Technorati tags: [tag-tec]photo book[/tag-tec], [tag-tec]photo gifts[/tag-tec], [tag-tec]create photo book[/tag-tec]

Creating a Photo book is very easy as more and more user-friendly services like Picaboo and Shutterfly crop up on the web. But don't just slap your photos into a book. Get creative. Create a Double Vision photo book.

You've seen Double Vision books. Two images side by side, and you have to find what's different. It's ten times more fun when they are your own family photos. And it makes a very special personalized photo gift, like an eye test for a 50th birthday, for example.

Follow these steps to create a Double Vision photo book. At the end of the project steps, I show a video of what kind of edits you might make to a photo for a project like this.

• Decide what size photo books you want to make. I suggest a rectangular book size, about 7" wide by 5" tall. Anything too big, you might have to stretch your photos to fill the page and lose sharpness. Square books will also require you to crop many of your photos as most photos are not square.
• Choose 8 to 10 photos. Choose photos that have a lot going on, as opposed to a portrait on a plain background.
• Check the original photo before duplicating it: size, brightness, no red-eye that kind of thing.
• Make a copy of the original photo or the enhanced original photo (see step above).
• Now the fun part. Make the edits - take some stuff out, add something in, change something). Watch a video below of sample page I did for my double vision book. Record your edits in an answer key page (or you yourself will forget what you changed).
• Now you are ready to compile your photos into a book. The original photo goes on the left page, the edited photos on the right. If you've never made a photo book before, see related links at the end of this post.
• Don't forget to include an answer key at the end of your book. BUT turn it upside down so folks can't just easily flip to it. They have to consciously turn the book upside down to cheat.
• Get your photo book printed bound. I usually have my photobooks bound in hardcover. But for this project, I choose soft cover, makes it more casual - and I can get more books because softcovers cost a lot less.

Below video shows you a sample page I did for a Double Vision book. Check out the section after the video for more tips on editing your photo.

Click To Play

Tips on editing your photo:
1. I do 6 edits a photo. That's a manageable number per photo. A couple of removals like taking off a wall painting, a couple of additions like adding that tiara to the lucky girl, and a couple of changes like changing the upholstery color in the video.
2. To add images, like a tiara, or a painting, you can use your other photos. Example, I use a portrait of my dad to replace a wall painting, or just duplicate what's on the photo itself. Example, if the original photos had 3 flowers, duplicate them, change the size and angle so they don't look like carbon copy.
3. You can also find free photo images http://www.sxc.hu/ . Microsoft also generously provides free clip art and photo images at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx
4. Be kind. Don't make edits so small, so obscure, or the color shade change so subtle that it's impossible to find without a magnifying glass. This is a fun book, maybe even a photo gift, don't bring them to tears. Make half your changes very easy to find, and the rest a little harder, but not too hard.
5. Answer key. Record the things you change on an answer key. Turn the answer key upside down when you compile it on the last page of the book.

Related Posts:
How to Create a photo book with Picaboo
The 9-minute Scrapbook

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We spend months planning our family vacation, take two weeks off from work to go away, blow off thousands of dollars before returning home, drained but happy. Yet, we have no time to preserve those memories. Such is the paradox of our busy lifestyle.

Our rational? Well, those digital pictures are on my hard drive. They won't spoil. When I want them, they'll be there. No time now.

I hope when you watch how easy it is to create digital photobooks (I use Picaboo) you will change your mind.

Click To Play

As shown in the video above, the first step is to download the free Picaboo software.

If you have a bunch of digital pictures, photobooks is the quickest way to give them life outside the computer hard drive. However, a photobook has its own limitations. 1. You cannot move, resize or crop your pictures. The layout you choose dictates that. And 2. You cannot add embellishments. If you want to have more elaborate page designs and have that kind of control, you need a digital scrapbooking software.

Since your book design and layout are limited to the layout selections, when you choose a bookmaking software, make sure it gives you a huge selection of layouts to choose from. Being able to auto-fill an album with your pictures according to the theme you pick is also a huge time-saver. Especially if you have the ability to specify your photo groupings for the auto-fill, so you are not spending huge amounts of time shifting picture from one page to another. After all, we need time to start planning your next vacation, don't we?

To download Picaboo's free bookmaking software, click here.