multichannel baroque: Who Else Wants to Make a Photo Book?

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Who Else Wants to Make a Photo Book? | Garden Walk, Garden Talk

Well, I have a tip for you! Click to open the book above and also click on the icon next to the blurb logo to make the book open full screen.

On your next excursion, do a little creative planning to bring back vacation memories that you can joyfully show off when you get home. With a little forethought of image taking, you can have fun making a Blurb self-published book of bookstore-quality. Now how great does that sound?

Well you don?t actually make it, you design it! Is that not the fun part anyway? You bet it is. I made one and am receiving it Tuesday by FedEx. I am so confident you will be pleased with your awesome creation, that I am saying so right here.

Vacation not in the cards?? Just give those flower shots a place to really shine, literally, on Premium Papers that come in matte or lustre finish, bound in a photo-wrap hardcover book.

Do you have blog posts worthy of print? Bet you do, so bind them up into a book. Add a few of your best stories, your best illustrative of photographic images, and make your blog a coffee table star.

This post is not meant to sell you anything, except maybe an idea or two. It is written to encourage you to take your photos, whether it be garden critters, colorful flowers, family and kids, or a scenic vacation, and publish them to a hardcover book, one in which you display or give as a gift.

I know many of you have made calendars before, and this is not much different having templates and simple tutorials to follow. I did not use the application on the Blurb site though, but I did take a cursory look at it and it looks rather easy for beginners.

The tutorials guide you through the process and also show you how they make your book. It is not cheap by any stretch, so really think about what means most to you.

I am a member of NAPP like I mentioned a few times before. As a member I get many discounts and the one I get for making my book gets me 25% off the cost of production. It is a good savings. What I suggest to you is to Google Blurb Coupon Codes and you will find places to get them listed. It will at least save you the cost of shipping and handling.

I made my book in a photo application called Lightroom, made by Adobe. Lightroom has a built in book making app in the professional photo program which allows me to take my edited images and place them in template pages.

Screen Capture of the Lightroom book making design window. It shows the start of my book Niagara Falls ? Through the Seasons. Winter leads off the year. Some pages have text blocks ready to load copy.

I can add any text or titles of my choosing, and when finished, send it right to Blurb.

Boat Dock at Island Restaurant

A few of the images in this post are in the book, like the one above and some I posted in Scenic Sunday and on Green Apples in the posts, Maine Fauna , When the Light is Just Right for Photography, Seagulls Got It Made in Maine, and Cliff Island Ocean Textures Are Art.

Pygmy Goats

This is a book to record my memories as I saw the sights we visited. I was a guest of Carolyn and Micheal from Carolyn?s Shade Gardens to her family?s home on Cliff Island. Carolyn and I toured quite a few tourist attractions, but also explored the islands? nature spots.

My post here today is to show you what can be done with your images to make a memory book of your own. I had the book printed as a proof, mainly to see the quality of the product.

I have other ideas to make it a useful book as well. Even as a proof, my book is getting quite a number of views on Blurb, which makes me think editing my book to a recipe book might be a profitable idea. At the cost of these books, I was surprised to see so much action on my book. Nice thing is, even though the book is listed online, I can still revise it to my final print edition.

So what other ideas are there?

I have a collection of New England recipes that I collected when I lived in Rhode Island for almost two years. I plan to make the dishes, photograph them and add them to my book, making it a more fun and useful publication. Like I did in these images of New England Clam Chowder, but only more expressive and yummy pictures.

If I thought about it when I was on the trip, I would have photographed the dishes in the restaurants where we dined. It was not until I got home before I thought of doing the book. Had I thought ahead, I would have jotted notes down to add commentary and thoughts from the trip.

View from Portland Observatory

I already suggested this to another blogger, Back Road Journal, as she also went on vacation to Maine. It is nice to have something to remember the trip.

Portland Observatory

Think about it for your next trip. Or look to where you live. My next book, will be on Niagara Falls. I am just getting together the images to show the Falls through the seasons. If you do a book, plan ahead and have a theme like my recipe theme, blog theme or seasons theme. It will make it a much more interesting book for your guests to read when they spot it proudly displayed on your coffee table or kitchen counter.