Rose of Sharon Jewelry

Create your own memory books today. Learn  how to preserve and share family memories quickly and easily! DIY or have a pro help!

My dad used to only shoot slide film so he had to drag out the projector and force everyone to cram together on the sofa to watch me and my brothers grin for the camera. He was a talented photographer; but we actually rarely saw his work or our smiling faces.

Since the introduction of digital cameras, our hard drives have become stuffed with birthday wishes, Christmas cheer, baby coos and party antics.  Huddling around a computer monitor is worse than Dad’s Kodak projector (see pic above).

Today thanks to digital printing and online resources, you can easily create your own bound memory books. Plus there are some professionals out there to help you do justice to your family photos.

Organize your photos and decide on a theme. Choosing a theme will help you select the best photos to tell your story. You could just drop in different photos but the best photo books are those which have a strong theme. You could put together only Christmas pictures or pictures where everyone is cooking and include some family recipes.

Choose your web-based publisher. Many sites come with easy to use templates. Knowing how many pictures you’ll need, sizes and color schemes can help you weed out the “just not right” pictures from step 1. Here are some DIY book publishers with good reputations.

• Kodak Gallery Photo Books has an easy to use interface and Martha Stewart recommends them.

Check out this Martha Stewart You Tube video on creating a Kodak photo book.

 

• Shutterfly has a fill-in-the-blanks template option or a you can create a more customized photo book.
• Smile Books has downloadable software or you can create your masterpiece online.
• Google’s Picasa users have a shop button which will take them to Picasa’s preferred printer providers. Great resource.
• Mac users are iPhoto to create their photo books and Apple even offers printing!
• Photo Book Review has a great comparison chart of photo book publishers.

 

Not Comfortable with DIY Projects?

You can hire a professional to create your photo books or custom digital scrapbooks (which can be printed and bound). Google personalized photo books and custom digital scrapbooks for more sources.

• Catching Keepsakes offers scrapbooking and photo project services.
• Digital Heirlooms can help restore your aging or damaged photos and create DVD slideshows or personalized scrapbooks.

 

Remember Garbage in, Garbage Out

Just because you have a camera doesn’t mean you can take a great picture. Brush up on your photo skills before starting a photo book project.

If you have a favorite photo that needs some tweaking. Find a Photoshop expert to remove the red eyes, enhance a sky or remove that ex-spouse. Google Photoshop designer or photo retouching for someone to help put the finishing touches on your photos. PhotoHand Professional Retouching provides this service.

Have family photos that are fading fast? You can have your photo library scanned professionally and color corrected. Scans can cost as little as as 10 cent each.