Hi! I've been absent for a long time. Still trying to get life in order to be able to prioritize scrapping again. It's been so long since I've done anything with my pictures that I don't know where to start. We just went on our first cruise in celebration of our daughter's 30th birthday. We would love to create a photobook to capture the memories from the week. I would love suggestions from Lilypad friends! There were 6 of us on the cruise who all took photos (in the hundreds). We need a common place to upload our photos that all 6 of us can access. Since only two of us have done any digital scrapbooking, it needs to be flexible. I would love to have the ability to mix in some cute layouts in with pages of photos. Is Shutterfly the best place to do this? I'm open to suggestions! Thanks for any advice you can offer!
How exciting & welcome back! I've been part of a group all making the same book before but it was ages ago so I'm a bit foggy on the details but we did all use the same Shutterfly account (so everyone just used the same login email & password & could upload their own pics & grab photos to scrap then upload pages). Knowing you'll have lots of photos & that they have free book codes (for the base 20page album) & sales regularly; a maxed out 110 page album can cost a bit! The only other idea I have would be to use a shared Dropbox with folders for each person's photos instead - still upload finished pages to Shutterfly( & for non-scrappers, use their drag & drop templates). I'm sure you've already backed up yours but I still suggest separate folders because sometimes with multiple cameras the file names can overlap & get confusing (like all the point&shoot canon pics my DH uses are called 'IMG1234.jpg' etc & my DSLR names them the same way so it's possible that our trip photos will overlap & there will be two different photos each named IMG1234 & of course you don't want anyones photos accidentally overwritten - I don't know how Shutterfly or Dropbox would handle multiple files with the same name - so make sure every one has backed theirs up too just in case! Good luck!
I think creating a Shutterfly account that you can all log into and upload your photos is a great idea. If you know the book is going to be over 20 pages, I would suggest waiting until Shutterfly does a free unlimited pages sale (111 pages is the max I think?). I always order 8x8 books from Shutterfly and am usually happy. The cropping can vary so I'd be careful with margins and don't put anything too close to the edges. I know others prefer Blurb books so maybe someone else will chime in about them; I still haven't tried Blurb yet. Good luck!
Another vote for Shutterfly. You can share albums and you can download, upload, print any of the pictures from the album. It's really nice!
btw. I think it's a great idea that you are starting with something more current and that you just had fun at like an awesome cruise!
When I went on a cruise with a large group of friends (over 40 of us from all over the USA) 10 years ago, one of the girls created a share site on Shutterfly so we could upload photos. We were all scrapbookers but some still did traditional and some were digital. By using the share site, we could just pull the photos we wanted. You can add photo books to the share sites. With the share site, we all used our own login information but just became a member of the share site. I ordered a CD of photos to use in my scrapbooking from it.
I think you've got some great ideas. My first thought was to share the photos through Dropbox. This is what we did with my family this past Christmas to share all of our Christmas photos with each other. And then those of you who wanted to scrap them could grab the photos and make your pages and then upload a finished album to Shutterfly. Then anyone who wanted to order a book could order a book.
Our family uses Google Photos to share photos all the time. One of us makes the shared album and invites the applicable people, and then we can all add into one album but you can tell who uploaded them. Shutterfly or DropBox are also excellent choices for what you want to do.
This is awesome!!! I just checked it out here: https://www.shutterfly.com/sites/create/welcome.sfly?fid=cfdc12a474d385d76cdd16a80fdf8c46 So, when I went to a big event, we loaded all the photos into Dropbox. That was frustrating for some people because of the size of the file overall. It got complicated because of the way Dropbox deals with shared folders.
I use Blurb and they always have a 25%-40% off.. I am actually in process of making my trip book from Nov right now,. I have 3 sets of photos from my husband & my cell phones plus our Canon power shot... I agree have your friends/family upload to dropbox.. that is how I made my BFF's 30th Anniversary Book when her and her hubby went to Jamaica. She uploaded the photos to me there and then I used her PM's to me so I could "write it for her in her first person...
Just a note on Shutterfly settings: when I was making a 12x12 album, I went into the advanced editing and I saw that their pages are set to 95%. That means a 12x12in layout has 5% of its surface automatically "cut off" from the paper page! You can adjust this, thank goodness, but it explains why some of my books have had really bad bleed issues. I adjusted the size so that 100% of my lo is on the paper page and there is a slight white border around the edges. That way, when SF gets overexcited with the cutting process, I lose the white but keep my lo. Good luck with your shared album and have fun scrapping!
I was on a spiritual trip to Newfoundland last summer and we all had volunteer roles. I was one of the 'chroniclers' - mostly taking photos so that a lot of the others didn't have to bother with cameras. Someone suggested the free app Tripcast as a resource for groups so that each could upload their photos there and we chroniclers could make sure that those who had no clue about uploading etc could help them add their photos. Tripcast would also make a book for anyone who wanted it. (no surprise!) I still get emails asking of I want a book! I found it very easy to use and a great resource for getting all the photos from anyone who wanted theirs included. When we added our photos to Tripcast, it was with the understanding that anyone could use them. While I only made a very small simple book of my own in the end, not a full blown 12" Shutterfly book, I did find it useful because I think I added some of the macro shots and photos of an excursion I ended up not being able to take. I made my little book at Shutterfly and it was one of their monthly free 6" soft covers. (probably $7 or so with the shipping lol)
Best part of it... everything is still there on shutterfly. 10 years later! I checked to make sure the sites were available before I wrote the post and it was. So for people who procrastinate about getting things done, photos will be available whenever they decide to do it. I have a love/hate relationship with Dropbox. I have only used the shared folders maybe 4 or 5 times. I think only 2 of them went smoothly because the other person was experienced with dropbox (in fact, they taught me). The other times, even with the email links the individuals couldn't figure it out and never got the information I wanted to share. I gave up, deleted the info from my account and don't even use sharing anymore. I limit my use to using it to transfer photos from my phone and my tablet to my computer.
Shared files work okay for me. The issue is, the shared files will take up both users space. Not a huge deal with 2 or 3 people, but it becomes a large problem with photos for 5+ people. Especially with the size of photos. Also, if people don't have a Dropbox, it's really small to start. I'm lucky that I have had one for so long and took advantage of all the free upgrades that mine is like 13 gb? My mom's is tiny so when I have to share photos with her, she pulls them onto her computer right away. Which is another complication: if people don't understand that when you pull a file out,it removes from everyone's access.
And welcome back Cheryl! @pianomom I think you have lots of great ideas above. I love the idea of using either a Shutterfly Share site or just sharing one log-in there. I've shared things on Dropbox and while I personally love it, I have found that most people that don't already use it, get really confused by it. I've had much better luck sharing pictures on Google Photos. But with Google Photos, you'd have to download them all and then re-upload to Shutterfly. Seems easiest to just do it all there probably.
Google Photos is fantastic as far as just sharing photos of the event. I love the idea of a group Shutterfly login to create the book itself.
I created Shutterfly share sites for my Girl Scout troop and for my granddaughter's 6th grade trip to France. A decade later the photos are still there. So my vote is for a Shutterfly share site.
