Who did it better: Google Photo Books or ReSnap?

• Photo source: photos are lifted straight from your camera roll. So if you like to enhance photos with any filters or editing, these won’t be available unless you do quite a bit of finagling.
• Editing: Limited editing capabilities. Text captions are only available on the cover. Filtering is not available.
• Page layout: Layouts are limited to one photo per page, then 3 size options on the page. 
• Sizing: softcovers are 7″ square; hardcovers 9″ square.
• Covers: Front cover can be customized. The back cover can not and bears the Google Photos logo.

Google Photo Book – Pricing

A softcover book with 20 images is $9.99, with additional pages at $.35 each. A hardcover book with 20 images is $19.99, with additional pages at $.65 each. The softcover book is 7 inches, square; the hardcover book is 9 inches square.

ReSnap Photo Book

ReSnap can pull your photos from your Facebook or Instagram account. You can also directly upload photos from your computer or phone.

A minimum of 24 photos and maximum of 600 photos (!) can be selected.

• Generation: the generation is superb, allowing for a smart selection by the GUI or a manual selection by you. The smart selection will auto-generate a complete layout, automatically determining which photos get a full page and which photos are laid out together. The auto-generation is fully editable to swap, add or delete photos.
• Photo source: uploads filtered Instagram or Facebook photos (but not both, together) and not just from your camera roll.
• Editing: Limited editing capabilities. It is better than Google Photos in that text captions can be added to the photos. However, the font selection is limited. Photos can also be moved about but cannot be transformed. There are no filtering capabilities.
• Layout: Multiple options for layout on the page, holding 1 – 5 photos per page. Layouts can be adjusted to multiple variations and sizes customized.
• Sizing options: there are three sizing options at portrait (A4, A5), landscape (A4, A5) and square (21, 14). 
• Covers: Can customize the front and back cover. The ReSnap logo can be removed for an additional $9.95 charge.
• Share-able: all of your books can also be shared virtually.

ReSnap – Cons

• Filtering: No filtering capabilities. What you upload is what is displayed in the book.
• Pricing: this is a higher-end book and it shows in the pricing.

ReSnap Pricing

Pricing is based upon the size of the book, a small (6″ x 6″) 24-photo book starts at $26.95–a large (8″ x 8″) 24-photo book bumps up to $39. The book pricing then bumps up in increments of 20 pages. So, a 40-page book starts at $34.95, a 60-page book starts at $42.95, an 80-page book at $52.95 and 100-page book at $63.95. 

As you can imagine, these books can get expensive and pricing will ramp up as photos and pages are added. You can also opt for high glossy paper for an additional $16.95.

Google Photo Book – interior

If you want to put together a quick collection of photos for documentation journaling purposes, Google Photos is the way to  go. Overall, the Google Photo Book is easy to use but rather simplistic with very little editing abilities. 

Last November, I went to Italy, passing through France on the way.  I took hundreds of photos on my phone, then went home and created a Google Photo Book for about $40. Because I couldn’t add text captions, I’m going to take a pen to it to add notes; otherwise, I’ll forget where I was when I took the photo.

If you enjoy fiddling with Instagram filters or creating stories about your photo collections, then ReSnap is the way to go. ReSnap’s interface is very easy to use and I love the smart generating. Editing was fun but I would have liked a little more flexibility with the font sizing and selection.

With ReSnap, I imported my 2017 Facebook photos. I enjoyed fiddling with photos and playing with the layout. All in all, I had just over 80 photos. With the promo code, my hardback book cost $90. 

In the end, I recommend ReSnap as it has the most flexibility in capabilities and pricing.