Discover digital photo album printing services that are right for you
What on earth will you do if you wake up one morning and discover that a computer virus erased all of the photos you have on your computer? If you’re lucky, you printed out your photos or stored them as online digital photo albums. Maybe you chose to design digital photo albums as a gift to someone.
What are your options when it comes to printing digital photo albums, and which online album website is the right one for you?
A designed digital photo album – order it by email and get it delivered to your doorstep
The world of digital photography has changed how we archive our photos – from thickly bound albums to our computer screen. It sometimes seems like we don’t even print out photos anymore. In the old days we walked to the photo store with our camera film to have it developed and printed (we didn’t have a clue if they would come out good or not), but there’s an alternative now – beautifully designed digital photo albums that are ordered online and mailed to our doorstep.
Online digital photo albums – no printing required
The age of digital photography has turned our computers into something of a graveyard for photographs. Ask yourself how many times you actually went through your digital photo collection just for fun. To make things worse, we have way more photos than we used to have during photography’s traditional era. Online digital photo albums let you pick your favorite photos and organize them in a digital album that you can share with family and friends (without having them over for dinner). These digital photo album services are provided by such sites as Flickr and Picasa, which are owned by Yahoo and Google, respectively.
Whether we used a digital camera or a traditional camera to take the photo, some people prefer to hold a physical copy of a photo and to have physical albums lying on the bookcase. Designed digital photo albums are just the answer – they are bound albums made to our specifications, with the photos printed directly on the album’s pages (unlike the old fashioned plastic sleeves that traditional albums had).
How does it work? How do you order a designed digital photo album?
There are many websites that offer design, binding, and printing of digital photo albums. Each site offers different ways of designing your albums and different items to print them on (calendars, canvas, pillow covers, etc.). The difference is not only in the product, though - you will also find price differences between the sites.
Each site has its own free design application that you download to your computer. No design experience required – those are very user-friendly applications even for novice computer users. You simply choose the type of album you want to use, upload the photos, and send (upload) the finished album to the site for printing. Note that you cannot print the album yourself because the digital photo album sites protect their proprietary applications in a way that limits you to printing your album only with them.
How much does designing a digital photo album cost?
The price really depends on the type of digital photo album, the type of binding, and the number of pages and photos. Prices range from about $25 for an album up to more than $100 per album. You have to pay for any page that you add beyond the template that they offer. Shipping is usually included in the price unless you want rush delivery, or international shipping.
Tips for creating digital photo albums
- Pick the photos you like most and prepare a folder with those photos in advance.
- The design applications have lots of cool effects, but don’t over-do it! Keep it classy and clean, and don’t mix-and-match styles.
- Don’t put too many photos in any one page (even if the site permits it). The more pictures you squeeze into a page the smaller they will come out in print.
- Don’t place the photos too close to the page’s borders because they might get trimmed off in the printing and binding process.
- For a more dramatic effect, cover a whole page with one of your favorite photos.
How to choose a photo-album website
There are so many websites that make designed photo albums, and because designing your own album will take some time, we recommend being thoughtful about which website you choose. Make sure:
- That the website has a user-friendly album-design software that doesn’t require a complex installation process.
- That the website has examples of photo albums prepared with its software. Every provider will give you a different set of features, so choose based on the examples (that way you will choose the software that has the features you like best).
- That the price corresponds to the number of photos that you want to put in the album. Websites usually price the albums based on number of pages. Taking off a couple of photos might mean that you can take advantage of a special price offer that will make one photo album site better than the rest