Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach Part III

So in Part I and Part II of “Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach” I talked a little about deciding what type and style of Inkubook to make, and I gave some suggestions for how to get started on organizing your content. In this part I’m going to share a few ideas about things you can include in your book that you might not have already thought about and give you one more nugget of wisdom about preparing your files for uploading. If you’re not already on the edge of your seat, you should be, because first I’m going to suggest that you…

4. Make Scans of Miscellaneous Artwork, Memoribilia, and Documents

A scan of the recipe card for my grandmother’s coffee cake.

We talk a lot about “photo books” at Inkubook, but that doesn’t mean that every image you use in your book has to be a photo that you took with a digital camera. Most of us have odds and ends lying around that would be easy to scan and appropriate to use in a book. For example, when my husband and I make books about our family, we regularly scan artwork from school, letters to Santa, and official documents (like our marriage certificate). In the cookbook I’m working on, I might include a scan of the original recipe card for my grandmother’s coffee cake. That way it’ll be preserved forever even though the recipe has been transcribed to a nice, new book. Scans can add extra dimension to your photo book and can help round out the story you’re telling.

After I’ve made the scans, I make sure to place the files (or copies of them) in the same folder where the other images for my book are stored. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason I do this is because it saves me a little time and confusion if I don’t have to search my hard drive to cherry pick the files for my book. Whenever I’ve had to search a number of different folders to find the photos I need, I inevitably find myself returning to the same folder over and over again because I can’t remember that I’ve already checked there. It’s like when I have to drive around the block three times before I can finally get to the entrance of the parking garage, and that frustrates me. Better to just have everything collected in one place so that it’s ready to go.

After the scans are made and collected in the designated Inkubook folder, there’s just one last thing I like to do in relation to organizing my image files, and that’s…

5. Give the Photos Descriptive Names

As fancy as digital cameras might be, they don’t go the extra mile toward putting specific names on photos. Wouldn’t it be nice if the camera could identify your subject and give the picture a snazzy name instead of using IMG_0304? We can dream that it will happen one day, but for the time being, I often try to rename my photos with something descriptive.

Renaming your photos is especially helpful if you’re not copying all the files into one specific folder. Beyond that, if you use any page layouts that include caption boxes, you can save yourself some editing after your book is assembled. In layouts that use caption boxes (usually a small text box that’s very close to the photo box), the caption boxes are automatically populated with the filename of the photo. Sometimes I choose to not use the captions at all, in which case I just delete the text in the caption boxes. But when I am using captions, I don’t have to redo them all in the editor when I’ve already given the file a caption-like name. [Revision: A recent update to Inkubook changed this feature. Now caption boxes aren't automatically filled in with your filenames. Because I like words more than I like random letters and numbers, I'll probably still give my photo files descriptive names.]

The next part is the last in this series (for now). I’m very interested in hearing what suggestions you have because I’m always looking for ways I can do things more efficiently. Please share your ideas by sending a comment through our Feedback form!