How to make free photo books on your laptop or desktop computer

Design custom photo books

Photo books help us remember the good times and allow us to relive our memories in a handcrafted, personal way — from big life events like a wedding or holidays to travel mementos. Not only that, photo books make our memories a living, breathing, tangible ‘thing’. They are also thoughtful gifts and make for a more enjoyable viewing experience than scrolling on a computer screen.

With Canva, sharing special memories with your family and friends is as easy as offloading images from your desktop computer and arranging them into a visual display using one of Canva’s designer-made templates.

Browse through thousands of templates, edit your images in Canva’s photo editor, add graphics, text, and stickers — all for free! You can even add animations to digital photo books for friends and family members living abroad.

Having your images beautifully curated in a photo book will allow you to spend more time with your images and leave your families legacy behind for future generations — that is, after all, the reason you captured those moments and special bonds in the first place.

Enhance your photos to better tell your story

Edit your family and travel photos effortlessly with Canva’s free online photo editor⁠(opens in a new tab or window). Whether you’re a first-time editor or a seasoned pro, Canva’s photo editor makes modifying your collections as simple as the click of a button.

Upload your images into Canva and begin adjusting the vibrance, contrast, and clarity of your images.

Further enhance layouts by adding elements to your design like illustrations, custom emojis⁠(opens in a new tab or window), vectors, icons, and stickers⁠(opens in a new tab or window). You can crop⁠(opens in a new tab or window), blur⁠(opens in a new tab or window), enhance⁠(opens in a new tab or window), add filters⁠(opens in a new tab or window), add borders⁠(opens in a new tab or window), and straighten⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and flip⁠(opens in a new tab or window) your photos. You can even make your images black and white⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

Personalize designer-made templates

Canva templates are completely customizable, making designing photo books⁠(opens in a new tab or window) that tell exactly who you are and what matters most to you.

Delete elements, resize your images, choose from over 3,000 fonts, or even add multiple frames to form a grid⁠(opens in a new tab or window). Canva stores your logo and brand colors effortlessly with Brand Kit⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to make designing fast. Canva even autosaves your progress so you can update anything, anytime.

You can surf through hundreds of curated graphics by typing a related term or topic into the search bar. With Canva, you can apply various photo effects⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to stickers and graphics to ensure every element of your design matches your layout and enhances your images.

The best part? You can access your photo books on any device, meaning you can design how you work best!

Use Canva’s ‘Rulers and Guides⁠(opens in a new tab or window)’ to create symmetrical designs and ensure no elements are out of place before printing your photo book.

Print your photo book from home

When you’re done creating all of the pages in your photo book, simply click on Print Photo Book. Choose between landscape or square photo books in various sizes, glossy or soft-touch finishes, and hard or soft cover title pages.

Canva chooses eco-friendly, recycled packaging with no plastic or bubble wrap included. You’ll also enjoy free shipping on all orders.

And, for those family members located across the globe, share your photo books online with ‘view-only⁠(opens in a new tab or window)’ links or export your photo book as a PDF⁠(opens in a new tab or window) for easy sharing on social media.

Now you’re ready to make a memorable photo book, check out our in-depth tutorial on how to do so with Canva⁠(opens in a new tab or window).