The idea for an amazing photo book can come in an instant. Creating and printing that album takes a little longer. If you’re busy or on a tight deadline, it’s helpful to have an estimated timeframe when creating a photo book as a birthday or anniversary gift.

So, how long does it take to make a photo book?

Mixbook’s innovative features make the process speedier than ever. You might be surprised to learn that you can create a beautiful photo book — from picking the concept to clicking ORDER — in under an hour.

Even at this speed, there’s no need to cut corners, compromise on quality, or sacrifice design style. If efficient photo book creation is your goal, discover all the ways you can speed up photo book making with Mixbook.

Factors influencing photo book creation time

The total time to create a photo book varies from person to person and project to project. Consider the following basic steps involved in making a book:

Selecting, organizing, and uploading photos
Choosing a book type
Picking a theme
Working with layouts for pages and spreads
Adding optional text, stickers, backgrounds, and other design elements
Reviewing and proofreading the book
Purchasing your album

This seems like many steps, but each one could take mere minutes of work. Even first-time Mixbookers find the desktop platform and Mixbook app intuitive and easy to use. Mixbook Studio features advanced tools to streamline and automate each one of these steps.

Use the Mixbook photo book app for faster creation

The No. 1 tip for faster photo book creation is to use Mixbook’s free mobile app for iPhone users — especially if your best photos are already on your phone. The Mixbook app features the full functionality of the desktop studio in the palm of your hand — and on the go.

Mixbook Memories is a unique app feature that expedites how you make a photo book. This AI-powered feature organizes your photo library into book-ready albums, analyzing your photos by content and date and identifying characteristics that fit the same story. It also recognizes and filters out images that aren’t album-worthy. The result is a curated collection ready for photo book transformation.

Mixbook features that save you time

Mixbookers love to customize every aspect of a photo book, but there’s not always time to mull over every detail. For photo book projects you want to expedite, let Mixbook’s automation features make decisions for you. You retain total control but gain a lot of help along the way.

Start with a theme

Choose one of Mixbook’s hundreds of beautiful themes to create a photo book with a professional design. This approach saves time because themes come with pre-set layouts, backgrounds, placeholder text, and other graphic elements. All you need to do is fill the template with your images. Then, the book is ready to print (or edit). You can instantly swap themes and preview new ones at any time.

Find the best theme for your book by choosing a category, such as travel, baby, holiday, or mobile-friendly. You can also navigate to the designer collection and pick a designer whose style you love.

All Photo Books. Showing Blank Canvas, Minimal White, Full Photo travel, Bold modern Wedding, Modern White Year in Review, Everyday Modern family, Multi Photo Layout, and Modern travels

Tip: Minimalist themes, such as Minimal White, Instagram Book, and Mosaic Style Photo Book Black, save you even more time. These simple themes showcase photos with minimal design elements, resulting in faster completion with fewer decisions and steps.

Use Auto-Create

Mixbook’s Auto-Create feature is a significant time saver. After selecting the photos for your book, click the magic wand icon on the left panel of the Mixbook Studio. Select LET’S DO IT, and your photos will auto-fill the pages of your book.

The feature uses smart photo layouts to find the best placement, orientation, cover photo, and other design elements for your book. Review and make any individual edits you desire, or start over by clicking UNDO — all in a matter of moments.

Top tips for efficient photo book creation

Are you searching for more ways to speed up photo book making with Mixbook? Consider the following factors that influence efficiency.

Photo book type

Look at Mixbook’s different book types and pricing before starting your project. Knowing which book options fit your budget will save you time.

If you need more guidance, check out this comprehensive guide to choosing the right book type.

Tip: Books with more pages generally take longer to create than shorter books. But, sometimes, adding a few pages can save you time. If you have too many photos and can't decide which ones to cut, add more pages instead. Now, you can carry on with the fun!

Photo gathering and organizing

Gathering photos into a collection is often the most time-consuming part of the project. This is especially true for those with extensive or disorganized photo collections. Luckily, Mixbook has some handy features that significantly shorten the timeframe for this task.

In the Mixbook Studio, use the “Sort by” feature to quickly find the best photos for your book. Sort by date taken, date added, or file name, and select “Hide Used” to avoid duplicates. Use the search feature to find photos by keyword.

Choosing photos for your photo book works best when you start with a quick brainstorming session. What story are you telling? What’s the overall theme? Write a list of sub-themes for the book, and find photos that fit each. (Remember: Mixbook Memories does all this for you in the app.)

For a year-in-review book, possible sub-themes could be each month, season, or holiday. Are you making a family book as a gift for grandparents? Start with five to 10 photos of each grandchild. The perfect must-have sections for a travel book might include landmarks, favorite food, and memorable moments.

Social media feeds are another excellent source for saving time with photo selection. Your Instagram feed is already curated and in chronological order, so why not use it? Upload Instagram photos to Mixbook directly from your account.

Content creation

Inserting text, captions, and other personal touches into a photo book adds time, but you can streamline the process. Try the new AI-generated captions feature, which instantly generates customizable text ideas. Or, copy captions directly from social media posts.

Keep text short and sweet, and don’t overthink it. The perfect text might be a location, date, or simple description of an event — for example, “Sally’s 40th,” “Home Sweet Home,” or “Lovebirds.”

Editing and proofing

When you’re short on time, you might be tempted to skip the final editing and proofing step — but don’t! Take a few minutes to carefully review each page, read over all the text, and look for common mistakes in the layout, such as images or text across the gutter area.

Printing and delivery

Remember to factor in printing and delivery time. Using Mixbook’s shipping estimator tool, you'll get guidelines and pricing for express, priority, standard, and budget shipping. These estimates include one to two days for processing and printing.

Get instant assistance

If you hit any snags or have questions about your photo book project, get assistance from the support team via chat, available 24/7.

Want to speed up photo book making?

Don’t let a deadline or lack of free time prevent you from starting your next photo book project. With the Mixbook app and state-of-the-art automation features, you’ll be holding your beautiful book in no time.

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