What To Do With All Those Digital Photos

If you're like me, you probably have gigs of digital photos sprinkled randomly across directories within harddrives, cds, webpages, and even some still lingering on your camera from 2009. If you're like Jon, then you probably have your images nicely organized on one drive labeled "2011" and sub directories for corresponding dates, ie "2011-05-23 - Chicago Trip". And as each year passes Jon would rename each folder to "2011 Archive" and move it to another drive. Although I use to find this kinda anal, it actually is the best way to organize your images, so you aren't scrambling when you need to say create a wedding slideshow in 2 weeks.

So you may have all this great organization, but now what? If you're like old me, you would print random pictures and never put them into any albums because it just became overwhelming. If you're like Jon, well you never print them and just leave them in the archive.

After Jon and I got married, I decided that I was not going to print anymore pictures, as they just started to stack up, and started creating photobooks. I have experimented with a few companies, (see reviews in previous post for Snapfish, Piccaboo, and Shutterfly). I have done a few posts on Shutterfly because I truly love their quality and service.  Since 2009 I have created all my photobooks through Shutterfly and each year their web application interface for creating the photobook gets even better.  The last time I used it it allowed me to do custom backgrounds which was great to get that continuous background look.  You could achieve this with photoshop, but Shutterfly was way easier. 

The photobooks are a great way to document all the things that happen in a year of your life.  I usually create one photobook a year and dedicate each page to an event (that's why being organized is key!).  I did create a special photobook "baby book" for my daughter and wrote a message inside for her. 

Below are images of the photobooks I have made.  It looks great displayed on the coffee table, and the books are so well made.  It most photobook companies out there are doing a magnificent job.  So no more photo albums, that's so old school!

Note: I did not get any compensation from Shutterfly for this post.  I simply think that they are an awesome company.  But more so I think everyone should use photobooks as a way to archive their family memories.

Bindings look like real published books.

Front covers are customizable.

Back cover also customizable with picture.

Message to Avery in her baby book

Page from Avery's Baby book.

More pages from her baby book.

Halloween in Avery's baby book.

Alaska trip book

2010 Family Album (notice the background that is a customizable image.. yes vegas trip!)

This is auto formated by Shutterfly application

More 2010 images, background again a custom image.

Cover of Alaska photobook.  We tried to spell ALASKA with our bodies.

Photobooks Reviews

I am trying to create a photobook for all of the events in our lives. Here are the reviews for two companies of photobooks: Shutterfly and Piccaboo.

Shutterfly

Books Created: 8x8 Hard Cover Storybook and 2 8x10 Black Leather Hard Cover 30 page book

The Software:

Shutterfly has limited layouts and designs for their photobooks. Full page bleed (where the picture is printed to the edge of the page) is available, but no custom backgrounds (ability to put your own picture as a background). They are better than other companies such as Snapfish, but worst than Picaboo. The software is a little confusing, but it runs relatively fast and bug free.

The Quality of Pages:

Do not expect clear pictures like actual developed prints, or even magazine quality. The prints are like laser printer quality, not the cheap laser printers, but the mega printers that corporations have. The pages are thick (equivalent to two sheets of printer paper in thickness) which make the print quality better. The colors for shutterfly were vibrant and true to the print.

The Quality of the Book:

A 20-30 page book is pretty slim. The 8x10 leather cover book looks slick, but a little homemade at the same time. I was truly impressed at the quality of the storybook. The outside print over was photo quality. The inside of the book looked like a professionally bound kids story book. Although all the books are glued, not threaded, the binds have held together nicely.

Overall rating of storybook: 9/10

Overall rating of 8x10 book: 7/10

Picaboo

Books Created: 5x7 Soft CoverBook and 8x10 Black Leather Cover 20 page book.

The Software:
Awesome. The software has the ability to do many layouts, full page bleed, and custom backgrounds. The software does have to be installed on your computer, but this makes for ease of use.

The Quality of Pages:
Like Shutterfly do not expect clear pictures like actual developed prints, or even magazine quality. The pages are thick (equivalent to two sheets of printer paper in thickness) which make the print quality better. The pictures were a little dark, and not as vibrant as Shutterfly.

The Quality of the Book:
Same as Shutterfly 8x10 book. The small 5x7 book is a little cheapie feeling and is already falling apart.

Overall rating of 5x7 book: 5/10
Overall rating of 8x10 book: 6.5/10