Online Collaboration and Making Photo Books

Online collaboration is the ability to work with other people on a project while sharing documents and completing your work online. Many different photo book projects need the input of several people to be successful - yearbooks, weddings, and sport team photo books are all better with input from several people. But, which publishers provide the tools and software to make group projects and online collaboration easier?

This is not an easy question because there are many ways that the different publishers support online collaboration.

Many people need help in getting others to share pictures for a book. Here are some ways that publishers help you share pictures for a photo book:

One feature that has been added to many publishers this year is the ability to get pictures directly from different social networking sites such as Facebook and Photobucket. Since people readily upload to the sites, it is one good way to get pix, but the pictures have a low resolution and are only good for small pictures in a book.

Many publishers allow you to share the pictures you upload with your friends. This can be helpful. If the publisher allows you to use pictures from a friend's album, you don't need to do anything except import the picture into the book. If they do not allow you to import pictures, you can at least see the pictures and email your friend for copies.

Another feature is the publisher who allows you to email people directly from your project and request pictures.

The majority of publishers go no farther than helping you to share pictures or finished projects. Here are the publishers who foster online collaboration and photo sharing:

Photo Book Publisher Online Collaboration and Sharing

ArtsCow
Has a gallery that you can place your book for anyone to look at. Friends, family or anyone can view, rate, comment or buy copies. Copy and paste URL is available to send to friends and family. A gallery is available to view other people's books.

Blurb
You can print out a PDF of your book to let others proofread or sign off on it. You can also make a copy of your Booksmart file and share it with others.

CVS Photo Center You can only share by entering the e-mail of the person that you want to share your photo album with. The only way to see someone else's photos is if they share their album with you via e-mail. The person you are sharing with can view your album and has the option to purchase.

DigiLabs The online collaboration is currently for proofing and sharing purposes only. Once you create a book you can share it online with friends and family. A flash web page will be created with your book and you can add comments to the page and share it via email or linking to another page with the world. You would be able to share the books at different stages for approval but the person viewing your design would not be able to make changes themselves.

Inkubook You can share your book online with people you invite, view your friends' books that they've shared, and ask people to collaborate on your book by providing pictures.

Kodak Gallery You can use photos from other people's albums in your photo books if they have shared them with you.

Mixbook Mixbook was created for online collaboration. When you create a Mixbook you can choose who is able to help you edit your book. There are three options: 1)Open to Everyone, 2)Open to Friends, 3)Not Open. The first two options allow you to have collaborative books. The first option, Open to Everyone allows everyone on the Mixbook network to edit your book. The second option, Open to Friends, allows all of your Mixbook friends to contribute to your book. The third option, allows you to invite who can edit your Mixbook. You also have the option of creating a copy of a book and editing that copy.

MyCanvas Sharing option is only for viewing. When you share a project, you can allow that person to make a copy of the book. They can make changes to their copy, but those changes will not affect your copy of the project.

MyPublisher You can share your book online by sending an email to people. Just became integrated with Facebook.

OurHubbub For new projects and books in progress, customers on OurHubbub can invite friends and family to upload photos to their project. Friends and family can even make a copy of the book to customize their own. Finalized books can be shared with friends and family to view, buy a copy of that book, and even make a copy to customize their own version of the book.

PhotoWorks With Email-a-Book™, friends and family can view a digital version of your book online and even order physical copies of their own. Send the finished project or even a work in progress for creative feedback from fellow photo enthusiasts! Edit and customize the book you started to their liking to make it their own (if you grant them permission to do so). They can even revise it, and share it back to you so you can pick up where they left off.

Picaboo Although more than one person cannot work on a photo book at the same time, you can individually contribute to one book. To do this, create a new book and then share it with your Pal within Picaboo (who will also need to have the Picaboo application installed on their computer). When that person receives your shared book, they will need to select it in Picaboo home and click "File" from the top menu and select "Save As...". Once they save a copy of this book, they can edit the book. They can then share it back to you at which point you can repeat the editing and sharing process.
An e-mail can be sent to your friends/family where they can see your book and make comments

Shutterfly Online collaboration in Shutterfly starts with friends who edit/save the shared photo book in their account. Shared photo book project enables the share recipient to save the entire project in their Shutterfly account or save only the pictures from the book to their account for making edits. You also have the option to create your own Shutterfly account (or sign in to their existing account) and save both the Shared project as well as the pictures from the shared Photo Book. Any changes that your family or friends make to the shared Photo Book project WILL NOT reflect in the saved project in your account.

Snapfish You can create a group room where family and friends can add all their photos, videos and projects in a single, secure group room. This is the most collaboration offered by any publisher.

Winkflash You can create groups of people to quickly share photos with them. You are even able to download hi-res photos from their albums. This would allow you to add anyone's pictures to your projects once they share them with you.