I also used to try to weed out all the horrible pictures I’ll never look at again (whether it’s an accidental shot of my foot or an unflattering picture of someone mid-bite) but it ends up being more work to delete them. I used to try to organize photos with a folder for each outing (Trip to the Museum!) but having too many folders ends up being annoying. The first trick to getting started with digital photo books is, of course, to organize your photos. As I noted over on CorporetteMoms, I tend to do this kind of thing while watching television - I have a 2018 folder (with one folder for each month) and a folder called Favs (with one folder for each month).
#Custom photo books from mypublisher how to
How to Get Started with Digital Photo Books 2017 is about 90% done - I haven’t had it printed yet because I’m waiting for photos from family members (one family member has a fancy DSLR camera and always takes beautiful shots, but takes a while to “process” them and give them to me), but I figured I could add what I wanted/needed to throughout the book. (To edit the text I end up copying and pasting all of the longer paragraphs into Microsoft Word or even just a simple text document, printing them out, and editing them all at once - it’s not publishing house quality, of course, but I catch a ton of annoying things like tenses, point of view, etc, so at least I don’t say “Mommy and J decided to go to the water park!” on one page and then “I love to watch J go to down the slides!” on the next page.) I say I “strive” for one yearbook a year because we have up to 2014 done, we’re missing 20, and then at the beginning of this year I cranked out most of 2017 after I had reviewed all of our 2017 photos for calendar photo projects - I’m going to do that going forward.
I’m a bit crazy in that I add a lot of text to the photobooks - stories about the kids, notes on things like who weaned when, etc - which makes it a bit difficult to edit at the very end - but I enjoy doing them. These days I mostly strive to make one “family yearbook” for our family for each year - I include photos, quotes, artwork, scanned docs like report cards, and sometimes even screencaps of text messages and things if there are funny exchanges. So I mostly use those for calendars and stick with Shutterfly instead for the digital photo books. On the flipside, Snapfish and Vistaprint are very affordable - but the products I’ve bought from there don’t hold up super well (like some of the colors seem to fade over the years, and so forth). For Shutterfly, the big con is that it’s expensive - but for the pros I find it easy and fun, and some of the things I want to do (like being able to customize layouts, having different elements “snap” into place or easily align, adding/editing lots of text, etc.). I always get a 12×12 book these days (and never flat lay, although they offer that option). I almost always go through Shutterfly now, but I’ve used Mixbook, MPix, Blurb, MyPublisher (now closed), Snapfish, and Vistaprint (though just for digital photo calendars). The third reason: if you’re building a library of digital photo books it’s nice to have them all the same size. (This is why we have a different photobook for months 0-3, then 3-6, then 6-9, then 9-12 from my first son’s first year.) A second reason for not doing it: there’s a learning curve, and every company has its pros and cons. Here’s why: a) they’re never THAT great of a deal, and they almost all expire at a certain point, which always feels like it’s just a bit too soon, and then your “hobby” is no fun because you’re rushing through things and feel obligated to get it done. I’ve tried a LOT of companies because for a while I kept buying Groupons. There’s just so many things you can do with digital photos these days! I thought I’d give some quick and dirty tips on how to get started with digital photo books, based on the the hours (and hours, and hours) I’ve spent making digital photo albums and other photo products… How to Choose a Company for Your Digital Photo Book I made some great ones when I was younger with physical photos and mementos (my teenaged summer at Harvard Summer School is TOTALLY well documented, as is my first year at Northwestern - I guess that’s as close as I’ve gotten to real scrapbooking), but I really got into digital photo albums when I was preparing for my wedding. On one of our older Hobby Wednesday posts, a reader noted that making digital photo albums were her jam - and I thought OH YES, me too.
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