Printing Your Own Photo Books at Home

However, once you hit order you no longer have control over the printing and shipping process, meaning that you might end up with a faulty product or a book delivered beyond the deadline.

To avoid that you might want to consider printing your own photo books in the comfort of your home. And before you think this option requires a lot of time and money, that’s not the case: in fact, all you need is the right software and tools.

Printing photo books yourself vs photo book printing services

By far the biggest advantage of creating your photo book at home is that you are absolutely not bound by anything – provided that you have the right program and equipment.

Finding the right software is the easiest part; there are plenty of (free) photo book programs, but printing and binding can be a real nightmare if you’re using basic materials. First and foremost, your printer should be capable of handling multiple paper sizes and types, a feature that is often limited to better machines.

Creating covers is not too complicated since the internet is full of clever DIY ideas, while covers from finer materials can be purchased at retail stores. However, assembling the book is perhaps the biggest challenge: unless you are satisfied with the simplest saddle-stitch binding (like notebooks) or you have a professional binding machine, you’d better be off assigning this task to professionals.

These technical aspects are the main reasons why many people are turning to professional photo book building services instead. Granted, customization options might be more limited and shipping will cost extra, but it is at least guaranteed that your book will be put together in a professional manner.

What you need

If you are still hoping to print your photo book without relying on professional photo services then prepare to gather together several tools to even start the project.

For starters, you’ll need a good photo book program. Thankfully, finding downloadable and free photo book software is a piece of cake. However, before choosing the winner, do a little research or try out the programs first to find out which one has the most to offer regarding styles, backgrounds, photo adjustment options, embellishments, and so on.

Once the software is taken care of it’s time to focus on the most crucial part, the ‘hardware’: namely the paper, the printer and the cover. Quality photo paper can easily be purchased in different sizes, while most recent printers are more than capable of handling the increased page dimensions – especially if you have a sufficient amount of ink.

The issue of creating a cover can also be solved in an easy way: many stores sell empty photo albums with or without pages that you can leverage as your own cover, but if you are keen to use DIY methods – and you don’t mind spending the extra time with binding – you can fabricate covers for yourself using cardboard or extra thick or strong paper.

Free photo book software

As mentioned, the internet is full of different, free of charge photo book editing software, some of which are downloadable while others can be accessed online through a browser. No matter which option you go with, creating your photo book becomes way easier using these programs, including these three we have tested: Kodak’s PrintProjects, HP’s Photo Creations and Canva.

Kodak PrintProjects

Although Kodak’s own photo book builder, PrintProjects, has features that are only available after paying extra, the program – available for PCs and Macs alike – is surprisingly better than some of the online editors we have tested.

PrintProjects contains plenty of design elements from backgrounds, themes, layouts and embellishments, includes the much desired auto-build feature, and it even has extras like crop warnings and advanced photo adjustment options.

Unfortunately, though, the number of default designs and sizes are far from ideal: there is a choice of only nine designs with one being completely blank, while books can be printed only as 8.5×11 size books.

HP Photo Creations

Since HP Photo Creations is supported by the same company that developed Kodak’s PrintProjects software, no one will be surprised to learn that the two programs are like identical twins: every single feature (layouts, designs, embellishments, what have you) and every single disadvantage (limited extras and one size) is the same. In fact, even the extras have the same prices as PrintProjects.

However, HP Photo Creations offers 23 default styles that more or less cover every need you may have, plus if you have an HP printer with Wi-Fi it is possible to print photos directly from your phone using a specific application provided by the company.

Canva

Canva’s huge advantage over many independent photo book editors is that it’s online, requiring only an account to start the building process. To make things even better, Canva is completely free of charge and even allows you to download your projects in various formats, including PDF.