Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: uploading images

May 5th, 2010 by Heidi

Since I last tried Viovio, they have added some new products.  Namely their 12 x 12 premium photo books that come in softcover, hardcover, die-cut or just loose pages.

Premium photo books means they are using Commercial-Quality, Acid-free, 100# Futura coated photo book paper with a 7-color electroink process.    They describe it as more colors mean more detail and accuracy.  Thicker paper givers you heavier weight paper with more professional feel.   To most users that doesn’t mean much until you see the printed quality of the book.  So when I receive the book, I will let you know!

In addition, they have added a new online tool called the Viovio Book Designer.  This allows you to easily drag and drop your images into the book and order your pages and get it exactly like you want.

Let’s start from the beginning to see the process…

One of the things I love about Viovio is the ease of getting my pictures to my account.

After you login, you will have a menu from your dashboard. That’s the quickest way to navigate.

Begin by choosing Photos | Create Gallery

In Gallery, give it name and description if you wish.  I leave all the other settings as is except for the last one.  The last one controls the security level of the album.  I like my images to be private (not visible to public) so I change the last option.  When done click on Save Gallery.

Once the gallery is created you can click on upload pictures!

You can upload pictures one by one, but that is not the way that I recommend.   I recommend you gather all your images for your book and put them all in one zip file.  Then choose the zip file to upload.  That is the quick way!    A few words of caution:  The zip file cannot be larger than 500 MB.  The file I uploaded was 441MB zip file (46 12 x 12 pages at 300 DPI.)  In addition, your account can only hold 500MB.    If your book is larger, email support and they will help you with account size limit.   Make sure that Don’t Resize is selected.  The last thing you also should check in the security level again, make sure its set to what you want.  Then click on Upload Files and go have a cup of coffee or a nap!

Once done, you will see your photos in your gallery on your account:

The photos are now ready to be created into a book!  We’ll see how in the next few posts.