Purists who take their scrapbooking very seriously argue that journaling must be done in your own handwriting, since it represents you and who you are. Others favor digital journaling. They point out that handwriting is sometimes less than exemplary and that the quality of the scrapbook is improved when the journaling is accomplished courtesy of a computer and printer. It’s your call. There’s no right answer here.

However, it doesn’t have to be “either/or”. There is a third choice. Did you know that you can duplicate your own handwriting in a digital picture? Yes, your own handwriting! Not just a fancy script font that looks a bit like your handwriting, but your own handwriting.

You will need an item called a Wacom art tablet. Check them out at http://www.wacom.com. The tablets come in various sizes. A small 4” x 5” tablet with pen costs about $85 at Amazon and works quite nicely for our purposes. Once you become familiar with this item, you will use it regularly when editing your digital photography.

Wacom tablets are computer peripherals. They resemble small writing pads that you attach to a computer port, or connect wirelessly if you have that capability. You will notice that a special pen comes with the tablet.

This pen is a mouse in disguise. You hold it like a pen and then by placing the pen’s point on the art tablet, you can use it for all the regular mousing functions.

However – and this is the important point – the tip gives a much finer connection than a mouse provides. Also, you can adjust the pen for several levels of pressure.

These two features allow you to create handwriting.

It works like this: you open your digital photo editing software. Open a new file, creating whatever color background you want. Next, locate the toolbar and select the pencil tool or a tool that allows you to draw freeform lines. Change the color to whatever color you want the writing to be. Then, holding your mouse/pen the same way you hold a pencil, WRITE (or print) your journaling on the Wacom tablet.

You now have a digital image file containing your own handwritten journaling. You can print it out as is, or copy and paste it into any other image. Since this is a digital image, you can resize the image to get any size handwriting you want.

Later, when you become skilled at using the Wacom tablet and pen, you can write your journaling directly on your digital photography.

How cool is that?

The sky’s the limit when you combine digital photography, scrapbooking and digital journaling.