Photo Books for Father's Day

This Father's Day why not make your dad a photo book filled with special photographs?  I think it is a fabulous, personal gift idea and something that will be treasured for years to come, bringing back precious moments and family memories whenever it is looked at.

Albelli have given us the opportunity to make our own photo book for Father's Day.  Unfortunately, with the bout of illness that has struck everyone in our house down over the past three weeks, we haven't managed to create one yet.  As the deadline for ordering is June 9th 2013, I will be doing it this weekend so we get it back in time for Father's Day.

Taking a look through the Albelli website, there are some really inspirational ideas for making a brilliant, personalised 'Book for Dad'.

You can include photos of dad's favourite things: his car, the dog, his favourite food, his record collection and of course the kids!  With funky layouts, fun frames and photo masks, text boxes and cool clip art to play with, the book can be made exactly how you want it.

With a little effort, every page can be turned into something magical.  You can tell a story, capture the mood and create a really special photobook.  The Photo Book Creator has all the tools you need to design and edit a book to your own specifications.  The Inspiration Pages include step by step tutorials so you can achieve specific effects and themes such as using watercolour backgrounds and  brush stroke masks to display photo images of your kids' artwork within the photobook.

If you don't have the time you can always opt for a pre-designed photo book where you simply have to upload your images into a template of your choice.  A bit of editing and tweaking can be applied so you are completely happy with the end result.

Prices start at just £6.95 for a Pocket Photo Book.  A Large Landscape Photo Book starts at £24.95.

I'm really looking forward to getting creative and a little bit bold as I create the Photo Book for Ian's Father's Day present.  I'll report back when we receive the finished result!

Here is a book I made for Ian last year showing the excellent quality of the Albelli photo books.

Find out more at www.albelli.co.uk

"Europe is Beautiful" with Cewe Photobook

CEWE PHOTOBOOK LAUNCHES SEARCH FOR EUROPE’S MOST CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHER AND OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPH

To celebrate Europe’s outstanding and versatile beauty, Europe’s number one photo book company, CEWE PHOTOBOOK has launched an initiative to champion keen photographers’ talents.

‘Europe is Beautiful’ is the largest photo competition in Europe and gives anyone that’s creative with a camera, the chance to show-off their special shots. Categorised into ‘people’, ‘sports’, ‘city and history’ and ‘culture and nature’ entrants are encouraged to get creative and demonstrate their flair for photography through their eye-catching snaps.

Whether  focusing on Europe’s culture or history, people or landscapes, keen photographers are able to submit up to 5 of their prized pictures in any of the four categories of to be in with a chance of winning one of many spectacular prizes.

A picture really does tell a thousand stories so what better way to revel in Europe’s beauty than through snap-shots of some of its greatest attributes; Rome’s magnificent Colosseum, the coastline of Croatia, Spanish fiesta’s, Italian personalities and the vibrant buzz of London. This innovative competition gives people the opportunity to document a beautiful and diverse continent from behind their lens.

The competiton is now live at http://contest.cewe-fotobuch.de/eib2012/en and will run until the end of of 2012. Once the competiton has closed an expercienced panel of judges will select 500 winners from all the entries, which will then be announced at the begining of 2013.

The ‘Europe is Beautiful’ competition is easy to enter, entrants simply register and enter online at http://contest.cewe-photobook.co.uk/eib2012/en/photos/add

First prize is a luxury European cruise for two, second and third prizes are exclusive multi-day European city breaks for two and there are hundreds of runners up prizes including Samsung cameras and CEWE PHOTOBOOK vouchers.

With so many prizes it is well worth going through your holiday photos and entering this great competition!

Bayeux Cathedral

Photobox

I was lucky enough to be approached by Photobox to become a tester for their products and services.  Photobox is the one-stop-shop for beautiful and innovative ways to make the most of your family pictures.  They have over 3.5 million members in the UK trusting them with their precious photos everyday.

I had my account credited with £30 so I could experience the service like any other member and then report back on the good, the bad and the ugly!

I am guilty of taking hundreds of digital snaps and uploading them onto my laptop and forgetting about them.  I have literally hundreds of photos from this year alone.  Precious pictures of my children that deserve better, are languishing unseen on my hard drive!  So the prospect of making an A4 photobook was a perfect idea for me!

The website was easy to navigate and offers options at every step to ensure that you are creating exactly the product you want to fulfil your needs.  The online software offers you a choice of themes for your photobook, from the best-selling Baby's First Year Book to the contemporary Classic design.

I made a folder on my laptop of the pictures I wanted to include and ended up with some 180 photos taken over the last four months.  I then added these photos onto an album on Photobox ready to create my photobook.  While they were uploading I was able to get on with my creation.

You have the option to make an Instant Photobook where all the hard work is done for you.  It is a super quick way to produce a beautiful book.  You can then edit and add text to personalise it.  However, I opted to go for the DIY manual method which gives you total control over page layouts allowing you to maximize how many pictures you use and in what order they will be printed.  This obviously takes longer, but I really enjoyed dragging and dropping the photos in the order I wanted them to be, editing them in-situ, experimenting with different layouts and adding text boxes. I managed to include all my photos in the standard 26 pages, whereas the instant option would have required an extra 72 pages to feature all my pictures!  These are charged at £1.50 per 2 pages. (It made it very clear that I would be charged extra to have the book that way.) So that is worth considering when you decide how you want to create your book, especially if using  a lot of photographs.

I regularly saved my creation as I went along to be sure I didn't lose my work. There was no glitches in the system and I created my book smoothly and without any technical difficulties.  I ordered my book and was extremely impressed to see it arrive on my doorstep three days later.

The packaging was very good.  A sturdy cardboard outer contained the plastic covered photobook, so even the postal service and the weather couldn't spoil my creation!

The book itself was simply gorgeous!  A cut out on the front cover showed my first page photo through.  I had picked a snap that always makes me smile featuring my eldest son ruining a family photo by pulling a silly face!

I used a variety of layouts that maximized the number of pictures I could use.  The size of the book meant that even with 12 photos displayed on a page, they were still a good size.  The printing is clear and sharp and the end result is really great.

I think that a photobook is a much better way of displaying photographs than using an album.  It takes up less space and is much easier to flick through.  I love the option of being able to add text, making a real story book of your family's fun for years to come.  No memories will be lost.  I love it!

Ian was very impressed when I showed him the book I had made and poured through the pages with great delight, spotting moments from the last four months captured within its thick, glossy pages.

A4 Photobooks start at £24.99 (+ P&P).  Pricing is clear and straightforward with options to add extras such as a personalised cover, extra pages or upgraded paper quality.  There are often discount codes available such as the current offer of 35% off all hardcover photobooks.  Offer code:HCBOOKS valid until 12/05/11.  So now is a perfect time to get your digital photography in order by making your own quality Photobox photobook!