Notes on making a photo book, from a phone.
Practical writing for people with thousands of photos and no album. What to keep, how many pages you need, which size to choose, how to collect photos from other people, and how to prepare files so the curation has something good to work with.
A photo book as a gift for parents: what works, what to avoid
What makes a photo book a good present for parents, the mistakes that make one fall flat, the done-for-you route, the gift box, and how far ahead to order.
A travel photo book of Portugal: Lisbon, Algarve and the north in chapters
How a Portugal trip splits into chapters by place and day from GPS and time, what the brief adds so the titles use real names, and how many pages it needs.
Baby's first year in one photo book
A monthly rhythm for the photos, chapters that follow the year, how many pages a first year needs, and copies for the grandparents without a second build.
HEIC, JPEG and print quality: what actually matters
Why the file format is the wrong worry, what 300 dpi means on a 30 × 30 cm page, and the two things that really degrade a photo before it prints.
How many photos do you need for a 26, 50 or 78-page photo book?
Curation keeps about 2.2 photos per page: 26 pages holds around 60, 78 pages around 170. How many to upload, and why fewer is usually better.
Photo book from Google Photos or iCloud: the fastest route to print
Getting originals out of Google Photos and iCloud, what metadata survives the export, what shared albums do to your files, and the shortest path to print.
2,000 holiday photos and nothing to show for it: a practical way to turn them into one album
A two-week trip leaves a thousand photos and no album. What to keep, how to order it, why chapters help, and why 26 to 40 pages is usually enough.
How to prepare your photos for a photo book (and what not to bother with)
HEIC, screenshots, duplicates, bursts, dark frames, the 30-photo minimum and what a brief is for. Most preparation is unnecessary; here is what helps.
Wedding guests' phone photos: how to collect them and make a second album
Gathering the photos your guests took, why WhatsApp exports lose their dates and how to fix it, and what a guest album can be next to the photographer's.
Which photo book size should you choose? Why we print 30 × 30 cm layflat
Square or landscape, layflat or perfect-bound, matte or glossy, page count, what 300 dpi requires. The trade-offs and why MakeAlbum settled on one format.
What MakeAlbum makes
One product: a 300 × 300 mm square layflat hardcover with 26 to 80 interior pages, from €199 with shipping included. You upload the camera roll, the AI filters and sorts it into chapters, you edit and approve every spread before it is printed.