I love Creative Memories. I use the Memory Manager program to store my photos, edit them, and change them in a hundred different ways. For example, my MIL had a photo of her parents that was taken in the 60s. Her dad passed away just after that photo was taken. But the photo was horrible: someone had written where/when it was taken in ballpoint pen right over the front of the photo. The whole left side of the photo was kind of turquoise-smeared. And her dad was standing in such a way that it looked like an old gutter or drain pipe was coming right out of his head. With Memory Manager, I got rid of the turquoise color, got rid of the ballpoint pen printing, and took the drainpipe away, using their tools (and I have never done this before; I am not a photographer or experienced with any kind of photo software. I just watched their tutorials.) Memory Manager allows you to store, date, label, rate and inventory all your photos.
Then I use Storybook Creator to make the scrapbooks or project photos. After I'm done editing, I send the photo to Storybook Creator. There are some pre-designed pages but I never use them. I start with a blank page. But there are beautiful papers and design elements to use. Or you can use images from your own camera, or from the internet. You can just buy the basic program, or you can purchase additional papers and design elements. They also have a lot of free designs, pages and elements.
Storybook Creator uses the fonts that are on your computer. I go to dafont.com and find all kinds of free ones.
I think that the quality of Creative Memories products is worth the small initial investment. Their customer service is great. I recently had to move my software from my old computer to my new one and they walked me through every step.
Also, if you're doing digital scrapbooks, once you submit your finished project to Creative Memories, it's stored there and you can reprint it later if someone wants a copy. It's not just for scrapbooks - I've done graduation announcements, gifts and all kinds of other projects using the software.