Choosing Photos for Your Scrapbook
One of the very first things that you do when planning a scrapbooking project is to decide which photos will be in the book. The process involves several steps. First, you should choose photos that best express what you want to say with your scrapbook. Second, you will be picking one photo per page that will serve as a focal point. Finally, when you have your pictures chosen, you will need to put them in separate safe storage until you are ready to actually glue them in the book. By the way, all of this assumes that your photographs are already organized and in order.
Browse through your photos to determine which ones you’ll be using in this particular scrapbooking project. As you do this, you can begin to organize them into groups for each page. Normally, you’ll need to choose from three to five photographs for each page, but it will depend on the size of your scrapbooking album and size of your photos.
Next, for each page in the scrapbook, you should choose a single photo to be your focal point. Every page should have a focal point, an area to which all eyes will be drawn. That spot needs to occupied by the best, most colorful photo you have for that page. To enhance the attractiveness of this central picture, you may choose to have it enlarged. Of course, how much larger you make will depend on the size of your scrapbook page and the number of pictures you have planned for it.
Once you have all of your photographs picked out, you should store them in archival photo boxes. Or at least put them in Ziploc bags–one bag per page–and put them in an airtight container. Yes, it’s true that you’re going be working with them right away, but you never know when you might need to take a break from your project. It will also take time to work through the book, and there’s no point in taking a chance with the photos for the back of the book while you’re working on the first pages.
Don’t forget to take the pictures that didn’t make the cut for this project and return them to their place in your organized storage. Remember, these are good pictures that you may end up using in a different project. The beauty of scrapbooking is that you can always come up with a new perspective on events, a new theme to build your project around. If you keep your photographs organized, they’ll always be ready for the next project.
