How to Make 1-by-1 Photo Books for Wedding Favors
With small, customized photo books, you'll give your wedding guests a lasting reminder of your big day. Personalized 1-by-1 photo books are small and relatively simple to make, and they make wonderful gifts. Small photo books may be placed in a pocket or a purse, and they are easy to store on a shelf. By making your own photo book, you'll save money on expensive professional printing and binding and still present a gift that your wedding guests will cherish.
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Things You'll Need
- 6 to 10 photographs
- Digital camera or digital scanner
- Computer
- Color printer
- Color copier (optional)
- High gloss or matte white paper
- Paper cutter
- 1/8 inch hole puncher
- 1/8- to 1/2-inch brads (one for each book)
- 1-inch-wide colored tape
Instructions
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1
Choose six to 10 photos you want to display from a digital camera or photo album. You must select an even number of photos to avoid blank pages.
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2
Upload the photographs to your computer by connecting the digital camera via USB. Printed photographs may be transferred to your computer hard drive through a scanner.
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3
Save the photos in a new folder on your desktop or in another location you can remember easily.
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4
Open and check each picture for resolution. To make a 1-inch-by-1-inch photo book, each image must measure at least 150-by-150 pixels. Otherwise, the quality of the photos will be poor.
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5
Choose one picture for each page of the book, and one photo for both covers (front and back). Decide upon the order of the pages, and number the pictures so you do not forget where they belong.
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6
Manually resize each picture so that it measures 150-by-150 pixels. Crop and reposition photographs as necessary; pictures must be this size or the photo book will not measure 1-by-1.
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7
Print the pictures that will appear on all the odd-numbered pages (1, 3 and so on) on high-gloss or matte white paper. Do not choose photographic paper unless it is specifically designed for photo books; ordinary photographic paper is sensitive to fingerprints and debris.
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8
Flip the pages over, and line them up with the printer so that the pictures on the even-numbered pages (2, 4 and so on) will print on the back side evenly, on the opposite side of the page as the photographs you printed in Step 7. You want to view an image on one side, flip the page and find a different image in the exact same position as the first.
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9
Print the images and check the pages to confirm that the photographs are positioned correctly. It may take several attempts before you get the pictures perfectly placed.
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10
Copy each page, front and back, after they have been printed perfectly. To save on printer ink, you may opt to use a color copy machine if you are making several books. Copy one set of pages for each book you plan to make, plus five extra sets for insurance's sake.
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Print the two cover photos on separate pieces of stiff, white cardstock. Copy the photos onto the same stiff cardstock. The inside of each cover will be white, which is standard in photo books of all sizes.
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Cut the excess paper off all the pages, including the cover pages, using a paper cutter. The paper cutter will ensure that cuts are clean and straight. Leave half an inch of blank space along the left-hand side of each page, including the cover pagers, when cutting.
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Sort and stack the pages of your photo books on a clean, flat surface. Put the pages and covers of each book together in the proper order, and double-check each one to ensure they are perfectly arranged.
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14
Punch a hole using a 1/8-inch hole puncher in the middle of the left margin of each book (the white edge).
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15
Place brads into each hole to secure the pages of the books. Brads must be at least an eighth of an inch, but should be no bigger than half an inch.
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Cover the white spine of each photo book with a piece of 1-by-1 colored tape. The tape will be just wide enough to hide the half-inch white space on each side of the photo book, and it will cover the brad that holds the pages together.
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Tips & Warnings
Choose photographs that are simple and feature close-ups of the featured subject(s).
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images
