This was the first online digital photo service I ever tried. I had actually just learned how to transfer photographs from my digital camera directly to my computer the week before I tried Picaboo
. I also had just learned to edit photos using Kodak EasyShare. The EasyShare program came with a set of photographs we had purchased on disk and its features were limited (or perhaps my ability to use them was limited) but did the trick. I made a beautiful line drawing from a picture of my children using the “coloring page” option. I was also able to make horrible pictures into beautiful ones by removing the red eye from them. We have one camera that always results in red eye despite our best efforts so this option alone was very handy to have. I also cropped some photos in half, removing the desirable elements from each section and focusing on those while eliminating unflattering shots (of myself) or sections that were off balance or unnecessary background material.
Create a Custom Photo Album in Seconds.
As far as I could tell, Picaboo only has rotate and zoom options for editing pictures. But I had no problem pre-editing my photographs and I like that Picaboo keeps things simple for this novice. Most of your Picaboo work will be done offline. Once you visit the website and register, you can download free software for creating your Photo Book.
When I first tried to download the software it stalled at around 20% and again at 70%. I didn’t bother to wait to see if it would continue the download (as I’m not a patient person) but cancelled the download. Much to my pleasure, when I selected download again, Picaboo successfully started the download where I’d left off. This made the download easy, even with the short stalls. The software to create your book is then downloaded onto your computer so that you can work on it any time. You will need to connect to the Picaboo system to download extra backgrounds and supplemental items and upload it for publication.
Picaboo lets you save drafts of your photobook and “Share” the results with anyone you place on your friends list. Anyone you “Share” with can view your whole book!
As a very beneficial feature you and/or your friends can add comments for each page of the book as you “View” it. This option was very handy as I could write myself a little note within the program to “change that background” or “zoom that picture”. The comments then appear in the corner of the screen when you return to “Edit” mode. When you start up Picaboo, it allows you to create and name an album. To prepare to start my album I went ahead and edited my photographs using another program (as mentioned above) and placed the ones I wanted to use in a file on my computer titled “Album”. You can search for each photograph individually, and I did do that in order to grab additional pictures later but selecting in advance allowed me to get the shots I wanted and get them prepared.
Transform Your Layouts. Create a Photo Book.
Once you’ve created an “album” you select “Get Pictures” and then browse your files for the pictures you want. Since mine were all in one folder, I was able to quickly select the entire contents of the folder and add the pictures. This process went very quickly. Since you are working offline, it’s also very easy to switch to another program should you need to edit an individual program before adding it to your Picaboo album. Once the pictures are added, you can choose to have Picaboo place them in a suggested order and layout or place them manually. I let Picaboo do the layout first just to get an idea of what I might want but ended up doing the placement manually. You can also move pages within Picaboo. So when I found that my initially plans only used 9 pages of the 20 available, I was able to go back and insert blank pages throughout the book and then add pictures to those. The first 4 pages cannot be broken up or moved for some reason. So to move those pages around, I manually removed the pictures I had placed on those pages to another page and added the new pictures that I wanted in their place. Picaboo gives you the option to choose from several backgrounds that are downloaded onto your computer. Not realizing there were other options (it was late and I was in a hurry), I just used those backgrounds. But you can go online at Picaboo and download literally thousands of other background options. There’s a download bar provided for the purpose on the “Background” page to make it easy for you. You can also create your own background or download them from elsewhere and add those just as you would a picture.
Any picture in your set can be placed as the background on a single page or multiple pages. I was creating an album of vacation memories so on several pages I used scenic photos from our trip as the background.
Custom Books
There are lots of creative suggestions at the Picaboo site for making your album more than just a book of pictures. In addition to the ability to add captions under pictures, you can write notes and gather ticket stubs or other souvenirs and either photograph them with your digital camera or scan them and add those to your album. For instance, you could create an album with photographs from your own childhood along with handwritten notes about your memories of those events. What a lovely keepsake for your children. I though it would be fun to allow my children to “write” a book. My son likes to create pictures with his pattern magnets and objects with his Legos and then make up stories about them. We could actually take pictures of his creations and use them to create a book, adding the story in the caption section. The small books cost $9.99, but it would be your child’s very own picture book. You could create a photo album of your children and use their artwork as the backgrounds. You could create a book to teach your non-verbal child the names of items in your house or maybe a book to introduce your children to their ancestors or relatives- complete with scanned images of handwritten notes.
There really are endless possibilities. Those of you who scrapbook probably already know about all these options, but it’s new and very exciting to me. Plus, all my “supplies” are on my computer or online so it’s much easier for me to create something with three little ones underfoot than traditional scrapbooking would be.
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As I mentioned earlier, the basic book has room for 20 pages. You can purchase additional pages as needed. I found that 20 pages held enough pictures to well memorialized our vacation. On some pages I just placed one or two pictures, on others I created a collage of several photos that alone might not have merited placement but worked well in the collage format. Not only will it make a great gift for the intended recipient (who will be getting the larger book), but we will also get a medium book free that I can give to my children as a keepsake. (See offer below.) Though, with 3 children, I’ll need two more at some point. $9.99 is not a bad price for a long lasting souvenir though. I’ve paid much more for T-shirts that they will outgrow in a year. I can re-order this book later and I also have it archived to my own computer in its completed form so I can look at it anytime I like.
When you are ready to purchase the book, you click “Buy This Book” and your final product is uploaded and an order form created. Uploading does take a bit of time because all the graphics you’ve chosen have to be sent back to Picaboo. The time will depend on your internet speed. I don’t think my upload took more than 5-10 minutes. I simply left it alone to upload and checked back later when it was finished. Following upload you can select style, size and cover color and your shipping options. I ordered my book the Friday before Christmas, thinking it would take several days for it to ship.
I received an initial confirmation of the order via e-mail shortly thereafter. I received a second confirmation later that same day that my order was shipped! I chose regular shipping so it will take up to a week to arrive. But I was really amazed at the quick turnaround during this really busy season.
I am now officially a digital picture junkie. I’ll be using my Christmas gift dollars to buy a nicer digital camera and will take advantage of this neat and easy way to keep all the photos I want again!
Post Script: My Picaboo books arrived today via UPS, 13 days after shipment (spread over the holiday season and 3 federal holidays) and I'm very pleased. The photographs do look like they are part of a book, so they don't have quite the sharpness of a glossy picture, but still look good. I was impressed that even the ones I had blown up a great deal to zoom in on small details were pretty clear- though they do look more grainy than the others. I was very pleased with the way the backgrounds and corners blended with the pictures. In the editing window, the backgrounds and extras sometimes look rather stark but once incorporated into the book everything looks great. Again, the books don't have the sharpness of a highest quality picture book, but as a rememberance of our trip the books are perfect and I will probably order a few more of the smaller books to share with other family members. As an added plus, I received a $10 savings coupon good toward my next purchase of a photobook!
