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Make-Your-Own-Photobooks PrimerA Primer is any book of elementary principles. This primer isn't a tutorial for putting a photo book together. Putting a photo book together is very easy -- It is a primer on all the things you need to do before you get to sit in front of the computer and make your photo books.The basic skill for putting a book together is the ability to drag pictures onto a page. If you can play Solitaire on the computer you have all the skills necessary to put the book together. The hardest parts happen before you put the book together. First, you need pictures and an idea. This can be harder than it sounds. Have you ever tried to find the pictures from an event that happened a year ago? This Primer is designed to cover all the work that goes into getting and finding your pictures so you can make your own photo book. If you already know something, just jump over that area and check out the next topic.
How to Get Digital PhotosUsing your digital camera is the most obvious way to get digital photos. You can also scan your pictures or have a photo CD made when you get pictures developed. You can even take pictures of old pictures with a digital camera.
Digital CameraAt this point we aren't going to discuss how to take better pictures, just how to get the pictures you need for your project.How Do I Get My Photos off My Camera?
The three most common ways to get your photos off your camera are:
How Many Megapixels Do I Need? An image resolution of 1600 x 1200 can be printed with good results as large as 8 x 10. A 2 megapixel camera will take pictures at that image resolution. And of course, not all the pictures you place in a photo book will be that large. So don't ditch lower resolution pictures. The photo book software will let you know if an image does not have enough resolution. So, you don't need to worry that a picture will come out blurry.
Taking Digital Pictures of Old Photos
Scanning PhotosIf you have prints of pictures that you'd like to include in a photo book you can scan the pictures. You can scan these yourself or have a service scan them for you.Have a service scan your photos There are services that will scan your photos for as little as $0.19 a picture. This is a good option if you do not have many pictures to scan and do not need them right away. I have never used a service, yet. I am going to try out a few so I can report back the results to you. Scan the pictures yourself There are many types of scanners, but a flatbed scanner works nicely for scanning old photos. I did a crazy project last year -- I decided to scan all of our photos!! 4,000 scans later... Needless to say the project took me months. I used an HP Officejet 5610 All-in-One Printer/Scanner/Copier and it did a fine job. This is not an expensive piece of equipment, so don't feel you need to go out and get the best. When scanning the pictures you will need a software program to help you with the imaging and scanning. I just used the software that came with the scanner and did not upgrade. It worked fine. And although the project took forever, it was fun to think about the picture as it was being scanned. Now some people would think it would be worth their time to send the pictures to a scanning service, and part of me agrees with that. But, I did enjoy thinking about each photo, and I would never have done that any other way. More on DIY Scanning and Scanning Services
Organizing Your PhotosOrganizing Photos on Your ComputerSaving your pictures to folders saves you time in the long run. Even if you do not label the pictures, you should organize groups of pictures on your hard drive. Using "My Documents" is the easiest way to do this. I never download pictures unless I create a specific folder for those pictures. If my card is full, it may take 3 or 4 folders to organize the photos.Sometimes a photo could go into 2 or 3 different categories. It is easier to make a copy of the photo and put one in each folder. This could happen if you are on a vacation and take a picture of Uncle Mike. You might have a folder for that vacation and one for relatives. There is no set logic on how to organize the folders - use what makes the most sense to you and take into account how you may be using the pictures in the future. Here are some ways to organize your photos:
Organize by Date
Organize by Projects
Organize by Personal Quirks
Organize with Photo Management SoftwarePhoto management software will allow you to put tags onto your photos and search the pictures by these tags or keywords. You can give each picture more than one tag, so it can be included in more than one search. For instance, if you have a picture of your daughter's first birthday, you tag that picture with birthday and your daughter.Here is a review of Photomanagement Software
More Detailed InformationBuying a Digital Camera
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