Looking for a Source to Create Hardback Photo Book and Board Book

My friends and I use Shutterfly. My girlfriend just made 8 photo books for Christmas. And we make really fun calendars too. It's definitely easy to use and they always have some sort of discount deal going on.

Hope this helps.

Samy's camera makes great photo books. I have had several made and have been impressed each time. They have several locations in and around Los Angeles, Santa Barbara too.

Hi R.,
So funny to read this right now..... I literally just logged out of the best online publishing company there is! Heritage Makers is by far the superior product in quality. They are museum quality, made to last thru the generations. Stitched not glued, lignin free. Layout options are yours to choose.... you can choose a pre-designed template or a blank page and put as much or as little as you want on a page. The templates are customizable, you can change anything you want. Board books are a brand new addition to the product line.... right now they have one size in board books (8 x 8) with 21 pages and many sizes of hardbound books (each book comes with 21 pages and the ability to expand to 99). I have made a lot of books as I am a consultant for the company. The quality is unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it. And I have a shutterfly book so that I can compare.... there is no comparison! If you want a quality book that will last forever, then this is where you want to look:
www.StorybookingMadeEasy.com (it will default to Heritage Makers website).

We made it to 'Oprah's best Christmas gifts' list 2 years in a row and have been showcased on Good Morning America and The Early Show. Everything is on sale until the end of the year! The account is FREE.... you just pay for your books. Take a look and I will be happy to answer any questions you have!

Good luck with your search!
J. Thomas
Personal Publishing Consultant
www.StorybookingMadeEasy.com

I've made books and calendars through MyCanvas.com and have been happy with them. There are lots of options and lots of flexibility for resizing etc that some places don't allow. I'm pretty picky with the outcome too since I do a lot of publishing/printing as a side job. We keep our photos on Smugmug.com and they come highly recommended from them too.

I've used My Publisher. 3 times. And I have been very pleased with it... the paper quality is good/thick as well as the photo quality that is printed into the final product.
Many people have been impressed with our family photo "books."

My Publisher often, has discounts as well. I used it, via the Costco site... the photo department links to them and has special prices for Costco members. You go to www.costco.com, then click on the "photo" department, and they have a "My Publisher" photo book icon to click on.

You might also try www.kodakgallery.com which has many photo book choices as well, as well as their exclusive "Martha Stewart" products.

The resolution of the photos you put into your photo book, depends on the resolution and quality of YOUR original photo that you upload TO them. If you have a photo editing software, then you would edit/improve your photo, BEFORE uploading it to them. They do not "edit" it for you... they just print what YOU send to them.

Or, if you don't find any online photo book sites that are of the quality you want, you might shop around locally, for someone, a professional photographer or whatnot, to do it for you...custom.

good luck,
Susan

I'm not sure about the specific materials you are looking for, but http://www.shutterfly.com makes photo books. We've ordered calendars from them 2 years in a row now (new family Christmas gift tradition), and they are great!

A friend of mine just told me yesterday that she is using Shutterfly. I guess it is really easy.

I have been using shutterfly.com for a few years and really like their products. I even did our wedding album through them using their hardbound photo books.

Good luck!

I'm not sure how high a quality you are looking for, but I have been really happy with My Publisher. I go through Costco and wait for their sales so they can end up being really reasonably priced. I have made a few mistakes but overall I think it is easy to use and each version gets better. They don't have as many background options as some of the others but I want the photos to be the star anyway. I have given them as gifts now to several people and everyone has loved them. They are the quality of a nice coffee table book.

Good Luck!

We've used both Shutterfly and Mixbook, and been very happy with the results.

My friend used blurb. It turned out to be a beautiful book. Her husband is a photographer though!

Don't know about the board books... but for hardcover books of family pictures, I use Snapfish and have been very happy with the quality.

http://www.snapfish.com/

My girlfriend's daughter makes several books a year. I believe she uses Walgreen's drugstore's online site. They are truly beautiful books (coffee table worthy) and "feel" like they're expensive but they're not. It's so fun to see their family trips, events, etc. when I visit her mom.

Good luck. Let us know what you choose, please. I'm just getting into digital 'scrapbooking' and am interested in what works for everyone as well.

I have used Kodakgallery.com to create photo books for my daughters. These are their memory albums and not meant for playing with, they are keepsakes. They are hard cover books with high quality paper. Not sure about books that will withstand everyday use...

I like mpix, I have books from shutterfly and they are of terrible quality. I design and print custom scrapbooks and prefer mpix for printing.

My husband used Blurb to make our first year yearbook for our son and we were very happy with how it turned out. We ordered 3 more to send to parents.

I love love love http://www.howfasttimeflies.com/

I made a very special photo book through MyPublisher (through Costco on a sale) and am very happy with it. It's a beautiful book of good quality and was actually quite fun to make, dragging pictures around and writing the text. I have not tried the others, so cannot make a comparison.

R.,
I've done all my baby books and travel albums through shutterfly. All different sizes/themes and I've always been pleased.
Enjoy!
S.

Hi,
I have made two books of pictures of my Grandson for each of his years growing up. He'll be two next week. I'll continue to make one of him for each year as I give them to my Daughter as a Christmas present.
I used Snapfish last year and I used Kodak this year. Two common denominator for both is that it is not cheap and it takes tons of hours to make. I only used them because of the Promotional discount I was able to get to use them.
What I will do next year is to get the photos organized on my computer in the order that I want them to go before I retrieve them from the Book site that I will be using. This will save on countless hours of looking and putting in order all of the photographs.
As for which book I like best, quality for both was very good. On Kodak there are several page layout options available so I was able to use more photos on each page.
That was very good. Maybe Snapfish has more options available at this time, I don't know, I didn't compare.
Also, try to use pictures that are of good quality and not dark or blurry. Some pictures don't do good when they are blown up to a larger print. That is also why you should have a good variety of pictures to use that you can substitute if a picture won't look good in the book.
Hope this helps.

I have been using Blurb.com their software is great, customer service is great too. I used it to make my wedding album and two other books for family Christmas gifts. Really love it!

I have used Shutterfly a few times to make photo books. They turn out great and have made wonderful presents for family and friends!

I've used and seen books from various different services, and in my opinion My Publisher has the best quality end product. But I thought Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Scrapblog were also good quality.

For me, the major problem with all of these sites is that the layout options are more restrictive than I like them to be. (Blurb is an exception, but their interface is so tedious to use that I gave up before I even got through one page.) So I typically end up laying out my pages in Photoshop and then importing each page as one full-bleed photo. This, as you might imagine, is incredibly time-consuming, so I only do this for extra-special books.

If I'm just doing a quick photo book of a trip for relatives, I typically just go with whichever service is having the best deal. It's usually either Snapfish or Shutterfly.

I've never seen a board book making service. That'd be a cool idea.

Hi R., I used to use Shutterfly before I discovered Heritage Makers. I became a consultant in January - my website is www.MyPhotobookStory.com.

This is all online and the products are the best quality! The templates are 100% customizable, which I love. You can change the background, add more pictures, put text boxes anywhere you want, delete art, etc. You can also create templates from scratch!

Watch this 5min video to give you an idea of what we are about! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irdqtq7mF6Y

For more information, please contact me at ____@____.com.

Hi R.,

I'm a professional photographer and have been designing amazing albums for my clients! I can work with your images, rather than my own. I have a background in Graphic Design and find that presentation of an image is almost as important as the image itself!

You've done your research on the companies that are available to the public, but I have access to the best albums in the world. Literally. I've chosen companies in Italy and Australia, because of their quality, craftsmanship and choices in the final book.

I'm up in Los Osos (near San Luis Obispo), but since everything is digital, I work with clients all over the country. If you would like a really special, custom album let me know.

A. L.
www.whitewolfstudio.net

The Creative Memories product sounds perfect for you! There's a program called Storybook Creator Plus that allows you to make all sorts of books, plus other stuff. You can use templates or alter them in any way you want to create your own stuff. It's really a great program and the CM books are great quality...stitch bound, not glued, etc...

I'm a CM rep...you can check out the program at my website www.mycmsite.com/meredithdrews or just give me an e-mail back. Good luck and have fun!

-M