In creating photo books over the last couple of years, I’ve used several services (such as Snapfish and Shutterfly) to create and print. I’ll talk about each of these services and a couple of others in a later post, but for now, here are some of the pros and cons I have found with photo book services in general.
Pros
* When you’re done you have a nice compact book of your photos.
* Most services that I’ve tried feature nice printing that lives up to expectations.
* You can choose your size, cover, and layout to customize your book to your liking.
* You can create your own layouts in another software (such as Photoshop) and import them or simply drag and drop photos into predesigned layouts.
* Some services have design help available that will do the work for you (either a real designer or an auto fill option).
* You can almost always find a coupon code or discount if you sign up for their mailing lists.
* You can make and order other photo-based projects at the same time (photo gifts, printed photos, books, address labels, etc).
* If your photos aren’t of a high enough resolution, the programs typically tells you it won’t print well. This makes your printed piece higher quality, but can be a pain as well when you really want that particular photo in your book.
Cons
* Buying photo books when you don’t have a discount can be pricey, especially depending on your choice of size and cover material.
* If you’re trying out a service for the first time you don’t always know exactly what you’re going to get.
* Each service has its own program glitches or frustrating quirks that you have to learn (such as fitting words into text boxes or not being able to move elements on a layout like you’d ideally be able to do).
* Unlike scrapbooking, you can’t fix something once you hit “send.” It’s printed and permanent!
* Uploading photos to the site or into the software can sometimes take a while, especially depending on the size of your photos.
* If your photos aren’t of a high enough resolution, the programs typically tell you it won’t print well. This makes your printed piece higher quality, but can be a pain as well when you really want that particular photo in your book.
Related Blogs:
Organizing Your Photos: Digital Photos