Photo book creation tips?

January 27, 2007 6:46 AM

photo book creation: I'm a newbie looking for tips from the experienced. I've seen lots of recommendations for Shutterfly. I'm thinking of trying their 12 x 12 format primarily because I want to recreate 8.5 x 11 Christmas letters from years past, interspersed with the photos.

My plan is to create sort of a family-history-in-pictures as an anniversary present. How many pages are too many for a photo book? 50? 75? 100? (i.e. At what point does it want to become a 2 volume set?)

Most of my pictures are old 4 x 6 prints that I've scanned in and touched up. Will these place nicely on the 12 x 12 page? I guess the question is, can photos be freely scaled as they are placed on the page with good results?

Any other suggestions?

Many thanks.

posted by takenRoad to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

I made a photo book using Shutterfly last year, and I had a lot of fun messing around with their online program. I liked the complete freedom of placing multiple photos in different configurations on the pages.

A 50 page photo book will cost you quite a lot, though. Their standard 20 page book goes for $40 as it is, and I was a little hard pressed to fill even that up (though, admittedly, I was working from a small pool of about 100 photos taken over the course of a weekend). I recommend you try making one of their basic 20 page books and see how you like the quality before you dive into your project with both feet. (I made my book, ordered one, and then based on the results, tweaked the book and ordered a bunch more.)

Providing that you scanned the photos in at a high enough resolution (300dpi minimum), you shouldn't have a problem reproducing them in a book.

About my only complaint with the resulting Shutterfly book was that I thought they printed the photos a little darker than I would have liked, but the problem could just be that my monitor isn't perfectly calibrated.
posted by Dave Faris at 7:19 AM on January 27, 2007

(I just went back and checked, and they're having a temporary special on their books for a couple more days, so a leatherbound book costs $10 less than it normally does, and each additional page over 20 will cost .80 as opposed to $1 a page)
posted by Dave Faris at 7:44 AM on January 27, 2007

I've had good success using qoop for making books and a calendar in the past. If I recall right, they have an automated program that will resize your photos individually for quality standards. Also, they tend to run quite a bit cheaper than Shutterfly.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2007

After my wedding I made a standard 20 page photo book using Shutterfly and I loved the results. However, I decided that I wanted a larger-format, fancier-looking wedding album and went to MyPublisher and used their large-format book. It was just as easy and fun as Shutterfly. I just got my book yesterday...it's 27 pages, which is longer than the 20 page standard, but it's beautiful.

I also tried making a book with Picaboo, and while it was easy the layouts didn't work for my purposes. I wanted a more formal look, and their layouts were more dynamic and casual. I might try it in the future, though.

I think that either Shutterfly or MyPublisher would be great for your needs.
posted by christinetheslp at 7:57 AM on January 27, 2007

You may want to scan other threads on this, here's one and here's another.

That said, you have some pretty specific needs. I used My Publisher, which people have dogged on here, but worked well enough for me. The books were beautiful, but I found the software less than intuitive, even on book #3.

I scanned Picaboo, and they specifically mention family letters and have a predesigned family album format that is really intriguing for your needs.

As far as pages, you can put up to 4 photos per page on My Publisher--obviously that makes them smaller. My photo books have been around 20-30 pages. Obviously it can get quite costly if you go as high as you mention, although if you're just ordering one copy and letting your family order (and pay for!) their own, that is less of an issue. I personally would not go above 40 or so pages per book. The small books are nice to handle and store. And be sure to use double-sided pages. I forgot to indicate this on one book and it just felt like less of a book to me than the double-sided one did. Good luck!
posted by GaelFC at 9:48 AM on January 27, 2007

We made our wedding albums on Snapfish and it was very costly but the more you order the more they discount so if you are planning on making a few for family or friends this could work for you.
posted by mcbietila at 9:58 AM on January 27, 2007

I've made photo books with Shutterfly before and I wasn't very impressed with the print quality, even though I was using hi-res images taken with my dSLR.

PC World ranked Snapfish tops in image quality in their latest comparo of online photofinishers.
posted by roomwithaview at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2007

Response by poster: Hi All,

Thanks for replies and links so far. Good stuff. I think I'll take your advice, Dave Faris, and plan for two iterations. Anyone have experience with a photo book of more than 40 pages?

Thanks again.
posted by takenRoad at 3:33 PM on January 27, 2007