Last year, for the first time, I put together a “portfolio book” – using iPhoto to put together a book of some of my favorite images. Since last year’s book was my first time putting such a book together, I included images from not just 2011 but from prior years as well. I loved how last year’s portfolio book turned out – Apple’s books are of excellent quality.
This year, I was going to do a Portfolio 2012 book – just based on images from my work this year. I decided to try creating a book in Lightroom first. I use Lightroom as my image database – and it’s recently updated Book module looked like it might do the trick. I spent about an hour working on putting a book together in Lightroom – before deciding I was just more comfortable with the iPhoto book approach. So, I exported by selection of candidate images for the 2012 book from Lightroom and then imported them into a new library in iPhoto.
After another hour or two (these books take time!), I had my “proof” edition ready to print. I clicked on “Buy Book” and waited for the upload process to complete. I also made a PDF Preview of the book (right click on a page and select Preview).
About a week later, my proof copy arrived. Just like last year, I was really pleased with how it turned out. But, in the meantime, I’d decided to change a few things and, looking carefully at some of the images in the book, decided to re-edit a few of the darker images to brighten them up just a bit. Two nights ago I finished up my final edits on Portfolio 2012 and clicked once again on “Buy Book”. The final copies should arrive in a few days.
There really is something special about printing images and holding them in your hands. A portfolio book isn’t the same as a large individual print – but it’s close. And seeing all of those images in close proximity brings back so many memories – of being in the venues, remembering those days, how they unfolded, the colors on the scene, and working the scene. A very nice capstone to a year’s worth of photographic explorations!