When I come back from a trip, I have roughly 1,365 photos on my phone and camera card to sort through. As much fun as it is to scroll through my phone endlessly for hours looking at my photos (send help), it’s also important to me to have my memories printed in a tangible way. So, after my trip, I like to make a travel Photo Book so I can flip through and relive these moments for years to come.
Building a Photo Book can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be! Read on for our tips and tricks on how to build your travel Photo Book:
Collect all your photos.
Grab your iPhone or your camera card and put every single photo from your trip in a folder (either in your camera roll or on your desktop – wherever it would be easier to organize your photos!) titled with the name of your trip.
Maybe one of your friends or family members took pictures as well. Ask them to share their pictures with you! You can even create an album with your photos in the Google Photos app and send a link to everyone who went on the trip so they can add their photos.
Outline & organize your story.
Once all of the trip photos are in one place, it’s time to start culling through your photos! How do you pick the best photos for your Photo Book? Here are a few tips:
- Get rid of blurry images or ones that feature closed eyes.
- If you shoot in burst mode, just pick one from that set.
- Keep an eye on overall composition in similar photos. You might notice that one version is slightly slanted, or maybe one photo includes more random background noise than the other!
In terms of storytelling, we recommend that travel photo books use chronological order, which is a fairly easy way to build your book!
Now that you’ve narrowed down your photos, grab a piece of paper (or, keeping it totally digital, use the Notes app on your phone) and draft up a quick outline of your trip. Write down each day of your trip (and location if it was a multi-city trip!). Under that, jot down some of the key moments from the trip: restaurants you ate at, attractions you saw, the times that made you laugh the most, the sunsets you don’t want to forget.
Build your travel book!
It’s time for the actual creation of your travel photo book! Before you start, keep these items in mind:
- Determine your book size. It’s really up to your personal preference for this. I usually like to do 5x7” or 8x8” Photo Books so they fit neatly on my bookshelves! One thing to note is the orientation of your photos. Are they more vertical or horizontal? If you lean one way much more than the other, you may want to follow suit in the orientation of your book!
- Pick your cover. We offer leather covers, linen covers, or a photo cover. Photo covers are nice because you can choose a photo that embodies your entire trip. Also, I usually select a black leather cover for all of my Photo Books so they fit together on my shelf.
- Pick your paper type. You can print on Semi-Gloss, Pearl, or Linen. Plus, you can also make your Photo Book lay flat!
As you begin to build your Photo Book, you can pick from our pre-designed templates or go in with blank spreads so you can customize yourself. Here are some tips for customizing your book:
- Instead of adding a photo on the first page, why not add a textbox with information about your trip? You can include the dates and locations of the whole trip.
- Upload your photos in the builder or choose from a previously made gallery. At this stage, your previous organizing will come in handy! You’ve already created the outline for the book, so you can just drag and drop your photos in.
- Make sure to save along the way. You never know if you’ll lose your Internet connection, so it's always best to periodically hit the “save” icon just in case. Plus, you can name the project so it’s easy to find if you need to come back to it later.
That’s it! Ready to start creating your Travel Photo Book? Head over to our website, where they start at just $29.00!