Here are a few tips to help you choose your photo(s).

What should I put on the photo album?*

That's the beauty of the Phoebe & Harry products, you can put whatever you'd like on your album and it will be an original. Here are some ideas:

• Wedding – a custom album with a wedding photo is a great place to keep your valued wedding photos. If you have a photo from a friend or family member’s wedding, this album also makes a wonderful gift. Remember, the photo doesn’t have to be posed; some of our best wedding albums feature candid shots of the bride and groom.

• Vacation/honeymoon – whether they’re photos from one particular trip or a collection of photos from an annual trip, an album featuring one of your favorite photos on the cover is a great place to store and display your travel photos.

• Baby/Child – a Phoebe & Harry album/scrapbook makes a great baby book to store all of Year One/Two/Three’s best photos and memories.

• Pet - if you have a four-legged child, you can also make a puppy/kitten album to keep all the first photos.

• Hostess gift – visiting friends and need an original thank you gift? How about an album featuring a photo of their house, garden, or the view from the deck?

• Special occasion – graduation, 50th birthday, 25th wedding anniversary, etc. A custom album is a great way to remember the occasion and display the photos.

• Bridesmaid gifts – chances are, you’ve been friends for a long time. An album with a photo of all of you from the wedding or another time, is a personal and unique bridesmaid gift.

Another advantage to a custom Phoebe & Harry album is that it doesn’t have to live on a bookshelf. With a personalized photo on every cover, you’ll want to display the album like a coffee table book.

What should I put on the guest book?

Here are a few original ways to use your guest book, but all of our photo album ideas above will work as well.

• House photo -personalize a Phoebe & Harry guest book with a photo of your home, second home, garden, or view. When friends and family come for a visit, they can leave you a note, photos or whatever they'd like in the book. It's a great way to remember all of the dinners, weekends, holidays and other good times over the years.

• Couple photo - planning a wedding, anniversary or engagement party? Put out a Phoebe & Harry guest book, featuring a photo of the couple on the cover, for everyone to sign. It's an original way to display a photo of the couple and a perfect place to keep everyone's best wishes. For anniversaries, try using a photo of the couple on their wedding day.

What are the photo requirements?

We can accept prints as well as digital images.

Prints: We can take just about any print up to 8.5 inches wide and 11.5 inches long, preferably no smaller than 3 x 5 inches. If you have the same photo in several sizes and all of the prints are in good condition, we recommend sending us the largest one possible. We accept color as well as black & white images, and we can convert your color photo to black & white if you wish. Print(s) will be returned with the finished product.

Digital images: There are two factors that determine the quality (or resolution) of the photograph – dpi and dimensions. Ideally, one or both is reasonably high. For example, if the image is just 72 dpi but it’s 30 x 40 inches, we can work with that. If the dpi is high, say 300, and the dimensions are smaller, say 4 x 6 inches, we can also make that work on the cover. If both the dpi and the dimensions are smaller then we will often have a problem enlarging the image without distortion. If the photo was taken on one of the higher settings on the digital camera, the quality should be fine for an album. If you have no idea what resolution your digital image is, just send it to us and we’ll take a look.

What else should I keep in mind?

The Horizontal Scrapbook Style and Horizontal Picture Pocket albums as well as the Guest Book require horizontal (landscape) photographs. If you are set on one of these styles, make sure you choose a horizontal photo. Vertical photos will generally not work on these books.

The Vertical Scrapbook Style album work best with vertical (portrait) photos. In some cases, we can accommodate landscape photos on these albums, but vertical photos are ideal.

The Square Picture Pocket album works well with a square photo or any other photo that can be cropped into a square shape. Often, vertical photos will have a lot of background on the top and/or bottom and can be nicely cropped to become a square photo. The same is true of horizontal photos that have room on the sides.

Choose your album color after you’ve picked the photograph. We offer two different colors for the spine and back cover of our photo albums and guest book – black or beige. If you’re not sure which color to choose, we are always happy to make a suggestion.

We recommend having a good amount of space around the subject of the photo. This allows us to crop the photo appropriately and emphasize the subject(s). (see examples below)

Don’t overlook the background. Once your photo is enlarged to fit your album/guest book, the background is very noticeable and really sets the tone for the coloring of the item. If the background is cluttered or unattractive, it will have a negative impact on the overall look of the album/guest book. On the flip side, if you have a great background, it can really add to the finished product.

Choose a focused and good quality photo. We don’t recommend a blurry or discolored photograph. We can make some corrections, but it is always better to start with a good quality image.

Don't send us original/irreplaceable photographs. There's always a chance the photo could get lost in the mail or damaged. We suggest having a friend or local photo store scan the image at a high resolution (at least 200 dpi). Then, send us the digital image with your order.

If you have questions about your photo, send us an email at info@phoebeandharry.com.

*Phoebe & Harry has the right to refuse any photo we feel is inappropriate.