Creating a custom photo book is a wonderful way to reminisce on the unforgettable memories you’ve created with your loved ones. Preserving your photos is one of the highlights when creating a photo book and incorporating text and messages within them will solidify stories you will never want to forget. With a few easy steps, you’ll be able to create the best photo book filled with your most cherished moments and have personalized text captions for each and every photo.
Photo books are a great way to highlight and preserve important milestones, incredible vacations, and everyday moments. You can create a “year in review,” commemorate a family reunion, or even celebrate a birth with a new baby photo book. Photo books make great gifts for loved ones or life long mementos to keep in your bookshelf. So if you’re ready to get started creating your custom photo book, jump to a section below.
What is a Photo Book?
A photo book is an album-like book with printed images, text, and designs. The images can include anything from family photos, vacation pictures, portfolio art, and more. The difference between a photo book and photo album is that the photo book has images pre-printed onto the paper. With Shutterfly, you’ll find both softcover and hardcover photo book options as well as standard and layflat pages to display all of your favorite moments. Custom photo albums are usually composed of thick pieces of paper with plastic sheets where you can place photographs. Because of the thicker pages, there are typically fewer images in a photo album than a photo book.
When Should You Create a Photo Book?
Some of the best photos to showcase in a photo book come from special events and milestones. During these times you’ll want to take special care to capture the event with plenty of photos. And then, instead of letting the photos collect dust in a desk or in digital archives, you can transform them into a personalized photo book to look back on in years to come. Whether you create a wedding photo book to showcase your big day or a opt for an everyday-style template full of amazing childhood memories, there are endless reasons to make a custom album. Consider creating a photo book after your most recent vacation in a travel photo book, or a seasonal theme to document the holidays. Special occasions that might merit a new photo book include:
- Weddings
- Births or birthdays
- Vacations
- New year
- Family reunion
- Graduation
- End of the school year
- Adoption
- New pet
- Memorial
- And plenty more!
Types of Custom Photo Books
Trying to decide what kind of quality photo book to create? It’s important to pick your cover type and material, page style, size, and theme before you start creating. To help, we’ve made a list of the different options available for our photo book selection. Each selection you make will be a reflection of you and your style. Types of personalized photo books include:
- Wedding Photo Books: Choose from a selection of carefully curated flush mount albums, premium photo books, and standard hardcover books to make your wedding photos come to life. Add text to your wedding photo book by adding your wedding date, you and your spouses names, as well as the location or city where you got married.
- Flush Mount Styles Photo Books: These premium photo books feature a layflat cover design, thick pages, and high-quality matte or glossy finishing options. These layflat books are most popular for wedding albums, engagement photoshoots, and guest books, but they’re easily adapted for other themes.
- Softcover Photo Books: Softcover options make for great economical keepsakes featuring vacation photos, photos of your pets, and anything else that brings a smile to your face. Choose from a variety of layouts, sizes, and page totals to make your project come to life.
- Hardcover Books: Hardcover upgrades help bring your photo book to the next level. You can also choose from a variety of sizes, layouts, and page totals, along with either a glossy or matte finish. These also make great photo gifts for loved ones.
- Instant Books: Instant books come in a hard cover 6×6 photo book and are perfectly priced for everyday memories. This the quickest and easiest way to make an album you’ll cherish as a keepsake for years to come.
How to Make a Photo Book
Ready to get started on your custom photo book? Make sure you’re picking the best photo book service options, customizations, and layouts for your needs. Follow the simple steps below on how to make the perfect photo book.
How to Make a Photo Book Overview:
- Upload photos
- Decide how to make your book
- Pick your photo book size and material
- Choose a layout
- Customize the pages
- Review your book
- Order away
1. Upload Your Photos
The first step in creating a photo book is to upload your photos. Upload them to your Shutterfly account in a new folder named after your new photo book. Once uploaded, review your photos and make sure to delete or edit any that aren’t high quality or have other issues. To make uploading your photos easier, you can link your Google, Facebook, and Instagram accounts to your Shutterfly one and utilize the photos from those accounts to create your photo books.
2. Decide How to Make Your Book
After uploading and organizing your photos, you’ll need to choose a photo book-making service. Your two options for photo book creation on Shutterfly include:
Make My Book Free Photo Book Service: With this service, all you have to do is select up to 500 photos that you want to be featured in your photo book. After that, our team of talented designers will create a book for you for free. You can then make finishing touches, order the book as is, or decide not to purchase it if you choose to go in a different creative direction.
Customize a Photo Book Yourself: If you want complete control over your photo book process, customize it yourself from cover to cover Customize everything from the template and layout, to photo organization and captions.
3. Pick Your Book Size and Material
Once you’ve chosen your creation path, it’s time to choose your photo book size. Our sizes include 8×8, 8×11, 11×8, 10×10, 12×12, and 11×14 inches. You can also choose your cover type and material once you’ve selected a template during this step.
4. Choose a Template
The next step in creating a photo book is to select your template. We offer a range of unique style and themes that you can choose from to showcase your pictures.
5. Customize the Pages
Place your images into the template of your choice, and customize the pages by choosing the background colors and patterns, writing captions, and adding embellishments and stickers.
6. Review Your Book
It’s important to review your photo book when you’re done placing images and captions. This is your chance to catch typos, duplicate images, and other issues. It may also help to have a friend or family member review with you to catch any mistakes you might have missed. You should also use this time to double-check that you’ve selected the correct cover type, size, and any finishing materials.
7. Order Away!
Once you’re happy with your completed project and sure there aren’t any mistakes, it’s time to order and make your photo book dream come true. Add the completed photo book to your cart and head to check out! Note: While reviewing your cart you can add additional copies of the same book; perfect for when you’re gifting to multiple people or want to share the best wedding photo books with all your loved ones.
Resources Related to Custom Photo Books
Explore the resources below to design your own custom photo books:
