Turning Mom's Navy Scrapbook into a Book Using AI

My mother is 94, and her Navy scrapbook was falling apart. The pages were brittle, the binding was loose, and every time the album was opened, another corner crumbled. She would love to look through it, but it was getting harder to do without losing pieces.

This is the story of how a folder of phone photos became a book she can page through on her computer, and a printed copy she can hold. It took about four hours and a lot of help from Claude, an AI assistant.

Mom's service

Mom joined the Navy in 1952 and served until 1955. She was a WAVE, a member of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, the name originally given to the Navy's women's reserve during World War II. She trained as a hospital corpsman.

Going through the scrapbook page by page was like opening a time capsule. Mom's service took her across the country: from Bainbridge, Maryland, for recruit training, to San Diego, California, for the Naval Hospital Corps School, then on to Corpus Christi, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana, where she met my dad.

How I did it

I didn’t write a perfect prompt.
I just described what I had and what I wanted,
like I’d explain it to a friend. Most of my changes
came from looking at the draft and remembering
the real album.

I didn't plan to make a book. I needed to clear the scrapbook off my dining room table, and I wanted to save the pages for posterity. So I took 125 photos with my phone: the cover, every page spread, and close-ups of anything with small print.

I wasn't particularly careful with the photos. Plenty of the photos were sideways, upside down, or showed the table and parts of my dining room. I hoped that someday I'd have time to crop them and put them in a folder on Mom's computer, but I didn't think I would ever have time to make a book.

Two months after taking the photos, I saw the folder on my desktop and, on a whim, asked Claude what it could do. I've been using Claude and ChatGPT for genealogy projects, and I usually talk to them through my computer's microphone. I showed Claude the folder and said:

"This is my 94-year-old mother's Navy scrapbook. She would love to look at it, but it's too large and falling apart. I took photos of everything and thought a PowerPoint, PDF, or some kind of book would be good. She uses the computer, so going through a PDF might be good. I also don't mind a printable book. What would be the easiest method for putting these in some kind of readable form for her? Many pictures would need to be rotated and cropped, and some are duplicates."

Claude looked through all of the photos and explained what it could do. I was sold when it wrote, "You don't need to do the cleanup yourself. I can do it from here." Claude took care of the following for all 125 photos:

1. Turned every photo right side up

2. Cropped away the table, the carpet, and my hand

3. Found the duplicate shots and kept the best ones

4. Put everything in a PDF in the order I took them

After that came the part only I could do. I paged through the draft and spoke my changes into the microphone in plain words, the way I'd tell a person: "Delete page 25." "Move page 27 after page 24." "Split page 30 into two pages, one for each side of the scrapbook." "Crop this down to just the booklet." After several rounds, the 125 photos had become a 67-page book.

One book, three ways to read it

Once the pages were set, Claude made the same 67 pages in three formats: a PDF Mom can page through on her computer, zooming in on the small print; page images sized for a Shutterfly photo book; and a PDF for Blurb's Large Landscape hardcover, with a matching wrap-around cover.

I chose Blurb because I've used them before, and for a small fee they also sell a digital version (PDF) of the book. I went with the large hardcover so the menus, letters, and newspaper clippings print big and easy to read. The cover is Navy blue, with her pink embossed album cover on the front, her Navy patches on the back, and the four places she served listed underneath.

Tips for your own scrapbook

• Photograph everything. Shoot each full spread, then close-ups of anything with small print or handwriting. If I did it again, I'd take a little more care with each shot. Even in the finished book, I can still see bits of the table in a few photos. Shoot straight down, and fill the frame with the page.

• Take more close-ups than you think you need. The close-ups are what make letters and menus readable in the finished book.

• Keep the photos in album order. It makes putting the book together much easier.

• Work in rounds. Look over a draft, fix what jumps out at you, then look again. I went back and forth several times, and each pass made the book better.

• Make a screen version first. It's free to look at and easy to change. Order the printed book once you love it.

The book

The first copy from Blurb arrived with a binding issue. I sent them a photo, and they're sending a replacement at no charge. I'll keep the original, and Mom will get the new one. So now we'll each have a copy!

The scrapbook itself is safely put away now. But the pages Mom filled with menus, postcards, and letters in the 1950s are ready for her to enjoy again, whenever she likes.

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Diana

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