You can publish a book of your digital photos super quick and easy using lulu.com’s photobook creator. It’s basically a drag and drop application that runs in your browser. You just select one of a few themes they have and start uploading your digital photos. You can get either a hardcover or softcover book in sizes 9×7 or 8.5×11.
Their software allows you to easily upload your photos, then drag them to any desired page so you control the layout. You can have text below or next to your photos if you like or none at all for a sleek look.
I made one of these for my wife in about 2 hours… take into account I was enhancing all the images with photoshop actions so that’s what took so long. If your photos are already ready then you could have your book made in as little as 10 minutes if you’re quick. That’s how easy their system is to use. I think it’s a cool way to share photos of your kids or whatever with your family/friends. It’s the perfect gift for grandparents too.
This is the first book I’ve done using lulu.com and it was a breeze. Now I just can’t wait to see how it turns out. If good, which I’m expecting then I can easily order more from the product page. Super simple!
View their holiday shipping schedule to see if you still meet the deadline for Christmas. If you missed it you should still give it a try. Better late then never right?
I’ll keep you posted how my book turns out.
A warning to anyone considering using lulu.com’s Photo Book Studio software (this is the web ap designed specifically for photo books as opposed to their general self publishing software which I’ve never used, but is evidently designed for print rather than photo-heavy projects):
I spent 5 or more hours setting up my project with the Photo Book Studio and was able to save and retrieve it over several sessions. When I logged in most recently though, all of my photos had disappeared from the project. Lulu tech support was able (several days later when they got around to my request) to make the photos reappear, but all my work laying out the pages and arranging the photos on them was lost. Lulu offered no explanation for this and said they were unable to help.
I will try again with another photo book operation (probably Blurb), but thought I’d share my experience to warn off anyone considering Lulu for their photo book project.