Hot Topics:How to Create Custom Printable Digital Photo Calendars
About Photo Calendars
Creating Personalized Photo Calendars
Templates for Photo Calendars
Printing Photo Calendars
Photo Calendars as Gifts
Checking Resolution
About Custom Photo Calendars
Custom Photo Calendars are 12- or 18-month, wall-hanging calendars that you can create using your own digital photos and captions. As you customize your own photo calendar, you can start the calendar on whatever month and year you wish. Most digital photo calendars are printed on white heavy-weight glossy card stock that you can write on, and they are spiral-bound in the middle.
Creating Personalized Photo Calendars
Most online digital photo printing services,
such as Mixbook, (my favorite) Shutterfly,Snapfish
and Kodak
Gallery
,
offer custom photo calendars. At all these services the process of creating a calendar is easy:
- Picking a starting month and year for your calendar
- Selecting a page design from a variety of templates
- Choosing your photos from those you have uploaded to the photo service's web site and selecting which photo you want for a specific month
- Writing brief photo captions to accompany each page of your photo calendar (usually optional)
- Adding a cover photo for your personalized photo calendar
- Placing your photo calendar order
with the web site
Templates for Personalized Photo Calendars
Most photo printing services like Kodak
Gallery, Shutterfly
and Snapfish
offer a selection of photo calendar templates to choose
from. Digital photo calendars are extremely easy to create online and it's my preferred method.
There are also several software programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements and My Memories Suite that include free printable photo calendar templates.
Printing Photo Calendars
If you design your custom photo calendar using an online photo service, to print it simply add your photo calendar to your online shopping account and check out. You'll have your printed photo calendar in a few days. The average cost is about $20 per calendar. If you are using your own software to create your photo calendar, you can print your calendar pages using your own color printer and have your pages spiral bound into a calendar at a local copy store.
Customized Photo Calendars Make Great Gifts
Custom photo calendars make terrific gifts, whether for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, etc. Got an avid golfer in the family? What about custom golf photo calendars featuring photos of your golfer teeing off? Sometimes it is hard to come up with a good gift idea for elderly parents or grandparents. A photo calendar printed with pictures of your children makes a great gift that grandma and grandpa will enjoy anew each time they turn over a new month. Don't have kids? What about 12 months of your favorite pet photos? The ideas are endless.
Check Your Digital Photo Resolution
Make sure your digital photos are high enough resolution to be printable. Remember that the digital images in your photo calendar will most likely be 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10, with a single 8x10 per page being the most common format. For best results, your digital photos should be at least 1024 x 768 pixels for 4"x6" photos, 1152 x 864 pixels for 5"x7" photos and 1600 x 1200 pixels for 8"x10" photos.
