Only two days left to take advantage of this one so hurry over to Picaboo and get started!

Picaboo is running this promotion through this weekend (03/19). Of course, those two little words ‘up to’ make all the difference so here are the actual details:

• For orders with subtotals between $50.00 and $99.99, 20% of the product subtotal will be deducted from your order total.
• For orders with subtotals between $100.00 and $199.99, 30% of the product subtotal will be deducted from your order total.
• For orders with subtotals of $200.00 or more, 40% of the product subtotal will be deducted from your order total.

The following products are eligible for this offer:

• Classic Linen, Classic Leather, and Classic Custom book styles
• Collage posters in all sizes and paper types
• Calendars in all sizes
• Cards in all paper types

The devil is in the details! But if you have plans to make several books at once or you are interested in one of their more expensive products, this deal could work out great for you.

Check out our review of Picaboo

When you order!

You can also check out Shutterfly’s special offer page for other current discounts and offers.

Once you have chosen a publisher, you will need to collect the photos that you want to use when you make your photo book. You should use the photographs at the size they come off the camera, as this will give you the highest resolution. Don’t resize them. The photo book software will handle scaling and you will get best results if you start out with a high resolution image. If you try to use an image with a resolution so low that it will look poor in the final book, the photo book software will warn you. Some photo book software includes basic photo editing and correction tools, like red eye removal and rotation, but any serious editing should be done using photo editing software before you begin to make your photo book.

Next, you should group your photos into pages. You may want to place some photos on a page of their own while you might prefer to group others together on a page. You can usually place ten or even more small photos on a single page.

A good tip when you are planning to make you photo book is to indicate the page that you want to put a photo on in it’s filename. For example, if you have a photo named baby-matthew1.jpg that will appear on page 3,  rename it to 3-baby-matthew1.jpg before you upload or import it into the photo book software. That way you can order the photos by name and have them listed in page order and you can easily tell from the name where you planned to put each one. And if you use a Storyboard tool to create your book quickly (Picaboo and Shutterfly both offer this), this will make it go even faster.

Remember that you can use any image in jpeg format as a photograph (or background if the publisher supports it). You can scan items like childrens drawings or tickets, programs or other paper items to use in photo memory books. You can also use photographs from the web, but some might be subject to copyright. Creative Commons is a good source of copyright-free images.  Flickr supports Creative Commons licensing and allows you to search for those images. Creative Commons is a type of license that allow people to use the work freely for non-commercial purposes (some types of Creative Commons license also allow commercial use and modification of the work). Go to the Flickr Advanced Search page and select the Creative Commons options near the bottom to find images you can use.

Far from only being able to view your photographs on a computer screen, digital photos are much more versatile when it comes to ways to present them. They can easily be printed in different sizes or on different materials. You can even have photos printed on to t-shirts or coffee mugs! Another way that you can present a collection of related photos that has become very popular in the last few years is to make a photo book.

What are Photo Books?

Photo books are a very attractive way to present a collection of digital photographs. Instead of a photo album, where photos are glued or inserted into pockets, photos in a photo book are printed onto the pages. The final result looks just like a book that you would buy in a bookstore. The paper is of very high quality and the book is professionally bound by gluing, sewing or stapling with a soft,  hard or even leather cover. You can make a photo book in a variety of sizes, from a small ‘brag book’ to large, lay-flat coffee table  books. You can make a photo book using software from a photo book publisher like Shutterfly or Picaboo. We have reviews of the most popular publishers in our Photo Book Publishers section.

Part Photo Album, Part Scrapbook

Because you get to design and layout your photo book on the computer, you get a lot more design options than you would with a basic photo album. Depending on the photo book publisher that you use, you can choose from a wide variety of themes and backgrounds. Most publishers also allow you to add borders, frames and corner embellishments to your photos. You can even add text to pages and most publishers have a good selection of attractive fonts for you to use. You can really express your creativity when you make a photo book. However, if you are pushed for time, most publishers have the option to create the whole book for you, using a theme that you select. You can always do a little tweaking to get the final result! This way you can make a beautiful photo memory book in a very short time.

Click here to find out how to make a photo book.

If you’ve read my review, you’ll know that I love Picaboo! Well, now you can learn to love them for free! Get a free 20 page classic photo book from Picaboo, now through the end of August, absolutely free. This is a great way to try out their software and take a look at their end product, which truly is beautiful. So collect up some photos and express your creative genius!

Create a free photo book with Picaboo. Use code FREEBK through August 31, 2010.

Bohemian Graduation Backgrounds

Make your own photo book for the graduate in your life and create a wonderful keepsake of this important threshold that they are about to cross! A photo memory book of graduation day makes a great gift for the grad themselves and you can even order a few smaller versions for close family.

There are a lot of other types of photo book that you can create for a graduate too. One of my favorites is the ‘Life Lessons‘ book. In this book, you can pass on the benefits of your experience and wisdom to a special young person in your life, who is about to venture out into the big wide world for the first time. You can also interview family members and older friends for their advice and include it in your book.

Create a page for each person and use photos from the graduation ceremony. That way you will give them something to look back on as well as advice for the future. And remember, not all the advice needs to be serious. You can include some silly stuff too!

Picaboo has some great graduation background collections. I really love their ‘Bohemian Graduation‘ collection myself.  Go to the Idea Center and check out their Special Collections of backgrounds that will really inspire you to make your own photo book.

Click here to find out more…

Weddings

Wedding Photo Book Ideas

Wedding Photo Book Examples

Make Your Own Photo Book!

If you need a great way to enjoy and share digital photos, why not make your own photo book? For as little as $10, you can make a photo book for your new baby, your wedding, your family history, a memorable vacation or just about any person, place or event that you want to remember and share with others.

Find a Photo Book Company

Photo books cost as little as $9.99 for a small 20 page book and all the software that you need to make your own photo book is free, you just pay for the finished books. There are a few different photo book companies to choose from, so check out our reviews of the three most popular and learn about the different photo book sizes and covers they offer and the design and layout features each one has for the pages in your photo books. You can also take a look at our side-by-side features chart for an easy comparison of Picaboo, Shutterfly and OurHubbub.

Get Creative with Backgrounds, Frames, Layouts and even Digital Scrapbooking

Photo Books are great fun to make. You can choose to have the software do most of the work, then just *tweak* the pages to get the look you want. Or you can pick out backgrounds, frames, text and photo layouts for each individual page. You can even design pages in photo editing or digital scrapbook software and import the pages into your book. There are no limits except your own ideas and imagination. We have lots of ideas and inspiration here on the site and we also have tips and guides to help you make your own photo book.

Learn How to Get Started! If you are completely new to photo books, you can check out our What Are Photo Books? article and our Make Your First Photo Book article. These will help you begin to make your own photo book.

Photo Books Make Great Gifts

The book in the picture below is a book that I made as a Christmas gift for my parents (click on it to get a bigger view). They love to travel and have visited many places around the world. I managed to trick my Dad into sending me all his photos without letting him know what it was for . They loved the book and I had a blast making it…you can see it in Picaboo’s free software in the pic. Its so much fun picking out layouts, backgrounds, adding text. Giving gifts has never been so much fun .

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