shinglj
Rookie
- Location
- Terrigal,NSW , Australia
What do you do with your photos?A pertinent question if like me over the years you have taken tens of thousands ,if not hundreds of thousands ,of photos .My first recommendation is have a good clean out . Most of us hold onto photos which are just not worth keeping .Flickr is full of them .Be your own harshest critic.Junk all bad or indifferent photos unless they are of significant historical or sentimental value.Bad photos take up storage space, physical or computer memory , but worse still they mean that you cannot see the wood for the trees-- they obscure your great photos .
After clearing out all the junk and making sure that going forward you don't accumulate more think of ways of showcasing your remaining great photos .Photosharing sites –Flickr etc are OK but they a have a real yawn factor about them .Putting photos up onto a photosharing site does not involve much effort and really presents the photos in a bland manner.
Years ago photographers ,serious and not so serious, used to put their photos into photo albums . We all have seen them-- books with small prints lovingly positioned and held into place by little mounts in the corners . Whilst we may find them very staid they have resulted in many photos ,which otherwise would have been lost ,being preserved .
After years of making prints and storing slides I discovered photobooks and they have allowed me to show my photos physically in a way where I feel that they are more appreciated.and whilst they are now called photobooks they are in fact only a modern version of the old photo album . The same idea with a modern twist .
There are numerous companies now offering photobook publishing services . There are three basic systems-- the simplest involves you uploading your photos to the publishers site and the software creates the book for you (often called autofill) -crude , easy , the least creative and the least satisfying . The second allows you to upload the photos to the publishers site and you then place them into the design software and create your own layouts within the templates they provide. This is a lot more creative and satisfying but is less flexible than the third system which allows you to download the design software onto your own computer and then create the book on it and then upload the finished design to the publisher for printing.It has the benefit of using more sophisticated software with more options and is the most creative and satisfying option in my experience.
I have used both the second and third options and have had great results from both .Blurb is one of the biggest photobook publishers – they offer all three design options and their software allows you to be very creative . Blurb and many of the publishers provide various options of paper quality ,covers , binding etc.If you visit the blurb site Make your own book. Make it great.you can see hundreds of examples of creative photobooks created by amateur and professional photographers.
I have been through my old slides and scanned in many of them to make photobooks of my children growing up and given them to them as presents at Xmas .I have made photobooks of overseas trips , my cars and of course my grandchildren. My most recent effort from a week in Paris can be seen at J'AiME PARIS | Book Preview
So if you have not considered making a photobook give it a try . You will enjoy the creative process -much more satisfying than merely uploading your photos – and I am sure you and others will enjoy the finished product . Just remember to junk all those bad photos first .
shinglj
http://http://therollingroad.blogspot.com/
After clearing out all the junk and making sure that going forward you don't accumulate more think of ways of showcasing your remaining great photos .Photosharing sites –Flickr etc are OK but they a have a real yawn factor about them .Putting photos up onto a photosharing site does not involve much effort and really presents the photos in a bland manner.
Years ago photographers ,serious and not so serious, used to put their photos into photo albums . We all have seen them-- books with small prints lovingly positioned and held into place by little mounts in the corners . Whilst we may find them very staid they have resulted in many photos ,which otherwise would have been lost ,being preserved .
After years of making prints and storing slides I discovered photobooks and they have allowed me to show my photos physically in a way where I feel that they are more appreciated.and whilst they are now called photobooks they are in fact only a modern version of the old photo album . The same idea with a modern twist .
There are numerous companies now offering photobook publishing services . There are three basic systems-- the simplest involves you uploading your photos to the publishers site and the software creates the book for you (often called autofill) -crude , easy , the least creative and the least satisfying . The second allows you to upload the photos to the publishers site and you then place them into the design software and create your own layouts within the templates they provide. This is a lot more creative and satisfying but is less flexible than the third system which allows you to download the design software onto your own computer and then create the book on it and then upload the finished design to the publisher for printing.It has the benefit of using more sophisticated software with more options and is the most creative and satisfying option in my experience.
I have used both the second and third options and have had great results from both .Blurb is one of the biggest photobook publishers – they offer all three design options and their software allows you to be very creative . Blurb and many of the publishers provide various options of paper quality ,covers , binding etc.If you visit the blurb site Make your own book. Make it great.you can see hundreds of examples of creative photobooks created by amateur and professional photographers.
I have been through my old slides and scanned in many of them to make photobooks of my children growing up and given them to them as presents at Xmas .I have made photobooks of overseas trips , my cars and of course my grandchildren. My most recent effort from a week in Paris can be seen at J'AiME PARIS | Book Preview
So if you have not considered making a photobook give it a try . You will enjoy the creative process -much more satisfying than merely uploading your photos – and I am sure you and others will enjoy the finished product . Just remember to junk all those bad photos first .
shinglj
http://http://therollingroad.blogspot.com/