Printemplates

How to Make a Personalized Photo Calendar to Print or Give

By the Printemplates team at OWL App ยท

A photo calendar is one of the few gifts people use every day for a whole year. Making one yourself takes an evening, costs little more than the printing, and lets you include the dates that matter to the person receiving it. This guide covers the whole process, from choosing the photos to checking the file before it goes to the printer.

1. Choose twelve photos that work at calendar size

A photo that looks good on a phone screen does not always work printed on a wall. Look for:

  • Enough resolution. For a sharp print, a photo needs roughly 300 pixels per inch at the size it will be printed. For a photo about 8 inches (20 cm) wide, that means around 2400 pixels across. Most modern phone photos are well above that; screenshots and photos saved from messaging apps are often not.
  • A clear subject. Close-ups of faces and simple scenes read better from across a room than wide group shots with many small figures.
  • A mix of seasons. Matching photos to months, such as a beach photo for July and snow for January, makes the calendar feel planned. In the Southern Hemisphere, flip that.
  • The right orientation. Landscape photos suit landscape pages. A portrait photo on a landscape page will need heavy cropping.

2. Pick a design and the months you need

Open the Studio and start from a design in the design collections, or from a simple layout. Choose the year, the first month, and whether weeks start on Monday or Sunday. A calendar does not have to start in January: a calendar given in September can run from October to the following September.

3. Add the photos and adjust them

Add a photo from your device to each month, then move and resize it until the important part is in frame. Leave some space between faces and the page edge, because most home printers cannot print right up to the edge of the paper. Photos you add stay in your browser on your device; they are not uploaded to our servers.

4. Add the dates that make it personal

This is what turns a calendar into a gift. Add birthdays, anniversaries, and other family dates as events. You can also choose a public holiday set for the recipient's country, so that country's holidays appear on the right dates. A few words on a special date, such as "Grandma's 80th", go a long way.

5. Check the file before printing

Use the Print check in Studio to spot text or photos that sit too close to the edge, and small text that may be hard to read on paper. Then export the PDF and look through every page on a computer screen at full size. Check that every month has the right name and year, that weekdays line up with the dates, and that no photo is stretched.

6. Print at home or at a print shop

For home printing, use heavier paper (120 to 200 gsm, whatever your printer accepts) and set the print scale to "Actual size"; our printing guide covers the settings. For a more finished result, take the PDF to a local print shop and ask for a wire-bound wall calendar. Tell them the page size of your file, and ask for a single proof page first if you are printing several copies.

7. Keep a backup of the project

Studio saves projects in your browser on the device you used. If you want to reuse the design next year, or edit it on another computer, export a project backup from the Projects panel. Clearing your browser data removes local projects, so the backup is worth keeping.

Short answer

Choose twelve sharp photos, match them to the seasons, add the family dates, run the print check, and print on heavy paper at actual size. You can start now in the calendar maker; it is free and does not need an account.

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