Lastly, just a couple of comments, I have printed a couple of picture books as well as a traditional word book (with a few pictures interspersed throughout it) with Blurb. It is highly dependent on what the theme of the page is. Again, borders can be used when and where they help the pictures stand out. I tend to not use borders in photobooks, although I have put some on smaller pictures when they are overlaid on top of a full bleed 2 page picture spread to make them stand out more from the background picture.Īre you making an informal snapshot book/collage? If the style of the book is going to be changing from page to page, have fun with it, add borders where it helps.Īre you making a “scrapbook” style book? (Starting to become very popular) in which the layout and embellishments around the pictures are just as important as the pictures themselves. I tend to use black backgrounds for these, although I have seen many classy books laid out with white backgrounds (it can really be dependent on the pictures you have, if you have a lot of dark pictures, white backgrounds give more contrast, a lot of bright pictures show well on black pages) and little to nothing of design elements on the pages to detract from the pictures. ![]() Much more important than the idea of borders/no borders, is what is the layout of the book supposed to be?Īre you making a traditional “photobook” in which the main attention is strictly to accentuate the photos and little else is included (maybe some description is added to each picture, or a paragraph or two per double page spread detailing the pictures on the pages.) Personally, these I believe should have the same layout used from page to page, throughout the book. The full-service process is much pricier than designing the book yourself, but it’s a good option for those with more money than time.Personally, I think it depends on the layout of your book. You’re charged for the design only if you order the book, and SmileBooks will make revisions according to your requests. We used its design service both to edit and to compile our books-a designer at the company followed our instructions, choosing our best images and designing the book for us. If this all seems like too much work, consider SmileBooks. Mpix’s autofill, however, seemed to respect neither. Kodak’s SmartFit did a good job with autofill because it seemed to respect both the order of our images and their aspect ratios. Both Picaboo and Shutterfly allow you to drag and drop to group pictures together, then automatically create layouts to suit your image combinations. Many of the services will automatically populate your pages, with varying degrees of success. Snapfish made it hard to edit individual photos, requiring you to click through a succession of screens to do so. With Mpix, you couldn’t add or get rid of borders for the whole book at once you had drag and drop the borders one by one onto your images. Software aimed at novices can be more frustrating. Of the online software, Adorama’s was one of the most sophisticated, allowing you to readily resize picture boxes, add drop shadows and text boxes, and even undo your last command-a function that’s missing on many online programs. Because we believe that a clean design shows off photographs best, we attempted in all cases to make that kind of book-and were frustrated if we had trouble avoiding graphic-themed backgrounds and cutesy frames and corners. Some had easy software, some had great print quality, others had nice layouts. We sent our staff’s own pictures to 10 of the biggest photo book services, ordering a range of sizes, paper stock, and cover types. ![]() There’s plenty of competition for your book business, whether the services are attached to online photo labs, such as Kodak Gallery, or offered by companies such as Blurb that are dedicated to books, or built into your photo software (e.g., Apple’s Aperture). Please note that we orderred our books in the summer of 2010-companies may have revised their products, creation software, and prices since then._ We tried out 10 of the biggest photo book services to give you a taste of what they can do, and gathered our most useful tips and tricks, all to help you create the most impressive volume possible. ![]() _Custom-printed photo books really show off your pictures, and they’re easier than ever to design and make.
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