Mike DelGaudio

Are looking for a great last minute gift for Mom, Grandma, Uncle Ernie, or that cute co-worker from Accounting? Here’s an idea. Give them a book. Not just any book. But a photo book that you created from your best photos. Best of all, it’s only about 30 bucks, plus shipping.

The best thing about it, is you can go from nothing to finished and ordered tonight before you go to bed. All you need is Picasa and Booksmart from Blurb. If you don’t have Picasa, you should.

Step 1: Obtain and install Picasa and Booksmart
Ok, first, if you don’t already have Picasa. Download and install it. Let it find all the photos you have scattered around your computer.

Next, download and install Booksmart, from Blurb. Booksmart is also free. The only thing you’re gonna pay for is the printing and shipping of your books. I prefer Blurb over other photo book publishers like Kodak Photo Gallery and Snapfish for the following reasons:

Get Booksmart from Blurb

1. Blurb is cheaper, by a mile. Especially if you plan on having a lot of pages.
2. Blurb allows full bleed pages. This means your photos can go right to the edge of the page. This is a nice touch that few others offer.
3. Blurb’s books feature a custom paper dust jacket. I’m not sure anyone else does this. It’s a great touch, and really makes your book seem professional.

Ok. So go get Booksmart already, and install it.

Step 2: Select and Edit Photos
Now. Go to Picasa and choose all your best photos. In the photo library,
- select the photos (hold down CRTL to select more than one.)
- click “Add to” at the bottom of the Picasa window.
- Choose “New Album”
- Then give the album a name like “Photo Book for Mom”

Continue to add photos to your album until you’ve chosen all you want.

Now, select that Album in the right hand pane of Picasa to see all the photos you selected.

Make sure you correct the exposure on the photos in case they are too dark or too light.
For real artistry, why not make a few of the shots black and white.

Good work. You’re almost done.

With the album selected click “Edit” then “Select All”

With all the photos in the album selected choose “File” then “Export Picture to Folder” –

Make sure the option for “Use Original Size” is selected. You want to make sure Blurb gets the highest resolutions pictures possible.

This will take all your adjusted photos and make copies that we will insert into our book.
Depending on how many photos you have selected, this step could take a few minutes.

Step 3: Creating the book.

We’ve selected all the raw material for your book. Now lets assemble it. Open up Booksmart, which you should already have downloaded and installed.

When Booksmart opens, choose “Start A new Book” from the opening screen.

Choose “Photo Book” as the type of book to create.

On the next screen, choose the 8×10 book (it’s the only size they offer, right now)

On the next screen I prefer to choose “Mix It Up” for the number of images per page. Choose whatever you like.

Next, give your book a title, and Put your name in the Author field.

Next, you can choose the color theme for your book. I like the dark pages of “Darkroom,” but choose whatever you want.

Last, you tell blurb where to find the pictures to put in the book. You also indicate if you want Blurb to automatically create pages and fill the book for you (they call this autoflow) or you can hand craft each page on your own. For the first time, choose Autoflow.

Click the “Get Pictures” button, and find the Folder where you just exported all the pictures from Picasa. Open that folder and press CTRL+A to select all the photos.

Then click Open then Continue.

Booksmart will take a few minutes and bring in every photo from your Picasa Album, and automatically create your book for you.

It’s gonna create your dust Jacket, do all your page layouts. Heck, it’s gonna make your book for you.

You can always rearrange pages, change layouts, move pictures around the page, rotate them, zoom in and out and add captions to your photos. Go ahead. Get creative. Definitely review each page to make sure it looks just right.

As of today pricing is downright reasonable. Starting at $29,95 for books up to 40 pages, and only $79.95 for books up to four hundred pages. Shipping is added to these prices. But compared to others, that’s a great price.

Once you have the book done just the way you like it. Click “Publish” then “Order Book” And your book will be automatically transferred up to Blurb’s website, and you can order as many copies as you want.

If you want, they’ll even add it to their bookstore in case other relatives want to order a copy. Here is a book that I created as a gift. ()

In my experience books take about a week to create and ship, so if you act today you JUST might make it for the holidays.

Here are two photos of a complete book that I made

Book Cover

These books make great gifts. After I gave one to my Ma a couple years ago she said “These are the only gifts you ever need to give me, I love them!”

[tags]Mike DelGaudio, Picasa, Blurb, Booksmart, Gift Idea[/tags]