Making a Photo Book

Relive the stories of your life - big or small - with a professionally bound keepsake that you've personalized from cover to cover. A photo book is a unique way to remember the joy of an afternoon at the zoo, the accomplishments of school years past, and the family milestones of birthday bashes, reunions, and summer vacations. All it takes is your favorite pictures and an afternoon of fun.

Use these helpful tips to make your photo book easy and fun:

- A time saver: Select "auto-fill" to automatically fill your book with any unchecked pictures from your picture strip. You can then review and modify each page at your convenience.

This is an easy way to jump start the selection of pictures for your photo book. Now all you have to do is adjust a few and add your personal captions.

- Explore the possibilities: test different page backgrounds while you create your photo book by selecting alternative designs using the Background tab.

This way you can quickly see how to customize your photo book to suit your story. Go with bold stripes for birthdays, or textured colors for travel.

- Resize your books for gifts: Visit My Shutterfly, highlight the book you want to create in another size within the My Projects section and select "make a copy of your book in a different size" to easily convert your book. For example, change an 8x8 photo book to a 12x12 book, and vice versa.

This is a great way to choose the right size for the person you want to delight with the gift of your story.

Your first step should be to select the photo book size that's right for your occasion--portable 4x4 brag books take about 30 minutes to create and are great mementos for Dad's office, while 12x12 photo books can tell longer stories and will look perfect on your coffee table.

Get started!