Makingphotobooks
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The document discusses photo book creation software options for making printed photo books as gifts or for profit. It provides an overview of several photo book creation programs, summarizing their key features, ease of use, and pricing. The author details their initial experiments using the Unibind MyPhotoBooks software and areas for improvement. The ideal photo book software according to the author would have automatic layout, ability to efficiently lay out many photos per page, and options for local or online printing.
![Part 1: Making Photo Books for Fun & Profit Tim Zebo Cell: 732-757-8353 [email_address] http://twitter.com/jerseyguy 息 2009 Tim Zebo. All rights reserved.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/makingphotobooks-091122194040-phpapp02/85/Makingphotobooks-1-320.jpg)
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Makingphotobooks
- 1. Part 1: Making Photo Books for Fun & Profit Tim Zebo Cell: 732-757-8353 [email_address] http://twitter.com/jerseyguy 息 2009 Tim Zebo. All rights reserved.
- 2. The Problem Two external hard drives with ~14,000 digital photos (10 yrs of family snapshots, hiking & biking vacations, weddings, new grandchildren, etc.) Will also scan & add many pre-digital prints from parents albums Many files previously shared using Shutterfly.com, Picasa.com, digital picture frames, PC slide showsbut theres nothing like a book Best way to make printed Photo Books? Gifts & Memory Books for special occasions Photo Yearbooks Self-publish books for profit
- 3. With one exception, Laziness prevailed (image from: http://taddietales.blogspot.com/2008/05/peaceful-giant.html) until.
- 4. Steve Millers email: Seeking BCUG reviewer of Unibind PhotoBook Creator Kit
- 5. Unibind Photo Book Experiments Features Binding machine Free download: MyPhotoBooks software Buy Photo Book cover; create, print & bind Photo Book locally No web access & photo upload issues; no waiting for delivery Test 1: 2008 Thanksgiving - 171 digital photos (jpgs) Whats not to like Auto-layout software: 171 photos==>29-page book (58 sides); designed & ready for printing and binding in 2.5 minutes! But (areas for improvement) Moving from Page 10 to Page 25 took 10 secs. & consumed 95% of CPU cycles! Distribute Pictures resulted in chopped heads & missing edges (Portrait pictures are placed into landscape frames, and vice versa. No global multi-page commands. Tedious page-by-page editing to fill page real estate Printer Out of Memory Error (Blame printer or ???) Test 2: Drawings by Olivia art book potential for very cool mix of printed & other pages
- 6. Review in BCUG Newsletter (Feb. 2009)
- 7. Photo Book-Making Products Unibind MyPhotoBooks FotoFusion Extreme Inkubook Smilebox Blurb Picaboo Viovio Photoshop Elements Album Kubota AutoAlbum Kodak SnapFish RocketLife Shutterfly CVS etc. etc. etc.!
- 8. Digital Scrapbooking Pages: Gifts (+), Photo Yearbooks (-) (created by Scrapbooking Fotofusion Yahoo Group member: Ellen Blake)
- 9. Photo Yearbook Page(?) (Picasa Collage)
- 10. Photo Book-Making Products: Page Options Fun & Games Landscape Page Template (Frames: 1P,1L) Frames Landscape Image Theme Auto-layout Portrait Image Page 9 Reserved for binding Caption Andy the Magician Page # One Side, or ??? Background Color Page Title Shadow Matte
- 11. (My) Ideal Photo Book-Making Product Either local or web-based book creation software Auto page layout with auto-recognition of portrait or landscape frames (no chopped heads or missing edges) Minimal post-auto-layout manual editing Highly efficient page layout (lots of photos per page) Ability to sequence layout by: file name, creation date, random or priority Fast response when editing or reviewing Page background options include none Good-enough color print quality If local, support for full-duplex page printing If web-based, print & ship book in 7 business days Reasonably priced
- 12. Photo Book Products: Preliminary Test Results Unibind MyPhotoBooks FotoFusion Extreme Inkubook Smilebox Blurb Picaboo Viovio Photoshop Elements Album Kubota AutoAlbum Kodak SnapFish RocketLife Shutterfly CVS Etc., etc. etc.! Legend: Worth a look Its complicated No direct experience yet
- 13. Worth a Look Pages Price 0 20 $25 21 40 $31 41 80 $37 81 120 $44 auto-layout only available for landscape pages (as of 3/31/09) if pick theme=holiday, theres nothing for Thanksgiving auto-layout, needs 50-100 photos for best results slow response during editing Free SW download (MS Silverlight 2) nice GUI great quality output Inkubook http://inkubook.com/ It depends: -$10 book cover + local per-page print costs, Or ??? 2 sec frame select lag during editing one-time purchase is pricey ($300) fast auto-layout very efficient: many pics per page very flexible: edit pics, frames, text, backgrounds, etc. can output album as pdf auto full-duplex printing blank backgrounds o.k. FotoFusion Extreme (software only) ver. 4.0 $10/book cover + local per-page print costs very slow moving page-to-page no global editing commands cant add text to album cover Free SW download (web independent) fast auto-layout: 171 jpgs, 29 pages, 2.5 minutes - book pages can include non-computer Printouts Unibind MyPhotoBooks Ver. 3.3.4 Price per Book (hardbound;11x8.5) Minuses Pluses Product
- 14. Its Complicated change frame size by dragging a new template onto page (cumbersome if only want to change size of one frame) SnapFish snapfish.com one pic per page during initial auto-layout; then must manually edit drag one photo at a time onto a page of multiple frames Kodak kodakgallery.com cant use Firefox 3.0.3 (only Firefox 2 or IEX) design each page in Photoshop and save as jpgs with preset template sizes Must manually insert each pic into its frame - many clicks, very tedious very cumbersome to exchange pics between two frames may need to manually crop pic to fit frame BUT: FABULOUS BOOK QUALITY! Kubota AutoAlbum http://asukabook.com auto-layout chops heads & faces; no match of frames to fit image aspect ratio must be done manually slow auto-layout: 56 jpgs; 20 pages; 5 min. hidden commands (right click moves pic in frame) search help never found dumb auto-layout: no pic/page ratio control; preset # of frames on pages templates (e.g., created 20 pages for 56 images but left 10 frames on last two pages empty (must be corrected manually) Photoshop Elements Album select & upload 10 pics at-a-time cannot see contents of any books in on-line store Viovio viovio.com auto-layout chops heads & faces; no match of frames to fit image aspect ratio must be done manually 4 arrows for moving pic in frame slow when moving pic in frame long delay getting price after click buy Picaboo installs process in system tray that attempts web access when PC is booted auto-layout chops heads & faces; no match of frames to fit image aspect ratio must be done manually mouse over each album design to see how many photos it holds most album designs hold less than 24 pics & have a fixed number of pages often < 10 auto-populate sometimes doesnt work; then must manually insert each pic no global page design commands e.g., must manually remove a text frame from a page, one page at a time cant add more pages than is the current max for that book design Smilebox smilebox.com Preliminary Results Product
- 15. Its Complicated Contd e.g., Shutterfly & Blurb Order 10 books: take 30% off 40 Pgs., $25 66 Pgs., $255
- 16. Making (and/or Designing) Photo Books for Profit ISBN #s ?
- 17. Options from the World of Print on Demand (POD)
- 18. Solutions (?) (a work in progress!) Gifts & Memory Books: Inkubook Family Photo Yearbooks: FotoFusion Designing and/or Making Books for Profit: TBD
- 19. Part 2: Learning more about Photography,油Photoshop & Photo Books using iGoogle , Meehive , Facebook , Twitter & iLeonardo Tim Zebo Cell: 732-757-8353 tzebo@usa.net http://twitter.com/jerseyguy 息 2009 Tim Zebo. All rights reserved.
- 20. iGoogle gadgets: A Personalized Browser Home Page
- 21. MeeHive: A Personalized 鰻艶敬壊沿温沿艶姻
- 24. FaceBook: Software Marketing & (Design!)
- 25. Twitter & 140-Character Tweets (Who are you following?)
- 28. Selling a Coaching Kids Soccer Photo Book?
- 29. Selling a Coaching Kids Soccer Photo Book?
- 30. iLeonardo: A Personalized Web Library
- 31. Q&A & Discussion Topics Work together to keep up with changing technology? Start a Graphics Group iLeonardo Library? (Image from: http://www.snorgtees.com/images/PiBeRational_Thumbnail.gif)
Editor's Notes
- #7: Buy Album Cover; Create Locally; Print Locally; Bind Locally No access issues; no wait for delivery issues First test creating a photo album: Thanksgiving 2008. We had lots of out-of-town family visiting for Thanksgiving last year. So after culling out images with poor lighting, focus, etc., I ended up with 171 digital photos to save as memories of special holiday. DigiLabs Page Layout Software The DigiLabs page layout software (Build 3.3.4) offers three ways to make a new album from digital files: Create New Book, Fast Track or Open Saved Book. With 171 photos to import, I picked Fast Track, and was amazed to see a 58-page album automatically designed, and ready for printing and binding, in about 2.5 minutes! Areas for improvement While there is much to like about this kit, the page layout software needs improving so manual operations run faster and smarter: It took only 2.5 minutes to automatically create a 58-page album with 171 pictures. But, it also took 10 secs. to manually move from Page 10 to Page 25! Mysteriously, this simple operation consumed about 95% of CPU cycles during that time! When the Distribute Pictures command inserts pictures into page frames, it does so blindly. Portrait-format pictures are placed into landscape frames, and vice versa. This results in needlessly chopped-off heads and missing left & right image edges. Manual editing is time-consuming because there are no global album commands. A maximize frame sizes command would be a great way to reduce wasted space in Fast Track albums without the tedious page-by-page editing thats now required for this.