Photo Books: Making Your Own

I just finished the design work on a photo album of Nathan and Matthew's first year, uploaded it, and sent it off to the printer. It should be back to me in the next 10 days or so. You can see all their pictures on my website, BonnieKingPhotography.com under the category, Watch Them Grow!

I've done design work to create other digital photo albums, using four of the 10 companies listed below. I also found a good article in the November 2010 issue of Popular Photography which critiqued the biggest photo book services that produce custom-printed photo books. The 10 companies were: Adorama, Aperture, Blurb, Kodak, Mpix, MyPublisher, Picaboo, Shutterfly, SmileBooks, and snapfish.

Since the article appeared in Popular Photography, I'm sure changes have been made and more options added. My disclaimer is this - Don't take my word or the article's. Check out the photo book services for yourself. If you use a search engine to find these companies, you may also find discount coupons. Take advantage of the discounts. If you register on their websites, you'll get email alerting you to their deals. I know we all get way too much electronic traffic, but - the deals can save you money.

Poplular Photography gave the highest overall ratings (four stars) to Aperture, Kodak, and MyPublisher. Three and a half stars were given to Adorama and SmileBooks. The lowest rated was Picaboo with one and half stars, while Snapfish had two stars.

Pricing of hardcover books was similar. (These were the only prices shown in the magazine article). Smaller books with fewer pages cost less. I just checked and the prices have changed since November. Adorama was on the low end, with SmileBooks on the high end. Today (on sale), Adorama's small 6x4 inch hardcover book is $19.96 for 26 pages. SmileBooks has two versions of the hardcover. The first is a traditional 8 x 8 inch book now costing $35.95 for 26 pages; the second book lays flat so you can have a photo flow across two pages without losing anything in the gutter. That type of binding for an 8x8 inch book is now $44.95. None of these prices include tax or shipping.

Other factors affecting the price of a photo book are the quality of the paper, cover options, the number of pages over their set price, and whether you opt for assistance with your design. The book I just finished had upgraded paper (heavier weight), a hardcover with images both front and back, and 58 pages. I didn't opt for design assistance. My cost to produce the book through Blurb was just under $100 before tax and shipping. Fortunately, I did have a promo discount through my photography website host, which reduced the cost with tax and shipping to about $82.

Aperture, Blurb, and MyPublisher require a download of software to your computer in order for you to create the book. The other companies use online software, meaning you need a good internet connection that won't be interrupted while you're working. My wireless connection is touchy at times, so working with software on my computer is a plus, but it didn't stop me from using Kodak.

When choosing a photobook company, I'm primarily concerned with the print quality and color. Having used Blurb, Kodak, Mpix and Snapfish over the last few years, I've found Kodak is excellent. I used their services to produce my Vintage Hats and Classic Ladies photo book.  And I'm axious to see the results from Blurb using their new upgraded paper. Blurb is now offering a ProLine of upgraded paper choices for those of us concerned not only with the photo on the page, but the look and feel of the page. I prefer the luster finish over semi or glossy. Heavier weight, archival-quality papers, as I see it, should always be used for those albums you want to last a very long time. I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have other questions.