To celebrate someone's big birthday, a group of us decided to make a photo book (since we live across 11 time zones). It was my idea, so I needed to do more homework.

Lucky, I didn't have any editing to do for four days in a roll, so I had plenty time to waste. In fact, I made a nice photo book using digital photos stored in my iPhoto. Since it's my first time, I spent a whole evening to make a draft. Then, I went to the Apple store to get some help. As always, the trainer was extremely helpful. (Note that this is my 10th Blog on one-to-one lesson. So, it only cost me USD10 to go to such a private training class. If I care to go again, the cost per class "would go down." One-to-one classes are paid for at the beginning, and good for one year.)

Step 1: Collect all the photos into an album.

Since I already collected most of my son's photos into "events" for each year, I only needed to select some from each event to make an album for each year. As a result, I made N sub-albums (for N years) under the (main) album for a photo book.

Note: If you have too many photos, it's better to select 40 or so to make an album first. You can add more photos to the album/book later on. If you started with an album with 200 photos, you will have to delete/replace a lot of photos from the automatically generated photo book, which can be a lot of extra work.

Step 2: Go to the album, and click "Share" at the lower right corner You will see "Create" (second block) and click "Book."

From there, it's almost all self-taught (but time consuming if no one shows you how; it took me the whole evening to make a draft).

Note: You need to select the book type (hard or soft cover), and book size (L, M, S).

Step 3: You many have problems with layout or text.

I had a problem with text "being too big" for some caption, and I didn't know what to do. It turned out that I had an "invisible" line (extra line), or "invisible" text. So, that was good to know.

Step 4: Apple store has sample photo books, which can give you ideas about photo size and layout. I learnt that I could order a medium size soft cover, which costs USD10. For the first photo book, I think I am willing to waste USD10 (if it fails).

Step 5: Print out a pdf as proof.

It's much easier to see, and I spotted some typos and refined some layouts.

Step 6: Revise, revise, revise, which is the key to good writing and to making a nice photo book!

I needed to add more photos to my photo book, which can be down by "dropping" photos into the (photo book) project.

I will "revise" my first photo book one more day, and then send the order in!

To look back, here are some "keys" to save time.

1) After you have put your photos for the book into an album, pick a book type (hard cover, soft, etc.), size (L, M, S) and theme (for the book) and test it. Each theme is different. Once you have picked a theme and spent hours refining the layouts/captions/zooms, etc., you loose them IF you decide to try a new theme. (If you change the book size, you need to check each page again, especially the captions.)

2) Once you have a draft, make a duplicate project by pressing two figures down on the project. You work on the duplicated copy, so you can always go back to your "original book."

This is a perfect project for people who has some time!

ps. I just ordered a copy. I had trouble with "invisible" text again, and had to remake that page! (It's a bug, I think, with some layout.)

pps. The regular shipping is $5.99. It takes 1-3 business days to finish printing, and will take 10 days to get to Hawaii (since we are in the middle of no where).