Your Year in Photos, Made Into a Yearbook
A year of little wonders. Explore. Arrange. Turn the page.
Photo credits ↗What it makes
Finished collections
Both of these came out of this page — the same file the save button hands back, at print resolution. Neither is a mock-up.
Lisbon
A week of walking, cut to twenty-four frames and laid out as four strips of developed film. The sheet is as long as the roll is: a short trip makes a shorter sheet rather than an empty one.
A first year
A full roll from a first year. Bursts of the same afternoon collapsed to their best frame, and what survived was spread across the months, so the sheet covers the year instead of whichever week held the camera most.
One collection, seven ways to see it
- Year rings
The year as concentric rings, oldest at the centre — a shape you can see a whole twelve months in at once.
- Cover ring
The collection turning slowly on its edge, one photograph face-on at a time.
- Fan shuffle
Everything laid out flat and squared up, the way prints come back from a lab.
- Photo rain
Photographs falling through the frame, for looking rather than for choosing.
- Photo book
A bound book with real curved pages that you drag to turn, spread by spread.
- Film roll
The strips of film themselves — and the arrangement the print and the PDF are cut from.
- Bookshelf
Several years standing together on a shelf, each one a spine you can pull forward.
The photographs in the studio above are Creative Commons samples, not anyone's private album — every one is credited on the photo credits page. Your own photographs are only ever read in your browser.
How it works
Three steps, from photos to a finished yearbook
- I
Choose your photos
A trip, a season, a first year — choose the photos you want. They are read locally in your browser.
- II
The roll is cut
Duplicates and blurred shots drop out, and what is left is spread across the whole span so no single afternoon takes over.
- III
Look at it seven ways
The same year as rings, as a shelf of books, as a roll of film, or as a book you turn page by page.
How your photos are handled
Your photographs never leave this browser
The files are opened and decoded in the browser tab you are reading this in. There is no account to make and nothing is uploaded: the photographs, their dates and the finished pages are all worked out on your own device.
Your yearbook is kept in this browser’s storage, which the browser may clear. Download the PDF, or a backup of the project, to keep a copy you can open again anywhere.
Questions
Before you drop a folder in
- Are my photos uploaded anywhere?
- No. Reading the files, checking their dates, scoring them and laying them out all happen inside this browser tab. Your work is kept in this browser, which may clear its storage, so download a backup or the PDF to keep it.
- What is a photo yearbook?
- A year of photographs gathered into one thing you can look at from end to end. Unlike a phone album it has a shape and an ending, with seven views ranging from year rings to a page-by-page book.
- Why does the film roll use 36 photos?
- A roll of 35mm film holds 36 exposures, and that limit shapes the film roll view. The album views can use an independently selected set with more than 36 photos; the film roll selects its 36 across the period rather than from whichever day you shot most.
- How are the photos chosen?
- Each photo is measured for sharpness and exposure, then fingerprinted so bursts of near-identical shots collapse to their best frame. The survivors are spread evenly over the time the photos cover, using the capture time recorded by your camera.
- Which files work?
- The formats you can use depend on the browser and device. JPEG and PNG are the safest choices; HEIC and other formats may need browser support or conversion before import. Files the browser cannot decode are reported as skipped, and RAW files are not read.
- How many photos can I choose at once?
- You can choose a large folder at once. Processing time and practical limits depend on the browser, device and file sizes, so the page reports files it cannot process instead of promising one fixed limit.
- Does it cost anything?
- No. Making a yearbook, all seven views and the PDF export are free.
Other rolls
- newborn memory book
For the three thousand photos of a very small person