When making a photo book, whether it’s for you or to give as a gift, choosing the right photos is important. Most photo books can hold a limited number of photos and those that allow you to include more will often charge more in response. For that reason, the hardest part of making these photo books is choosing which photos are worth including and which photos are not.
You should aim to include only the most meaningful photos for each book, which means you’ll need to weed out the unimportant photos. Like in a photo book of a wedding for example, you don’t want three or four pages devoted to cutting the cake even if you have 20 great pictures of it. You should try to strike a balance and equally represent all of the important aspects of the memory or event you want to capture with your photo book. If you include all the highlights, your photo book can be a story of a memory rather than just an exhaustive documentation of that memory.
Also consider what exactly you want for the look of the finished photo book. For the most visually interesting photo book, you’ll want to include photos that provide some degree of color contrast. This can be a contrast within a single photo, between all the photos, and between the photos and any frames or backgrounds included with the book.
One of the bigger determining factors should be the photo’s quality (especially when you’re choosing a cover photo). Sometimes a blurry photo can be a great addition (if it catches a candid and meaningful moment or makes you laugh in some way) but you’ll typically want the photos that are the most clear and of the highest quality. Photos taken on older smartphones or those that have been compressed in one way or another should be avoided. Images taken on regular cameras are usually preferable. but many new phones come with cameras that have high enough resolution to be used in photo books. However, even if a photo looks crisp on your phone, it may look pixelated once the image is expanded and printed. If you are unsure, use an app like Mosaic or Vukee’s Photo Book. These will warn you if a photo has poor resolution that might affect the print’s quality.
You know which photos best represent the memories you want to include, so the final look and feel of your photo book is up to you. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll be sure to end up with the best book for your buck.
