Hello, and welcome to the 12pm hour of our huge International Scrapbook Day celebration! In this hour, we’re focusing on the photos, and getting firsthand knowledge of how to get the best prints in your albums! Let’s hear from Chari Pack, the CEO of Persnickety Prints as she shares her photo wisdom with us, and don’t miss the wonderful giveaway at the end of this post if you take on our second challenge of the day!

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Whether we’re printing photos for scrapbooks, journals, planners or cards, these three tips will help you improve your outcome for a picture perfect project!

Lighten photos

We’re viewing photos on a phone or computer. These screens are backlit, but prints are not. To avoid disappointment with dark prints, we recommend a quick “auto-enhance” or lightening shadows. The standard editing tools on your phone or computer make it quick and easy to edit! I share more in this article on how to adjust exposure on your phone while you’re snapping a picture. I’ll show you how in this Instagram reel, too.

Photo ratio & print sizes

The size of print usually doesn’t match up with the photo taken, which means there will be cropping. For example, you may expect the photo you snap on your phone to print as a 4 x 6 inch print? Not true. The default and standard aspect ratio for smartphones is 4:3 which will print a 4 x 5.33 inch print without cropping. What to do? I recommend stepping back and allowing more space in your photo or changing your expectation that your photos should fit a 4 x 6 inch print. However, Persnickety does offer a 4 x 5.33 inch print, too!

Printing

I’m not here to try to convince you that Persnickety Prints is the best, however, I would encourage you to think about why you’re printing the photo. Is it to leave a legacy? Are you hoping it will be handed down to your grandkids? Are you printing for a project or gift that maybe thrown away eventually? If your goal is longevity, you should’t be printing at home. Unless you’re using archival pigment inks with coordinating archival photo paper, prints will eventually fade, smear and yellow. Cheap photo books use toner and paper. If you have a photo book over 10 years old, open it. Check the edges—are they yellowing? Many of us spend hours compiling and documenting our stories with the intention of sharing it with future generations. Be intentional and aware of the materials used.

Follow Persnickety Prints on Instagram for more photo tips!

It’s National Scrapbook weekend! Take advantage of our lowest prices of the year on select print sizes!

Click HERE to shop the Persnickety Prints NSD Sale and save big on your prints!

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What great tips, Chari! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us!

Now for your challenge this hour: use two or more photos on a project! Simple, right? Here are the guidelines for entering:

Challenge Guidelines:

  1. Use two or more photos on your project.
  2. Submit an image of your creation to us (must be under 2mb!) at ideas@scrapbookandcards.com.
  3. Put “INSD Photo Challenge” in your reference line;
  4. Submit your entry by Wednesday, May 18th, at midnight ET. Winners will be announced here on the blog on Saturday, May 21st.

What are you creating for? How about a lot of high-quality photo prints for your memorykeeping projects?!

We cannot wait to see your cherished photos on your pages and projects, friends! Next up, stay tuned for a new challenge with creative team member Becki Adams!

See the schedule below for today’s full lineup! See you soon!