Tips on creating a photo presentation board?

[m_tt_donuts]

I really didn't know where on the internet to ask this question but figured maybe people here have done one here.

My father hit a milestone birthday and it's a huge celebraion I've got all sorts of Uncles, Aunts, etc. coming. My task

is to create the photo board (I'm only seen one but it was a funeral!), and everyone sent me their pictures of my Dad

(several hundred). I have some arguments come up as to how they should be done. I've already scanned in the

hundreds of photo's and getting ready to print them (I can print 2 large/page, 4 medium/page, or 6 small/page).

 

If you were doing this board would you create it in a way to "focus" it on just the best photo's ending up at around 40-

50 large and good quality photo's included? Would you make the photo's medium sized and fit only 100, or lastly try

to include as many as possible and fit about 200?

 

I'm on the line, I like quality I would like it to be 40-50 larger sized good pictures... but at the same token all these

people sent their pictures in and probably would like to see more of themselves and each other... would you go the

50, 100, or 200 picture route?

[daved1]

I guess I'd not worry about the quality issue so much, the family probably don't care. I'd use photo's that create a timeline and show something interesting at different points of his life.

[bwcombs]

You have the right idea by scanning all of the originals.

 

What we did for a similar event is set up a template in Photoshop, 20 x 30 inches, and placed each image onto the page, varying sizes and positions as needed. Each file was saved as JPEGs and sent to Shutterfly for output. What we ended up with were three 20 x 30 inch posters, foamboard mounted, each with about 15 to 20 images on them.

 

There was no timeline or order of the pictures, as we did not have the time to organize as such. But once we started laying it all out on the template, some sort of method to the madness came through.

 

We also printed out miniature versions of the posters to hand out at the end of the evening. Everyone wanted one. We even put a bound book together with the images, as a momento for the birthday girl.

[charlesheckel]

The most significant issue in terms of layout is varying size so that the viewer has something to look at first (the big picture) and something to follow up (the smaller pictures). If it's family and you need to do the dumbocratic thing and make them all the same size, you should still be able to cluster significant ideas or events with a bit of blank space around each cluster.

[craig_gillette]

How big a board (boards) are you considering? Multiple boards with fewer pictures (as above) is probably easier to deal with and makes it easier for others to view and share.

 

Have you considered running a "slide show" on a laptop as well?