Need help editing scanned images of old photo album pages PSE 9

Question

Before I begin this project, I thought I'd get some advice from someone who has undertaken a similar project.  I have three photo albums from the 50's and 60's.  The albums were made by my mother who mounted the photos (mostly black and white but some color photos) on construction paper (of various colors) using the corner holders or glue.  She hand cut the construction paper so each page is not a perfect rectangle ( about 11" tall, 8.5" wide).  The pages were punched and put into a three-ring binder. 
She added text to the edge of the photo and/or to the construction paper.  Each page contains one to 6 photos and text.  Each album has about 120 pages.  I want to keep the notes on the construction paper so I scanned each page into a TIF files, 400 dpi and stored the images in a separate folder for each volume. 
I use (poorly) PSE 9.  I see it has a auto straighten/crop feature that can be used one photo at a time.  I tried the divide scanned images function and that did not fully separate all images on the page and also created an image for stray objects on the page such as an unused corner holder.  (I know those things have a better name but it escapes me now.) 
I plan to create photo books for my siblings.  I am now thinking of cropping the image of each page (rather than each photo on the page) into a uniform size, adjusting levels, contrast and sharpness, saving this image to a JPEG file, and using these edited JPEG images to create the photo book.  Since each page was hand-cut, there will areas of white where one page was torn or cut smaller than another page.  Some pages will have blanks where old photos have been lost leaving behind only the corner things.  It won't be perfect but it will be an image of the album as it exists today. 
My questions are: 
The pages are about 11 by 8.5.  Does anyone know a photo service that prints photo albums in a portrait layout in this size?  I  have been unable to find one; it looks like most online photo books are wider rather than taller. 
Let's assume I use a company such as Shutterfly that offers a 12x12 format.  I assume it would be better to edit the images in PSE9 rather than any online software.  What should I do to keep the proportions in the current images true but make the image fit a 12x12 page, for example? 
IS there any other editing software anyone can recommend that will speed this up, hopefully a software that would take multiple photos at one time, auto-straighten and auto crop to a set size?  And also auto contrast/level/sharp.  If I could use such auto features on these images and then go back and adjust the photos that did not play well with the auto features, that would save me time. 
I appreciate anyone's input.  I dread doing this but we have one set of photos and 5 siblings so it has to be done.  Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
Mentioning your issues one by one:
1) PSE does not have any portrait Photobook available, so your thought was the best way to get the work done is by choosing the 12x12 - shutterfly one.
2) PSe does a good job of editing the images. You can set your images of approx. 11x8  size to fit to the 12x12 page. Just choose a one photo page Layout for the page and then right click on the image to " Fit photo in the frame".
3) If more edits are required for the image, you can easily go to Advanced mode and edit your photos, layouts, move the frames, images or add effects to the images.
4) Photo book creation sure takes time. because, you want it to be the best. I am sure PSE would help you best here.
Go ahead and create you photobook. Inc ase you get stuck somewhere, you can always post here to get help!
Cheers,
Swarnima