Review of Creating a Motif Photo Book (downloaded for an Apple Mac)*

As a photographer and creative, I have been using Apple Mac’s for around 15 years. For most of that time, Apple Mac computers have had an integrated system for making photo books, printing pictures and creating albums. These could all be accessed at the click of a button, however, around two years ago, they got rid of all the great feature from their system, which has meant that apart from having my iPhotos on my Mac, I haven’t created and printed any books since that time! Motif is here to change all that, and is a Photo Project Software that has been around for a little while, but has recently made many improvements to its operating system. The program allows you to create numerous styles of books, Calendars, Cards, Prints, and even Wall Decor and is all compatible with Mac.

Photo books create such treasured memories, and although there are so many photo project software out there, it’s hard to know which ones may suit you and your computer. We have always loved making them, whether it be as gifts or simply to be able to look back on one of our most favourite holidays. Funnily enough, the last book we made, was of our unbelievable trip to Disney in 2017, where we had such a magical time, that we just wanted to be able to look back on it again and again. You may ask why it is so important to have it in book form rather than being happy with scrolling through the computer, but in a book, there is something so much more tangible about it, and it means that you can share the experience with your family and friends rather than alone at your laptop!

So since the death of Mac’s integrated photo project software, there have been several companies out there, most of which aren’t always compatible with a Mac computer. So when we were asked to review Motif Photo Project Software, I was excited when I was told that it was Mac compatible. To get started, I firstly had to download the program onto my Mac. I did this by using the links they provided,  Motif for iOS here and for Mac here – it was surprisingly straightforward. I simply went to the App store, where it was free to download. It took minutes for it to all appear on my computer. What was also handy is it automatically placed itself on my applications bar at the bottom of my screen, so can be accessed with the simple click of the icon.

Once downloaded you click on the icon and then go to get started, and it automatically goes to Photos (which is a feature on Mac computers that stores all your photos and automatically updates from all your Mac devises including my phone), where it has a drop-down and creates a folder called Projects. Within this folder, you can then add your chosen images by selecting and dragging them into it. I selected all my images, which ended up being more than 400 images. This is where I had a bit of a problem. It took more 20 minutes for the images to download. In comparison, when using the integral Mac program it would take maybe 2-3 minutes.

Once the images finally downloaded, this is where Motif really started to shine. So don’t be put off if you find the same issue, and I would suggest, letting it download whilst you go off and do something else for a bit. As once they are on there the program is so easy to use. I actually made this project with my 10-year-old daughter, who just loves looking at photographs. We decided to make an album for my husband, celebrating 10 years of our lives together with our children (hence why I had so many pictures!). We could drag and drop the images into the pages. If the images were in the wrong place you could simply drag it back down into your image section at the bottom of the screen, and then choose another.

It has so many great features including, being able to change the number of photos that feature on each page, from one to nine. You can also add pages to your project too, we, however, stuck with the number of pages that are within the £19.99 book, which is the one we were asked to review. The more pages you add the more the cost increases. This actually made it more of a challenge and more fun as we still wanted to cover a 10 year time period of photos, so this meant we made much more adjustments to the pages. So we added more photos to one page. Other interesting features include being able to change the already formatted images spaces. So if your photo didn’t quite fit in the box provided, you could change the size of the photo by zooming in or out, but you could also easily drag the size of the box. Magically when we did this, it self adjusted the other boxes so that they still all fitted well on the page, meaning that you had some large images and some small within the same page.

All in all this photobook was so easy to piece together, and you really can personalise them to suit you and your style. We love bright colour and patterns so choose the one that suited us best, but even within that, you could still make colour changes and pattern changes within each page, to add a bit of variety to your book too! The books come in a variety of shapes and a couple of different sizes, however, all theses will make variations on cost. But with the book we were reviewing we were able to fit a large majority (not 400 but at last 300) of our chosen images into the book, which meant we had such a full book of the really special moments of when our children changed our lives forever.

What did we think of the book? 

The book arrived within around four days of ordering, which is great and it was delivered straight to my door. It wasn’t posted through, however, I would expect smaller items fit quite well through the letterbox and they are well packaged so won’t sink being damaged. The book is well presented in a card folder and has a protective cover around it too. The images are nice however, they are a little flat, and I know from prints that I have of the same images that this isn’t the photo that is the problem but the print of the book. This being said, my husband absolutely loves the book, he too noticed the dullness of some of the images, but this didn’t put him off how happy he was to see all our faces firmly fixed in this well-presented book. He hasn’t stopped looking at it and really can’t be happier. So it really is a win in our household so much so that my daughter is already planning our next photo book project!

How much did it cost?

Motif download is free – but you pay for the books once you place your order, where you will be asked for your preferred method of payment.
The Book prices vary deepening on which photo project you use,  but the Motif book we reviewed cost £19.99 plus delivery.
Calendars start at £15.99
Cards start at 79p
All are plus delivery charges which are different again depending on the product you order.

Who can use Motif?

You can download Motif to Mac products, including your iPad and your iPhone, as well as your computer or laptop.
You can also download Motif onto Microsoft computers, and your Android phone too.

How to use Motif?