For my folks' Golden Anniversary, I completed a project that had been on my mind and heart for years: to digitize and publish their many wonderful photo albums, preserving the photo arrangements and the typed and handwritten commentary that my mother added to the pages. Adding to my sense of urgency was knowledge that flooding had damaged those albums, and mildew was taking its toll. The sooner I acted, the better.
Here is the process that worked for me, in case it benefits others who are facing a similar challenge:
- Photograph each page of each album.
- I used my Panasonic Lumix, fixed to a tripod and rotated to face the floor. I worked in indirect morning light, no flash, with Macro focus enabled and maximum resolution.
- I stacked up hardback books underneath the shooting area to position the pages optimally.
- I pulled off plastic covers and used the tripod crank to zoom down to the page area.
- Important: Avoid breathing mildew! Gently remove mildew with a baby wipe and let dry.
- Copy off files and back up to thumb drives.
- After each album was finished, I popped out the SD card, put it in a USB card reader, and transferred the files to my laptop, removing them from the SD card (to avoid confusion).
- The autonumbering of the photos ensured the correct ordering.
- I named the folder according to the date range (e.g, 1969-1979) and backed it up to two 16GB thumb drives.
- Process photos (rotate, crop, correct).
- In Picasa, I used the Picture > Batch Edit options to rotate and autocorrect (I'm Feeling Lucky) all the images, which worked well.
- I opened each picture and applied Crop > Letter Size to clean up the images and ensure that they all had the correct aspect ratio for publishing.
- Set up Word files to lay out the photos for publication.
- Create a letter-sized Word document with minimum margins (0.25-in all sides).
- Zoom out the Page view as much as possible (I was able to get down to 14%), which lets you manipulate the embedded photos as thumbnails.
- In the folder with your album JPGs, create a folder called \Added, to help you track progress.
- Add the first photo by dragging it into Word from File Explorer.
- Select the picture and click the Picture Tools: Format tab.
- Select Compress Pictures, Options..., and select Print output. This default will apply to all.
- Populate the Word files with the photos.
- In File Explorer, open a specific album folder and multiselect a set of 20 JPGs (your mileage may vary).
- Drag them into the Word file (which resized them to fit the margins, by default).
- While the files are still selected, drag them into the folder \Added.
- Rinse and repeat for remaining sets of photos to go in album file, always allowing Word time to complete its Save before adding more.
- Generate PDFs.
- Verify that the pages are in the order you want.
- Add a title page or additional commentary, as needed.
- Select File > Save As > PDF.
- Verify the PDF options and generate the PDF. In my experience, the hugely compressed PDF files still had terrific photo quality.
- Upload PDFs to Lulu book project.
- Log into Lulu.com and create a new book project. I selected a letter-sized hardback with color pages.
- Upload each PDF in the order you want them to appear in the book.
- Use the wizard to design the covers and spine, and publish the project.
- Don't forget to check your email: Lulu sends you a coupon toward your first copy.
My book is in production right now; hardbacks take longer, so plan in extra time. Let me know if you want more information about any of these production methods. Hope they help!
