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In preparation for our hometown reception over the fourth of July weekend, I’m checking out options for printing a good quality but reasonably priced photo book… or five.
I’ve picked through a thousand SOOC (straight out of camera, for those of you who don’t follow Mrs. Avocado’s blog) photos and chosen about a hundred favorites, and our photographer is editing them as we speak. I want to put together a wedding scrapbook for our peeps who couldn’t make it to the actual shindig to peruse, plus a couple of keepsake albums for each of our parents, all in less than a few weeks’ time.
Oh, and did I mention they need to be reasonably priced? We’re suffering through the post-wedding broke-ness. Big time.
I’m also toying with the idea of excerpting blog posts (yes, from this blog) and turning them into a book just for he and I… since there’s no way it’d pass the cheese test and be left out in public.
I’m not particularly graphically inclined, so while I can cut and paste and crop with the best of ‘em, I have absolutely positively no eye for layout. A not too cheesy template is necessary, fo sho.
Help a girl out? Have you used and liked any of the following:
I have used Snapfish and had a friend who used My Publisher. Snapfish was cheaper and a little faster. However, while I was happy with the Snapfish album I recieved, I have to say I was slightly more impressed with the quality of the My Publisher book. Both usually have great coupons and discount offers though.
I don’t have any insight for you, Miss Cheese, although I’ve heard good things about Snapfish. Def keep us posted on what you end up doing and how it turns out because we’ll be DIYing our photo albums post-wedding, too!!
Good to see you posting again - you were always one of my favorite bloggers 
I’ve used blurb and I loved it. I made a photo book of a friend’s wedding from there and they kept saying how professional it looked. It’s really easy too–I am not artistic at all!
I love the idea of adding snippets from the blog posts! I’m sure there are plenty that would shed some great insight on selected pictures–like the back story leading up to how great it looked on the day of the wedding!
I haven’t used any of the above, but I have used Kodak Gallery. The end product is great and it is very affordable. Nothing too fancy though.
I haven’t used any of those, but I have used Kodakgallery.com, like katrinab. I thought the quality was very good!
Go Blurb! I’ve used my publisher but swtiched to Blurb due to quicker turnaround time, more format options, and now you can even create your own page exactly how you want it. The paper isnt as thick as my publisher but Blurb’s isnt bad at all and its much much cheaper. A great my publisher book will cost over $150 and you can get the same thing from Blurb (actually much better) for $75. I’ve made about 5 Blurb books now and I LOVE it. No, I do not work for Blurb. 
I’ve used Blurb.com and must say I loved it. I can say for the other programs though. The BookSmart software is easy to use and you have lots of layout options.
I think theres even the option to convert a blog into a book… Good luck!
I used MyCanvas to produce three family history books for our parents. They have different products though, including photo books. MyCanvas syncs with Picasa, Smugmug, and Flickr (and ancestry.com, hence the family tree) so you can use photos straight from those sources (you can also just upload from your computer). I was really pleased with the final product, the literally thousands of options for laying out each page, adding frames, embellishments, etc. Pricing starts at $30 and goes up depending on what sort of cover you want and how many pages your project contains (first x number are included with base cost). Our 130 page leatherette full color books ended up being $90 each with their volume discount and free shipping special. I think they have plenty of examples on the website and extra tips on their blog.
I used Mypublisher and it was super cheap…I had a buy one get one free coupon. The only thing I didn’t like was the lack of format options.
We just got ours in from Snapfish yesterday and LOVE it… print quality is amazing and it took no time at all (like less then a week)!! Hope this helps!
I haven’t used any of these programs. But I’ve used ofoto.com and shutterfly. Ofoto doesn’t have very many layout options and it doesn’t allow you to write as much text as you might like. I used shutterfly for our Italy scrapbook and really liked that I could change the background on each page, change the font color and size. I was really pleased with the book and it cost my $50.00. I had over 100 pictures in it. I’m thinking about trying to make our guest sign-in book myself. My photographer offers one but I think I’d rather spend the money elsewhere.
I used Shutterfly for a trip to Egypt (as a test run for our honeymoon pictures) and I thought it turned out well.
I ordered them during a father’s day sale and got 20% off and ordered 3 copies of the book. They arrived less than a week after I ordered them, so turnaround was FAST!
I think they turned out really well. I did not get anything fancy in terms of super thick pages. But the layouts were easy to work with and change (I am a tech person, but it was nice to work with something simple). I will definitely be using them again.
For me personally, I looked at Blurb but did not use them cause of cost. myPublisher was annoying to work with, and some other well known ones I rejected based on price.
Either way, I think they will turn out great. Good luck!
The Pioneer Woman over at http://www.pioneerwoman.com gave snapfish a pretty good review and proceeded to give away many books. You could check out her review. Also, a Town and Country wedding edition from this past spring did a break down of 3 or 4 different diy photo book websites.
I like Blurb. I just ordered a 7″x7″ book from them with the upgraded paper. It was 60+ pages and came to $33.
I’ve gotten spanfish books in the past and the covers end up warping.
I’ve ordered photo books from Kodakgallery.com before and really been impressed with the quality and layout options for creating them. PLUS there are almost always coupon codes to be found online and by signing up for their email newsletter so you can usually get at least 25% off and almost always end up with free shipping.
I’ve heard that blurb is really good, and if I recall correctly a few other Bees have recommended http://www.mpix.com as well. While I haven’t seen either books IRL, I have seen prints from mpix and the quality is good. I especially love the metallic paper they offer!
Speaking of which.. when do we get to see the lovely photos??
I just had my post wedding album made with mypublisher. I mostly went with them because I wanted a linen cover with a window for a picture on the front. It was also very easy to use and had a lot of layout options so you could get all the pics you needed to in one page. You can fit up to 12 pics on one page. I did 20 pages from and back and got about 100 images in there and it was $46 not including shipping. They are always having promotions and I got one of my books for free. It took one week to get here and I was very pleased with the result. I would recommend them. I gave them as parent gifts, but I might do something nicer for my own, I just haven’t figured out what that would be.
Love Blurb! We made our wedding album (along with albums for our parents and a honeymoon album) through them. Definitely go with premium paper and we went with the hard cover image wrap instead of a dust jacket. Very professional looking. Just heed their advice and watch out for clipping on the top and the bottom of the page. You will cut the tops of people’s heads off if you’re not careful.
I’ve used Blurb and really liked it, but I have a little graphic design experience, so I’m not sure how easy it would be for someone who didn’t have any.
Blurb! So easy to use, excellent printing quality, great cover material, quick turnaround, and you can get a discount if it’s your first time using it, I think. Google blurb coupons.
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Mrs. Cheese, Knoxville Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, CAD Designer Engagement Date: July 31, 2008 Wedding Date: May, 2009 Blogging Since: October 16, 2008 Venue: Our home and the two acres it sits on About Me: I’m an emotional girl who loves sentimental things, parenthetical asides, and trying to do things herself. I can cook, sew, am a whiz at planning, terrible at delegating, and totally in love with my fiancé (who will be my second husband but first love of the rest of my life). For our home/ garden/ DIY wedding, we’ll be moonlighting as interior designers, home improvers, and gardeners with the help of our fabulous friends and neighbors. We can’t wait to be married, and are learning how fun getting married can be.
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