How to Pick the Right Photos for a Photo Magazine

How many photos do you actually need?

Fewer than you think. Plan on about 30 photos for 20 pages, 35 to 50 for 24 pages, and 60 to 90 for 48 pages. Why so few? A magazine prints photos big. One strong image across a spread beats a grid of twelve thumbnails. Too many photos is a magazine's number one enemy.

Work by moments

Don't scroll your whole camera roll. Start by writing down the moments your magazine should tell, then go find photos for each one. For a year together, that could be New Year's Eve, the February getaway, moving in, a birthday, summer at the lake, a friend's wedding, fall, the holidays. Eight to twelve moments is a good balance for 24 pages.

Pick three to six photos per moment. No more. If two shots are nearly identical, keep the sharper one and move on without looking back.

Five kinds of shots to look for

A good magazine mixes shots the way a movie does. For each moment, try to find:

1. An establishing shot: wide, to set the scene. The landscape, the room, the street.
2. A portrait: a face or a pair, close enough to read expressions.
3. A detail: a hand, a plate, a ticket stub, an object that says a lot.
4. An action shot: someone laughing, running, dancing. Even a little blurry.
5. A group shot if other people were there.

That variety creates rhythm. A magazine made only of selfies gets repetitive fast, even if every one of them is great.

Sharpness: what matters and what doesn't

A photo printed full page at magazine size needs to be sharp on its main subject. Photos from any recent phone are more than enough, as long as you use the original. Watch out for three traps:

• Screenshots: their resolution is too low for print.
• Photos received through messaging apps: they're compressed. Ask whoever took them for the original.
• Heavily zoomed photos: strong digital zoom degrades the image.

The Pictozia editor warns you when a photo might print blurry. When that happens, make it smaller or swap it out. Friends can also upload their originals directly with a photo collection link, no account needed.

Keep the imperfect shot that says it all

This is the most important rule, and the least intuitive. The blurry photo taken running through the rain, the one where someone's eyes are closed mid-laugh, the collapsed birthday cake: those are often the pages people love most years later. One or two per magazine, with a caption that explains, and the whole thing comes alive.

What to leave out

• Duplicates: ten shots of the same view, keep one.
• Photos someone would hate to see printed: a magazine gets shown around.
• Things nobody will recognize later: the dish without context, the generic landscape.
• Screens, documents and receipts: unless they really tell part of the story.

The cover photo

Pick it last. It has to work big, with text over it, so avoid photos that are busy at the top where the title goes. A portrait of the two of you, framed from the waist up against a simple background, almost always works. Vertical photos are easier than horizontal ones.

A twenty-minute method

1. Write your moments on paper (5 minutes).
2. Create one album per moment on your phone and add three to six photos to each (10 minutes).
3. Review the whole set and delete duplicates (5 minutes).

That's your selection. Drop it into the editor, which sorts photos in chronological order. The rest is in our guide on how to make a photo magazine in one evening, and it all starts on the custom magazine page.