Photo book - software suggestions please!

[c23roo]

My wife is interested in putting together a book of photos and was aondering if there are some good suggestions out there regarding publishing software. She has used Shutterfly and iPhoto but is now looking for something a little more involved. She has not looked at Aperture yet.

What she would like to do in addition to having her photography on the pages, is have some more flexibility regarding how many photos per page, how they are arranged, their size and orientation, adding text, etc...

As I am not the photography buff, I thought I would try the forum here - please be kind as I am not terribly familiar with this stuff!

Suggestions much appreciated.

-c

 

[missclareski]

I highly recommend Picaboo. I made a photo album through them when they had a special buy one get one free deal, but after I saw the quality of the product, I will buy another album at full price if need be. The only advertisement is their logo on the back of the last page of the album. everything else is completely without any branding and the quality is excellent. The software offers numerous templates (from all text, full page photo, 2 photos, 3 photos, 4, 5,..., full page collage) , but I also created my own "digital scrapbook" pages in Photoshop for even more flexibility and imported them as a full-page photo.

PS - I *almost* went with Kodak before, but found this website when doing a lot of searching and am happy with my decision. If I remember correctly, the purchase even comes with an online version of the same album so you can share via e-mail and such to friends and family! May not be so groundbreaking since you can copy photos to another site, but it saves you the hassle.

 

[missclareski]

I just downloaded the new software since I hadn't yet installed it onto my new computer, and the latest version allows you to do some "drag-and-drop" capabilities too for your photos.

 

[c23roo]

Thanks - I will look into that.

Anyone else out there with any thoughts? Does Aperture have useful tools to do this kind of stuff? How about Photoshop (Elements or the full package)? Pages?

Help!
Thanks,
c

 

[gnd]

Does Aperture have useful tools to do this kind of stuff?

Yes, iPhoto and Aperture both are able to make photo books. You can make it, order it and send it off with these two programs. The books are then printed by Apple. Here is an Apple video tutorial for Aperture.

 

[photobookgirl]

I write a blog on photo book companies that I've tried with a database of 27 photo book companies and counting and full detailed reviews with photos and info on deals as well in the blog. If anyone has any specific questions I would be happy to answer them.

I also have a review of my Apple Aperture 3 photo book. You can do custom layouts. The fact that you can print the books with companies other than Apple is a big plus too.

If you're looking for specific companies that allow you to make your own customizable layouts, this is an easy way to find them: http://www.photobookgirl.com/software/ You can select which features are important to you and then the tool eliminates the ones that don't fit. When you narrow it down to what you're looking for, you can click on that company's logo for more information and links to reviews of that printer.

Hope you find it helpful!