pocket" scrappers) Then I choose my ratio (3:4, 2:3, 4:6, blah blah) and then I choose my layout. It's editable by clicking a row or column and shrinking or growing. I can change the corners from round to square, change the spacing and the border. There is a lot more that can be changed but I save that for other editing tools. With one exception: they have some great filters that can be applied to an entire layout. It's kind of like magic..
Another nice feature of Photo Grid, you can export as PNG to keep your white spaces transparent in the event that you have a particular background you would like to add in Photoshop or Gimp.
The point is -- I now get my layouts done THE NIGHT OF and then embellish when I have free time, typically on my desktop (see desktop apps below)
CON: I wish it would save an editable version of the layout in the event that i really botched something up.
Becky Higgins Project Life®
This is a Beautiful app for traditional (digital) pocket scrappers! Its ever improving and well, you can't beat those Project Life kits. Like I said, I am a 8.5 x 11 scrapper (versus the traditional 12x12) so i am limited with the Project Life® templates. I have a LOT of Becky Higgins PL digital kits that I simply use in my other apps when I need. If you are a 12x12 scrapper, this is a MUST. For me, its simply something I am not willing to give up. To me, this is the original and well I was a Brownie when I was little and the whole "make new friends but keep the old," it stuck with me. I do still use it quite frequently for a quick simple layout and it's the BEST for journaling. In fact, it's the only mobile app I can recommend for text beyond Memes and short phrases. I have also noticed that some overlays were available which I find quite intriguing.
**PS did you know journaling is not a word!?!?! I beg to differ. In scrapbooker's world, it is totally a word.
Rhonna Designs
Who is this Rhonna who makes amazing things?!?!?!!? I still don't know. I mean I know she is a mother, a teacher and an artist and I guess that's all I need to know but dang, I wish we were friends. She has digital kits you can buy and she has this freakin' amazing app. I send every layout to Rhonna before it's done. (AND NOW THERE IS A DESKTOP APP!) There are in-app purchases but they are pretty much all $0.99 so why not! It makes me smile mostly. All kinds of embellishments which is great b/c as much as I wish I was good at "journaling" I am not, so I take the "a picture is worth a thousand words" approach to scrapping and my girl Rhonna understands that.
DESKTOP APPS
PicMonkey Desktop (free or Royal)
Ohhhh.. this is so fun and cool I signed up for the Royal membership ($39.99/year). You really have to just play with this. There are lots of the necessary tools for a typical workflow with the added bonus of fun stickers and effects and the ability to add your own content. This feature is enhanced with the new Hub (cloud storage) feature. The BRAND NEW APP allows for you to easily bring your creations to your phone and edit. Being that the mobile app isn't full featured yet, it's nice that you can import it into other apps as well. Overall, PicMonkey is headed in the right direction. (They also send fun emails with cool ideas and features every now and then)
OTHER COOL APPS:
INSTAGRAM:
I love it but I really only use it for social media, which is a whole different subject
Diaro
Great little app for documenting. You can access it on a desktop as well. I have tried multiple journal apps and this and Evernote (for android) are the best
EVERNOTE
I am waiting to start integrating this with my work where I think it will prove very powerful. It's fantastic for journalling on the fly and, again, accessing on a desktop. I wish it had more features for making lists and such.
GOOGLE KEEP
It's like a little Pinterest with added features of creating quick notes to yourself, to do lists and such. If there is a moment I want to make sure I include in my scrapbooking. I open Keep and hit record or type it in. It acts a little like post it notes so I tend to note use it for journalling, just funny things my kids say or a quick reminder about a feeling or fleeting moment.
OVERALL:
My biggest negative for most of these apps is they are not cross-platform friendly. I use an ipad and Android phone and a PC. PicMonkey, Google Photos, Facebook Moments and Creative Cloud don't care what you are on but any non-cloud based app won't share (or maybe a better word is SYNC) across these devices. With all that is available, it's not a hard workaround but you will likely end up spending some kind of money. I find myself purchasing kits multiple times to have them available on different devices.
