How many photos do you need for a photo book?

The short answer is 40 to 80. The longer answer depends on what kind of book you want.

Our books have 28 pages. You could fit well over a hundred photos into that - auto-design will put up to ten on a spread - but a book where every page is packed is tiring to look at. Most books look best with somewhere between 40 and 80.

Roughly what each number gives you

If you add more than fit

You don't have to choose precisely. If you add more photos than the pages can hold, auto-design chooses a selection that covers the whole stretch of dates, rather than filling up with the first ones and leaving the end out. The photos it doesn't use stay in your photo list, so you can swap any of them in.

Still, a book is usually better for a bit of editing. A quick way: go through once and drop the near-duplicates, then once more and drop anything blurry or with someone's eyes shut. That's often half the photos gone, and the book is better for it.

If you have only a few

That's fine too. Fewer photos means more of them get a page, or a whole spread, to themselves. Auto-design gives a single landscape photo the full width of a spread where it suits it, which is often the best page in the book.

Things that help

Ready to start? Have a look at some photo book ideas, or read how to make one on your phone.