Your album starts on the phone
Pressbook turns the photos you pick into a magazine-quality album, on the device the photos live on. It reads the roll like a story: chapters by time and place, the best of every burst, faces never cropped. Then it exports a PDF a photo lab will print. No upload, no account.
How it works
- Pick generously. Select a big handful from your library. On-device curation proposes the keepers from your selection: eyes open, sharp, no near-duplicates.
- Set the shape and fullness. Choose square, landscape, or portrait, then set how full the pages should feel with a live page count. The slider changes pages, never which photos are in the album.
- Read it, then print it. Flip through the finished album with a real page curl, then export a 150, 300, or 600 DPI PDF, share pages as images, or pass on the editable project file.
It reads the roll like a story
Chapters follow time and place, and the place names come from a gazetteer that ships inside the app, so even geography stays offline. Near-identical shots collapse into a stack with the best frame leading and its siblings one tap away. The people in your life appear evenly across the pages, and a dial shows anyone less or more.
A fullness slider sets how full each page feels, from airy to packed, with honest numbers while it counts. Every rebuild is a take you can flip back to, and set-aside photos wait in a drawer, grouped by reason. Nothing silently disappears.
What you get
- 600 DPI print-ready PDF export in three tiers (150, 300, 600) and three sizes (square, landscape, portrait)
- Up to 1,000 photos per album with Pro; 20 on the free tier
- 249 hand-designed templates shared across albums, carousels, and collages
- Chapters by time and place, with place names resolved offline from a bundled atlas
- 87 filters in 13 families and a full canvas editor underneath the automation
- 0 photos uploaded: analysis, layout, and export all run on the device
On your device, by architecture
Curation, layout, and render run on Apple silicon in your hand. There is no Pressbook server for your album to pass through: nothing to breach, nothing to subpoena, nothing to quietly monetize. Download Pressbook free on the App Store.
Questions, answered straight
Which DPI should I use for printing?
150 DPI is for screens and quick shares, 300 DPI prints well at home and at most print shops, and 600 DPI is what photo labs ask for. All three export as PDF in square, landscape, or portrait.
How many photos fit in an album?
The free tier makes albums up to 20 photos. Pro raises the ceiling to 1,000 photos per album, and the fullness slider decides how they spread across pages.
Does Pressbook upload my photos anywhere?
No. Curation, layout, and PDF export all run on your iPhone or iPad. There is no account and no server; the app works in airplane mode, place names included.
What is the fullness slider?
One control from airy to packed that sets how full each page feels, with a live page count. It changes how pages are laid out, never which photos are in the album: every photo you chose stays.
Can I change pages after the album builds?
Yes. Swap any photo for its same-moment siblings, shuffle a page layout, make a photo big, reorder pages, or open the full canvas editor. Every rebuild is kept as a take you can return to.
How to make a photo book on iPhone · Five albums to make this weekend · Make a carousel · Make a collage · Everything Pressbook does