Picaboo Blog

New! Picaboo Professional Photographer Program

Are you an active professional photographer that uses Picaboo to create beautiful and unique photo books and greeting cards for your clients? We have launched a new program specially tailored to your needs. Members of the program receive exclusive benefits, including VIP support from program specialists, discounts, and more!

To learn more about this exciting new program, please click here.

To apply to join the program, please complete the application form.

Our new padded linen and leather covers add extra professional polish to your photo books with no logo or branding on the cover. If you haven’t tried them yet, order one today!

Creating Picaboo Books & Cards with photos from online photo-sharing websites

Many of you have asked us how to use the photos you have shared on photo-sharing websites like Shutterfly, Ofoto, or Snapfish, in your Picaboo photo books. In many cases, your friends and family have shared their photos with you on one of these sites and now you want to use them in your Picaboo books and cards. When these websites post uploaded images, they apply heavy compression to the pictures in order to reduce the load on their servers.

Since the online photo-sharing websites compress your images, the print quality will be very poor when you use the images that are pulled directly from a slideshow or folder in your Picaboo books. Instead, it is best to use the high resolution, original digital source images in Picaboo to maximize print quality.

When you use software from these websites to automatically upload your photos to these sites when your camera is plugged into your computer, there is also a setting to save a copy of the photos on your hard drive as well. You should select that option so that you can use the copies of the original photos in your Picaboo books and cards.

As an example, the photo on the left is the low resolution version copied directly from a photo-sharing website.The photo on the right is the original high-resolution digital source image.

If you do not have the original digital images on your computer, you can retrieve the high resolution, larger size images from most online photo-sharing websites. For example, Shutterfly, Ofoto, and Snapfish let you purchase your high resolution, original size digital images on a CD. Snapfish also lets you download your high resolution photos for a fee.

Once you have the original source images on your computer, you can add them to Picaboo and begin creating your own unique photo books and cards.

She Said Yes!

We love the idea of creating photo books with your engagement photos. This idea has taken on a fresh approach with the latest trend of kicking off the book with photos from the pivotal moment she said, “Yes!!!” This can add a unique view into one of the most private and intimate experiences you will share as a couple. Most brides-to-be are so caught up in the whirlwind of surprise, elation, and overwhelming emotion of the proposal that they often don’t remember all of the details of this significant life experience.

Some grooms-to-be have decided fix that by hiring a photographer (or asking a close friend) to secretly capture their bride-to-be’s candid, in-the-moment reaction to the proposal and the look on her face when she accepts it. You can read more about this idea in the New York Times.

For more engagement book ideas, check out the Wedding Idea Center.

Mrs. Lemon's Honeymoon Photo Book

Many newlyweds use Picaboo to create fabulous photo books to capture memories of their engagements, bridal showers, bachelor & bachelorette parties, weddings, honeymoons and more.

Click here to check out one bride’s story of how she found Picaboo and used it to create a wonderful keepsake of her honeymoon. It only took her a little over an hour using our large selection of layouts and backgrounds. Get ideas for your own Picaboo photo books by visiting our Idea Center.

Create a Personalized Guest Book

A personalized guest book is a great way for your wedding guests to leave you a special message on your big day. Include pictures of you and your fiancé as children, pictures from when you first met, and from when you were engaged. We recommend adding all of these pictures to one file so that they will be easy to add to your guest book as you are creating it in Picaboo.

For each double page spread, include your pictures on one side of the page layout. On the other side of the double page spread, choose a layout that has only one or two small pictures and a text box so that you can add headings such as, "Guests" or "Advice for Nancy and Matt." Choose a light background so that your guests' notes will be easy to read later. To view a sample wedding guest book, click here.

If you prefer to have lined pages for your guests to sign, use one of our Guest Book  Free Backgrounds.

Click on the button at the bottom of the backgrounds area that says “More Backgrounds Online”. Search for guestlist1, Guestbook1, Guestbook2, Guestbook3, or Guestbook4 and then click on the thumbnail of the background you wish to use in your book and the larger, full image version of it will open in a child window. Drag and drop the full background image from the child window into your book page background area and it will become the background image for your page.

When you display the book at your wedding, provide your guests with a fine tip Sharpie marker which works best for signing on Picaboo pages. Just make sure to let the ink dry for a few moments before turning the page or touching the written message to prevent it from smearing. Your guests will love looking at your pictures while they sign your book and you will have an extra special keepsake to read through after your honeymoon.

Designer Spotlight - Heather Thompson

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Heather Thompson — one of the most prolific designers on our Free Backgrounds site. She has posted over 250 backgrounds on our site, so let us introduce you to her!

What is your occupation?  Graphic Designer / Entrepreneur

What software do you use to create backgrounds?  Adobe Photoshop CS and Paint Shop Pro 9

Where do you find inspiration for your backgrounds?  Most of my inspiration comes from nature and my surroundings.  But I also love to get my color combinations from current fashion trends or from books and magazines.

What was it that first got you interested in digital design?   I started a web design company about 8 years ago, which led into the higher demand for graphics.  I dropped the web design aspect of the business and dove strictly into computer graphics/clip art.  I still do this today but I also incorporate the traditional art of watercolors and acrylics to spice things up and gain a wider audience that is drawn to the "homemade" look rather than the "digital" look.  As for designing backgrounds and elements for my digital scrapbooking kits, I fell in love with it about 2 years ago.  I found Picaboo at a scrapbooking convention and have been designing for them ever since!

What is your favorite background or set of backgrounds that you have created for Picaboo?  It's so hard to pick just one, but I would have to say my current collections, Hocus Pocus and Polka Dots simply because they incorporate the primitive, whimsical watercolor look.

What do you like to do for fun?  I stay active, such as running (after my boys) and Pilates.  I also love to travel and spend time with family and friends.

What would be your dream vacation?  Well, I would love to return to St Maarten because I fell in love with it and didn't want to return home.  Returning here would be a dream vacation for me. 

What is something that you’ve always wanted to learn how to do?  Sky dive (just once)

We would like to thank Heather for sharing her backgrounds with us and taking part in our Designer Spotlight.  We look forward to introducing you to more of our designers over the coming months, so stay tuned!

Leaving image wells and caption boxes empty makes layouts more flexible

Customers often ask us what will happen if they leave an image well or caption box empty. If you choose to do this, the page will print your background in the space where you left the image well or caption box blank. In other words, the background will show through the image well or caption box that is empty and you will not see the grey box or orange caption border on the finished page.

This feature adds even more flexibility to our 240+ layouts. You can look at our page layouts and choose to use none, some, or all of the image well and caption boxes, providing you with hundreds more layout choices. You can use your own images or one of our 8000+ free backgrounds as a background in your page.

Once you have chosen a page layout, add a background to your page.

Next, add the images and text you want, leaving the other image wells and/or caption boxes blank (in this case, we are leaving the bottom caption box empty).

By leaving the lower caption box empty, the heart in the background now shows through! Click the "View" button in Picaboo to see how your book will appear when it is printed or shared. 

Have fun trying this with your photo books. And don't forget to check out our free backgrounds site where our designers add new backgrounds every day!

The New Special Collections Site!

We recently launched a new addition to our Free Backgrounds site: the Picaboo Special Collections site! The purpose of this site is to organize our best backgrounds according to specific themes, such as holidays, events, sports, etc.  We also wanted to provide sets of backgrounds that compliment each other in order to make it easier for our users to create great looking books in less time. Instead of searching for backgrounds that match each other, Picaboo users can now browse through the Collections site and find numerous backgrounds that go with a particular theme and that look great together. We will be featuring a new collection each week in our Friday email newsletter, and we will add new collections to our site regularly. Some of the collections feature work done by a variety of designers, while other collections have been created exclusively by a single designer. The categories we currently feature are: Holidays, Events, Seasons, Colors, Travel, Wedding, Baby, Kids, Sports, and Other (which includes Heritage, Pets, Fine Art, and Nature).

If you are looking for backgrounds that goes with a specific holiday, season, or event, the Collections site is a great place to start. Also, if you are looking for a background of a particular color that will compliment the photos on a certain page, the Colors section is very helpful. For each color, the backgrounds are arranged according to shade so it is easy to try out several different backgrounds of slightly different shades until you find the one that is perfect for the page in your Picaboo book.

We are all very excited about this new site, and we feel it will make the Picaboo creation process even easier and more fun.  Enjoy!

Make photo books of your summer travels

Summer is a time for travel, and Picaboo photo books are a great way to preserve your vacation memories for years to come.  Be sure to check out our Travel Idea Center to see the many different ways you can document your adventures with Picaboo: http://www.picaboo.com/ideacenter/travel/.

If you go on a trip with a group this summer (like your extended family or a bunch of your friends), Picaboo makes it easy to share your photos from the trip with your travel companions.  Just put the photos into a book with your Picaboo software, save it, and then click on the “Share” button. Add your travel buddies as Picaboo Pals by entering their email addresses, and then after your book uploads, they will receive an email with a link to the online preview of your photo book (and even be able to order printed copies of the book, if they like!).

Have fun traveling this summer (and take a lot of pictures)!

How to make a two-page spread in Picaboo

Customers often ask us how to create two-page spreads in Picaboo. Two-page spreads are popular because they make a dramatic presentation in books. In fact, they are perfect for wide-format pictures of landscapes, couples, or large family portraits.

To make a two-page spread in Picaboo, it will first be necessary to split the image you wish to use into two "halves".  To do this, open the picture in a photo editing program (such as Photoshop, Paintshop or Microsoft Paint). Next, use the crop tool to create two picture "halves" so that you can drop one half of the image onto each facing page in your book. When you crop the picture, please make sure to include an overlap of about a ¼" wide area on the right edge of the half that will go on the left page, and ¼” wide area on the left edge of the image that will go on the right page.  This is to accommodate the area of the image that will be stitched into the spine of the book when your book is bound.  The overlap area (the area that should be included in each "half" of the image) is shaded in yellow in the example image below:

Then, save each "half" as a new high resolution .jpg image (with zero compression) or a .png file. Add each of these half-pictures to your Picaboo book using the full-page bleed layout for each of the two pages, and then drag and drop each half onto the respective pages. Finally, use the Picture Tools to move your images up and down until you have aligned them perfectly.

In order for your two-page spread to look like this when printed...

...it should like this on your computer:

Now switch your camera to wide-format or “panorama” mode and click away!!