In Over My Head

I started a shutterfly photo album/scrapbook for my DD and wanted it to be her entire first year in photos. From the sonogram pictures/baby shower to her 1st birthday party! Apparently, we took about 10,000+ photos in a single year. Not joking. And shutterfly only lets each project contain 1,000 photos. Which sounds like a lot but when you do layouts and you have 15 small pictures on 1 page, it actually goes quicker than you realize. So I narrowed it down to 5,000 photos which was a lot of work. But now I realized I still have to cut 4,000 more photos and I'm at a point where I am struggling. It is making me feel like I will never accomplish this book but I was hoping to give copies to all of the family for Christmas... they would really love it. It's just so hard to look over all of those photos and cut it by 4/5ths! When I already went through them and cut over 50%! BLAH! why did we take so many photos? I need someone else to come here and tell me which ones to cut. There are all good ones to me!

In Over My Head

I think 15 photos to a page is a lot. If you have the pages laid out how you want, go back through again with a fresh eye in a couple days and start deleting. I would cut it to maybe 5-8 images per page. You want to be able to see the picture - not have to squint because the picture is so small. Crop and make some larger.

Re: In Over My Head

Re: In Over My Head

I'm sure everyone loves youir child, but they don't need 5,000 pictures!

My strategy was to do major events/milestones first ......choose my favorite shots from each of those events ........

while I was doing that move other favorites that caught my eye to a separate folder, then when all of my major events were done, I went back to that folder and filled in w/ my other favorites ....

You don't realize how difficult it is to choose until you sit down to do it - took FOREVER !! And I did birth - 2 years

Re: In Over My Head

Re: In Over My Head

I would go through the months and pick your top 4-6 pics and change the layout. 15 pics per page is too many

Re: In Over My Head

Re: In Over My Head

Just to clarify, I didn't mean every page had 15. some only have 1 but most have 2-5. the big collage pages have 15. and there aren't many of those.

I've narrowed it down to 4,250 but that still leaves 3,250 to delete LOL. so hard!

I was doing it chronologically for each month and pulling out holidays and special events. I made it up to month 3 and now I'm just stuck!

These projects are so time consuming and hard. I'm going to miss the 50% off photobook sale! Hopefully they have another one because shutterfly is claiming this book is going to cost over $200!

Re: In Over My Head

I do 1 book per season.
I merge them & stick in the milestones & cut out lots of stuff for the first year in review.

In Over My Head

LOL I feel ya.. did this myself her first 8m

So. I limited myself by the months. So 12months is around 60-80 photos per month to hit that 1000 mark. I had much less. Still I limited myself to around 10-20 per month.

Think of it this way.. if you divide it by month you can SEE the change in growth.

Good Luck!

In Over My Head

Delete similar shots. Even when I make just a Facebook album I keep ONE shot of each specific " scene". I flip through and pick the best.

Re: In Over My Head

I do 2 books a year. Much easier and not as overwhelming

Re: In Over My Head

In Over My Head

For DC's first year I did month by month books. Why don't you do that, then just make one collage book for everyone else.

In Over My Head

I did this for my dd first bday and 1000 photos is a bit over the top as well. I narrowed evrything down to the best shots. So a shot pf my lregnancy 1 week before birth is enough in my opinion. Everyone doesnt need all 40 weeks of pics. I put 1 sono pic. I didnt personally put a baby shower pic but i would say just do 1 of that too.
I focused on her firt year thats what ghe book is about.
15 photos is way too much and takes away from the book. The most i puton 1 page was 6 and i only did it for a few major events. (Ie christening) all my other pages were 3-4 pics tops. And it was all firsts. And some sprinkled in of good times some great shots of her smiles or laughs. But the entire focus of the book was all her firsts. I took the best shots only. It legit took me prob 1-3 months of doing a little at first and then just full on focusing on it. Its a lot of work but so worth it. Everyone loved it

Re: In Over My Head

I just did three books.. I did one of my sons firsts. And then I did 2 from the last 2 years.. Just major things like holidays and birthdays. I did a max of 4 pictures on one page.. I stuck in some cute shots too... You need to trim down or ALL of your time is going to be wasted... You have the pictures on your computer, no need to have them all in a book.... Once a year I snag their 300 photo seals and print some out.

Re: In Over My Head

For ds #1 i made several books :
His first week
1-3 months
4-6
7-9
10-12
And one for his first bday

Then i did age 1-2 and 2-3

I take a lot of pictures but not all were good enough to ve in the book.

And i do all 8x8 books most of thise i got free and just had to pay extra pages and shipping

Message edited 11/1/2013 11:20:15 PM.

In Over My Head

I did monthly books for the first year for my twins and am now kind of cobbling together a "family yearbook" for the 2013 year and understand you can get overwhelmed by having a TON of photos to sift through. I think someone else suggested it, but I'd try to keep it to X photos per month. Some months maybe you didn't do as much, and other months you will have way more than X. But realistically, you probably don't have 3 amazing photos from every single day of the year, so pic out the ones that are amazing (whether it be beautiful, or a funny face, or a great party) and know that it is an overview and memento and not a substitution for actually living the days/moments nor a historical document :) Good luck!

Re: In Over My Head

i've made photo books from shutterfly from jack's first year through now (he's 4); thats far too many pictures.

I highlight the year. from birthdays, to holidays, school stuff, summer stuff, family stuff.

No one needs that many pictures in a book.

In Over My Head

all i can say is been there done that. its so hard. i have about 30k pics from DDs first 2.5 years. i know, im nuts, and ill admit it openly.
its hard but i try to use facebook as a guide. if i posted it on FB it usually makes the cut - if i didnt, then i prob thought i was overdoing it. that was a decent starting point, the rest, well im lucky my aunt owns a photo processing lab cause she makes me all the books and stuff that i want and i make my own layouts in photoshop. its a labor of love and craziness

Message edited 11/3/2013 11:24:09 PM.

Re: In Over My Head

I started doing albums by month too. I just finished her birth/month 1 album (she's almost 7 months now!) I too have a TON of pics at least 400 each month. It's sooo overwhelming!!!