Create a photo yearbook with family photos

Creating a yearbook with family photos doesn't sound particularly exciting or even difficult, does it? All you have to do is take a few photos, select a photo book, upload the pictures and then with "a few clicks" design the photo book. It's that easy. Or is it not?

Most photo books need more time and attention than expected. After all, you don't just design one page, but many, the pictures and their arrangement should tell a story, the layout should be beautiful and the cover should also look good.

Kristin Reinhard, who runs the blog Swiss Family Travel, explains in a blog post (Link) how she designs her family yearbooks with a reasonable amount of time. Because even she - an experienced family photo book designer - had to struggle time and again with the fact that she ran out of time.

That's why Kristin has devised a process to organize her photo books and save time. We are happy that she shared her experiences with us and would like to introduce you to the Kristin Reinhard program for more beautiful family photo books.

Select program + your photo book

For her photo books Mrs. Reinhard uses the free Bookfactory Software, which works on Windows and Mac. Alternatively, one could use the photo books directly in the browser with the Online-Editor, With the software, however, one has the advantage that the photo books are stored directly on the computer.

Mrs. Reinhard used to make photo books for Apple and was therefore looking for a photo book that was similar to her old photo books. She decided to buy the Bookfactory photo book Premium in maxi size (30 x 29.4 cm).

Organization

Here comes one of the most important tips: "Keep it simple". This means that Mrs. Reinhard organizes her photo books according to a certain pattern: There is a double page for each month of the year. Extraordinary occasions, celebrations, travels etc. each get their own double page (or more, if desired) and each of their children - three in number - gets their own double page for their month of birth. On the cover comes a beautiful landscape shot from the year.

This gives you a quick overview of the pages you need and how extensive the photo book will be. No rule without exception: For special occasions (or especially good children?) you can, if necessary, simple more space → at Bookfactory you can increase the number of pages in your photo book in pleasantly small steps of two.

Set layout

Many find it a challenge to decide on a prefabricated layout or to design their own. Kristin Reinhard had the same problem, and she solved it pragmatically.

To redesign each page, she once set a layout for a double page. All you have to do is place an image box on the page and resize it to the desired size. With Copy/Paste you copy the image box as often as you like. Once you have designed your double page, you can use the "Project functions" to apply it to all double pages. Optionally you can save the layout for further photo books (via the function "Change template", selectable below the book page)

For her family book Mrs. Reinhard has placed four pictures on the left side - three for her children and a large one for a landscape photograph - and several smaller pictures on the right side. You can see how easy and fast this works in Video of Swiss Family Travel.

Fotobuch gestalten mit Bookfactory Software Video von Swiss Family Travel

Create photo book

When it comes to design, Mrs. Reinhard works her way through the photo book month after month, always trying to complete an entire month when she is working on the photo book. That's handy, because she can start every time fresh with a new month.

When selecting the photos, Mrs. Reinhard is less interested in selecting the "right" ones or even all the photos, but rather in retelling the family year with her pictures.

As the layout is already fixed, Mrs. Reinhard knows how many photos she needs for all months of the book and can fill the pages relatively quickly with photos.

The predefined layout also gives you more possibilities for improvisation. For example, if you'd rather have a full-screen image over the entire page for a month, simply change the design of the page in question.

Tip: After the photo book is finished, Mrs. Reinhard saves all used photos in the software separately as a backup copy in a separate folder (via "Details - Project functions") . So she double backed up the images used in the book.

What are your experiences?

Do you have any tips you would like to share with other customers? Or a question that is close to your heart? Write to us at: service@bookfactory.ch - we will share all tips and suggestions in our blog.