We love taking photographs and never go on a day out without a camera so we were very pleased when Vistaprint asked us to review one of their photobooks. To help us do this they they sent us vouchers for Chester Zoo and asked us to take lots of photos to use in the photobook. Between the four us we managed to take 750 photos so we had plenty to choose from! To begin with we created a folder and uploaded all the photos and then we went through them and deleted any that we knew wouldn't be included in the photobook like ones that were out of focus, ones where someone was pulling a face or any that we just didn't like.
Once we had done that, we downloaded the Vistaprint software and then created our photobook. There were 8 different photobooks to choose from, in the following sizes, landscape - small, medium, large or extra large, portrait available as large and square which is available as medium, large or extra large . The website showed you the options and also gave you the size in centimetres which was very useful. Once you had decided upon on a size, you could begin creating your photobook. There were two options available, one where it would add the photos automatically and another where you could choose where you wanted the photos to go. Initially I let the software add all the photos to our book, however as we had photos from four cameras the photobook became very mixed up and so I deleted that and started again. I found it very easy to add photos and design the book as there were templates available; first I chose how many photos I wanted on a page and then all I had to do was select the layout.
The main advantage with this method was you could select the photos that you wanted and add them to the photobook whilst working offline. It was only at the end, once you had created your book, that the photos were uploaded. We have made photobooks before where you need to upload all the photos to their website first which is very time consuming so this is a much better option.
I selected a photo to go on the front cover and there is also the option to add text. Unfortunately I didn't increase the text size so you can hardly see "Chester Zoo May 2013" on the front cover but I now know to increase it next time!
There was also an option to have different backgrounds on the pages however as there was plenty of colour in our photos I decided not to use these.
There are a couple of additional add-ons that you can choose when creating your photobook. I chose the glossy option for my photos which cost an extra £6.99 but I do feel it is worth it as the photos look so much better. I also went for the layflat binding which cost an additional £4.99 but means that you can look at the book without it trying to close itself or needing to bend it to look at the photos properly.
It took me just over an hour to create the book but I did enjoy making it so it was time well spent. When I ordered the book it said it would take two weeks to arrive however we received our book after 10 days which was a nice surprise as I wasn't expecting it to arrive early.
We were sent £60 of Chester Zoo vouchers and were able to choose a photobook free of charge for the purposes of this review however all words and opinions are our own.
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