Adding photos to your memory book
Let's be honest, most of us take a lot of photos, but generally they live on our phones and only occasionally escape into the real world in the shape of picture frames or gifts.
Because we rarely do it, it can feel a bit of a bewildering task and so below is a guide for how to print your lovely pics, what sizes you might like to go for and how to stick them in.
Nothing revolutionary, but if it's not feeling like a straightforward task, its definitely worth a quick read.
The main things to consider:
- How you're going to print them
- What sizes you want them to be
- How to stick them in
- Editing your photos
Printing your photos
Home/office printer
If you have a printer available, I find printing them myself to be pretty straightforward. I have a pack of photo paper, arrange a few images onto an A4 sheet, print them and then cut them out. I use a guillotine which makes life super easy (you can find really affordable ones online). This might sound like overkill, but I absolutely love mine, and it saves using knives and cutting mats. Scissors are ok, but can be a pain if cutting straight if not in your DNA!
Printing services
If you don't have your own printer, photo services like those at Officeworks, Kmart and BigW offer a variety of sizes and available for delivery or store pickup. If you're happy to order online there are more options like Fujifilm, and Snapfish. I don't have extensive experiences with these services and so would recommend you use the one you've had the best experience with.
Portable photo printers
I have a little Fujifilm camera and printer. I love how cute it is, and it's a nice way to print photos you've taken on your phone. It's all very easy and because they're so small, you can fit quite a few on a page and the retro feel is fun, but I'd recommend having some larger photos, especially for those that are the most special (this little format is so dinky you often lose some detail).
What sizes work best?
Overall, smaller photo formats work really nicely. If you're printing your own photos, I really wouldn't worry about adhering to standard aspect ratios. You can crop and size your photos however they work best.
If you're using a photo service you're going to be looking at the smallest sizes they have available for their standard prints. They may also have a 'retro print' section as has become trendy recently, and these sizes actually work great for this book.
Example sizes that I find work well (a rough guide for general sizing):
Squares: 8x8cm or 10x10cm are great. They feel large enough while still leaving room on the page for words or further images.
Portrait: Depending on the page, portrait images work well at smaller sizes approx 6x9cm, 8x11cm or 10x14cm
Landscape: The above applies to landscape options too, but I also found that placing one large landscape photo if it is a special one, can work wonders e.g. 18x11cm
A variety works super well - little photos mean more photos bigger sizes really help to make the most of special photos.
How should I stick my photos in?
This is largely down to preference and how you end up adding these things to your book. My one piece of advice is to check if the adhesive you've got is acid/lignin free as, if not, it could cause your photos and the pages to become discoloured and brittle over time.
Photo corners
To me these seem a little fiddly, but that could just be that I don't have the knack for them. They're easy to find in clear, a kraft brown (which incidentally works really well with our book), white and black. They will definitely look after your photos wonderfully, so give them a go if you like the look of them
Glue dots
I was lured in to buying two varieties of these dots - permanent and removable. I thought that the removable ones would give me the ability to temporarily place and change out photos, but they didn't. At least for now, the removable dots are not in the slightest bit removable - I literally cannot peel them away from the page, so be careful of this. Other than this, these are mess free, easy and again look after you photos really nicely.
Glue stick
It may sound basic, but it's not a bad option in my opinion and for ease of use it's got to be a consideration. Uhu or Pritt stick are two I checked out and are almost entirely made of natural ingredients. Over the years they are eventually likely to become less effective, but other than this they shouldn't cause any problems.
Glue tape
Easy and long lasting, I can't think of really any negatives to this option. They do have an annoying habit of running out when you least expect it I suppose. I know you can get super cheap versions of these little dispensers, so worth double checking if the glue really is acid free.
Double sided tape
An oldie but a goodie, this is a tried and tested option. Almost certainly more longwinded that some of the other options and for some reason more of a sense of finality than some of the other options. This one is definitely down to personal preference.
When I say edit...
I don't mean adding filters or smoothing faces, I mean edit your photos so that they will work well in print rather than on a screen.
Photos on screens often look different because they are backlit, if you think about a photo on paper vs a screen it is probably going to look darker because there is no light coming from the photo paper. Increasing the brightness of your photo will help with this. The photos that suffer most are those with areas of darker colours, as they can look heavy and lose detail.
When looking at feedback for different photo printing services something I noticed across all of them, were customers finding that their photos sometimes came out looking quite dark. This is almost certainly because of this dynamic, where we forget that screens give out light and make images appear brighter.
