From the Manual

• The goal is to create a photo book that represents an event in time through a series of photos.
• The higher number of photos in your book translates to a higher cost.

Tip #1 - Remove Duplicate Photo

• Chose one photo from bursts and remove the rest.
• Chose one photo from a group with different perspectives and remove the rest.
• Chose one photo taken multiple times and remove the rest.

Tip #2 - Remove Unnecessary Photos

• Remove photos that do not help tell the vacation story.
• Remove uninspiring photos.
• Remove unrelated photos.

Tip #3 - Remove Bad Photos

• Exclude photos that are out of focus, too dark, or too blown out.
• Consider using stock images instead. 

From the Transcript

In the first section we talked extensively about the three characteristics of a photo album. We also gathered everything we need for the album and renamed all our files. Now we’re going to focus on the goal ahead of you. Your goal is to create a photo book that represents an event in time through a series of photos.

Back in the day we were all all very shutter conscious. The film in your camera probably only had 24 frames and you did your best to use those frames wisely. Today as a whole, we are not shutter conscious, we are shutter crazy. It’s not at all unusual for someone to come home from a vacation with thousands and thousands of photos. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. But in light of our goal, which is to create a photo book, the number of photos you include in your book often directly translates to the number of dollars that the photo book is going to cost you. 

When ordering a photo book, you will generally find that the first 20 pages of the book are included in the initial cost. Then, every page after that is going to start racking up your bill. So let’s figure out how to minimize the number of extra pages you will be needing. The trick to this is strategically weening your huge stack of vacation photos. Some of this will naturally happen when placing your photos in the templates. I’ll talk more about that in a later video. But much of the weening can happen beforehand. Here are some tips.

Tip #1 is to ween duplicates. Some of the latest benefits in modern cellphone photography is the use of burst. Taking burst is a great way to catch an action shot on your cell phone without the use of video. So if your pile of photo contain any bursts, find the one that fits what you were after and then discard the rest.

Another duplicate you can look for is different perspectives. In an earlier video I encouraged you to try taking photos from different perspectives. Well, now is when you sit down and look through that set of photos. Choose the one you love most, and then toss the rest. Now does this mean you delete those unwanted photos altogether? Not necessarily. Some excluded photos would still make great stand alone pages for your scrapbook. Such as a photo that tells an important story but does not necessarily relate to your vacation.

Another duplicate problem that you could look for is the same photo taken on a different day of your trip. So for example if every day of your trip you journeyed past the same musicians on the same sidewalk, but you just couldn’t resist snapping a photo of them every single time. Just pick the best photo and toss the rest.

While on vacation in Germany, my daughter took a photo of a dog that she admired on the train. She didn’t necessarily want the photo to be in her photo book, she just wanted to be able to show me the photo and tell me the story of what happened. So tip #2 is to search for and exclude any photos that do not help tell the story of the vacation. Like I said, you can still keep them, but they don’t need to be a part of the book you’re creating.

Unnecessary photos can also include uninspiring photos. So for example I don’t need to include every photo my daughter took of every single meal they ate. She could simple journal about the fabulous food instead. Uninspiring photos can also include that set of photos you took just getting to your destination. I do this all the time. I’m so excited to vacation that I start taking photos as soon as we drive out the driveway. While these photos are fun to reminisce about, they are not really considered an inspiring part of a travel book. And this information could easily be journaled about as well.

Tip #3 is to search for and exclude bad photos.  A bad photo could be one that is out of focus, way too dark, or way too blown out by the sun. If you don’t want to remove the memory altogether, then search for a replacement stock photo on the web. So those are some quick tips to keep in mind as you sort through the pile of photos in your folder. Taking time to complete this step now will go a long way in making your book creation process more enjoyable.