Working as a professional photographer and retoucher for FixThePhoto, I tend to handle hundreds of wedding images each week, ensuring the newlyweds have their memories preserved in the highest quality possible. Over the years, I started to value the importance of a properly designed wedding album as much as the pictures themselves. Hence, I chose to prepare this overview of the best album design software available today.
This review reflects my personal user experience – which options impressed me, which didn’t, and how I learned to design photo albums that my clients adored. I’ve tried out over 20 album design software while handling actual wedding projects – from basic drag-and-drop solutions to cutting-edge layout platforms. Certain options come with eye-catching templates but lack customization freedom, while others have trouble processing bigger projects or suffer from export problems.
The majority of the people I work with adore the idea of a printed wedding album – something tangible they can take in their hands, view with their family, and place on a shelf as a memento. A physical item carries an emotional weight that is unmatched by digital creations.
However, I’ve also worked for tech-savvy couples who like digital albums more, particularly so that they can share them online. A digital wedding album offers convenient sharing and access, and is also cheaper to make.
My Tips for Choosing Between Print and Digital:
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Pricing: 30-day free trial, then $22.99/month
I used Adobe InDesign to create a couple of large-scale wedding albums. The first was a contemporary digital design and the other a classic printed layout. My goal was to determine if this robust solution holds up as a wedding album maker.
I made a 30-page spread for a luxurious wedding and a more modest 10-page elopement album. I created personalized grids, picture frames, and type fonts that would fit the couple’s aesthetic. Additionally, I tried out the recently introduced AI-based tools like Generative Fill, Text to Image, and Generative Expand to check if they could streamline my creative layout workflow.
With the recent update, Adobe InDesign started offering several features that are perfect for designing wedding albums:
Such functionality can be a lifesaver. It helped me complete a 30-page wedding album in less than two days while filling it with custom-made assets. Even though Adobe InDesign wasn’t developed specifically for making photo albums, it still provided impressive pro-grade results, particularly for premium wedding albums, since they require every detail to be perfect.
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Pricing: Free plan or $120/year
I was interested to learn if the Canva editor can be used as a wedding album creator solution, particularly for digital projects. It helped me make a softcover digital wedding album for an elopement and a minimalistic printed 20-page photobook for a second client.
I like Canva because of how user-friendly it is and the huge library of templates it offers. I imported wedding photos for the two projects and did everything else in-browser. I picked wedding-styled templates, personalized the fonts and layouts, and saved the projects as both PDF files and Canva shareable links that I sent to my clients and used for print.
Canva is pleasantly intuitive, as its drag-and-drop controls make it very simple to navigate multiple complex layouts. I particularly enjoyed using the premade wedding templates that look refined and professional. For digital sharing, I created a Canva link that looks great on both PC and smartphones. Even though Canva is perfect for simpler projects, it isn’t as advanced as premium wedding photo album software when it comes to professional, premium print designs. Additionally, the free plan imposes restrictions on templates, downloads, and export quality.
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Pricing: 30-day free trial, then $39.99/license
I employed Magix Photostory Deluxe to create a wedding digital album for a client who wanted one for their reception. It included 60 pictures, background music, and a couple of clips. This solution is very intuitive, providing drag-and-drop controls, templates, and transitions that make it simple to create a visually appealing photo album.
I particularly appreciated the ability to import music and tweak its timing to match specific emotional moments. This is possibly the best wedding album design software if your goal is to tell a story in video format. Moreover, it offers an expansive selection of templates, which streamlines the design process even further.
You can use Magix Photostory Deluxe for both still photos and videos in resolutions as high as 4K. The main drawback of this online slideshow maker is that it can be hard to master if you want to leverage its more advanced tools.
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Pricing: Free plan or Pro for $10/month
To try out VistaCreate as wedding album design software, I picked one of the available wedding-themed templates and created a 20-page album layout. I imported the images, personalized the text to include vows and captions, and added some decorative assets to beautify each page. I saved the result as a high-resolution PDF that was later printed locally by the newlyweds.
VistaCreate is quick, user-friendly, and pleasant to look at. I appreciated the selection of templates for DIY photo album ideas, and how simple it was to customize everything from typography to overlays and overall page design. It’s a great choice for making streamlined wedding album designs in a matter of hours.
Additionally, I wanted to find out if VistaCreate can be used as a free booklet creator, and it has proven to be a great tool for multipage visual storytelling. Sadly, this solution doesn’t have the interactive functionality necessary to embed videos or create flipbook-style animations. Even though it lets you make GIFs, they are added as standalone elements. If you want a more dynamic wedding album, you’ll have to get a separate solution.
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Pricing: Free (without export) or from $250/year or $39/month
I got Funny Designer to make a complete 20-page wedding album design. I first took advantage of the single-click automatic design wizard. I imported all the retouched images and leveraged the provided Drop Zones® to tweak their layouts. Additionally, I used its retouching and slideshow features to check how much work I can complete in a single session.
Funny Designer is among the most efficient wedding album designing software out there. It took me less than 30 minutes to create a stylish and clean layout with proper cropping and image arrangement. The provided retouching features are also great for making basic edits. Moreover, this solution lets you convert your project into a photo card, wall art, or social media content.
The free edition of this solution doesn’t allow you to export your projects, but you can use it to try out various layouts and tools before committing to a purchase.
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Pricing: Free (10 gallery storage) or Pro from $11/month
Pixellu is marketed as one of the best album design software programs when it comes to user-friendliness and functionality, and I see why. I leveraged it to create multiple spreads for a wedding client. I uploaded RAW files, JPGs straight from Lightroom, added star ratings to pick the images, then dragged the chosen photos into SmartAlbums. I oversaw all aspects of the design process, fine-tuning layout templates, adding captions, and saving the result for both client proofing and print.
I appreciate the streamlined workflow offered by SmartAlbums. The drag-and-drop controls, professional templates, and smart features like face detection are huge time savers. I really liked how fast and easy SmartAlbums made the wedding album design process. The drag-and-drop interface, clean templates, and smart tools like face detection saved a lot of time. This software for album design can be conveniently integrated with Lightroom and Photoshop to make your job even easier. Sadly, the free trial is rather restrictive unless you’re willing to pay for the Pro version. Moreover, the online proofing solution isn’t advanced enough for creating a final digital album.
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Pricing: Free
I used Bookemon to design a printed wedding album. I imported about 50 retouched images from a wedding photoshoot and employed the available template-based editor to make a softcover photo book. The drag-and-drop UI is very convenient, and this platform lets me combine PDF pages with images. I also didn’t even have to install any wedding album software since everything is done in-browser.
Bookemon can also be used for making wedding photo album books from your PDF, DOCX, PowerPoint, or image files. This is extremely time-efficient if you have already prepared all the files. Even though I was happy with the result I got, the range of available design tools is more limited compared to other options. The templates are intuitive, but most look rather dated. On the plus side, Bookemon offers plenty of suggestions on how to make a photo book.
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Pricing: Free or from $3.59/mo
I checked how jAlbum performs as photo album maker software by creating multiple web-based galleries for my newlywed clients. I also loved the ability to design personalized, self-hosted wedding albums straight on my PC without having to upload files to the cloud first. I used this free photo organizing software to design three galleries, manage photos offline, try out various gallery themes, and upload files via FTP to my website.
jAlbum allowed me to pick a different layout for every client while hosting the albums myself. Moreover, the provided photo retouching tools, watermarking feature, and personalized themes push this option above basic photo catalog software, even if the interface is a tad too dated and technologically complex for inexperienced users.
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Pricing: Free
I leveraged Presto Yearbooks as an online wedding album maker to create a 28-page marriage photo album for a client while also importing a premade PDF layout from InDesign. Everything worked well, meaning you can use this platform to either design an album based on the available templates or import a completed design in PDF format.
I appreciate the wide range of book sizes, paper types, and binding options, particularly the high-end lustre paper, which ensured the printed photo album felt and looked professional. Presto Yearbooks is great at both making regular yearbooks and premium-grade wedding albums. If you’re a professional photographer, you might be underwhelmed by the available image editing tools, but otherwise, this is among the best album maker software options you can try.
My colleagues from FixThePhoto and I used a variety of photo album-making software like Adobe InDesign, Canva, Magix, VistaCreate, Pixellu, Funny Designer, FlippingBook, Shutterfly, MyAlbum, Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher, Shutterfly, Mixbook, One Click AI Album, Folio Albums, and several others.
To test all of them under equal conditions, I uploaded high-resolution wedding pictures from my photography portfolios, including portraits and various moments captured during the ceremony and reception. Each album was made as a client-ready project, allowing me to evaluate the functionality of all album design software fully.
Here’s the method I used when I tested each option:
Even though we tried out a lot of different photo album design software, not all options are included in this overview, as some failed to offer the functionality, format support, user-friendliness, or performance expected from a modern solution. By trying each solution manually, we managed to create a shortlist of the best wedding album design tools for users of any skill level.
