The best & easiest photo book

I've used Photobox for years (well since my first grandchild was born - 13 years ago!) and it has always been successful. Good luck.

I have used Photobox twice with good results.

I'm really pernickety and I do every page separately and line things up to be visually satisfying.

When i made my books I uploaded the biggest files of each image and took my photos in and out of photoshop to correct colours across a double-page spread.
I haven't used Photobox recently so maybe now it has even more functions...
If you are not as fussy as I am I think you will do it fairly quickly and easily.

We’ve used Popsa, and liked their books, but to be fair, we haven’t tried the others suggested here.

Like others I’ve used Photobox, the quality is excellent. However when I’ve wanted multiple copies of a book I use Printerpix which is cheaper and good enough quality. There are often Groupon deals available for Printerpix and buying one of these then redeeming it for a book makes it extremely good value.

Get a free one each month with FreePrints

I love making photo books. I spend a lot of time choosing background and framing each picture and captioning it. Some would find this an awful hassle but I find it relaxing. It's similar to making a power point presentation.

I won't recommend a particular website as they are probably different here, but here are a few things to bear in mind:

* Choosing a provider depends on many criteria. Here in Germany they once tested them, comparing price, quality of paper, speed of delivery etc. But my criteria are things like 'who has the nicest background designs?' 'who has the best choice of fonts?' 'which website is most intuitive to work with?' If you see someone else's photo book and you like the design, ask them for a recommendation.

* Don't cram your pages full of pictures. Choose one of a series and leave it space, don't plonk four similar pictures on one page. Less is more - especially when you are leafing through it later, you will be glad you didn't overload it, and people unfamiliar with the subject will also find it easier to digest.

* If you don't want to arrange each page individually, you can click on a single background colour/design for the whole book and not have to worry about it any more.

* If you like, you can even use a whole photo as the "background" for that page and fill it to the edges with no frame. You can still fit a caption in a part of the picture where there is not much going on. I use this for favourite pictures of the grandchildren and especially for the back cover.

* Save as you go. You can still make adjustments later

* Don't play with too many fonts for the captions. Stick to one style. Once you have formatted one text box, the setting will remain for subsequent texts/captions. You may need to adjust the size or colour, e.g. so that it shows up on the background, but anything else is too busy.

* Before you start you have to decide what kind of book you want: soft back, hard back, spiral binding, glossy, photo paper, even board book. You may not be able to change this later, although you can add or delete pages to suit the number of photos you are including.

* You don't have to just put in photos. There is plenty of scope for a text, and if you like, you can scan things like concert programmes, tickets, food wrappers as jpg's and include them, too.

* Before sending off your finished book for printing, use the viewing function which allows you to leaf through as though you were holding the book in your hand at least twice to check for typos and to make sure you haven't got the same photo twice (happens easily!)

*Allow plenty of time - at least an hour - for uploading if it is a big book, but start with a little one anyway, for practice!

* Once you have registered with a service you will probably get promotion e-mails from them - look out for offers.

This all sounds very technical if you've never done it before but if you explore all the menus on the screen you will soon see what you can do.

If this still puts you off, there is an automated way you can just choose the photos and make a book with one click, but this will fill the pages with pictures and takes absolutely no account of which pictures are important and which are less important when arranging them - most of these designs involve one large and two smaller pictures on the page and they are distributed willy-nilly. So even if you do this you will have to move some photos around and proof read even more assiduously.

Don't be put off - you can refer back to this list step by step once you get started. Just don't put off getting started.

We use photobox.

I’ve just looked them up (Photobox) and they have an easy to create section where they help you through the process. Lay flat ones are more expensive but worth it if you’ve got some good photos.

Yes we use Photobox too.

Definitely and by far the best IMO is Photobox. The albums are very well and carefully produced : there is no doubt if you use them, you will be delighted with the outcome. A super reminder.

I have done dozens of them and I am in the process of doing one right now. The one I use is called Photobook shop but that is in Australia and I think it is local. I usually ask for 100 pages and do it all online, send it off and the finished hard copy book arrives in a week or two. Costs under $50 , well worth it. You can get lie flat ones but I usually just get ordinary ones, not bothered about the lie flat. Every time we go on a holiday overseas or to somewhere special, I do them. You need a lot of photos to do a good job ! Sizes vary but I usually go for fairly large ones.