I had mentioned last month that one of the things I accomplished was creating a photo album on Shutterfly for Donut. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to share a video of the finished product as well as my thoughts about the process of creating the album and the quality of the finished product.
The album I created was a fairly short one, with 26 pages. The minimum number of pages you can create is 20 and the maximum is 110. For options, I got an 8 x 8 hard matte photo cover with deluxe lay-flat pages. I also paid extra for Professional 6 Color Printing and the removal of the Shutterfly logo on the logo page.
I would really have liked to get the leather cover option, but Shutterfly doesn't offer that with the lay-flat pages (unless you get the Professional Flush Mount album, which starts at $375, and that was really not a price point that I was interested in). I was kind of on the fence about whether the lay-flat pages were worth it until I started designing the book and realized that having pictures cross the middle of the layout was going to work the best for some layouts. After seeing the finished book, I think that was the right choice. Based on feedback from a friend of mine, who has created several Shutterfly books, my understanding is that if you don't get the lay-flat pages, you really do need to be aware of how close your photos and text are getting to the middle of the layout because the "normal" pages will make it hard to see things close to the middle.
I've used Shutterfly a few times in the past, so I was familiar with how to upload pictures to the site, which was the first step. The one thing that was a little cumbersome, but I can't see a way around, is the way I used to organize pictures for the album. The first thing I did was to create an album in Shutterfly and put all of Donut's pictures from 2019 in that album, even ones that I wasn't necessarily going to use for the album. That way, I felt like my pictures were backed up if something happened to my computer and back-up drive. Then, I created the project, which was specifically for the photo album and added the pictures that I wanted to use to the project. You don't have to set up a separate album on Shutterfly first, though; you can add pictures to the project straight from your computer, but I liked having them saved in Shutterfly. (You also have the option of adding pictures from Google, Facebook, or Instagram, but I didn't use those options, so I can't comment on how well they work. But you do need to be on a laptop or desktop rather than your phone to do the photo book editing, which made those options less attractive to me.) One other thing to be aware of is that Shutterfly will require you to have at least 20 photos to start the project (presumably because the minimum size of the album is 20 pages), so don't be like me and try to start the album before you have your pictures!
In terms of the design process, the style of the book is Modern Black and the font I used is Neutraface Book 12 for the captions and Lulo Clean One 24 for the titles. I opted to have the background of every page be black to keep the design choices limited and let me focus on getting the book done instead of fussing about which background color or pattern to use, especially because Shutterfly offers quite a few (over 4,000!). I am really happy with the effect of the photos with the black background, and I will definitely continue that choice for future photo albums for Donut.
Editing the photo album was fairly intuitive for me, but I can see that people with limited technical skills may struggle a bit. The system is set up with three editing options. You can let Shutterfly place your photos in the book for you and then edit the pages and add text. You can use a basic editing process where you place the photos yourself on each page and are limited to the format you select from what is a dizzying array of options. Or you can use a more advanced editing process that gives you more control over the sizing and placement of photos and text boxes. I started by using the basic editing process and switching to the advanced mode for some pages where I wanted to make some adjustments to the Shutterfly layout option. I found the text box feature to be pretty limited in the basic mode, so if you like to add a lot of text, you're going to need the advanced option. It wasn't hard to switch between the basic and advanced mode, though.
One editing issue that I did run across when I was doing two-page layouts or even if I just wanted two independent layouts to have some symmetry across the pages was that Shutterfly won't give you the information you need to align things across both pages. It will give you the "cheat" lines that show when you are in the middle of the page and to align text or photos on a single page, but it won't allow you to do the same across pages. You can get the information you need by checking the details for the position of the photo or text box, but it is more cumbersome.
In terms of processing the album, I was pretty impressed. I made the book during the Christmas rush with no expectation that it would ship before Christmas. In fact, it was made and shipped within a week of me completing it, so it did ship before Christmas, but not in time to arrive by Christmas. I think it was delivered on December 28 or 29. But that was a pretty amazing turnaround time for what I'm sure is the busiest time of year.
When I got the finished book, I was pretty happy with it. The printing quality of the photos was excellent. I'm not sure how much of a difference the upgrade to 6-color printing made, but I do know that at home, I do notice a difference between the photo printer that uses 4 colors and the one that uses 8. But the difference is less noticeable for high-quality photos. My guess is that if you have high-quality photos, the upgrade may not be worth it, but if you have lower quality photos, you may notice a difference.
I also liked the look of the matte cover versus a glossy one, although I will say that it does nothing to avoid getting fingerprints on the album, which is the reason Shutterfly offers it as an upgraded option. So from that standpoint, whether you get a glossy cover or a matte cover should be based on what you like the look of rather than a concern about fingerprints. Nevertheless, I will probably stick with the matte version of the cover.
The pages are nice and thick and sturdy. They don't stick together and they look like they are cut square and evenly. The deluxe lay-flat option really does allow a nice two-page spread with photos that cross the middle.
Now let's talk about the logo issue. You can pay about $7 to get rid of the Shutterfly logo. I thought that meant that there would not be a logo page at all. But in fact, the logo page is still there with a barcode on it at the end of the book. And Shutterfly feels compelled to put a barcode on the back cover of the book too. Those are incredibly annoying. The only thing your $7 gets you is the removal of a small orange box that says Shutterfly on the logo page. I think that is a ridiculous amount of money for what you get, and the repeated barcodes on the last page and back cover are frustrating, especially if your cover is darker-colored or black. In fact, that is my biggest complaint about the book. It is minor, and it may not bother some people as much as it bothered me, but I may investigate other options for future books solely based on my annoyance about that.
Finally, what about the value of the book? Figuring out what the price of an album is on Shutterfly is a bit of a dynamic process. Different options add cost to the album and the use of some backgrounds or layouts can add cost too. Plus, different albums can cost more or less, based on specific design features like metallic components on the cover. And there is a per page fee as well for longer books. Not to mention, Shutterfly is always running a variation of a sale. I made two photo albums through Shutterfly last month -- one with pictures of my daughter for her grandparents, which pushed the page limit. The other one was this small album for Donut. The best value is definitely in the albums with lots of pages. I paid about $100 for Donut's album and about $200 for the album of my daughter. But my daughter's album about 100 pages, so it was basically four times as long as Donut's. Otherwise, I think I chose the same options. Also, there were different sales going on when I purchased each album, and I think the sale when I made Donut's album was not as good as the one when I purchased the album with my daughter's pictures.
When I think about the cost of Donut's album compared to what it would have cost me if I had done a scrapbook instead, I think the cost is probably similar. Empty scrapbook albums typically cost $20-30, and I can easily imagine spending $50-$100 on supplies, given my scrapbooking style. A simple photo album made by hand would definitely be cheaper, but the design choices would be severely limited, and it would not look nearly as professional as the Shutterfly album. So for me, the cost was totally worth it. Especially because of the time savings. Once I'd gotten the photos uploaded, I think the album took me about three hours. If I'd scrapbooked the photos, I could just as well have added this album to the graveyard of other unfinished projects in my craft room because the time involved would have been significantly more (I'm guessing a minimum of 20 hours). And if something happens to the album, like coffee gets spilled on it or the dog chews on it, I can just order another one, rather than sink into a deep depression because of the loss of a unique and precious object that I poured my heart and soul into.
To sum up, overall I am pleased with the album. It looks nice and all the photos are in one place where I can actually look at them instead of hunting for them on my phone or having them disappear into the ether that is the photo folder on my computer, never to be seen again.
The pros are:
- Great way to back-up photos if you don't already have a back-up system
- Deluxe lay-flat option offers more options for design and looks good
- Matte cover is a nice alternative to a glossy cover, based on your preferences
- Pages are thick and well-made
- Printing quality is excellent
- Fast processing time
- Reasonable value, compared to my scrapbooking style and given the time savings
- The editing process is a little fiddly and requires a little bit of a learning curve if you don't want to do just the basics, plus you can't do it on your phone
- The barcodes, particularly the one on the back cover
- The lack of clarity about how much the album is going to cost until you have selected all the options and added all the pages
To finish up, here's a video of me paging through the book. I will warn you that this is a pretty low-end video production, but I guess I have to start somewhere:) It should be good enough for you to see how the album turned out, though, as well as both the logo issue and the fingerprints on the back cover.
Feel free to comment on any experiences you have had with making photo albums for your horses (or other pets or people!).
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