Life story documentation

[dem331]

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As I have mentioned in another post, I have scanned and processed in Lightroom all my family’s photos since 1961, the year my parents married, a year before I was born. 
 

I am planning to write a little book of observations, an autobiography if you will, for private circulation amongst close family members, based on some 20 photos per year. I envisage it as comments on each photograph, filling in details, giving a little bit of family history and context, and exploring the emotions that the photos awake in me - how I felt at the time, and how I feel now looking back on the events. 
 

In short, I am wondering if anyone has a recommendation as to what software would be good for this purpose. I guess I could go with Word and import the photos but there is probably an alternative that is easier to format into something that will look attractive without spending too much time on the formatting. I envisage a landscape format with one or to photos on the left and the text on the right. (I use iMac). 

Many thanks for any suggestions

 

[LocalHero1953]

Affinity Publisher. I have used it and found it impressive. Eventually I went for Adobe InDesign, but only because the latter had a couple of obscure functions I wanted. For most applications Affinity Publisher is more than powerful enough (and much cheaper).

[dem331]

Many thanks for this. Had a quick look and it seems to be just what I need! 

[250swb]

All the main self publishing companies have software to compose your book with. Find a list of the best ones, like here

https://petapixel.com/best-photo-book-services/

and then read through the features and which fits best with your photo editing software. I guess another good feature to have for the type of book your are thinking about could be that you can add pages to your book later and maybe keep it up to date. I know Blurb offer this feature for a nominal fee per page and you don't need to start all over again and pay for an entirely new book each time you want to edit it.

Edited January 5, 2023 by 250swb

[David Cantor]

On 1/5/2023 at 8:08 AM, 250swb said:

All the main self publishing companies have software to compose your book with. Find a list of the best ones, like here

https://petapixel.com/best-photo-book-services/

and then read through the features and which fits best with your photo editing software. I guess another good feature to have for the type of book your are thinking about could be that you can add pages to your book later and maybe keep it up to date. I know Blurb offer this feature for a nominal fee per page and you don't need to start all over again and pay for an entirely new book each time you want to edit it.

I’ll also endorse Blurb.  I produced a family history book for my maternal family and am in the process of making one for my father’s side.  I’ve also used Affinity Publisher for a self-published photo book(100 copies), it’s excellent but for your project, I’d go with Blurb, hard cover, with wrap and best quality paper.  Until you upload for publishing, it can be edited endlessly.  For text, it’s best to use something like Word and copy across to Blurb.  Photos need to be of a sufficient resolution to avoid being reduced in size on the page.  Organising your images in separate folders prior to downloading to the free Blurb software will help.

David 

[andybarton]

All of the Forum Charity Books have been done using Blurb's software, including all the page layouts and text.

 

It's good.

[David Cantor]

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I should have added that Blurb often give worthwhile discounts so time your purchase accordingly.  
 

David
 

 

[Michael-IIIf]

On 1/4/2023 at 6:59 PM, dem331 said:

I guess I could go with Word

Anything but Word. Please.