Which photo book size should you choose? Why we print 30 × 30 cm layflat

Most photo book services offer a dozen sizes, three bindings and a paper menu. MakeAlbum offers one: a 300 × 300 mm square layflat hardcover, 26 to 130 interior pages. That is a deliberate choice, and this article explains the trade-offs behind it so you can decide whether it is the right format for your photos, or whether you should look elsewhere.

Square or landscape

Landscape books (wider than tall) suit landscape photos. Portrait books suit portrait photos. The trouble is that a phone camera roll is both, in roughly equal measure, and the mix changes with what you were photographing: people are shot in portrait, places in landscape.

A square page treats both orientations the same way. A portrait photo sits on a square page with margins at the sides; a landscape photo sits with margins above and below; either can bleed to the edge with a modest crop. A square spread, two pages side by side, is a 2:1 rectangle, which happens to be a comfortable shape for a panoramic landscape frame across the gutter.

The practical consequence is that a square book needs far fewer layout templates, and the ones it needs work for any roll. MakeAlbum's layout engine chooses templates per spread based on the orientation of the photos assigned to it, mixing full-bleed pages, pairs and grids. That is much simpler to do well on a square page than on a landscape one, where every portrait photo is a compromise.

Where square is worse: if your photos are almost all landscape, from a camera you held horizontally all week, a landscape book will show them larger for the same page size. That is a fair reason to choose a different service.

Layflat or perfect-bound

Perfect binding is the paperback method: pages glued at the spine, the book opens to a curve, and the middle of every spread disappears into the gutter. It is cheap and it is what most consumer photo books use.

Layflat binding mounts each spread on a stiff core and hinges the spreads at the fold, so the book opens completely flat and a photo can run across both pages without losing its middle. The pages are thicker, the book is heavier, and it costs more to make.

For a book of phone photos, layflat matters for one reason: the full-spread photo. A single frame across 600 mm of open book is the most striking thing a photo book can do, and it only works if the spine does not eat the centre. MakeAlbum's layout engine uses that spread, so the binding has to support it.

The weight is real. A 130-page layflat book is a substantial object, which is one reason we encourage shorter books for most trips (see the page count guide).

Matte or glossy

Glossy paper has a higher contrast range and more saturated colour, and it reflects the room. Matte (or silk, or satin, the names vary by manufacturer) has a slightly lower maximum black and a quieter surface that does not catch the light and does not show fingerprints.

For a book that is handled, matte surfaces generally age better and read better under ordinary room lighting. Glossy suits a book that is displayed rather than read, or one where deep blacks and saturated colour matter more than reflections. Phone photos, which are already processed for punch on a bright screen, rarely need the extra contrast of gloss.

MakeAlbum offers both at no extra cost: you choose matte or glossy paper in the editor before you order, along with a white or black leatherette cover. Matte is the default. A leatherette gift box in the same colour as the cover is planned as an add-on.

Page count and price

MakeAlbum books have between 26 and 80 interior pages, always an even number; the front and back covers are outside that count. Price rises in a straight line with page count: €199 for 26 pages, €349 for 80, about €2.78 per extra page, standard tracked shipping included, and no VAT added at checkout (Portuguese small-business exemption). The pricing page lists the steps.

The linear price is meant to make the page count a small decision. There is no jump at 40 or 60 pages, so you can add one spread where a chapter needs room without changing the price bracket. The curation aims at roughly two photos per interior page, so 26 pages holds about 60 photos and 130 pages about 280.

What 300 dpi means for phone photos

Print resolution is quoted in dots per inch. 300 dpi is the conventional threshold for photographic print quality at reading distance; below about 200 dpi, fine detail starts to soften, and below 150 dpi the softness becomes visible at arm's length.

A 300 mm page is 11.8 inches. At 300 dpi it needs about 3,540 pixels on each side. A full spread across two pages needs about 7,090 pixels on the long side.

A typical phone photo is 12 megapixels, around 4,032 × 3,024 pixels. On its own page, with the long edge along the 300 mm page, that is 4,032 pixels over 11.8 inches, or roughly 340 dpi: comfortably above the threshold. Newer phones shoot 24 or 48 megapixel frames when the light allows, with headroom to spare. A frame that fills a whole spread is stretched across 600 mm, which brings a 12 megapixel photo to about 170 dpi. That prints acceptably at the distance you hold an open book, and it is why the layout engine reserves full-spread placement for the strongest frames rather than using it everywhere.

Two things degrade phone photos in print more than pixel count does. The first is compression: a photo that has been through a messaging app has been recompressed and usually downscaled, often to around 1,600 pixels on the long edge, which is fine for a small slot and poor for a full page. Upload originals where you can. The second is digital zoom: a phone's 5× or 10× zoom on a single-lens shot is a crop, and a crop has fewer pixels.

For the print file, MakeAlbum renders each photo at up to 3,600 pixels on its long edge, which is a full 300 mm page at 300 dpi, and never enlarges a smaller original. Photos in smaller slots are rendered at the size the slot needs. HEIC, PNG, WebP and AVIF are converted on upload, so there is no need to export JPEGs first.

Who this format is not for

It helps to be direct. Choose another service if:

• Your photos are almost all landscape from a horizontally held camera and you want them as large as possible.
• You want a softcover, a small pocket book, or a panoramic format.
• You need more than 80 pages in one volume.
• You want a paper other than matte or glossy photo paper, or a cover material other than leatherette.

Choose this one if your photos come from a phone, in mixed orientations, and you want a book that opens flat, holds its middle, and does not need you to pick a template for every page. The examples show what the square spreads look like with real frames from one afternoon.

Turnaround, for planning

Production typically takes 4 to 6 working days after you approve the album. Delivery inside the EU takes 2 to 4 working days on top, so plan on roughly 6 to 10 working days door to door, with a tracking link by email when it ships. Shipping is included for the 25 EU countries and the United States we deliver to.