Photography is an art but it is also the means to immortalize the memories of each person, whether they are special occasions, parties, happy moments or spectacular places. We know that today there are countless Internet sites that allow, in a short time and with a few clicks, to share your memories and print on paper, placing the order directly online (the photo book or collage will be delivered directly to home by courier or by post). If we are a beginner with this type of service and we want to create a collage, a photo album or a photo book at all costs , in this guide we will show you the best tools that we can exploit directly online, without having to install any program on our PC.
In the guide we will show you both how to take advantage of the photo book mode of Google Photos and how to use the best Web applications designed for creating and printing photo books, photo collages.
Best sites to make photo books and photo collages online
All the tools we have collected below are free and can be used without limits, so that you can create any type of photo book or image collage, ready to be shared. If we are looking for printing on paper, obviously we will have to pay production and shipping costs, although prices are usually very cheap.Google Photos (printed)
If we want a quick and practical tool to make a photo book from our photos, one of the best services is definitely Google Photos, which can automatically collect all the photos taken with the smartphone (if we have activated the unlimited online backup offered by Google).Once the website is open, we log in with our Google account (also the account registered on Android smartphone, the Gmail account or the YouTube account is fine), we click in the left bar on the Photobooks button.
On the page that appears, click on Start a photo book, select from 20 to 100 photos among those in our online gallery, position them as we see fit and finally click on Finish . The photo books created in this way will be automatically saved in the Photo book section of our Google Photos account, ready to be viewed or shared online.
If we want to print a photo book made with Google Photos on paper, all we have to do is click on Cart at the end of the creation, so that we can pay the expense necessary for the realization (starting from € 12.99) with Google Pay (supports cards credit or debit) finally the shipping address.
In a few days (between production and shipping) we will have the desired photo book at home.
Canva
Another online service that we can use to make photo collages and photo books is Canva.
By clicking on Start Designing a Photo Album and logging in with a free account (we can also use Facebook or Google for quick access) we will have access to numerous photo book models (many of which are free), to be filled with our photographs (which we will have to upload to the site). In addition to adding photos, we can customize every aspect of our photo book: background, color gradients, texts with various sources and sizes, etc.
Once we have made our photo book, we can save it on our online account, download it in PDF on our computer, so that we can share it with anyone without having to wait for the print.
Pho.to
Another very useful web service for creating photo books online is Pho.to.
In a simple interface we can choose how to upload our photographs (from the computer, via a Web link or by uploading the photos on Facebook), arrange them in the order that we deem suitable and finally click on Process .
After a few seconds we will see our photo book in animated and 3D version, ready to be saved and shared online (to do this we use the Save and share button at the top right of the image).
Jalbum.net
Another good site for quickly creating photo books and photo collages is Jalbum.net.
Without downloading anything to our PC, we upload the photos to the site using the Upload Photos button, fill in the first information in the Info tab, then choose the style and colors of the photo book in the Design tab.
When we are satisfied with the result, simply click on Save and exit at the top right, so we can save the photo book on our PC.
Blurb.com (in print)
If we want to touch our photo book by hand, we recommend taking a look at Blurb.com.
On the photo book we can choose various sizes and shapes to set for each photo to be added to our work, from the 18X18 cm square to the 33X28 cm horizontal one, also choosing the type of cover (soft or hard).
At the end of the creation we can order the book on the site itself for color printing. The costs of having your book printed and delivered to your home are affordable and reasonable, starting from € 14 to which the shipping costs must be added; the final cost obviously depends on the number of pages.
Blurb is also an online community where you can share your works, show them to other users, market your own works and buy those of others.
Other sites to make photo books and collages
If the services we have reported above do not convince you, below we can find other good websites for printing photo books and collages online, all at very competitive prices:- MixBook is a web application, therefore without downloading any program, which allows you to create an album of digital photographs with many spectacular and three-dimensional (3D) graphic effects . Customized text, differentiated backgrounds and many other graphic elements can be added to make the template or the graphics of the album interactive and unique. You can use the online photos of Flickr, Facebook, Picasaweb and Photobucket. Once the photo album has been made on the Internet, it can be purchased at a really affordable price. The albums can also also be shared via embedding in personal sites and blogs and saved on the site itself to be viewed online.
- Snapfish is an excellent site for creating digital albums where you just have to choose the photo, model and theme to get a personalized photo book to share. The site also allows you to print the photo book if you prefer, showing the price next to it.
- Shutterfly allows you to add photos from your PC, Facebook, Instagram and other social networks and to edit them with an editor to improve their appearance. The album can be printed in a real photo book (obviously for a fee) or shared via the internet for free.
- Pastbook is one of the best sites to create a photo book where you can insert your photos, which can be ordered to receive it, with free shipping, at home. The photo book allows you to create the album from the photos of Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and other social networks in order to make the selection easy and fast. It also automatically allows you to create the album with the best times of the year taken from Facebook.
- Bonusprint is a website where you can upload digital photographs from your computer or from the main photo sharing sites, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Facebook and others and apply effects and backgrounds on them to create a personalized photo album as a collage. You can also insert covers and writings.
- Photovisi a really simple web application with few options but very fast in creating photo collages. The creation is completely automatic, you just have to choose the style and background of the composition and then upload the photographs that make up the collage.
- BigHugeLabs is a site with many tools for photo editing and free and personalized composition of photos. Among its functions it also allows you to create photo albums with Flickr online photos and variously composed collages with photos uploaded from your computer.
- Fotonea is not a program but a web application used to create photo collages. The tool provides several backgrounds on which it is possible to paste the photographs on which frames can be superimposed, that is, drawings of various types such as frames or fantasy elements.
- Flickr allows you to create an online photo album for free and without limits for the images to be uploaded to the site. In addition, you can order a photo book with the images uploaded on the site, even if the costs for shipping to Italy are currently quite high.
Conclusions
Using one of the many Web services presented in this article, we will be able to create any type of photo book quickly and easily, to be saved on your computer or printed on paper (with additional costs).If we want to use PC programs instead of websites, just read our guide to the best programs to create photo collages .
If we want to create effect images, fun, with frames or with quotes of all kinds, we can read our gude to sites to put frames and other effects to photos and how to write on images to create virtual posters with quotes .
For poster lovers, however, we recommend reading our study on how to create posters online .
