Why not let this be the year you don't wait until the last minute to send out your season's greetings? In fact, if you have a library full of photos from the year, now's a great time to take advantage of them--not just for holiday cards, but also for custom calendars, books, and more.

There's plenty of online companies that will take your photos and turn them into holiday greetings. But if you use iPhoto, you already have everything you need to create custom cards, calendars, and books. And using iPhoto saves you the work of having to upload your image to someone else's server and then design your creations in a Web browser. Plus, you can take advantage of special features like maps, custom fonts, and flexible templates.

Here are some of our favorite tips for designing beautiful iPhoto projects.

You'll generally get the best results from photos that have vivid colors and plenty of contrast. If you use a photo with soft, muted tones (for example, a foggy lake at dawn) you may see subtle vertical stripes, or striations, in the printed result. These tend to be most noticeable in calendars or full-page photos.