dagan.aiADI DAGAN · 2× FOUNDER
EN עברית

// Free · copy and paste

Turn your photos into a family album.

I had 64,167 photos across five years, and zero albums. Claude went through them, picked the good ones and laid them out into books. There are two ways to do it, depending on what you've got.

No codeOne tripAny computer
Start with a trip Printing at Lupa?

// Why nobody makes the album

Printing was never the hard part.

Printing takes ten minutes and a credit card. Choosing is the part nobody does.

You open ten thousand photos, hunt for the ones where everyone's eyes are open, throw out eleven shots of the same three seconds. Then you close the laptop.

// 2024, my year

9,893 in. 214 out.

Photos and videos from one year, and only 4 marked as favourites. So "use my favourites" was never going to work. Claude picked the 214.

// Pick your route

One trip. A few hundred photos from everyone's phones, in a shared Google Photos album. Any computer. Claude looks at every photo, you swap by number, and you get a print PDF. The trip route

A whole year. Thousands of photos, a Mac with Apple Photos. Claude sorts by the face data Apple already keeps, so it never has to look at every photo. You get a print-ready PDF. The year route

// Route 1 · One trip, any phone

One trip, from everyone's phones.

I tested this route on our Italy trip: 308 photos and videos in a shared album, and 80 made the book.

Here Claude looks at every photo, so it's built for a trip, not a whole year.

// Four steps

  1. Get the photos into one folder.Everyone adds their photos to one shared Google Photos album. Then open the album on your computer, the ⋮ menu, Download all, and unzip it.
  2. Ask for the plan.Open that folder in Claude's Code tab and paste this:
The plan
This folder has the photos from our trip to [place], from everyone's phones. Look at every photo and build me a plan for a printed album, as an HTML page I can open. Number every photo. Keep the best shot of each moment and cut the blurry, dark and near-duplicate ones. Make sure everyone in the family is in it. Group the pages by day, using the date inside each photo, and suggest a short title for each day. Under the plan, list what you cut and why. Skip the videos. Then wait for my changes.
  1. Fix it by number.Open the plan and answer in short lines: "Swap 26 for 28." "Drop 100." "Give 88 its own page."
  2. Lay out the book.When the plan is right, paste this:
The book
The plan is final. Lay it out as a print-ready photo book PDF: a cover with the best photo of everyone together, then the pages in the order of the plan, with the day titles. Clean layout, no cropped faces, no lonely photo floating on a page. Use the full-resolution photos for the print PDF, and also save a small copy for my phone. Show me the pages before you call it done.

Then send the PDF to any service that prints from a PDF.

// Before you start

You needThe Claude desktop app on a paid plan, Code tab. Mac or Windows. PhotosOne shared Google Photos album. Everyone adds from their own phone. SizeA trip: a few hundred photos. For a whole year on a Mac, see route 2. VideosThey can't print. Ask Claude for a QR code to the album, for the last page.

// Route 2 · A whole year, on a Mac

Five steps, all of them Claude's.

  1. Reads the whole year.Every photo from the year you pick. Screenshots, videos and hidden photos go first.
  2. Keeps the shots that work.Clear faces, eyes open, sharp. It leans on the faces you named in Photos.
  3. Kills the bursts.The best shot of each moment, and no month made of twenty playground photos.
  4. Balances the year.15 to 25 photos a month. Everyone in the family shows up, not just whoever's always in front of the camera.
  5. Lays out the book.A family cover, a page for each month named after what happened (October · Halloween, August · Barcelona), a print PDF and a small copy for your phone.

// Before you start

You needA Mac, with your photos in the Apple Photos app AndThe Claude desktop app on a paid plan, Code tab Do firstName your family's faces in Photos. The picks lean on it. Time30 to 60 minutes on a big library. Let it run.

It asks for permission to read your Photos library. If it can't get in, it stops and tells you what to click.

Paste this into the Code tab. It asks you two things: which year, and your family's names exactly as Photos has them.

The album builder
You are my photo-book builder. Turn my Mac's Apple Photos library into a beautiful year-in-review photo book — one polished PDF per year I ask for — plus a small phone-friendly version.

Setup: I'm on a Mac, my photos are in the Apple Photos app, and you have file + terminal access. You need to read my Photos library, which needs Full Disk Access for the app you're in (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access). If you can't read it, stop and tell me exactly how to grant it, then continue. Install what you need into a local Python virtualenv (osxphotos, Pillow, reportlab, pymupdf). Never move, edit, or delete my originals.

First ask me: (1) which year to build, and (2) the names of my close family exactly as Apple Photos tags them.

Then build the book:
- Read every photo that year; drop screenshots, hidden photos, and videos.
- Keep only photos where a family member's face is clear — eyes open, sharp, big enough to see (use Apple's own per-face quality and eye-state data). Toss dark, blurry, or looking-away shots.
- Remove bursts and near-duplicates; keep the best of each moment.
- Prefer people and gatherings; drop photos of just food, objects, or scenery.
- Use Apple's scene tags to keep variety within each month — don't let it fill up with twenty near-identical restaurant or playground shots.
- Balance ~15–25 great photos across every month so none is empty or over-stuffed.
- Make sure each family member shows up a fair number of times, and give each kid a couple of solo moments too — not just the ones who photograph most.
- Cover: the strongest shot with the whole family together, everyone facing the camera — never crop a face; if it's vertical, place it beside the title, don't stretch it.
- One divider page per month using a bright, front-facing family photo (never crop faces), and name each month's highlight from Apple's own tags — holidays, trips, notable places — so it reads like "October · Halloween" or "August · Barcelona".
- Clean editorial layout: justified rows, no cropping, fill each page, no lonely floating photos.
- If my originals are in iCloud and not downloaded, use the high-res previews already on my Mac. Save a full-res print PDF and a ~6 MB phone version, and show me a contact sheet to approve.

Work step by step, show progress, and ask before anything irreversible.

Both routes as one file (.md), if you'd rather keep it than copy it.

// When it's done

It shows you a contact sheet: every photo it picked, on one page. Don't like a photo, or a whole month? Tell it, and it swaps.

Then send the print PDF to any service that prints from a PDF. Printing at Lupa instead? See the tip below.

// Pro tip · Printing at Lupa

Printing at Lupa? Skip the PDF.

Lupa won't print a PDF you made somewhere else. It only prints books built in its own editor. So keep the choosing, and swap the last step for these. It works for both routes.

  1. Export for Lupa.Instead of the layout, paste this:
Export for Lupa
Skip the layout. Copy the photos you picked, full resolution, as JPGs into one folder on my Desktop called Lupa, no subfolders. Keep each photo's original date and time inside the file, because Lupa sorts by it. Skip anything smaller than 800×800 pixels. Tell me how many photos went in.
  1. Build it in Lupa.On your computer: lupa.co.il in Chrome, the web version (באתר). Sign in, upload the Lupa folder, pick a format and run the smart auto design (עיצוב אוטומטי חכם). Drag your cover photo on yourself.
  2. Titles and a last check.With Claude in Chrome, paste this:
Titles and a check
Open the Lupa tab with my book. On the first page of each day (or each month, for a year book), add a short page title: 40 characters max, starting with a word, not a number. Then go through the book page by page and tell me which pages have a cut-off face or two near-identical photos. Don't touch the cart or the order.
  1. Check every page, then order.You sign in, you order, you pay.

// What I hit in Lupa

  • Photos with no date go to the end of the book. The export keeps the dates.
  • Lupa fills pages by count, not by day, so a few pages mix two days. Fix them yourself, or leave them.
  • A title that starts with a number gets the number flipped to the end. Start with a word.
  • The full-bleed square cover crops faces. Pick a cover layout with a frame, then fix the crop with the pencil.
  • Lupa's drag and drop didn't respond to Claude. Drag the cover and any swaps yourself.
  • A QR code in a 4:3 frame gets cut. Ask Claude for one padded to 4:3.

// Lupa's limits

Per book25 to 864 photos. Our Italy book: 80 photos, 40 pages. Each photoAt least 800×800 pixels. The export skips smaller ones. OrderBy the date inside each photo. WhereA browser on your computer, not on your phone. You needClaude in Chrome for step 3, on a paid plan.

// The idea

I'm not a developer.

I described what I wanted the way I'd describe it to a person, and Claude did the miserable part.

That's what my workshop is. Two evenings, and you leave with something you built for your own life.

See the workshop