In our digital age, countless precious family moments are captured and stored on our iPhones, often unseen. We take hundreds, if not thousands, of photos, but how often do we truly revisit and enjoy these memories? Like many, I realized that while these snapshots weren’t destined for gallery walls, they deserved more than to be forgotten in the digital ether.
Growing up, physical photo albums were a staple in my family home. Reliving memories was as simple as pulling an album off the shelf and flipping through its pages. I wanted to recreate this tangible experience for my children, but the thought of transferring and sorting through my burgeoning iPhone photo library to create a traditional album felt overwhelming.
That’s when I discovered the ease of creating photo albums directly from my iPhone. Over the past year, I’ve crafted five mini photo books right from my phone, each capturing six months of our family’s journey. My goal is to document the first five years of my eldest child’s life, completing the set this year.
Whenever I share these albums, friends and clients express a desire to do the same. So, I’ve put together this step-by-step guide on how to make a photo album on your iPhone, allowing you to create beautiful keepsakes for your own family.
Choosing the Right App for Your iPhone Photo Album
My search for the perfect iPhone photo album creator led me to the Blurb iOS app. While various apps offer similar services and pricing, Blurb stood out for its user-friendly interface. Plus, being a Blurb subscriber meant I was privy to regular discounts, making it an even more appealing choice.
Before diving in, download the Blurb app from the iOS App Store.
For Android users, while Blurb doesn’t have a dedicated Android app, you can achieve a similar result using the Google Photos app. The process outlined below can be adapted for Google Photos or other similar photo book creation apps.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Blurb Photo Book on iPhone
Creating a mini photo album using the Blurb app is a straightforward process. Here’s the workflow I follow:
- Photo Selection: Curate the photos for your album.
- Collage Creation (Optional): Use a collage app for multiple photos on a single page.
- Import to Blurb: Add photos to the Blurb app.
- Layout and Arrangement: Arrange photos within the album template.
- Quality Check: Review each page for image quality.
- Cover Design: Create personalized front and back covers.
- Order Your Album: Finalize and order your photo book.
Let’s explore each step in detail to guide you through making your own iPhone photo album.
Step 1: Selecting Photos for Your iPhone Photo Album
Before opening the Blurb app, the first crucial step is choosing the photographs you want to include in your photo album. Each Blurb mini photo book can accommodate between 20 and 80 pages, with typically one photo per page.
I aim to maximize the page count, often finding hundreds of photos I’d love to include. To manage this, I create two albums per year – January to June and July to December. I scroll through my iPhone photos for each six-month period and add all potential candidates to a new album within the Apple Photos app.
This initial selection often results in 200-300 photos. The next, and often most time-consuming, step is “culling” – narrowing down the selection to the 80 best or most significant images that truly tell the story of that period.
Considering Photo Quality for Your Album
While selecting photos, it’s worth considering image quality. Many photos in these mini albums are casual phone snapshots – not necessarily frame-worthy in isolation. The primary purpose is to preserve everyday memories, so perfection isn’t the goal.
However, being mindful of quality is beneficial. A very dark, blurry, or grainy image will result in a less-than-ideal print.
When refining your photo choices for your album, prioritize the best quality images available. This will ensure a more enjoyable and visually appealing finished photo book.
Step 2: Creating Photo Collages on Your iPhone with the Layout App
Sometimes, you might have several photos from a single event or day that you want to include, but they don’t each warrant a full page in your photo album. This is where photo collages become incredibly useful.
By using a collage app, you can combine multiple related images onto a single page in your photo book, maximizing space and visual storytelling.
For example, during a summer holiday camp, my daughter had her face painted daily. A collage allowed me to showcase all her different face paint designs on one page, without dedicating multiple pages to essentially the same event.
I typically use the Layout app for creating collages. You can download the iOS version here and the Android version here. Layout is intuitive and allows for quick and easy collage creation directly on your phone.
Step 3: Importing Photos into the Blurb App
Once you have your final selection of photos and collages ready, it’s time to import them into the Blurb app to start building your photo album. The process is simple:
- Start a New Book: Tap the ‘CREATE A NEW BOOK’ option in the Blurb app.
- Choose Book Size: Select your desired book size. I consistently use the 13cm x 13cm mini square format for my albums.
- Select Image Source: Choose the source of your photos. Since you’ve organized your selected photos into a dedicated album in your Apple Photos app, tap ‘Albums’ and navigate to your designated album.
- Import Photos: Select all the photos within your album to import them into the Blurb app.
Step 4: Arranging Photos and Choosing Layouts in Your Album
After importing your photos, the Blurb app will display them page by page in your album draft. If the initial arrangement isn’t ideal, you can easily rearrange the page order by dragging and dropping photos to your preferred positions.
Next, tap on each photo to customize the crop. Blurb offers three cropping options:
- Square Crop (Full Page): Fills the entire page in a square format.
- Square Crop with Border: Square crop with a white border around the image.
- Original Crop with Border: Preserves the photo’s original aspect ratio with a border.
Experiment with these options to see which crop best showcases each image within your photo album. The visual difference between crop choices is illustrated below.
Step 5: Checking Image Quality within the Blurb App
Once you’ve finalized the crop for each photo, scroll through your digital album in the Blurb app and check the image quality for each page.
Blurb conveniently alerts you to images that may not print well by displaying an orange exclamation mark next to them (as highlighted in red in the image below).
Sometimes, adjusting the crop can improve the quality indicator. However, if the exclamation mark persists, consider replacing the photo with a higher quality alternative to ensure the best possible print results.
Step 6: Designing Your Photo Album Covers
The final creative step is designing the front and back covers of your photo album. This involves three simple steps within the Blurb app:
For the front cover, tap the ‘Edit Front Cover’ prompt. Choose a cover photo from your album selection.
Next, tap the ‘Aa’ text button below the cover photo preview. Type in the title for your photo album. Consider using the year or a short descriptive phrase to personalize your cover.
Finally, scroll to the end of your album draft and tap ‘Edit Back Cover’. Select a photo for the back cover, completing your album design.
Step 7: Ordering Your iPhone Photo Album
With your album design complete, the final step is to order your photo book! Tap through the order prompts, confirm your details, and eagerly anticipate the arrival of your personalized photo album.
Start Creating Your Own Photo Album Today
These mini photo books have become treasured items in our home. My eldest daughter loves revisiting them, sparking conversations and reliving precious memories. With my second child, I now order two copies of each album, ensuring each child has their own keepsake.
I hope this guide has inspired you to transform your iPhone photos into tangible photo albums. If you decide to create mini photo books for your family, I’d love to hear about your experience! Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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