The Fun of Photobooks

Since our engagement pictures arrived at the end of November, J and I decided to make photobooks and give them to our moms as Christmas presents. They were a huge hit! These photobooks looked so professional and having the pictures printed out really makes a difference compared to seeing them on a computer screen.

If you'd like to make your own photobook (they also make great wedding guestbooks, just be sure to include enough white space for people to write messages), I highly recommend using Blacks Photography. Their books come in a range of sizes from 5.5x5 inches up to 12x12 inches and start at just $11.99 for 26 pages. And you can choose soft cover, hard cover or premium leather styles.

There are two choices for creating a photobook: select a size and upload your photos to have a professional designer make your book or download their software to design your own layout. We chose to design them ourselves and began by installing the Blacks Desktop PhotoBook Builder.

The design process begins with selecting the size, number of pages and cover type for your book. Then you build each page by first clicking on the layout tab and choosing from the many, many layouts depending on the number of photos you want on that page.

Once the layout is set, click on the photos tab and simply drag and drop your images into each page. The software lets you move the picture inside each layout or adjust the size of each "box" that holds your image on the page. 

The design tab allows you to insert a background (solid colour or pattern) or clipart into your page. You can also insert a text box to make a caption or title for the page.

This software was intuitive and easy to use, with lots of options for layouts, backgrounds and design. I put together our book in about 45 minutes and it turned out great!

We decided to order online and have the book shipped to our local store for pickup (no charge) or you can have the book delivered to your home for an additional cost. I received an email when the book shipped from their head office in Ontario (1 week after I placed the order) and a phone call from my local store when the book was ready to pick up (5 business days later).

Even though our photographer will be making an album of our wedding photos, I'm sure J and I will order more photobooks in the future. The design process was actually fun and we were very impressed with the quality and price of the final product. These photobooks are the perfect way to showcase vacation, baby or pet pictures and would make awesome digital scrapbooks too.