What is a Digi or Digital Image?

Hello everyone.  I was trying to decide what to do for today's blog post over on the Stamping Shack Blog and it hit me, Digi's.  A lot people, who do not craft, ask me how I come up with the images on my cards and other crafts when they receive them or see them.  They think I drew them and when I tell them it's a digital image or digi they are stumped.  So today I will do my best to explain what a digi stamp or digital stamp is.

What are Digital Stamps?

 Digital stamps are becoming increasingly popular. They present us the stamper or card maker with a whole new way of crafting. Digital stamps, or digi stamps, are black and white digital images that are purchased form an online stamp store and downloaded onto a computer where they can be manipulated before printing out.  When they are printed out digital stamps are pretty much just like traditional rubber, clear or cling stamped images. One of their attributes, however, are that the images can be re-sized, flipped (makes a mirror image) or manipulated in other ways prior to printing it out and colored in the same way that a rubber stamped image is colored. This gives us as crafter's new design opportunities. The difference between digital stamps and traditional rubber stamps is that there is no physical stamp for you handle. A digital stamp is just an image.

 

How do I use Digital Stamps or Digi Stamps?

Once you have printed out the digi stamp image, it is then used in much the same way as a traditional rubber stamp. This means that the image can be colored and embellished. The finished image can be cut out and made into handmade cards, gift tags, scrapbook pages, altered art and a whole wide variety of other paper craft projects and more. One issue about digital stamps or digi stamps, is that it will generally need to be cut from the paper or card stock that it has been printed on before it can be used. Experienced digital artists, however, are able to produce wonderful works of art completely on the computer, but not me, I prefer to cut out and piece things together…..

 

Coloring Digital Stamped Images

Once your digital stamps or digi stamps have been printed out, they then can be colored in the same way as traditional rubber stamped images. One limitation is that the images will be printed using normal printer ink and not rubber stamping ink. So there may be issues with the ink running if a wet coloring method is used. It is possible to heat set printer ink using a heat tool to reduce the likelihood of this happening. Pens, colored pencils, different types of markers and paints are all suitable for coloring printed digi stamps.

 

Special Effects

Because digital stamps are printed from a computer and printer and not stamped with rubber stamping inks, some effects that are reached by using these inks can be difficult to achieve. Techniques such as heat embossing or other techniques that require materials to be applied to the ink are difficult to do. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, however, as the outline of the image can be traced using a slow drying embossing pen and the image finished as normal, with embossing powder and heated as usual.

 

Limitations of Digital Stamps

In addition to the limitations already identified, the other main limitation of digital stamps is that they are only suitable for projects where printed images can be used. This means that using digital stamp images on surfaces that cannot be run through a printer is difficult. So it will be difficult to use digital stamps on fabric, very thick or very thin paper and some types of card stock, large pieces of paper, pre-formed boxes and many other items. But again, this doesn’t mean that it is impossible and work arounds can usually be found. This is likely to involve some compromises on the part of us, the crafter. 

So now that you know what a Digi is, you should take a break and go visit our store, The Stamping Shack, and see all of the cute and quirky digi images that are available for you to purchase at extremely reasonable prices. 

Here is a card I made using one our newest digi images that is not out in the store yet.  It’s from the Orange Bird Studio Category and will coming soon to the Stamping Shack Store.  So your getting a little sneak peak, LOL.

 Now that you know all about digi's, kinda anyway I hope, LOL. Don't be afraid to try them out.  There are tons out there so have fun with them.

This Card is also entered in the following Challenge:

           Tuesday Color Challenge - Outlawz Group

 Enjoy your Sunday and stop back soon to see what other surprises I have in store for everyone to see.

Until next time,

 Happy Crafting