You want to create an album that contains the best of your photos. Only a professional layout will bring out the photos properly and look good enough when viewing the photos.

You don't need a special album program for this-a conventional picture editing program is sufficient. Publishing applications such as Microsoft Office Publisher or the open source program Scribus from are also suitable for this.

PRESENTING THE MAIN THEME. The theme should be clarified to the viewer from the beginning itself. Therefore, start with a large photo in order to catch the eye. This photo should follow the main theme of the album-for instance a beach, the sun and some bathing beauties A principle, known to graphic designers as "hens and chicks" must be followed on the next pages put a large photo on every double page accompanied by several small photos. THINKING ABOUT THE LAYOUT: Irregular white gaps should not appear when arranging the images-they will seem uneven and unprofessional. On the other hand, an uncongested layout appears very neat. The basic rule for this is to distribute the photos evenly over the available area. Uniform borders are often ignored, yet they are important for an even layout. Every page of the album can be a creative work of art; the only specification that should be binding for all pages is the border of the album. The best thing would be to determine the distance in centimeters when starting the page layout process and to check everything once again before printing the album.

USING STYLISTIC DEVICES: Who says that photos always have to be rectangular and in a line? Funny details can be purposefully staged and tilted, this definitely makes them stand out. However, use this stylistic device carefully; otherwise the effect wears out. In most picture editing programs, you can, as desired, turn the picture at the edges using a gripper. As soon as you go over it with the mouse, the cursor changes, for instance in Photos hop, it changes into a curved double arrow. Now you can click and turn the picture.

The "hens and chicks' principle works well to catch the eye of the viewer. Interestingly enough, a framed photo attracts more attention that one without a frame. Photo programs have the necessary tools for providing the photos with decorative frames. Please make sure that the style suits the photo. Save the photo along with the frame in a new JPEG file, and use that file in the album layout. SelECTING FONTS: Another important element is the font: if your change the font on every page your album will look like a patchwork construct. Therefore, search for a font that suits the photos and the overall layout style and stick to it. Most of the fonts have variations, with which you can experiment, for instance to distinguish titles, photo captions and continuous text. Here, various font sizes and attributes such as "underlined" are also helpful.