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It’s a familiar formula: summer equals vacation, vacation means taking a lot of photos, and photos… well, they usually – and sadly – at best end up in a long forgotten folder on your computer, at worst are deleted forever. But such memories of this summer fun deserve better than that!
So why not create your very own photo book? Not only will it preserve your summer photos, but they are also very elegant and fully customizable. With such a book you can bring back those fond summer memories in an instant, especially if you let your imagination go wild and create a book with warm colored covers, fill it in with smile-inducing embellishments and add your thoughts via creative captions. But no matter what you choose to include, how big you want your book to be or from which device you start the building process, the only limit is your creativity.
The first thing to remember about creating a summer vacation photo book is to avoid overthinking it, and try not to force it too much. In other words, have fun first and take photos of anything you like – including those ordinary summer days as well. But with that said, it’s a good idea to already have a concept in mind from the start. Keep notes of what you see, how you feel at the time or anything that comes to mind, while sorting your photos into a theme or a story is always going to be a good start for when it comes to the creation of the photo book.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many photo book builders have limited photo editing features, so a superb app like Instagram with its many filters can add a bit of soul to the would-be book. But regardless of the device, you should still strive for creating quality photos; they don’t have to be masterpieces, just good enough to satisfy your expectations and that you’d be happy to share with the world. A word of advice regarding photos: an image of a landscape or environment can be applied as backgrounds, while pictures with a smaller focus – say, on a particular person or object – are the ones that should be placed as regular photos.
But when it comes to extras like the theme, additional doodles, embellishments, and captions, there are no restrictions here, they are completely up to you. Maybe aside from captions…
Creating photo book captions is surprisingly challenging at first, but it can actually be fun. Just make sure to avoid using cliched quotations for describing a photo or your feelings, that is a strict no-no.
If you have no idea what to write, remember that the internet is filled with ideas. But if you heard something funny or you just want to simply tell readers what they see, try including that. You don’t have to write a full novel for captions, though – unless, of course, that is your driving idea. Speaking of which, try to choose or write captions that are suitable within the theme of the photo book or help the photos tell the story of your vacation. A great example of this is having a picture of a sand castle with a caption that explains a memory from your childhood that revolved around sand castles. However it is still best to try to keep your captions short, one line is enough. Besides, the stars of any photo book are the photos, aren’t they?
While smartphone cameras will never match the quality of a professional camera, they are more than able to help illustrate your photo book. It’s possible to even upload your vacation photos directly to some photo book builders through their mobile app. This way you can start composing your new photo book right away without having to connect your device to your computer, so when you arrive home your only task is to make slight adjustments or hit “Order”. However, there is one major drawback of using photo book apps: they either only have partial compatibility with their matching desktop builders or are completely different tools.
Mixbook’s Mosaic app and Shutterfly’s Groovebook are perfect examples of independent apps: with them you can only add a certain amount of photos to your book and have more limited alteration options. However, Shutterfly’s very own iPad app, Photo Story, is more than just a carbon copy of the desktop version, and is in fact a slightly advanced version with a more logical interface and clever additions like doodling.
Now that the do’s and don’ts of preserving your fondest summer memories in a photo book are known, you’ll now need to pick a photo book editor – and by association the companies that produce them – to create your photo book with.
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