A small tool from the Enchanta journal
How many photos should go in the book?
Type in how many you have. We'll estimate how many to keep and, when there are enough for a book, how many pages, which size and what binding fit. The editing question stays the same: remove it: does the book get worse?
The edit
These are editing estimates, not printer specs. For a book-sized collection, page counts and trim sizes vary by printer. The numbers describe a possible edit, not a product you can order. Nothing you type is stored.
Questions people ask
Why so few photos?
The number to keep is a starting estimate for an edited book. The calculator hasn't seen your photos, so it cannot know how many moments, duplicates or blurry frames you have. Choose one frame when several show the same thing; keep more when each adds something you would miss. Remove a photo and ask whether the book gets worse without it. The method is in how to choose photos for a photo book.
How many photos do I need for a photo book at all?
Fewer than you think and more than you fear. Forty to ninety kept photos makes a book you'll open; below about twenty it is a card, not a book. If you have thousands, you have enough. If you have two hundred from a weekend, you still have enough. The calculator keeps a larger share of small collections because there is less to cut. More in how many photos do you need for a photo book, and the size of the pile everyone starts from is in camera roll numbers.
What size should the book be?
The size you'll pick up. Length is set by how much you kept, not by how big you want the book to look: 20 to 44 pages reads well at 8×8 inches; 45 to 84 pages can use 10×10 or an 8.5×11 portrait. At 85 pages or more, a big trip or long archive can use 11×8.5 landscape or 12×12. Every common size, in inches and centimeters, is in the photo book size chart; the parts of a book are in the anatomy of a photo book.
How long does choosing take?
Less than the pile suggests. A first pass at a second or two a photo, asking only whether the book would miss it, takes a few thousand photos down to a few hundred in under an hour. A slower second pass gets the shortlist to the book. For a year or a trip that is about ninety minutes to two hours of choosing, and three and a half to five hours for the whole book. The stage-by-stage budget is in how long it takes to make a photo book.
Hardcover, softcover, lay-flat?
The binding is a reading decision, not a quality tier. A book that will be handled by children, passed around a table, or opened flat to a two-page panorama earns lay-flat. A short family yearbook that lives on a shelf and comes down twice a year does not. Spreads matter more than pages. See why photo books are made of spreads, not pages.
Turn your photos into a finished book.
Enchanta helps sort, group, and compose your photos into a first draft. You decide what stays, what changes, and what becomes the printed book.
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