Articles : Product Features

Shutterfly makes it easy to express yourself creatively. Enjoy free online photo sharing and unlimited photo storage. Plus, order prints and create personalized greeting cards, photo books, collage calendars, and photo gifts.

• Sizes: Sizes of these digital memory books range from 4x4 to 12x12, making it easy to complete any type of project you can imagine.

• Templates: The selection includes cartoon characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer as well as stylish designs created by some of your favorite scrapbookers from Creating Keepsakes magazine. In all, there are more than 400 design choices available. Browse through the gallery to see some of the projects other customers have created.

• Cover Options: Choose from a photo, leather, or padded photo cover for your book.

• Number of Pages: All books must be at least 20 pages, but extra pages can be added if you wish. Most books allow for a maximum of 100 pages and 1,000 photos

  
  
   

 PhotoWorks

• Sizes: The site allows you to search for products according to these size categories: pocket/purse, small, medium, and large. The majority of design options are available for the 11 1/2 x 8 ½ size, however.

• Templates: Partnering with American Greetings, PhotoWorks offers several holiday, love, travel, and baby books with a fresh and contemporary look. There's also a great cookbook template that makes it easy to design an heirloom quality book of favorite family recipes.

• Cover Options: Books can be either hardcover or soft cover, with personalization options that include adding your own photo and text to the template for the cover design.

• Number of Pages: Prices listed are for books of 20 pages, but most styles will allow you to create a book of up to 80 pages if needed.

SeeHere

• Sizes: Size options vary according to the type of cover you select for your book, but choices include 4x5, 5x7, 6x8, 8x8, 10x8, and 12x12.

• Templates: SeeHere offers a basic assortment of photo templates, although many of the designs are best described as casual and informal. If you're looking for a book with a more sophisticated appearance, you may want to start from scratch to drag and drop graphics onto the page yourself.

• Cover Options: Depending upon the product you select, cover options can include a custom photo cover, a cover with a keyhole photo insert, a leather cover, a velvet cover, a linen cover, or a translucent plastic cover.

• Number of Pages: Standard photo books must be at least 20 pages. Spiral bound flip books can be between 5 and 20 pages

SmileBooks

• Sizes: Size options range from 5 x 5 ½ to 16 ½ x 12 to accommodate both large and small projects.

• Templates: Travel, wedding, baby, sports, family, holiday, and party are just some of the many themed photo books available. You need to download the site's free software in order to create your book, but once the software is downloaded you won't need to have access to an Internet connection until you're ready to order your book.

• Cover Options: SmileBooks styles include booklets, soft covers, linen covers, or hard cover albums.

• Number of Pages: The minimum number of pages for your book is 26. The largest books can hold a maximum of 130 pages, while the smallest pocket albums can hold up to 50 pages.

  
  

Snapfish

• Sizes: Sizes of these digital memory books range from 2x3 to 12x12, so you have plenty of options available.

• Templates: Templates include general graphic designs for everyday photos as well as thematic designs for vacations, holidays, weddings, and baby's first year.

• Cover Options: Cover options vary according to the size of the book you select, but some of the choices include leather covers, velvet covers, customized dust jackets, and personalized photo covers.

• Number of Pages: All books must be at least 20 pages, but you can create a book of up to 150 pages if needed.

Winkflash

• Sizes: Size options vary according to the type of cover you select for your book, but choices include 4x5, 5x7, 6x8, 8x8, 10x8, and 12x12.

• Templates: Winkflash offers 20 different page layouts and a number of background choices. You can add captions to your photos or omit the text entirely.

• Cover Options: Choose between a classic solid color cover and a custom photo cover for hardcover books or a spiral bound book with a translucent green or blue plastic cover.

• Number of Pages: Spiral bound books come with 10 pages and hardcover books come with 20 pages to start. The maximum is 100 pages per book.

  
   

Print-on-Demand Self Publishing as a Photo Book Alternative

If you're interested in creating a book for a group of people, you may want to consider publishing though Lulu instead of one of the companies listed above. For high school reunion albums, community group yearbooks, or sports team souvenirs, Lulu lets you quickly create your book and sell it online without investing any money upfront or handling the distribution process. For a small fee, you can even create a book that mixes your own photos with photos from the Getty Images Collections.