Tidbit Tuesday - An Acronym Guide

Hi, it's Kate here with your weekly tidbit. Actually, today's is more of a mouthful. Digital scrapbooking has a vocabulary all it's own. I was in the Army for 22 years and am well-versed in Army-speak, but I had to learn a whole new language when I started digital scrapbooking. I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of common digital scrapbooking terms and acronyms in one place. You may want to bookmark this post!

AAM – All About Me. Layouts or albums made about a person.

ACTION – A saved set of steps performed in Photoshop that are run together.

ATC – Artist Trading Card. A small card, typically 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches that are traded with other artists and collected.

BLINKIE – A small animated graphic that usually advertises a site or designer.

BOM – Book of Me – An album that a scrapbooker makes about one person, usually themselves.

CLUSTER – A grouping of embellishments.

CREDITS – A list of the materials used to create a layout or hybrid project.

CT – Creative Team. A team of digital scrapbookers and/or hybrid artists that create for a designer or store to highlight their products.

DESIGNER – A person who makes digital scrapbooking kits and other products for digital scrapbooking.

DIGI/DIGISCRAPPING – Digital Scrapbooking.

DPI – Dots per Inch. Measures printing resolution. The standard for digital scrapbooking is 300 DPI.

EHD – External Hard Drive. A hard drive that is outside of your computer and usually plugs in with a USB or firewire cable. These are great for digital scrapbooking since the files for kits and layouts can get quite large. They are also wonderful for backing up files.

ELEMENT/ELLIE/EMBELLISHMENT – A digital scrapbooking item that is not a paper and is used to dress up a layout.

FREEBIE – Something that is given away for free.

HYBRID – A layout or project made with digital products that are printed out and attached.

JPG/JPEG – A file format for saving graphics. This is the format that most galleries require for images that are uploaded.

LO – Layout.

LOTD/LOTW – Layout of the day/week. Sites will sometimes pick one layout a day or week to be highlighted.NSBR – Non-scrapbooking related. A topic that is not related to scrapbooking.

P365 – Also known as Project 365. The challenge of taking a picture every day of the year. Scrappers will sometimes make these into an album with the pictures for each week on a page or a double-page spread.

PIXEL – The smallest piece of a digital image.

PNG – Portable Network Graphics – A file format for saving images. Images in PNG format can be saved with a transparent background.

PS – Adobe Photoshop. A software program that digital scrapbookers use to make layouts.

PSD – The file format that Photoshop and Photoshop Elements use to save layered files.

PSE – Adobe Photoshop Elements. Another software program that digital scrapbookers use to make layouts.

PSP – Paint Shop Pro. A software program by Corel that digital scrapbookers use to make layouts.

QP – Quickpage.

QUICKPAGE – A layout that is complete except for the pictures and journaling and is saved in a flattened format.

RAK – Random Act of Kindness. Generally refers to someone giving something away for free.

S4H/S4O – Scrap for Hire / Scrap for Others. Scrapping for someone other than yourself. The difference between the two is that Scrap for Hire is paid while Scrap for Others is a gift.

SCRAPLIFT – Using another scrapper’s layout as inspiration. It is important to credit the original layout in the credits of the new page.

SWAG – Something We All Get

TIFF – Tagged Image File Format. A file format used for saving graphics files in layers.

TOU – Terms of Use. Each digital kit and most freebies come with the designer’s Terms of Use which explain how the product may be used.

TUT – Tutorial. A set of step-by-step instructions on how to achieve a desired effect. Tutorials can be in written or video format.

UNZIP – Extracting the parts of a ZIP (compressed) file, which is how most digital scrapbooking supplies are packaged.

I'm sure this list isn't comprehensive. If I've missed any that you know or want to know, feel free to leave a comment and add to the list :)

Thanks & happy scrapping!