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010 How to Make a Photo Book
Photobooks provide memories that will last for generations
A photo book is like a photo album, only with these differences:
• Your photos are actually printed on the pages, not attached to them by glue or stickers,
• Colorful arrangements and pre-designed themes are often available via software,
• The cover can have a design of your choosing, rather than the usual plain cover,
• Bindings are usually permanently sewn or glued, unlike albums that have posts or clips that allow insertion and removal of pages, and
• Multiple copies of the same book can be printed in any quantity you choose.
Never heard of a photo book? You’re not alone. According to the PMA 2010 U.S. Camera/Camcorder Digital Imaging Survey, nearly 60% of U.S, households have never heard of them either, though they’ve been around for several years
If printed on archival-quality paper and with a good binding, there is no reason that memories in a photo book cannot be readily and easily shared for 100 years or more.
Books can last 100 years or more
Contrast that with storing your memories on computers that crash without warning or storage media (CDs/DVDs, diskettes, memory sticks, flash media, etc.) that often become technologically obsolete and/or operationally invalid after 20 years or less.
These are the typical steps to make a photo book by yourself, not using a photo book service:
1. Decide the length of the finished book which determines the number of photos needed.
2. Organize the photos either by theme, subject, or chronologically.
3. Decide whether you want to have just one photo on a page or more and whether text (sometimes called “journaling”) will be a part of your book.
4. Purchase store-bought or downloaded photo book software such as Fotoslate, Scrapbook Factory, or Adobe InDesign that will best meet your needs. Following their manuals, complete your book on the computer. Professional, high-end software tools such as InDesign often have fairly steep learning curves and high prices, but you get what you pay for.
5. Select a printer/binder for the finished book. Many online printers such as Lulu and Blurb are very reasonable and do an excellent job, but also consider local printers and binders, as well. Check to see in what format they want you to send your book for printing. Most local as well as online printers will want your book sent as a pdf file directly to them via the Internet. Upload your file to the printer’s website for printing and binding, review their proof of the final product and pay for it when you are satisfied it is ready.
If your book has a lot of text, extensive layout and interactivity requirements, numerous pages, etc., don’t depend on regular word-processing software brands to compile your book. They are not designed for book-length projects. Instead choose from among those that have sufficient horsepower and features to do the job such as Adobe InDesign.
Photo book with both text and photos
Don’t forget about the quality of the binding. A friend’s three-year-old tugged on the pages of a brand-new but cheaply-constructed photo book and they came out of the binding. ‘Not a pretty end to an important memories-preservation project.
A stitched binding (shown) will usually last longer than a glued or perfect binding
Although we have used both local and online printers/binderies such as LuLu.com for our various book projects, our experience leads us to recommend local, print-on-demand services and binderies for large projects (many pages and/or many copies requiring library-quality bindings).
If a do-it-yourself project isn’t for you (and it isn’t for many) consider choosing a photo book service to help do it for you, as described in the following article, “011 Select a Photo Book Service.” If it isn’t a large project, and glued (sometimes called “perfect”) bindings or saddle-stitched bindings are sufficient for your needs, you will find a photo book service much easier and faster to use than undertaking a do-it-yourself project and you will be just as pleased with the results in the near-term.