Photobooks (Memory books)

What are Photo Books?

Photo books are essentially a photo album, the only difference being that the photographs are printed directly on to the pages of the book.

This gives your digital photo album a very professional feel. What's more, you can have your digital photos printed to any size within the book - vary the size of your prints to create a more interesting layout. When you see one for the first time, with your photos, you will say "wow!".

How to create a Photo Book?

Some websites offering photobooks require you to download software in order to create the book. However, there are a good choice of online shops that let you do all the design work online through their own website. Personally, I prefer this as I try not to  install to much software on my computer if I can help it.

Firstly, upload your digital images to the website. Select the style and size of book, then position your photographs to their best effect by simply dragging and dropping your images.

Customise the layout of your pictures and text

Choose a layout style for each page and add text for descriptions and captions. You can save your photobook to finish at a later date, change the layout and swap photos to see which look best. Some sites such as www.myphotobook.co.uk even let you use special effects such as transparency.

Finally, place your order and within days your photo book will be delivered. A perfect present, way to preserve your photo collection of holiday pictures or wedding pictures, or a portfolio of your work.

You can, of course, simply print your digital photos or frame your photos, but creating a photobook is just so much better. Below is a list of what we think are the best online photobook services:

The PhotoBox site is great. It's clear, easy to navigate and there are good instructions on how to order a photobook. I ordered a photo book from this website and was impressed with the flexibility of the layout options, the quality of the book and the delivery.

I ordered a photo book for my Mum, who doesn't have a digital camera, internet connection or a computer so she can't share our family digital photographs. She was thrilled.

PhotoBox have added to their photobook range – you can now order stylebooks and notebooks. Their photobooks are still very good value at £19.99 for 26 pages with the option of adding up to 70 pages now. They come in three different styles with a special Kids style coming soon.

The style books are slightly smaller, come in four attractive styles and contain a minimum of 30 pages, especially good for adding text and anecdotes to your photos. All for £14.99.

Photobox's new notebooks are great, very colourful with three themes and a huge variation on designs for the cover. They are ideal for creating a journal, notebook, recipe book or travel diary and come with lined or plain paper insides. Excellent value.

Photobox is highly recommended for Photobooks

My Photo Book offers a fantastic range of books which come in all shapes and sizes, with different covers including hard back, soft back, spiral bound or a simple booklet style.

Prices vary according to what you buy, but you can easily afford a photobook from this site, or splash out on something special such as their Maxi format with a linen hard back cover in a choice of seven colours.

Have the cover printed with one of your favourite photos or choose from 13 different colours in the soft cover range. Their sturdy spiral bound photobooks are ideal for business presentations or design portfolios.

You do have to download their software and install it onto your PC or Mac in order to use the service. It's compatible with Windows 95/98, Me, 2000, XP and with Macintosh OS X.

 

Cewe Color is Europe's largest photo processor, apparently, with clients such as Jessops, Lloyd's Pharmacy and Rowlands in the UK. And they definitely do photobooks. In as little as 3 clicks you can create the photobook on your PC and pictures look great in various styles and formats with lots of room for individual creativity. Right now the software is not Mac compatible but a version for MAC is coming soon.

So, let's take a look at how My CeWe Photo Book works. Basically:

* Transfer your photos to PC
* Download software
* Install and run the application 'My CeWe Photo World'.
* Choose your book size, i.e. Extra Large, Large, Square or Small Booklet
* Use the "CeWe Photo Book assistant", to create a book in just three clicks. (You may wish to choose from the six cover styles at this stage)
* Click on the 'to order' button to start the order process

 

Prices start from £5.99 (up to £70) at the award-winning Cewe - worth a visit, I'd say.

 

Colourmailer offer many sizes for both their Photo Albums and Deluxe Albums. Photo Albums are spiral bound with a choice of semi-transparent or coloured covers. Deluxe Albums have hard covers and a choice of four colours and are perfect bound. There albums are excellent value, for example their medium-sized album with 20 pages is £10.90.

Their website is very descriptive, giving good images of their albums and clearly showing all of the cover colours and types available. Choose from different backgrounds and layouts and add text

You do have to download Colourmailer's software to use their service, but it's fully Mac and Windows compatible.

fotoinsight have an excellent range of photobooks, small, square, large and extra large, and their website shows them off well so you can see exactly what you're getting. They come with either hard back, soft back or linen covers in different colours (except for the smallest size) and with plenty of choice on backgrounds and layout styles. It's an international site, just select your country from the top menu. The necessary software is for PCs only however.

Kodak Gallery offer three sizes of photobook – regular, large and mini and all include a front window to show the photo on the first page. The choice of covers includes leather and linen (except for the mini size) which makes your books very stylish. Covers also come with a large selection of colours. You can choose layouts and add captions.

Yophoto offer four sizes of photo books but their best feature is the colour range of the bonded leather and linen covers that you can choose from. Select different layouts and background colours and add your own captions.

You must download their software which is only compatible with Windows XP or 2000.

Bonusprint have extended their range of photobooks and now offer spiral bound mini albums in three sizes, as well as their pocket, medium and large photobook range (the medium photobook comes in two sizes). The large and medium books come with leather or linen covers in various colours. Choose from different backgrounds and layouts and as usual you can add captions.

Bonusprint offer a good product but the photo software that you have to download is only compatible with Windows 2000 XP or above. Mac users go to www.photobox.co.uk, www.myphotobook.co.uk or Colourmailer.

Bags of Love have three sizes of photobook, A3, A4 and A5, with the A4 size coming in both landscape and portrait. The cover is personalised both front and back with your photos, the books are handbound and you also can have free red-eye and date stamp removal on some sizes.

Bags of Love are offering an up-market product "hardcover deluxe coffee table style books" with artworkers taking care of your photos, so these photobooks are for a special occasion and the prices reflect this. Presentation box or tin also available. You have to pay before uploading your photos.

Snapfish now offer five different photo books, their large Signature photo book comes with a velvet or leather cover, then they have Classic, Story, Everyday and Mini books too. The Story book comes with a customised dust jacket making it extra special. The Mini books are tiny at 2 x 3 inches but are great for your handbag. There are also plenty of styles and colours to choose from.

You need to have Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer to use Snapfish, if you don't you will be prompted to install it when making your photobook.

Fotobook: an Edinburgh-based company with a very good website and a wide selection of sizes, covers and colours for their photo books. The quality seems to be excellent although the products are a little pricey. Only for PC users, although they have an offline pack for Mac users to correctly save photos, write them to CD and send them in a postage-paid envelope.

Treasure Your Pics offer five styles with a choice of leatherette coloured covers. They also offer a professional photographer site (www.photovalue.com) which is aimed specifically at wedding photo albums and offers a variety of styles and sizes.

You need to download their software which is only compatible with Windows 2000, XP or above.

Klickphotobook offer five different sizes of book from an extra large photo book to a 26-page photo booklet, with all of their books you can add up to 98 pages. You have to download software to use the site and it's only compatible with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

Net Print
www.netprint.com

Magic Boomerang
www.magicboomerang.com

Jessops
www.jessopsphotoexpress.com Jessops have partnered with Snapfish (see above) so their products are exactly the same.

Truprint
www.truprint.co.uk Truprint have partnered with Snapfish (see above) so their products are exactly the same.

Total Pix
www.totalpix.co.uk
Do you know of any resources we've missed, or do you disagree with what we've put then please get in touch with your feedback, or leave us a comment below...

Comments	Date
By lauren	2008-05-07 20:12:00
last year I ordered a photobook from Boots where I could choose one of my own landscape photos as a background in the pages of the book. It was very effective but sadly they now require you to do it all on line. the problem is the option to choose a background photo no longer seems to be the case. does anyone know a company where I can do this
By Kathryn	2008-04-16 10:07:04
To Hazel Gross - www.bobbooks.co.uk sell gift vouchers that recipients can use to create their own photobook
By Hazel Gross	2008-03-12 14:23:03
I am desperately trying to find somewhere that allows me to buy a voucher for a friend that she can use to create her own photobook - such a great gift but no one seems to do it - why not ?
By rory	2008-02-19 17:23:10
A great resourse on the net as usual. www.Hofmann.es do some great books,I use them for wedding books/parent books, printed to card and come with a hard padded cover. There is plenty of layout choices and you can create your own layout or pick from quite a few others (around 350 layouts/styles). They are Portrait books only (28.5x 21), but there is nothing stopping you printing double pages giving you large impressive prints. The software is OK to use, with basic editing functions, for some additional software may be required to obtain the desirdered effects. The print quality is good but can tend to be a little soft but from many users thyey may not see this. Prices are good at around £35.00 for a 50 page book. and there is no limitation to how many prints you can get on a page. Delivery is a little slow at around 10 days, but they do come from Spain. Their website is in international lanuages and the customer services is good.
By dapo ojo	2008-02-19 17:21:20
I am very pleased with bonusprint and fotobok.co
By Julie Wilson	2007-10-25 17:07:08
I've used photobox for several books and other gifts - never been less than delighted. They've also just improved their choice and increased the number of pages for the price. Very user-friendly.
By gisela	2007-10-16 23:09:40
Asda make 30cm by 30cm books. I'm about to try them now. I'll let you know what they're like!
By Christian	2007-10-05 11:33:04
Sounds very nice, but is there any possibility to creaty my individual photobook on real photographic paper?
By Steve	2007-09-27 09:22:58
Photobox.co.uk just keeps getting better and better, in my humble opinion of course1
By sarah	2007-06-09 17:36:36
I have had brilliant and very fast service from fotobook.co.uk all enquiries answered immediatly. have used them for wedding books and all clients have been extreamly happy with the results! i think the quality is great for a service where photos are uploaded via the net where perhaps the files may be compressed or somthing???(my image files are large so there must be some sort of compression to be able to upload hundreds of photos that quickly??)

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