A Christmas Photo Card is a thoughtful way to send holiday greetings!
Everyone loves to receive a Christmas Card but a Christmas Photo Card is even more personal.
Christmas photo cards like this one are easy to create with the right tools and a little creativity. They're also less expensive and more creative than photo insert Christmas cards.
On this page, we'll show you how to create your own photograph holiday card and, in the process, you'll learn how to create photo cards for many other occasions.
What you'll need to create a photo Christmas card yourself: (Don't worry - I'll go into detail on each of these below)
1) A digital photograph or photographs. 2) A color printer (or access to one). 3) Greeting Card or Graphics software. 4) Good photo-quality card paper.
2) Color Printer (or access to one):
You no longer need a Laserjet printer to get good photo-quality prints. An Inkjet or DeskJet will print a Christmas photo card just fine. Before we buy any new technology, we always start by reading
Reviews on ZDNet.com.
Another option, if you don't have or want a color printer, is to create your Christmas photo card at home and have someone else print it for you. However, since most printing companies are geared towards business clients, don't be surprised if you end up paying more than you would to have your announcements custom designed and printed for you by a company specializing in photo cards.
3) Greeting Card or Graphics software. This is the step that will most determine whether your card-creation will be an enjoyable experience or a nail-biting, hair-pulling one. With the right software, you'll create beautiful photo cards, in just a few hours, that your friends and family will rave over and you'll want to use your knowledge again and again for Birthday greetings, Party invitations, Birth Announcements, and many other photo projects.
There are tons of greeting card and graphics software programs available and we've tried out many of them. Two of our favorites are
Photo Explosion Deluxe
and
Greeting Card Factory Deluxe
. Greeting Card Factory is especially great if you want to print other kinds of "canned" greeting cards. Photo Explosion's focus is on Photograph cards so it's perfect if that's all you plan to do. They're both terrific choices though. Just make sure any greeting card software you buy has the capability of adding your own photos (some don't.)
4) Good photo-quality card paper. This is one of the most common mistakes beginning card-creaters make. We know because we've done it ourselves. In our quest to find the cheapest photo-quality card stock paper, we've tried MANY brands and varieties. You wouldn't believe the difference in the print quality!! Low quality paper will make your Christmas photo card look amateur and the photo(s) poor. We feel so strongly about this that we won't even recommend a brand until we've tested thoroughly enough. Until then, we suggest you buy small quantities of several brands and thicknesses, and try printing your announcement on one sheet of each. The paper that doesn't perform as well can always be used for simple greeting cards or invitations later. By the way,
drop us a line
if you find one you consider terrific and we'll try it out ourselves.
Once you have all of your supplies, you'll follow your chosen software instructions to create your cards. You might want to do a little planning though before you dive into the software: Start by choosing the photo or photos you'd like to include in your card and decide on the layout you prefer. For Christmas cards, you'll want your photo or photos on the front of the card, whether it's a folding card or a postcard style (not really a postcard since you still use an envelope.) Now, when you start working with your software, you'll be able to go directly to the kind of Christmas photo card you want without getting side-tracked by all of the other possibilities.
