Photo Book

[ParrisPair]

With time on my hands, and a cancelled Camino, I would like to spend the time documenting our completed Camino Francés in the form of a photo book so that I can look back and dream. Maybe a double page spread for each day, to include highlights and stats. Can anyone recommend a good company to use? Must be able to deliver in the UK, easy to use, accept mixture of text and photos and be of good quality. It would be nice to see samples of any books others have produced.

 

[C clearly]

I use Mixbook for delivery in Canada, but don't know about the UK. One thing I wanted was complete flexibility to lay out photos and text as I wish - I didn't want to use a template. Another tip, at least with Mixbook, is to watch for the frequent 30-50% off sales, since it can be quite expensive otherwise. If this is available to you, you can send me a PM and I'll give you access to one of my photobooks.

 

[FSP]

I do a lot of these and for the last few have used https://www.treasure-book.com/. They are based in Canada and ship everywhere. Easy to use software and good support if you need it. Best of all prices are in Cdn$ which is much less than the USD, Euro, Pound so you can save some money if buying in foreign currency. I have used Mixbook as well and they are good but in USD.

 

[Canada Wanders]

In North America, I used the London Drugs, photo lab, and had a fantastic book created. We actually do a book for everyone of our adventures, and it has become a favorite thing for guests to reach for when they came for a visit (when friends could come for a visit), and has led to many great cocktail and conversations. I also took one picture of us on the CF, our passports (one front, one back to show all stamps) and our compestala and made a nice wall shadow box. Not a day goes by I don't smile and look at it.

 

[C clearly]

I used the London Drugs

I used to use them, too, until they changed the program so that I had to use one of their templates. Then I couldn't customize the layout of each page. Is that still the case?

 

[C clearly]

I have used Mixbook as well and they are good but in USD.

I'm not sure what you mean. My prices are all shown in C$ and that is how I pay.

 

[Canada Wanders]

I used to use them, too, until they changed the program so that I had to use one of their templates. Then I couldn't customize the layout of each page. Is that still the case?

They made a change which was a bit of an irritant, but you can still modify the background templates, so I still use them.

 

[FSP]

I'm not sure what you mean. My prices are all shown in C$ and that is how I pay.

Hi C, that's correct you can pay on their site in any currency but their product and per page price is based on their USD price. The website just converts that amount into CDN. So far I haven't noticed any difference in quality between the two companies so I've gone with the savings I can get through TB. Spending more time now looking through the books now that we're all on lock down.

 

[IngridF]

Thanks for the info. Something I have been pondering. Light and Love and Stay Safe!

 

[Walking Lover]

With time on my hands, and a cancelled Camino, I would like to spend the time documenting our completed Camino Francés in the form of a photo book so that I can look back and dream. Maybe a double page spread for each day, to include highlights and stats. Can anyone recommend a good company to use? Must be able to deliver in the UK, easy to use, accept mixture of text and photos and be of good quality. It would be nice to see samples of any books others have produced.

Shutterfly

 

[Mike Blackard]

Here is an alternative. I used to make photo albums/books which we loved looking at. Usually on living room coffee table. But the truth is, the vast majority of the time they would sit unopened on the table. Now I put ALL of our photos on a 15 inch screen DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME. There are many brands of these, and they come in lots of sizes. Ours sits nicely on our kitchen counter, visible from all over the kitchen. Family and friends always seem to congregate around here with big smiles. It currently has a 64 GB chip in it with over 20,000 photos! It has old family pics (I used a digital camera to take pics of old paper photos & transferred to chip. The machine can be set up to cycle through the photos on a set time interval. I have mine set up to go to new picture every 5 seconds. You can have them come up randomly or in date/time order. I love seeing my camino pics from 2018 & 2019, as well as all our pics from family gatherings, trips, friends etc. The price varies a lot, depending on size. My advice is splurge and go big

 

[Mike Blackard]

photo of DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME on kitchen counter

 

[Canada Wanders]

The coffee table book does inspire conversations, and many great memories. Our table top book of the CF and CP were always being checked out in the 'old days', like when people could come into your house and have wine....sigh.
At least I still have wine!

 

[hfenton]

I used Snapfish with a two-page spread for each day and five photos per page (10 photos per day). Turned out very nice.

 

[Gerry O]

I'm halfway thru a Camino photo book using Albumworks. Seems easy to use . Im putting in the days route from the guide and divided photos into nature, walking, churches, villages and other odds and ends like storks. It's a lot of fun and includes commentary which my wife wrote along the way plus some memories as they arise.

 

[ParrisPair]

I'm halfway thru a Camino photo book using Albumworks. Seems easy to use . Im putting in the days route from the guide and divided photos into nature, walking, churches, villages and other odds and ends like storks. It's a lot of fun and includes commentary which my wife wrote along the way plus some memories as they arise.

Exactly what I had in mind.

 

[jl]

I use Albumworks, though I think they may be an Australian company (the OP is from the UK I think). The quality of their paper, the service they provide, and the ease of using the software makes them my choice. They are not the cheapest so I wait till they have a special before I order, and usually these specials are very good. It is very easy to download the software to use, and it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete the book - it just sits on your computer waiting for you to get back to it.

 

[Bill from Canada]

With time on my hands, and a cancelled Camino, I would like to spend the time documenting our completed Camino Francés in the form of a photo book so that I can look back and dream. Maybe a double page spread for each day, to include highlights and stats. Can anyone recommend a good company to use? Must be able to deliver in the UK, easy to use, accept mixture of text and photos and be of good quality. It would be nice to see samples of any books others have produced.

The last book I created was with Blurb and the results were great. I was told about this product by a gentleman we met on our Portuguese Camino who lives in the UK. When I went on their site and registered just to see what was available and some pricing, I was given a discount on my first book. They will continue sending you discount codes if you don’t do your book fast enough. BTW the codes seem to come before major holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc. for staters, use their luster-premium paper, and use book smart to design the book.

 

[ParrisPair]

Update: Finally put together my book and it’s a thing of beauty. 100 pages of wonderful memories, it was a lovely lockdown project. I used the Once Upon app on my iPhone and it was really easy to use.

 

[Canada Wanders]

The coffee table book is always a great idea, we also did a shadows box for our credentials and Camino passport, love it!