Back in the good ol’ days, families took lots of photos and then put those pictures into albums, shoeboxes or photo books. Nowadays photos end up on Facebook, Instagram or the hard drive of a computer. Why should we let the old tradition fade away when there is a true 21st century solution for safekeeping and cherishing family pictures in a fun way? Time to rediscover the joys and wonders of creating a photo book!
Modern photo book builders are all cloud-based and are easy to use, thus you don’t have to be an expert or ask the help of a photography expert to create your own photo books. Online photo book services have straightforward photo book editors accessible through mobile and desktop browsers and mobile apps that let you fill up a photo book with your photos. You get to choose your own theme, you can choose various book sizes, covers and paper styles, and even allow other family members to collaborate on your book with you.
A family photo book is a common project, therefore picture exchange and collaboration is a must. Most photo book builders allow users to accept pictures uploaded by others to the online photo storage of your photo book account. But sometimes the editor goes even further and allows the same editorial control over the book not just for you, but for your collaborators too (like relatives living far away). Probably none of you are pro photographers, so collaboration helps you eliminate the less spectacular pictures. Regardless of whether you plan to make several copies of your book for others or not, try to avoid pictures that look super artificial or in which you and your family act completely out of character; family photos must capture the moment as it is, artificialness just ruins the overall impact.
As for smaller details like templates, backgrounds, themes etc: do whatever you want and enjoy yourself. The only restriction is that you shouldn’t overcrowd photo book pages (4–6 photos per page are enough), use square or landscape format, and stay within reasonable limits regarding size, cover and the total number of pages: you are creating a simple photo book, not writing a novelization of family events…
Although you, your husband/wife and your child(ren) are indeed a family, everybody who is related to you in any way can be deemed part of the family. And which family member doesn’t have a story to tell?
The problem is that photos taken by elder or long-gone family members are usually not in the proper condition to be put into a photo book – especially if that photo book only exists in the cloud at the moment. Thankfully there are lots of photo developing agencies that specialize in digitizing old photos in a professional manner. The only downside is that the process might cost you a fortune, so you can turn to solution No. 2: scanning the pictures by yourself. Modern 3-in-1 printers can perfectly digitize pictures which you can enhance with the help of clever software like Photoshop, Paint.NET, Adobe Creative Cloud or, in fact, Instagram.
Once the picture is taken care of, you can ask older family members to tell stories related to those particular photos. It can be anything from a memory to something that comes to mind looking at the picture; the point is that a story makes your book more personal than a simple, noncommittal caption.
Founded in 2006, Mixbook has established its position as one of the best photo book editing services on the market. One of the reasons for the company’s impressive reputation is its nearly flawless editor that helps you quickly craft the photo book of your dreams.
This editor includes over 700 designs, layout options, and other customizations to make your photo book unique. Mixbook also offers a reasonable range of size-to-cover pairings, with eight sizes and four cover options.
For affordable pricing and shipping, you receive a quality product within one to three weeks. Mixbook is present in the U.S. and the UK, and ships internationally. It’s even possible to reduce the price by waiting for one of the occasional discounts Mixbook runs on its website or refer Mixbook to a friend and get 40% off for each successful referral.
It’s an old cliché that the competitors of each market (including photo book editors) can be divided into three categories: the big fishes, the mediocre solutions with shameless marketing and the hidden gems. And despite its empty meaning name, Collage.com is such a hidden gem. Founded in 2008, this Michigan-based company provides over 50 different products, including photo books that can be created in one of the simplest, yet most advanced editors we have tested. In Collage.com your photos are auto-arranged in the best layout possible, you have over 200 themes and you can select 6 sizes and pair them with 3 different covers. You can edit your photo book anytime from anywhere by accessing the editor either from a regular or a mobile browser. Books, which can be ordered with plenty of everlasting discounts, are produced and shipped within a relatively short period of time, and if you are not satisfied with the final result you can ask for reprints or refunds from the apt customer support for two whole years.
U.S.-based MyPublisher was founded in 1994, and since then it not only joined forces with one of the leading picture printing services, Shutterfly, but it also manages to sell over 120 million photos each year. Despite being fully merged into Shutterfly on May 15, 2017, the company never stopped till the very last moment in further developing its services and making new and old customers satisfied.
After downloading the software, you can quickly create your photo book from scratch or from 12 design elements. You also have the option to choose from 4 sizes, 6 different covers and order your books with different paper types and layflat binding. Other than the usual treats, the program has built-in features with which you can be sure that your book will be perfect. And once you are ready, you can simply buy your books for rather cost-friendly prices and get them shipped within 8 business days from the 2–4 day production time. But if you still think MyPublisher’s prices are high, you can always reduce them with many coupons and other discounts.
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