July 21, 2004

Photo Albums

Create a photo album from your digital pictures, and you have an easy and convenient way to share memories. We used three different on-line services for making photo albums of a recent family trip. Here’s what we found:

MyPublisher.com (www.mypublisher.com) was the slickest of the three for setting up the album. You need to download their free Bookmaker software so you can create your album on your computer, but after that you don’t need to be connected to the Internet until the final phase.

The program steps you through the entire process. First you indicate the location of your photos, which are then displayed in thumbnail format. Next, drag and drop the desired photos into the album window. Once pictures are loaded into the window, drag and drop them to arrange and re-arrange until they’re in the order you want.

Next lay out photos on the album pages using one of the included templates. The templates offer a variety of portrait, landscape and mixed formats for one to eight photos on a page. If you don’t like the location of a photo, drag and drop it to wherever it looks best.

Adding captions is easy: click on the caption box and type away. You’re limited to about 80 characters in most templates, but a "Story Teller" template allows more caption space (although gives you a smaller picture). Caption options include a choice of six fonts, bold, italic or underline, and centered, right or left justified. Or choose "Just Photos" layout for maximum photo size.

During the selection or layout process, you can do limited photo editing: rotate, flip, change to black and white, auto adjust color and brightness or zoom in for best cropping.

Once you’re satisfied with the layout and captions, the final step is to purchase your album by connecting to the MyPublisher secure site. Choose either a soft cover 6 x 8 inch album ($.49/page) or a hard cover 9 x 12 inch album ($2.95/page) and single or double-sided printing (the picture size in all of these albums is smaller than the paper size because of captions and borders). Both the soft and hard cover albums are perfect bound and use offset printing (not regular photographs) on heavy acid-free paper.

You have a choice of colors and designs for the covers, and the hard cover comes in linen or leather ($10 extra). Pay for your album (discounts given for multiple copies), and your photos and layout are automatically uploaded. Within 5 - 7 days your creation is delivered: a slick, bound, printed photo album.

Clubphoto (www.clubphoto.com) has you create an "album" of your photos on line. Using the photos in this "album," you create a spiral bound photo "flip-book" in either a 4 x 6 inch (20 pages for $8.95) or a 5 x 7 inch size ($20 pages for $17.95). These are actual photos, printed on one side only, with captions, plastic cover and plastic spiral binder.

The web site steps you through the process. Start by uploading your photos to Clubphoto and selecting the format. You work with on-screen thumbnails to choose which photos you want included, and you can rotate, lighten or darken any photos. Then arrange the photos in the order you want. This process is not quite drag and drop--you have to select a photo and then click on where you want it to appear in the series. The next step is to add captions. No choice of fonts or styles. Pay for your album, and in a few days it’s delivered.

SnapFish (www.snapfish.com) is similar to ClubPhoto: you need to upload your photos into an "album" on their Web site. Once you’ve chosen to create a flip book (also actual photos, with plastic cover and plastic spiral binding), you’re led through the process. Choose a style for the background, select the photos you want to use and then arrange them with drag and drop ease and add captions. You can rotate a photo and add or remove photos and edit captions until the final step. Pay for the album (4 x 6 inch $4.99/5 pages and $1.99 each additional 5 pages; 5 x 7 $7.99/$3.99) and your photo book is delivered in a few days.

We ran into some problems with SnapFish: Our first order was lost, so customer service asked us to re-order. When the new album arrived, two of the photos were replaced with someone else’s photos. Customer service re-ordered our album, but that one also had the same wrong photos--even though our on-line photos were correct. SnapFish then refunded our money and made no further offer except to tell us to re-create and re-order the album again.

Which photo album is best for you? The bound books are very nice, and picture quality is very good--but, in our opinion, not quite as good as the photographs. On the other hand, we liked the perfect binding better than the plastic spiral binding. You have to decide which style is best for your needs. But whichever you choose, we think you’ll enjoy having a printed photo album as a keepsake of special occasions, trips or other memories you want to keep or share.

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