Any tips for making my own album?

vmj23

I received only a flash drive, with 1000+ pics, from our photogrpaher but no album or prints ( I choose not to purchse those through her).   I was going to make my own, on a site like Shutterfly.  Has anyone done this?  Any tips or suggestions you can offer?   

emmyg65

Yep, I made albums on Kolo and Artifact Uprising. Both of those have much nicer albums than Shutterfly, but they are more expensive. 

I went through all our pictures and chose the ones that I loved and that told the story of our wedding (families gathering, walking down the aisle, vows, kiss, other ceremony stuff, toasts, cake cutting, etc.) Then I went back through and reduced. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until you have a reasonable number of pictures for your album. We had 800+ photos, so it was hard, but worth it. I had DH help me make some of the harder choices.

vmj23

Thanks @emmyg65!  Which album did you prefer.  I just looked at both sites and their albums look gorgous!    

photokitty

I use Picaboo and prefer them to Shutterfly. They always have coupons and if you watch you can get albums on Groupon really cheap.

Here are my quick Tips off the top of my head

-Narrow your photos down to your favorite 100. Start there.

-Organize them in order of the day before uploading them - rename them so they load in order, it will be easier to find them.

-if the company you use has the option to find used photos, click that box so you don't repeat.

-you can stretch the photo boxes. Don't feel like you have to stick with the layouts they provide.

-you can adjust how the images is crop inside the box.

-personally I HATE the shadow and large borders they typically have preset on.

-less is more with backgrounds. You can change them. Don't go crazy with different designs. Best is usually a solid color that is neutral or makes sense with the image, i.e. wedding colors. 

-If you are not experienced in layout, there is nothing wrong with doing a bunch of 1 and 2 photo spreads. Less is more. You want to be able to see the photos. Cramming 12 on a page may not workout well if you don't know how to lay it out properly.

-Know you per page costs. Don't make 40 pages only to find out it's going cost an extra $1.5 for each page over 20. Figure out what it will cost and plan according to what you can afford.

-you can make a version for each mom that focuses on that family. Your book can have all the pages, and their can be smaller - if you want.

vmj23

Thanks @phottykitty!!   I plan on making one for me and a smaller for each mom (would swap out pics in the smaller albums to focus on each family more like you suggested).    For around 100 imagines, how many pages would I want in the album?    I'll take a look at Picaboo. I'd like a modern yet sleek/elegant looking album.  

emmyg65

I don't prefer one to the other; they're just different! Both make really lovely, high quality books. Here's a brief review:

Artifact Uprising

- crisper printing

- hardcover is bound like a book, which is pretty swank

- more cover design options

Kolo

- more saturated colors in printing

- more page layout options

- larger book options

One thing that I also love about Kolo is with the post binding, you can add or remove pages later. 

I chose Kolo for our wedding album because I wanted a huge honkin' book and Artifact Uprising's max size is 8.5"x11". I used Artifact Uprising for a hardcover book for my parents and a softcover one for my brother.

vmj23

@emmyg65 - I've held off on making an album for awhile, but have really started looking on the different sites and preparing to make one. I am pretty certain I am going with Kolo, thanks for the suggestions! I liked Artifact Uprising too, but want a larger book than they offer. Was Kolo easy to use? Do they offer different templates to help guide you in putting the book together? Also, by any chance do you recall the cost per page additional? I can't find it on their site.

emmyg65

Kolo was way easy to use, and they offer a variety of simple, elegant templates. They have a couple different page options, but I don't know how much extra pages cost beyond that.

vmj23

Thanks, @emmyg65! I think I am going to start tackling it this weekend...!