Anybody do a calendar before?

scratchpaddy · 11-11-2013, 02:29 PM

I've taken lots of pictures at the dog park over the past year, and I figured I'd make a calendar out of my favorites. Pictures like these:

A few people at the park have already expressed interest in this. Surely a few of you have made your own calendars before, right? What software did you use, and how did you print them? Any advice is welcome! This will be the first time I've ever tried to sell any pictures before, actually.

**RobA_Oz** · 11-11-2013, 02:36 PM

I used to labour to create my own, using a self-created template on Apple's Pages software, after dismissing the offering from MS Word. I have more recently found calendar templates from the book publishers to be much less work, and the range of templates to be increasingly good and not so much of a "home made" appearance as they started out being. I use an Australian publisher, Momento, but there are others. I use Blurb for photo books and they're US-based but ship worldwide. It's time for me to do our annual travel calendar, so your post is a timely reminder to me to start looking around again.

Adam · 11-11-2013, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by scratchpaddy

I've taken lots of pictures at the dog park over the past year, and I figured I'd make a calendar out of my favorites. Pictures like these:

A few people at the park have already expressed interest in this. Surely a few of you have made your own calendars before, right? What software did you use, and how did you print them? Any advice is welcome! This will be the first time I've ever tried to sell any pictures before, actually.

I made one via cafepress once, looked great. Blurb works for books, not sure if they do calendars though:
Beautiful books. Made by you. | Blurb Books

**Miguel** · 11-11-2013, 02:51 PM

Adobe In Design templates are out there. You can export as PDF for printing by cheap online services.

M

Na Horuk · 11-11-2013, 02:54 PM

A couple times I bought a calendar with empty spaces where you put photo prints. The most important part is that the photos have a similar theme - all landscapes or all macro or something. And each photo should say something about the month - so winter themes for winter months, summer themes for summer months.
I think your photos look really great, with a creative angle. I think those would work well. Just one more thing - in calendars you usually dont want to have much negative space (unless that's the theme of the calendar). In calendar photos you want the subject to be nice and big and prominent.

**blackcloudbrew** · 11-11-2013, 02:55 PM

I did one in 2011 via an application at my local camera store. The biggest issue was selecting the images and then dealing with the sizing for the frame on the calendar page. I liked it.

bigted · 11-11-2013, 03:34 PM

One of the guys who does the Single in Challenge used Apple to make a calendar last year and it was very impressive. I wish I could remember who it was...

**RobA_Oz** · 11-11-2013, 04:38 PM

I thought Blurb may have extended their excellent photobook service to calendars by now, but a quick check just now reveals they haven't, which is a pity. There are, however, lots of other publishing services who provide software and templates for download for a variety of calendar sizes and styles, so, at least in search, I can only say that Google is your friend.

derekkite · 11-11-2013, 04:52 PM

I used vistaprint the last two years. Nice quality and quite reasonable. A suggestion, print one out, or order one for proof.

**Tamia** · 11-11-2013, 05:31 PM

I did one back in 2010 with Lulu. I'd forgotten about it until I saw this post, and was surprised to see that the link to that calendar is still live if you want to see how Lulu presents them to the public. I thought the quality was good, but found the interface awkward to work with, but that could have been down to the slow computer I used at the time. Lulu had quite a few templates to work with.

**rbefly** · 11-11-2013, 08:33 PM

Hello scratchpaddy,
That's a fine idea! People truly love their dogs, and I believe at least the 12 owners whose dogs were featured, would buy the calendar. How to market and sell it to others, would be the problem. For that, perhaps a few great 'action' shots like mid-air, jumping to catch a ball or disc, maybe a wild 'group' shot of several dogs racing or highly active would have more overall appeal.
A couple of points about the photos; First, I think shots with 'partial' dogs are a no-no. Either the entire animal or several, no clipping body parts. JMO. A 'portrait' close-up might be an exception
Second, watch the background! Fences, while unavoidable, can be shot from such a distance or angle (or, wider aperture) so as to blur the background. Your first two and last photos are examples of this. The others, to my eye, are too busy or have distracting background elements.
Also, no blurred 'partial' dogs in background. An entire out-of-focus animal is acceptable, 'parts' are not. Same as people photos; An phantom arm sticking into a photo looks weird, right? Photos #2 and # 4 are examples. #2, Good. # 4, not so good.
Last, print format. Decide whether you're going to use, portrait, landscape, near-square, etc. Then start shooting, selecting and finally, cropping to suit.
Oh, yes; Model releases. I think a right-front paw-print is considered legal.
LOL! Good luck,
Ron

bigted · 11-11-2013, 08:46 PM

I found the day the Apple calendar was posted. If you are curious it is here:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/groups/102-monthly-photo-challenges/2195-...cember-11.html

scratchpaddy · 11-11-2013, 09:14 PM

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions. I had a vague idea of designing one myself (and printing at Staples or FedEx or something), as some of you have suggested, but I don't have a Mac or Adobe In Design, and you know how much fun Micro$oft Office is to work with.

Those online services are much cheaper than I expected. As per your suggestions:

CafePress: $20 (well, okay, that's a bit much if I'm going to be selling these)
Vistaprint: $8 (it says starting at. I'll have to dig to find out what they really charge)
Lulu: $10 (also starting at, but it looks like they only charge more if you want extra pages)

Also, thanks for the tips on the pictures! Na Horuk, I'll keep that in mind about negative space. About seasons, I've got summer down pat, but the others are a bit tougher. The seasons aren't visually that different here. Well, I do have one picture of a chihuahua in a little doggie parka, but it's not really calendar material. Lots of disembodied legs. Awkward.

rbelfy, thanks for all those tips, too. I guess you have to be really picky when you're actually trying to sell pictures. I'll try not to decapitate too many dogs.

I'll do it in landscape, definitely, but there's one or two I'd love to include that are more square or portrait. I may have to forgo those. Oh, I'll get those model releases, too.

derekkite · 11-11-2013, 09:34 PM

Once you part with your email address to vistaprint they will send you a friendly email every morning. Watch for the 50% off deals. They come along once in a while. Also, if you order from them, you can get heavy or light paper stock. The heavy one is well worth while.

charliezap · 11-15-2013, 01:02 PM

We've been making one for years for my wife's mother for Christmas through the Walgreen's site on line.You up load the pics that you want to Walgreen's and go to the photo site there an create a calendar.You will have to set up a Walgreen's account but that takes just minutes. Hope that this helps.--charliezap

11-11-2013, 02:29 PM	#1
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361	Anybody do a calendar before? I've taken lots of pictures at the dog park over the past year, and I figured I'd make a calendar out of my favorites. Pictures like these: A few people at the park have already expressed interest in this. Surely a few of you have made your own calendars before, right? What software did you use, and how did you print them? Any advice is welcome! This will be the first time I've ever tried to sell any pictures before, actually.

11-11-2013, 02:43 PM	#3
Adam Administrator Site Webmaster Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 51,595	Originally posted by scratchpaddy I've taken lots of pictures at the dog park over the past year, and I figured I'd make a calendar out of my favorites. Pictures like these: A few people at the park have already expressed interest in this. Surely a few of you have made your own calendars before, right? What software did you use, and how did you print them? Any advice is welcome! This will be the first time I've ever tried to sell any pictures before, actually. I made one via cafepress once, looked great. Blurb works for books, not sure if they do calendars though: Beautiful books. Made by you. \| Blurb Books Adam PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide \| Site Help \| My Photography) PentaxForums.com server and development costs are user-supported. You can help cover these costs by donating or purchasing one of our Pentax eBooks. Or, buy your photo gear from our affiliates, Adorama, B&H Photo, KEH, or Topaz Labs, and get FREE Marketplace access - click here to see how! Trusted Pentax retailers:

11-11-2013, 08:33 PM	#11
rbefly Site Supporter Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Denver, Colorado Photos: Albums Posts: 2,030	Great Idea! Hello scratchpaddy, That's a fine idea! People truly love their dogs, and I believe at least the 12 owners whose dogs were featured, would buy the calendar. How to market and sell it to others, would be the problem. For that, perhaps a few great 'action' shots like mid-air, jumping to catch a ball or disc, maybe a wild 'group' shot of several dogs racing or highly active would have more overall appeal. A couple of points about the photos; First, I think shots with 'partial' dogs are a no-no. Either the entire animal or several, no clipping body parts. JMO. A 'portrait' close-up might be an exception Second, watch the background! Fences, while unavoidable, can be shot from such a distance or angle (or, wider aperture) so as to blur the background. Your first two and last photos are examples of this. The others, to my eye, are too busy or have distracting background elements. Also, no blurred 'partial' dogs in background. An entire out-of-focus animal is acceptable, 'parts' are not. Same as people photos; An phantom arm sticking into a photo looks weird, right? Photos #2 and # 4 are examples. #2, Good. # 4, not so good. Last, print format. Decide whether you're going to use, portrait, landscape, near-square, etc. Then start shooting, selecting and finally, cropping to suit. Oh, yes; Model releases. I think a right-front paw-print is considered legal. LOL! Good luck, Ron Last edited by rbefly; 11-11-2013 at 09:14 PM.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Do you have anybody from Chicago ?	JoRDaNhikoo	Welcomes and Introductions	6	04-04-2013 03:36 PM
What did we do before Photoshop?	psychdoc	Digital Processing, Software, and Printing	6	12-02-2012 06:09 AM
Do you make a photo op calendar?	slackercruster	Photographic Technique	9	07-30-2012 06:22 PM
How they do those Before-After pics	boriscleto	General Talk	4	02-10-2012 11:01 PM
Has anybody bought from cameraspot.com before?	heatherslightbox	Photographic Technique	2	02-21-2008 12:06 PM

11-11-2013, 02:36 PM	#2
RobA_Oz Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Tasmania, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,197	I used to labour to create my own, using a self-created template on Apple's Pages software, after dismissing the offering from MS Word. I have more recently found calendar templates from the book publishers to be much less work, and the range of templates to be increasingly good and not so much of a "home made" appearance as they started out being. I use an Australian publisher, Momento, but there are others. I use Blurb for photo books and they're US-based but ship worldwide. It's time for me to do our annual travel calendar, so your post is a timely reminder to me to start looking around again.

11-11-2013, 02:51 PM	#4
Miguel Site Supporter Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Near Seattle Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,743	Adobe In Design templates are out there. You can export as PDF for printing by cheap online services. M

11-11-2013, 02:54 PM	#5
Na Horuk Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Slovenia, probably Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 11,186	A couple times I bought a calendar with empty spaces where you put photo prints. The most important part is that the photos have a similar theme - all landscapes or all macro or something. And each photo should say something about the month - so winter themes for winter months, summer themes for summer months. I think your photos look really great, with a creative angle. I think those would work well. Just one more thing - in calendars you usually dont want to have much negative space (unless that's the theme of the calendar). In calendar photos you want the subject to be nice and big and prominent.

11-11-2013, 02:55 PM	#6
blackcloudbrew Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Cotati, California USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,460	I did one in 2011 via an application at my local camera store. The biggest issue was selecting the images and then dealing with the sizing for the frame on the calendar page. I liked it.

11-11-2013, 03:34 PM	#7
bigted Moderator Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Jessica Lake, Whiteshell Provincial Park, or Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,593	One of the guys who does the Single in Challenge used Apple to make a calendar last year and it was very impressive. I wish I could remember who it was...

11-11-2013, 04:38 PM	#8
RobA_Oz Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Tasmania, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,197	I thought Blurb may have extended their excellent photobook service to calendars by now, but a quick check just now reveals they haven't, which is a pity. There are, however, lots of other publishing services who provide software and templates for download for a variety of calendar sizes and styles, so, at least in search, I can only say that Google is your friend.

11-11-2013, 04:52 PM	#9
derekkite Pentaxian Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Nelson B.C. Posts: 3,782	I used vistaprint the last two years. Nice quality and quite reasonable. A suggestion, print one out, or order one for proof.

11-11-2013, 05:31 PM	#10
Tamia Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Here, there, and everywhere. Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,384	I did one back in 2010 with Lulu. I'd forgotten about it until I saw this post, and was surprised to see that the link to that calendar is still live if you want to see how Lulu presents them to the public. I thought the quality was good, but found the interface awkward to work with, but that could have been down to the slow computer I used at the time. Lulu had quite a few templates to work with.

11-11-2013, 08:46 PM	#12
bigted Moderator Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Jessica Lake, Whiteshell Provincial Park, or Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,593	I found the day the Apple calendar was posted. If you are curious it is here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/groups/102-monthly-photo-challenges/2195-...cember-11.html

11-11-2013, 09:14 PM	#13
scratchpaddy Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Phoenix Posts: 3,361 Original Poster	Wow, thanks for all the suggestions. I had a vague idea of designing one myself (and printing at Staples or FedEx or something), as some of you have suggested, but I don't have a Mac or Adobe In Design, and you know how much fun Micro$oft Office is to work with. Those online services are much cheaper than I expected. As per your suggestions: CafePress: $20 (well, okay, that's a bit much if I'm going to be selling these) Vistaprint: $8 (it says starting at. I'll have to dig to find out what they really charge) Lulu: $10 (also starting at, but it looks like they only charge more if you want extra pages) Also, thanks for the tips on the pictures! Na Horuk, I'll keep that in mind about negative space. About seasons, I've got summer down pat, but the others are a bit tougher. The seasons aren't visually that different here. Well, I do have one picture of a chihuahua in a little doggie parka, but it's not really calendar material. Lots of disembodied legs. Awkward. rbelfy, thanks for all those tips, too. I guess you have to be really picky when you're actually trying to sell pictures. I'll try not to decapitate too many dogs. I'll do it in landscape, definitely, but there's one or two I'd love to include that are more square or portrait. I may have to forgo those. Oh, I'll get those model releases, too.

11-11-2013, 09:34 PM	#14
derekkite Pentaxian Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Nelson B.C. Posts: 3,782	Once you part with your email address to vistaprint they will send you a friendly email every morning. Watch for the 50% off deals. They come along once in a while. Also, if you order from them, you can get heavy or light paper stock. The heavy one is well worth while.

11-15-2013, 01:02 PM	#15
charliezap Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: saugus ma Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 8,686	We've been making one for years for my wife's mother for Christmas through the Walgreen's site on line.You up load the pics that you want to Walgreen's and go to the photo site there an create a calendar.You will have to set up a Walgreen's account but that takes just minutes. Hope that this helps.--charliezap