Help with Photobooks!

[m 'n c]

My brother has decided he wants me to make my parents a photobook from the two of us. He has done the hard part of gathering photos, scanning them, and emailing them to me and my job is to put them together in a book. I read through the photo gift thread and it looks like Shutterfly is a good choice for books. What I wanted to ask was has anyone actually done a book and what kind of cover did you put on it? I see they have 3 options but I'm not sure which one to go with. I hope we make the shipping deadline.

[SunshineGirl]

I've done the book a couple of times. For at least one, I did the thing with the see through box that showed the first page picture. Is that still an option?

[sunshinecindy]

My brother has decided he wants me to make my parents a photobook from the two of us. He has done the hard part of gathering photos, scanning them, and emailing them to me and my job is to put them together in a book. I read through the photo gift thread and it looks like Shutterfly is a good choice for books. What I wanted to ask was has anyone actually done a book and what kind of cover did you put on it? I see they have 3 options but I'm not sure which one to go with. I hope we make the shipping deadline.

I guess you didn't watch my videoblog. LOL

http://www.sunshinerewards.com/videoblog/2008/11/18/picture-this-shutterfly-photo-books-at-sunshine-rewards/

[Alice28]

I made one like Tricia did- cute!

[Iteach]

My brother has decided he wants me to make my parents a photobook from the two of us. He has done the hard part of gathering photos, scanning them, and emailing them to me and my job is to put them together in a book. I read through the photo gift thread and it looks like Shutterfly is a good choice for books. What I wanted to ask was has anyone actually done a book and what kind of cover did you put on it? I see they have 3 options but I'm not sure which one to go with. I hope we make the shipping deadline.


I actually just placed an order tonight with Shutterfly for an 8x8 book. This is the first time I've done one of these so it took me a lot of hours to do it. It probably won't take you that long at all. I went with a photo cover (not the see through one). For standard shipping it said they couldn't guarantee the delivery dates (something like the 19-24) so I opted for the second option which was $3 more. The whole thing was a little pricey, but it's for my new granddaughter, so was worth it. I'll know to allow more time next time and will have one ready for when there is a SR offer. Good luck!

[m 'n c]

Thanks! I'm a little panicky over this since it is last minute and I know is going to take a few days to do. I've already seen a few merchants on here not offering to have things to you by Christmas so I've had to change a few orders already. I'm going to start working on it tonight after work after I get my ring to the repair shop but I just don't know what to do cover wise. I'll try the video Cindy.

[mollyeilis]

I've done a book with an opening in the front, and I've done a book where the picture is printed on the cover. There's a difference in quality, in that in the year between the cover-opening one they started making them better than the printed-cover one, and my camera changed so the photos were better quality, but with that said, I like the look of the printed-cover one better.

BUT. Do I have it right that these are printed pictures (perhaps film pictures) that he's scanned and then you've put them onto your computer? If so, get a smaller book. I was making a (free) book elsewhere, and I wanted to make a big one, like 8x11 size, and most of my not-so-high resolution pictures would have been fuzzy and blurry in it. I had to get an 8x8 so the pictures would be small enough so their lower resolution would work in it. So if I understand your picture situation, go smaller than you might want to, because it would be a bummer to have fuzzy pictures, since scanned prints aren't going to have anywhere near as good a resolution as will be needed for big pictures. Probably. :)

Have fun!

[m 'n c]

I've done a book with an opening in the front, and I've done a book where the picture is printed on the cover. There's a difference in quality, in that in the year between the cover-opening one they started making them better than the printed-cover one, and my camera changed so the photos were better quality, but with that said, I like the look of the printed-cover one better.

BUT. Do I have it right that these are printed pictures (perhaps film pictures) that he's scanned and then you've put them onto your computer? If so, get a smaller book. I was making a (free) book elsewhere, and I wanted to make a big one, like 8x11 size, and most of my not-so-high resolution pictures would have been fuzzy and blurry in it. I had to get an 8x8 so the pictures would be small enough so their lower resolution would work in it. So if I understand your picture situation, go smaller than you might want to, because it would be a bummer to have fuzzy pictures, since scanned prints aren't going to have anywhere near as good a resolution as will be needed for big pictures. Probably. :)

Have fun!

Thanks. There will be 50/50 with the scanned vs. digital photos. I could pick a digital one to put on the cover but I'm not sure yet. I'll play around tonight and see what happens.

[Iteach]

Thanks. There will be 50/50 with the scanned vs. digital photos. I could pick a digital one to put on the cover but I'm not sure yet. I'll play around tonight and see what happens.

Good luck! Let us know what you decide and do. I did order the photo cover. All my pics were digital. It took me awhile to drag the pictures from various places onto my desktop and into a Shutterfly album. I ordered the 8x8. A few pictures came up as low resolution so I chose a smaller picture size (like 4 pics on a page instead of 3). but for a few I just left it thinking it would be okay. I ordered my Christmas cards from Vista Prints, 3 digital pictures on the front. It said low resolution for all of them, but there was no way to change it so I just used them and hoped they would be fine and they really were great, so I'm hoping for the same outcome with the book. I'll be anxious to hear how your book is going!

[m 'n c]

Ok so I have a 12x12 book made with backgrounds and layouts looking good. My new problem though is on some of these layouts there are places for verbage/wording and I don't want to put a caption. What happens if I leave these areas blank? Anything? I can't figure out how to delete them entirely.

[sselig2000]

I had the caption areas when I made my calendars, and the ones I left blank just didn't print. I mean, there wasnt the little white box or anything, just like the caption boxes weren't there. They turned out awesome.

[m 'n c]

Thanks, had I just scrolled over two more boxes I would have seen the one marked PREVIEW LOL. I noticed they took the boxes away. Now I'm just wondering if I should try and find something to put in those boxes or just leave it alone. I have the book 50/50 with captions/no captions.

[sselig2000]

I had the same decision to make, and decided that if something popped into my head right away for a picture caption, then that was fine, but the ones that I couldn't think of something right away, might turn out kind of cheesy if I had to try to hard, ya know? Anyhow, mine was about half with, half without. I am really happy with how it turned out.

[Iteach]

Ok so I have a 12x12 book made with backgrounds and layouts looking good. My new problem though is on some of these layouts there are places for verbage/wording and I don't want to put a caption. What happens if I leave these areas blank? Anything? I can't figure out how to delete them entirely.


I left a few areas for wording blank too. I'm almost positive that I read somewhere on the site that if you leave an area blank, that area will just show up as blank with nothing, so I think you should be good to go. Is there a phone number anywhere to call if you want to be 100% positive? Congratulations on finishing the book! I'm sure your parents will love it. I'll go over to Shutterfly right now and see if I can find what I read and where it is.

[m 'n c]

I left a few areas for wording blank too. I'm almost positive that I read somewhere on the site that if you leave an area blank, that area will just show up as blank with nothing, so I think you should be good to go. Is there a phone number anywhere to call if you want to be 100% positive? Congratulations on finishing the book! I'm sure your parents will love it. I'll go over to Shutterfly right now and see if I can find what I read and where it is.

It's actually NOT their book LOL. It is a book I had started before with Mike and I's photopass session so sort of an engagement album but then I got tired of just those photos and expanded to a few park photos. I am doing 2 copies - one for him and one for them but since one is for him I can't ask for his opinion.

Basically what is happening is the first half is our photopass session photos and those are the blank captions and the second half is some park photos with captions. So right now the book is kind of divided if that makes sense. But I don't want to mix the photos to spread out the captions.

[sselig2000]

I think that it sounds lovely the way you have it.

[sweetiee]

I've done some books by them before and have always been pleased.
For the writing options, you could always find verses, poem selections or something like that to fill the spots. But if you are pressed for time, leave it blank. Maybe you can go back and hand write in things and then it will have your handwriting!
When I ordered the family calendars a few weeks ago, I had no idea what to write on them so I searched for little sayings about each month of the year and put a little section from a poem or story or writing on each page. Like in August I think I put "Shall I compare thee to a summers day..." and had the author on there.
I placed my order November 30 (SUnday) and had the calendar and my photo cards on my doorstep in 4 days-on Thursday. They are always pretty fast!

Good luck!

[m 'n c]

I went with the quotes option and I think I'm going to do that for my parents book when I finish that one up today.

Thanks for the help!