You would never know unless you were my husband or daughter (or indeed, friends with me on Facebook) how many photos I take. I have a theory that out of every ten photos you’ll have a good one, and if you’re lucky, maybe more. This also comes from almost twenty years of taking photos at gigs – swap bands rocking out for fast-moving toddlers and actually, its not a billion miles apart.

I’m also one of those people who tries not to pay full price for something – there’s often deals and cashback deals to be had, so when they’re offered I’ll make the most of them – and lucky for me I’ve had two in the last few months for Photo Books, so decided I should give them a mention – plus I have no brand loyalty, so nothing will sway me other than good quality books.

In the past I’ve made books using Photobox. They offer a wide variety of books, all you need to do is upload your photos which can be time-consuming, though I do have friends who use Photobox for photo storage, which would work out quicker and easier than uploading loads at once. I ordered a photo book way back when H had just seen in her first Christmas and was extremely pleased with the quality – though I found with all the uploading I had very little time or energy to think about captions for each photo – so I ended up with a really nice A4 book, hardcover and a picture of my newborn baby in a window on the cover. Lovely! The downside I found with Photobox was not knowing how good a print quality some of the photos were (I found Snapfish were good for this), so a couple of pictures are a bit pixellated. (though I must add, this could be me not spotting it and things may have changed since I placed this order).

Bonusprint sent me an offer for a book, so I snapped it up – a smaller book, more like A5 (though really it’s smaller than that) – and again, lots of individual uploading of photos, though this time the design I chose had no space for captions. I do find that I’m not keeping my ‘best’ photos to one side to then upload, so again the uploading side of things slowed me down a lot, although when it arrived I was really pleased with the quality. This wasn’t a hardback book, just a soft cover but still good.

Albelli are a new name to me (though since I placed my order I’ve had a discount code via Vistaprint), and oh, I wish I’d set myself more time to put together my book. Albelli have a programme you can download to your desktop – it’s Mac compatible (a huge bonus for me) and even better, it links into iPhoto. I was able to set up an album in iPhoto of 49 photos, download and open the software, select my book and click and drag the photos. It was too easy. For that alone Albelli get my vote – there was no uploading times, you’re designing your book immediately, and if I’d set myself a bit more time then I’d have added captions too. The book arrived, hardback and the same size as the Bonusprint book and again, I’m loving the quality. I got a fabric backed book, and it’s really nice and sturdy. I really liked the layout offered and didn’t need to change very much to customise the book to my liking – in fact, of all three books this one was the quickest, and once I’d got my book ready all I had to do was leave the computer open to save it while I got on with other things.

Lidl Photos should have a special mention here. I’ve ordered tons of prints from them as they offer the best quality at the lowest price I’ve found – but their photo books aren’t Mac compatible (you have to download the software first). I keep checking for a Mac version, but it’s been well over a year now and alas, nothing. They do have Linux though (as well as Windows).

Snapfish I’ve still not tried – though will. There was meant to be an extension which allows you to upload from iPhoto to your account, but it has never worked for me (and reading online it looks like a few people have this problem) – so next time I need to make a book I may well try them and see if it’s working (and if not, then based on experience and speed, I’ll be using Albelli again.)

All books were delivered quickly, and were well protected.

This is not a sponsored post, though I did recieve a code from Albelli and Bonusprint to try their books. My opinion is based on what is quickest for me; as I have so little time; and easiest to format. All my books I’ve received are excellent, and you may find with more time available that some of the other books suit you.