American Greetings PhotoWorks has a photo book creation tool called PhotoWorks Studio Beta (beta means it’s still being developed and is not the final product). This tool allows users to create themed photo books with matching backgrounds, text, and other embellishments. Over the weekend I created a baby themed photo book for a friend and used the Studio tool.
The creation process is very simple:
- First you upload photos to your PhotoWorks account. I uploaded 50 for my photo book.
- Next you choose your theme. Currently there are 4 themes available (wedding, travel, baby, and everyday) with 11 different templates to choose from. For my book, I used the baby theme called “Grayson”.
- Once you’ve chosen your theme, you can choose the album that you’d like to use pictures from and manually create the book or automatically have Studio fill in the book with your pictures. I used the automatic tool to fill my book, but ended up customizing it myself by changing designs/layouts/picture locations/etc. I’d probably create the book manually next time.
- Once you’ve filled your book with pictures you can add text to each page. I did not add text throughout the book since the book is a gift to a friend.
- Finally you’ll be able to preview the book and order it.
I think the themes and templates available to choose from in the Studio Beta are really nice and attractive. It’s really easy to change the number of photos per page and the embellishments that are on each page. I have not received my book yet (it’s supposed to be here in a few days, I just received the shipping confirmation yesterday), but I’ll update my post when I receive it and let you know how it looks. The only thing that I disliked about the Studio Beta is when I automatically filled the book, it didn’t take into consideration the orientation of each photo (landscape or portrait) like some other photo book tools do. Some of the sections that were made for landscape photos had portrait photos inserted, which cut off the baby’s head. This is the reason that I would create the book manually next time from the beginning. But, as I stated above, this tool is still in beta form, so before it’s released in it’s final version, they could correct this. I have submitted my feedback already through their website to let them know about this. But besides that, the tool is really awesome.
Want to create your own book or find more information about the Studio Beta tool? Visit American Greetings PhotoWorks.
* Update (03.29.10) :: I received my book a few weeks ago and it was absolutely beautiful! The friend that I created the book for absolutely loved it. Great work PhotoWorks!
Real Simple Saving Methods Blog Tour Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of American Greetings PhotoWorks and received a free photo book to facilitate my review. I have given my honest opinion when writing this post & it has in no way been written by anyone but myself; the views & opinions expressed in this post are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party in question.
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