When Judy and Alan Richardson returned to Hawai'i from their trip to Peru, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands in November, they brought back more than a few reminders of their vacation.

The couple took around 10,000 photographs plus movie footage documenting the wildlife, spectacular landscapes and people on their journey.

"It was a wonderful trip," Judy Richardson said ... "and I knew I wanted to do something special with my photos."

A skilled photographer and enthusiastic traveler, Richardson maintains a Web site for her photos, and she also gives PowerPoint presentations on her travels. For this trip she created a hardback book using photos from the Galapagos Islands.

For anyone who has hundreds, even thousands of digital photos stacked up on their hard drive, being able to design and order a beautiful coffee-table gift book from the home computer is a satisfying project. Programs such as iPhoto, Shutterfly, Blurb and MyPublisher are elegant, visual and nearly effortless — even for the technology-challenged.

You can sift the best photos for display and be encouraged to delete those you know you won't use.

For as little as $30, you can choose the size of the book, use single- or double-sided pages, and specify background colors and design. You can insert maps, personal travelogue and choose a soft, hard or spiral bound cover. Or, you can throw your photos in and let the program do it all for you. It's a snap.

Richardson, who is detail-oriented and passionate about photography, first viewed and edited her photos in Photoshop on her computer. This being her first book, she chose Shutterfly "for its easy-to-follow instructions" and a hardback, 8-by-8-inch format to see how it would turn out. "I liked this size; it was easy for me to work with," she said.

At an additional cost, Richardson extended the standard 20 pages to 100. When she was satisfied with each page layout and captions, she clicked "send." The book arrived in the mail less than two weeks later.

The result: a high-quality, professional-looking memoir of a fabulous trip ... and a happy traveler. "I think of (the book) as a portfolio for my photographs," she said. It's a great way to let others view photographs in a finished format without a computer.