This post is a departure but I think it is worth getting the word out. Since my son was born five years ago, I had to make sure that my wife Mary was taken care of on Mother’s Day. There had to be a gift from both me and my son. I found a terrific gift that you can do year after year.  A photo book.

With tiny digital cameras, I find it very easy to take lots and lots of photos. I, however, still have the problem of too many photos and not enough uses of those photos. A photo book helps take care of that. Mary looks forward to it. I like it because it has become the family’s “year in review.” And now my son is old enough so he can contribute to the creation of the book.

The structure of the book is pretty straightforward: fun things we did with mom over the course of the year. Lots of photos, a caption here and there. The last two years, I’ve scanned in one of my son’s drawing so we can watch his own writing and drawing develops. Overall, it is a fair bit of work, but it has been worth it.

So how do I do it?

Of course, take lots of photos. When I am ready to produce the book, I choose the photos I want (I’ve done as few as 12 and as many as 100) and, this year, I used Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) to “fix” the photo (they have a “I’m Feeling Lucky” one-button fixer that goes a good job 80% of the time) and they really made the photos look better.

Then I use one of the photo-book vendors out there. I’ve tried a bunch over the years; I am sure some of these have changed, but I will give you my impression on each:

A hardcover from: MyPublisher
The photobook looks very nice and I like the linen cover. Will stand the test of time.

A PocketBooks from MyPublisher
The pocketbook is inexpensive and easy to get started.  You can even do multiple copies for grandma, etc. It is also very basic, but it gets the job done.

Snapbook from Shutterfly
Like the PocketBook above, the snapbook is casual and easy.  I like the feel of the Snapbook and would go for this one for a durable product.

Photobook from Sony Imagestation
I did this last year. The book looked good when we got it but the pages are starting to curl after only one year. The software was hard to use and buggy and it was pretty pricey. I would probably skip.

Personalized Book from Blurb
I used blurb for this year’s gift. They are in beta and the software was problematic.  Crashed a lot, wasn’t as flexible as I wanted and had a few bugs that caused printing problems (which they are fixing for me: their customer support has been very responsive).  It was also the most expensive book of the lot. However, the final product was the most impressive of the lot.  The photos are gorgeous and the layout of the book was very professional. This book makes the others look amatuer-ish.

No matter what service you use, I highly suggest this gift. I expect to do this with my son for many years to come.