Easy Digital Scrapbooking for your personalized photo book.
Scrapbooking is a big trend these days. It is an easy way to journal memories along with photos when you make a photo book. If you also want to add a dash of punch to your customized photo books, ArtsyBook offers easy digital scrapbooking features.
Basically a scrapbook page layout has a mix of the following features -
- A background, it could be a solid color or a pattern.
- Photos that you want to include in the layout.
- Frames and other embellishments that you might want to add to the layout.
- Text
For example, look at the picture below, this personalized photo book page has all of the scrapbooking elements mentioned above. Can you spot them?
You could easily create pages like this for your personalized photo books. Use them as the hardcover of your custom photo book or simply to showcase a photo that captures the mood you want to convey in your photo book.
Let us take a closer look.
Step 1 – Once you have decided on a design for your custom photo book and start personalizing it. All the features that you would need to design the layout are lined up vertically on the left hand side of the screen.
The first step while making a photo book page like the one shown above would be to select a background. There are hundreds of backgrounds that you could pick and choose from. Solid color backgrounds to themed one’s going with birthday photo books, baby photo books ArtsyBook believes in satisfying the artist in each and every one of you.
Step 2 – Upload the photos that you want to include in your layout and drag and drop them onto the design area.
Step 3 – Notice that in the layout above the photo is highlighted with a frame around it.
Step 4 – Add Embellishments. From the crown on the little girl, the cake, balloons, the candles everything is an embellishment. There are thousands of them that you can choose from and add to your custom photo book.
Step 5 – Add text and shapes. The text “Linda is turning 5†is added with a text tool and the arrows can be found under the shapes section.
With these easy features at your fingertips there are endless possibilities to make each and every page unique and memorable in your custom photo book.
Enjoy!
How to order multiple copies of your personalized photo book?
A customized photo book is a labor of love. It takes time and effort. So when you make a photo book with ArtsyBook we never ever delete your designs. The saved designs are available under “View Saved Designs†on your dashboard. When you place an order of a personalized photo book it automatically gets saved. So you can always come back after a month or a year and still order multiple copies of your favorite custom photo book.
Step 1
Login to PurpleTrail, open the saved design of the personalized photo book you want to reorder.
Step 2
Click on the next step button highlighted in the screenshot above.
Step 3
Select the number of copies you want to reorder and you are all set to go.
How to give a classic and timeless feel to your custom photo books?
A lot of people include at least one black and white photo while making custom photo books. Why black and white, when colors are so brilliant and the picture quality is getting better by the day?
The reason is simple. Black and white photos produce a clean, crisp look. When compared to color photos black and white photos stand out in their ability to communicate. In simple words black and white heightens emotional content. Maybe that’s the reason you see many baby photo books and wedding photo books with black and white photographs. You can however include black and white photos in any custom photo book. There is no rule against mixing black and white photos with color photos. Just decide what you want the end result to look like.
So, if you want to give your wedding photo book, baby photo book or travel photo book a classic and timeless quality include a few black and white photographs in it. Most cameras’ today give you the option of shooting black & white. However it is best NEVER to shoot in black & white mode. You should shoot in the color mode and use a photo editing software to convert to black and white. This way, you could always go back to color if you desire and plus a photo editing software does a better job of conversion than the camera.
PurpleTrail Design Centre makes it even easier for you to convert your photos to black and white. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.
- Upload the photo you want to include in your personalized photo book to the PurpleTrail design centre. Click on effects.
- Select the black and white option.
- Want to change back to the color photo, click on the reset to original.
It’s really amazing how different a photo can look when converted to black and white. Ready to give it a try?
Portrait Photography Tips For Customized Photo Books
A customized photo book really isn’t complete without a couple of portrait photographs. While you have different rules of thumb for portraits for baby photo books, wedding photo books and travel photo books. There are some that apply to all.
So let’s start with the basics -
Put them at ease – A portrait photograph should look natural. The body language of the subject should be fluid. A tight and uncomfortable look never gets you a shot that can go into your customized photo book.
One of the ways you could make people comfortable is by using props. It could be anything a pillar to lean on or maybe a little something to hold in their hands. Notice how the photograph below uses both the tricks to get a nice shot.
Image from here
Chairs, stools and ladders are useful props if you have a large group. These props can also create depth for stacked rows and give you a way to manipulate angles without forcing your individuals to get in awkward and uncomfortable positions.
Posing - Posing is important. It is a way to capture your subject at their most flattering while making the image interesting. Some posing rules are for women only, some for men only, some for couples and groups only. Then there are rules for seated poses only, standing poses only and some work best on younger subjects as opposed to more mature subjects. While we will touch upon these in future posts, here are the four most important one’s
- Flip through a fashion magazine or a professional photographer’s site and shortlist the poses you like.
- Avoid a “straight-to-camera†position. Angle the subject’s shoulders and body away from the camera. This is more dimensional and complimentary, especially for women. While the shoulders might not seem like an important aspect of a portrait they can     actually set the tone for an image. The focal point of a portrait picture – the head sits on the shoulder and the shoulders are the widest part of your subject so it’s important to angle them properly to balance the shot and help lead your viewer’s eye into the shot towards your main focal point – the head/face.
- Take photos from multiple angles. Each person has at least one flattering angle.
- Capture a variety of expressions. Think serious, pensive, friendly, wide smile, making eye contact. The possibilities are endless
Compose the photo - Some geometric shapes like triangles and diagonals have great compositional value. You could place the main and secondary subjects in your photograph in a triangle or a diagonal composition and the end results are always better than your expectations 
Triangle Formation :
Diagonal Composition :
What are some of the tricks that you have learnt to rely on over time? Do share your thoughts and comments.
10 Smart tips for making photo books.
Thinking about making a photo book? For a more imaginative, interesting and professional looking photo books try these simple tips.
1.Use bright photos.
Bright photos always look good in print. For those shots captured at night try lighting them up with a photo editor.
2.Dedicate a full page to the “good†photos you have.
While short listing the photos for your customized photo book separate the one’s that standout from the rest. You could/should dedicate a full page for these photos. So if you have four such photos you could give them each a page at regular intervals. It helps keep the viewed interested.
3.Play around with the multiple layouts.
On the pages adjacent to the one’s with full size photos, play around with the layouts. It’s a good way of include photos of details that might not stand out on their own.
4.Photograph memorabilia AND Photograph details at the location.
Whatever the theme of your photo book(baby photo book/ wedding photo book/travel photo book) include a lot of pictures of the memorabilia. For a travel photo book for example you could photographs your tickets and hotel pamphlets and keys and include that in photo collage. For a baby photo book you could maybe include a shot of the view outside your hospital room.
5.Photograph the action and the reaction.
For example most of the wedding photo books have a close up shot of the grooms face as the bride walks down the aisle. So, don't photograph just the subject of your photo book or the "action" as it happens. BUT also include photos of the reactions of the people present.
6.Have the same size header and footer across all the pages.
A lot of time while experimenting with different looks and layouts one gets carried away in the flow and ends up having different sized headers and footers. Can't stress enough on this point for having a true professional look to the personalized photo book.
7.Create two page spreads to break the rhythm in your page layouts.
8.Try different font colors rather than just going with white.
Fonts and backgrounds are an easy way to introduce some color into your photo book. Experiment till you find something you truly like. We at ArtsyBook have a range of options for you to choose from.
9.Do NOT fill up all the space on the pages. It will just end up making the end result look very “busy†and cluttered.
10. Choose a meaningful and appropriate photo for the starting and the ending page.
Last but not the least be doubly alert and careful while editing. You don't want a small typo ruining your customized photo book!
Photo tips for the first Baby Photo Book
Want to show off your little bundle of joy? An online photo book or a personalized baby photo book is easy to make with Artsybook photo book software. More than the printing and the quality of the paper it’s the photos themselves that make your photo book look professionally put together or an amateur attempt!
Keep these simple points in mind while clicking pictures for your baby’s first photo book.
1.     Baby’s first photo –If you plan to include the ‘birth shots’ in your baby photo book. It’s best to go black and white. This will help take care of any scratches or after-birth blotchiness.
2.     The first few days after the baby’s birth most of the photos you capture would be an attempt in journaling. Like maybe the baby’s birth weight. The first few visitors for the baby. One way to include all of them in the baby photo book would be to make a collage of them.
With ArtsyBook photo book software it’s easy to do this. There are no restrictions on the number of photos you can include per page. Choose a pre made template while making photo book or design your own, you have full flexibility. You could also use embellishments from our gallery to add to the cuteness factor of the page.
3.     Include yourself in the frame – No doubt you will want to capture a zillion photos a day of your baby. Just don’t forget to include yourself in the frame. Children as they grow up love to be retold stories of themselves as babies. The baby photo books you lovingly put together would make wonderful memories for your child of being surrounded by loved ones. And definitely do not forget to click a lot of family photographs.
4. Individual shots of the newborn baby hands and feet are good additions to the baby photo book. You could compose your photo to look even better by cradling the baby feet in your palms or including a nice patterned quilt in the background.
5. Take a lot of portrait photographs. Try different angles and zoom in close to the baby and click. These make good photographs for the first baby photo book even if the eyes are closed.
Image from here
Most importantly have fun and enjoy the little addition to the family!
Top 3 Photo composition tips for personalized photo books.
Let’s be honest, if  you take simple, uninspiring photographs are you motivated to spend time and money on making a photo book? You can make a photo book to preserve memories of all the happy times and photo books make great gifts too. So even you don’t plan to pursue photography as a hobby and are quite happy with your basic point and shoot camera. With some basic photo composition tips you can still capture interesting photos that would look good in your customized photo book.
1. Your main subject should be the brightest object in the photo.
The human eye naturally wanders towards brightness, bright colors and bright objects. It’s best to keep the focus on your subject and remove distracting object from the photo. Be aware of brightness problems, unnatural highlights and other distractions that may hurt your photography. For example, the photo below had the potential to be an interesting shot if:
1. The camera was angled slightly to capture the face without the dress ruffles coming in between.
2. The window shadows and bright highlights were taken care of.
Image from here
2. Choose the right background.
Make sure the background isn’t gaudy, brightly colored or busy. When you personalized photo book is printed, every small detail will count.
In the photo below, notice how the impact of the photo is diluted because of the cluttered background. On a side note, you can still salvage a photo like this with smart editing.
Image from here
3. Change your/camera position until foreground objects create a border around your image.
Framing is an important photo editing technique. And usually adds a lot of drama to the photograph. And we do want such photographs for our personalized photo book, right?
Image from here
Most importantly consider your viewpoint. No two eyes are the same; reflect on what you see around you. Notice what captures your attention and inspires you. Capture that from varying angles. You can always select the best ones while making the photo book.
Most photos are taken from a viewpoint of five to six feet from the subject and usually at eye level. They appear ordinary because this is how we view the world around us even when we do not have a camera stuck to our face. Change your position. Bend down for children and flowers and pets. Walk around a subject to choose the best angle.
Happy Composing!
Let’s be honest, if have simple, uninspiring photographs will we really be motivated to spend our time and money on making a photo book? You can make a photo book to preserve memories of all the happy times and photo books make great gifts too. So even you don’t plan to pursue photography as a hobby and are quiet happy with your basic point and shoot camera. With some basic photo composition tips you can still capture interesting photos that would look good in your customized photo book.
1. Your main subject should be the brightest object in the photo.
The human eye naturally wanders towards brightness, bright colors and bright objects. It’s best to keep the focus on your subject and remove distracting object from the photo. Be aware of brightness problems, unnatural highlights and other distractions that may hurt your photography. For example, the photo below had the potential to be an interesting shot if –
1. The camera was angled slightly to capture the face without the dress ruffles coming in between.
2. The window shadows and bright highlights were taken care of.
Image from here
2. Choose the right background –
Make sure the background isn’t gaudy, brightly colored or busy. When you personalized photo book is printed, every small detail will count.
In the photo below, notice how the impact of the photo is diluted because of the cluttered background. On a side note, you can still salvage a photo like this by smart editing.
Image from here
3. Change your/camera position until foreground objects create a border around your image.
Framing is an important photo editing technique. And usually adds a lot of drama to the photograph. And we do want such photos for our personalized photo book right?
Photo from here
Most importantly consider your viewpoint. No two eyes are the same; reflect on what you see around you. Notice what captures your attention and inspires you. Capture that from varying angles. You can always select the best ones while making the photo book.
Most photos are taken from a viewpoint of five to six feet from the subject and usually at eye level. They appear ordinary because this is how we view the world around us even when we do not have a camera stuck to our face. Change your position. Bend down for children and flowers and pets. Walk around a subject to choose the best angle.
Happy Composing!
Making a photo book? Learn how to capture photos you will want to keep.
Photography is like art, so there are no hard and fast rules just guidelines to compose pictures that capture the viewer’s attention. We have been sharing simple tips that you can follow to get great photos for your personalized photo books. In the last post we saw how dramatically a photograph can change if we focus on a subject and a context. Framing is another technique photographers use to direct the viewer's attention to the primary subject of a picture.
Let’s look at a few pictures before we try and understand the concept.
Image from here
Framing the girl against the blue shutters in the background improves the picture. The girl’s neutral colored attire also helps and does not clash with the background frame of shutters. Doorways, windows, arches, and space between buildings have the advantage of being a natural part of the scene and make a perfect foreground or background frame.
For a wedding photo book for example, try and get shots of the bride against the chapel gates or against the doors as she makes an entry for the service
The image below makes use of a car window as a foreground frame. You could take a similar shot for your baby photo for instance.
Image from here
If you notice, in the photograph below, tree silhouettes kind of create a border around the scenery. They add depth to the photograph and draw your eye in to the photograph. Subjects enclosed by a frame become separated from the rest of the picture and are emphasized. Looking across a broad expanse of water would have made for a dull uninteresting view. Moving back a few feet and framing the object between trees improves the composition. The white boat and rainbow of course add to the interest of the photograph.
Image from here
Finally the photograph below of Taj Mahal if you notice also uses the framing technique.
Image from here
Final Tip - Look at the Edges of Your Shot
Once you have the picture you want to click in the frame of your camera, carefully consider the very perimeter of your photograph. Are there any distracting details that are making their way into your photograph? A hint of a tree branch? The edge of a building? An item on the ground? Details like these are easy to miss while taking the picture can easily spoil the effect when you print your personalized photo book. Make sure the edges of your shot are distraction-free
So, before you take that shot next time, look around and see if there is an object that you can use as a natural frame. Take a picture without the frame, and another one with the frame, and compare. I am sure you'll like the one with the frame better!
On second thought, if you have a great photo that want to add it to your custom photo book but it lacks a “frameâ€. Worry not J you can add a frame border in personalized Artsybook photo book and the extra zing!
Better Photographs make better photo books!
Planning on making a photo book? Learn the tricks to take better photographs. Â The infamous quote, Â "You don't take a good photograph, you make a good photograph" embodies the idea that you can really take great pictures if you learn a few simple techniques to make the most of your subject matter.
Most of the photographs we capture would fall in one of these categories –
-People and Events (Think baby photo books and wedding photo books)
-Nature (Travel photo book)
-Places of Architectural Interest (An impressive photograph of the chapel for your wedding photo book?)
-Still photography
There are different rules of thumb for capturing each of these photos. Different camera setting that you could exploit to your advantage. However, photographs that stand out from the crowd usually have a good composition. Look at the two pictures below.
Notice, how both the pictures shoot a similar subject yet the second picture has a stronger visual impact thanks to the attention paid to the composition. We have talked earlier about the Rule of thirds which is one of the basic rules of composition. Let us now look at some of the other guidelines to compose interesting photographs for your photo books.
Subject - When you take a photograph, you obviously have already identified a subject. Instead of simply snapping your photo and rushing on, think deeper about “what†exactly about the subject do you want to capture? This process is the most overlooked step in photography.
Context - Next step is to find a 'context' -- a simple backdrop which adds relevance, contrast, and/or location to the 'subject.' For example, if the subject is a building in the background, make the context a flower or person in the foreground.
If we go back to the second photo we saw above, it has a subject AND a context which makes it interesting and different. The trick when you have a good subject and a context is to remove any clutter that detracts from the photo. You can usually get this effect by getting closer to the subject, zoom in and crop as tightly as possible.
Practice a few shots before with a subject and context before we reveal a few more photo composition secrets to you 
Review : Personalized Photo Books from MyPublisher
MyPublisher is one of the first companies in this space. Established in 1995, they have been making customized photo books since 2002. They claim to have sold and shipped more than 5 million customized photo books.
If you are looking for an easy, quick and reliable way to get the photos sitting on a memory card or hard drive to a photo book. Then MyPublisher is the best choice for making your photo book.
We have said earlier that, while a service that gives you a great photo book making software, a lot of templates and layouts. Features to add text in 100 different funky fonts is great. But these points though come into play if the basic service is sound. That is, you are satisfied with the Quality of Print, Quality of paper, Quality of cover, Binding Quality and Cost. In the case of MyPublisher it gives you value for money for all of the above points.
5 point test for quality -
1. Quality of print – The print clarity very good. All the tones/sharpness/contrast is accurate. No dark prints as in the case of some of the other services. No grainy prints. Just beautiful prints that you would love to go over again and again.
2. Quality of paper – When you create a customized photo book you want it to be as close as possible to a professionally done photo book. You want it to look elegant and richThe quality of paper plays a big role in that. The paper used by MyPublisher feels different from other photo books. It is smooth, thicker and a lot like the paper photos would be printed on. They claim it to be archival quality paper so the photos should not fade or discolor with time.
3. Quality of cover –  The quality of photo printed cover is very good. It is laminated and smudge proof. This is actually quiet nice. The leather and linen cover books also have some great color choices.
MyPublisher adds an extra vellum page at the beginning and the end of the photo book which gives a rich feel to the book.
4. Binding Quality - MyPublisher photo books are assembled by hand and the binding is of very good quality. No binding thread visible and no pages coming loose.
5. Cost -The prices of the personalized photo books are quiet low. The leather cover photo books are also reasonably priced compared to the other services. Photo Book promotions are available if you check on their website, or are registered on their site to receive emails.
Good Stuff that stands out for MyPublisher:
- High quality prints every time.
- Awesome customer service.
- They also share an online link for the customized photo book you create. You can easily share it with friends and family.
- Fast and quick delivery.
- Great photo book building software with easy and intuitive software.
Drawbacks
The only drawback could be the lack of variety compared to the other services of templates and layouts. So until and unless you have your heart fixed on a particular layout or are not satisfied by the designs provided, MyPublisher is the choice for you!