Personalized Photo Calendars, the Perfect Gift

Create a Custom Picture Calendar Using Free Calendar Software

Oct 30, 2009 Helen Smeaton

Making a personalized photo calendar to give to family members or friends is a unique gift idea and is easy to do using free photo calendar software.

A calendar made from personal photos is a special gift that is always appreciated and advances in digital photography and printing technology over the past few years have made it easy for anyone to create their own custom calendar.

Home computers often have a simple graphics package for producing wall calendars, but free calendar software, available from online printing companies, offers a great way to produce a unique, professional looking calendar complete with high quality glossy photographs.

Use pictures of the family to send to grandparents or relatives living far away; make a club calendar from photos of team games or even be a little risqué and make a calendar for a local charity along the lines of Calendar Girls.

Making Photo Calendars with Free Calendar Software

One big advantage of using free photo calendar software is that users can download the software, and then make any number of calendars in their own time; this can be preferable to uploading images directly to a site, especially if internet connections are slow or the user is on dial-up.

Most calendar software is easy to use and usually offers the following features:

A variety of templates in different designs and sizes.
Customization of individual pages allowing insertion of unique photos by page, text captions, font and color amendments.
Flexible start dates so calendars can be produced from April to March or January to December.
Options to highlight dates with images for birthdays, reminder captions for anniversaries or holiday dates; repeat features are usually standard to make it easier to set up a calendar for the following year.
Design customization to add faded images or frames around key text.
National holidays list so calendars can be customized to a specific country or religion.

Simply download the software, add photos, text and customization as required and a unique gift can be ready in minutes.

Printing a Photo Calendar at Home

Customers are free to print their calendars at home, in the office or at a lab, but while the calendar software comes free, most companies will only supply a trial version as they want customers to use their printing services. Bearing in mind the high cost of printer cartridges for home printers, it is usually more cost effective anyway to use the website’s printing services, especially if printing multiple copies of a calendar to send to the whole family.

Photo Calendar Printing Online

There are many websites offering photo calendar printing including photography companies and specialist printers. It’s worth checking prices and the features offered in each software package before downloading and also the paper quality and size of the final product. Glossy photo paper, for example, costs more than ordinary paper.

For large volumes, look for bulk discounts as, with any printing process, the cost per item reduces once the set up costs are covered. A single 11” x18” wall calendar from a company like DigiLabs, for example, costs $19.99 whereas the price drops to just $8.99 for 500 or more.

Unique Gifts for Christmas

Give a personalized photo calendar to family and friends this holiday season, easy to create using free software and sure to put a smile on the face of mums, dads and grandparents.

Related Articles

Also of interest may be Personalized Gifts for Men and Women, Make Photo Books with Free Photo Book Software and Create Photo Calendars by Uploading Digital Images.

The copyright of the article Personalized Photo Calendars, the Perfect Gift in Entertaining is owned by Helen Smeaton. Permission to republish Personalized Photo Calendars, the Perfect Gift in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.