How to Create a Photo Book

Photo Books or Albums are a fun way to share photographs with family and friends. Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 makes it easy to create and order photo books. They provide an easy-to-follow wizard that will step you through the process and give you editorial control over the design and layout of your photo book. The easiest way to do it to first sort through your images and select the photos you want to use in your book. Create copies of the images and place the copies in a temporary folder you can later delete if you desire. This will allow for ease of use and keep you from creating unwanted copies of images that can clog up your hard drive. So select your photos and then follow this step-by-step guide to create a photo book.

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 6
• Internet access

Instructions

1. 

   The easiest way to get started is to select all the photos you want to use and open them in Adobe Photoshop Elements while in FULL EDIT MODE. This will open all the photos in the BIN which you can see at the bottom of the screen. Next, click on CREATE and select PHOTO BOOK to open the Wizard. Notice that the first photo in the bin is displayed as the title page. Regardless of which layout you choose, the title page will only have one photo. Rearrange the photos in the proper order in the bin by dragging and dropping them where you want. When you are finished, click NEXT on the Wizard

2. 

   The next thing you will be asked to do is to choose a layout. Scroll through the layouts. When you select one a preview window will appear. Keep in mind you can move objects, rotate them, delete them and perform other functions in editing mode after you have selected your layout. When you are finished, click DONE.

3. 

   Next you will be asked to choose a theme. There are all sorts of themes for birthday parties, vacations, anniversaries and many others. Try to choose a theme that goes with your images. The previews will also show you how much of your image may be blocked out by the art. If your images are all full-frame images, avoid choosing a theme that will block out a lot of your image. When you are finished, click DONE

4. 

   You can add text, borders and special beveled effects to each page or to the whole document. The forward and backwards buttons allow you to scroll through your photo book to check alignment, add text and perform other editing functions on each page. Check each page carefully for picture alignment, rotation and size. Remember to save your work frequently as you create your book.

5. 

   When you are finished with your creation, click on the order button to order your Photo Book. You will be taken to the Adobe Services portion of Kodak EasyShare Gallery. If you are a member, just log in to your account and specify your paper and binding options. You can also create a Kodak account from this page. Photo Books vary in price depending on the cover and paper choices as well as the length of the book.

6. 

   If you want to create an electronic version of the book, click on SAVE AS from the FILE menu. This will allow you to save your photo book as a PDF file. You can also send this PDF file to other printers if you do not want to use Kodak Gallery.

Tips & Warnings

• Carefully choose your format based on how many pictures you want per page and the number of horizontal or vertical images you have.

• You can enlarge or crop your images from within the Photo Book Wizard.

Resources

• Adobe Photoshop Elements