“I had so much fun making the book!”

Recently, we asked people who made RocketLife photo books for their loved ones to describe the experience: How did it feel to make the book, and how did the recipient react?

The answers were especially poignant because the makers were mostly women with husbands and sons deployed abroad. Through the USO Photo Book program, families such as theirs can create and send a 5x7 soft cover photo book to any overseas US military address at no cost. RocketLife prints the books and the USO pays for shipping.

Our 5x7 soft cover photo books are big enough to hold 60 photos, yet small enough to fit a soldier's cargo pocket. (Click to enlarge.)

We published several comments on our Facebook page about the emotional effect of making and receiving photo gifts. Here are two that speak to the creative side.

❝This offer was amazing! Eric received the book fast and enjoys it regularly, I'm told. I had so much fun making the book for him and playing with the different features! It's making this 12-month deployment to Iraq a little easier.

I loved being able to use a picture from my gallery for the background on a page for other pictures to lay over top of. These abilities make my album look like a high-quality professional job I paid big bucks for. —Kat Malette

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❝I was so excited that I would be able to send something like this to my deployed soldier. While I was making the book I felt so proud of him and missed him terribly, but going through all our pictures just reminded me how lucky I am to have him...so to be happy and not sad! He absolutely loved when the book came in the mail. He was so surprised at the quality of it and he knew that I had made it, so it is very special to him.

I found the software very easy to use. You could get so creative with it. I liked the feature where you could put a picture as your background. I took pictures of all the letters we've written back and forth to each other, so every page of the book has wording in his handwriting. I never would have thought to do that unless I had the RocketLife software! —Amy Schuster

Learn more about the USO Photo Book program — and start your book — at USO.RocketLifeProduction.com.

Introducing RocketLife

Welcome to the official RocketLife blog! Here we'll share tips on creating amazing photo projects with the RocketLife software.

Often, a good way to get to know someone is to listen to what others say about them. Fred Thorlin of HAL PC magazine made his own photo book with an early version of RocketLife and saw the difference right away. His review begins:

It looks like there is a breakaway leader in the Internet photo-processing category. If you want prints, just look for the lowest priced provider. If you want a good deal more, try RocketLife. RocketLife provides so much more support in producing your photo product than the other photo sites I have looked at it is no contest.

The first thing Fred noticed was RocketLife's speed:

All image processing is done on your computer; the pictures are not first copied to a web site for processing as is common. Because of this you are instantly editing and you work with your original images at their full original resolution. When you have finished adding photos you will see that your completed Photo Book is already displayed on your screen with your photos tastefully arranged in chronological order! Startling!

Pause for a moment and rejoice. You haven’t had to create a password, establish an account, or provide you mother’s maiden name and you are using RocketLife productively. How civilized!

We especially liked how Fred grasped the playful nature of the RocketLife software. Unlike typical photo-layout software, which plugs your pictures into rigid templates and marches you toward the checkout line, RocketLife encourages experimentation. Fred continues:

You can stop here and order the Photo Book as is, but then you would be missing most of the fun. Switch to the Themes mode to begin. There are so many things to play with, and they all work so easily, that it is hard to proceed in an orderly fashion. RocketLife just makes photo products for you, in a fun way, for a competitive price, conveniently.

Read the rest of the review to see the photo book Fred created. We've added many more features and graphics to RocketLife since then. Look for a download link to the latest version in the next few days.

Questions? Wishes? Ideas? Get creative and leave a comment below!