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11/15/2005 07:05:05 AM · #1
I had a wedding customer come to me yesterday asking if I would put together one of those "photo books" for them where the pictures are printed right on the page.

So I'm wondering, what's the best solution out there?

I, of course, want a good quality solution. But it is going to have to be affordable (to my customer) and priced such that I can make a profit too.

Any recommendations out there?
11/15/2005 07:26:58 AM · #2
I think Jorgensen albums do something like that, but I'm not sure if they are in US, just Australia and UK! You can get the prints done to the egde of each page and also to flow between 2 pages! Very swish looking!
11/15/2005 07:57:20 AM · #3
I have been looking at the issue for my own wedding pics. Since speaking to Makka about Jorgensen, I have some of their pro bound albums on order, expected any day now.

They do have a number of distributors, but prefer to deal with photographers, not the public direct. That means buying "sample" albums with your first order.

I looked very closely at the edge printed albums that Makka is talking about. I want my honeymoon pics to be presented nicely, and I have since shot a wedding where the b&g may want to upgrade to something a bit more impressive album-wise. The process is to make your own prints at the right size for the book and send them to Jorgensen, who will make the book, trim the leaves to the precise size of the photos and then bind the leaves to form a book with edge to edge printing. It is not printing onto the page, per se. But the result looks pretty stunning (on the website).

I have not seen any sites that provide a full, high quality, one off book printing service. There are a few that seem to do a reasonable job, and I may send a couple of test runs off to see, but I have not come across very many unqualified recommendations for these sites. I think that they are more geared towards consumers than serious amateurs or pros, and it is the "high quality" bit where they fall down. Would be very pleased to be told that I am wrong on this, however!
11/15/2005 08:03:21 AM · #4
Hey legalbeagle! I'm glad you got some albums sorted out with them! Sounds like it's going along nicely for you! :)

11/15/2005 08:22:31 AM · #5
Illuma Wedding Books

Pricing: Prices
11/15/2005 08:39:31 AM · #6
Best solution? LaVie, Queensbery and Graphistudio.

Best value? Easily those Illuma Books I've been hyping on DPC for the last month.
11/15/2005 09:34:51 AM · #7
Here's some that I found:

mypublisher.com
graphistudio.com
apollo-imagizing
sharedink.com
shutterfly.com
snapfish.com
asukabook.com
onetruemedia.com
firsteditionoriginals.com
ubuildabook.com
viovio.com
scrapbookbooks.com
cornerstonealbums.com
zookbinders.com

I think GraphiStudio's books are the nicest I've seen, but I have no first hand experience with them, and their web site doesn't list prices.

Here's a link to a thread that I started a while ago. It has links to even older threads.

Good luck!
11/15/2005 11:36:46 AM · #8
Glad to see some better looking options than I had originally found.

Thanks Makka for your help - the Jorgensen albums are pretty pricey, but should be quite fantastic.
11/15/2005 11:53:17 AM · #9
I have ordered books from Ofoto (now Kodak Gallery) and My Publisher. The Ofoto book was not bad (for Dad, for Father's Day), but it was not up to the level of quality that I would want for a wedding book. I also felt very constrained by the lack of flexibility in their limited layout templates.

I just received a book from My Publisher that I had done for my sister's wedding. I was quite pleased with it. (She hasn't seen it yet, as it is for Christmas.) My Publisher allows for full-bleed printing, so I was able to do the entire layout in Photoshop with a custom background, non-standard picture sizes, my own font for the text, etc. If you want, they also have numerous layout templates as well which can be mixed with full-bleed pages.

My mother and several co-workers saw my sisters book and thought it looked great. Hopefully, my sister will. If I order another photo book, they will be the ones that I use.
11/15/2005 07:28:57 PM · #10
Originally posted by ginjer:

I just received a book from My Publisher that I had done for my sister's wedding. I was quite pleased with it.


What size book? I hate the ads on the small and medium size. The oversize 12x16 book is fairly great if you dont want a leather cover.


11/17/2005 10:07:17 AM · #11
Heres another good company and your first book is 50% off!
//asukabook.com/getstarted-overview.html
11/17/2005 11:08:46 AM · #12
Thanks everyone!

I gave MyPublisher a try this morning. I put together a fairly nice book, with 51 pages in it, for a customer of mine. They were asking for the leather bound version of it and all. I'm eager to see what it looks like!

I did manage to find a coupon this morning (thank heavens for Google!) that allowed me to buy one, get one free. So I purchased two copies ... one for the customer and one that I can keep and show to future clients.

Thanks again for the advice, I think it worked out well!
11/17/2005 11:12:19 AM · #13
Originally posted by dwterry:

I gave MyPublisher a try this morning. I put together a fairly nice book, with 51 pages in it, for a customer of mine. They were asking for the leather bound version of it and all. I'm eager to see what it looks like!

Very cool David! Please, let us know how it turns out after you get it.

11/17/2005 11:23:51 AM · #14
My wedding albums from Jorgensen have just arrived (not printed, but matted album pages) - they are of extremely good quality and of very high finish. At the price, I had not expected any less! Now I just need to assemble with prints.

I could be interested in MyPublisher for my own honeymoon pics though - will be interested to hear whether the album looks good.
11/17/2005 11:50:19 AM · #15
I can nit pick the album (mypublisher) but everyone that has seen it loves it.

I plan on getting another copy, gonna try teh leather and one side printing (same price as 2 sided printing) cause it'll make it thicker, and therfore more impressive.

Been reading up...spec wise, 180 DPI to 200DPI. Less will / might cause quality issues and more is a waste of upload time (so says their site).

I'll be ordering 6 more books in the next week, 2 8x12 hardcover and 4 6x9 softcover.

One idea i got from a wedding photographer was to order 2 albums every time -one to give, one to keep. The keeper can be a portfolio item, or what he also uses it for is he offers a warranty - If ever (or 5 years, etc) the bride loses, damages, or destroys her album, he will replace it free (one time). Since he has a back up copy this works. Great additional sales aid!
11/17/2005 12:02:24 PM · #16
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:

180 DPI to 200DPI


Their printer runs on 175 lines per inch, which is presumably the reason for this restriction. Solid printing will probably provide better quality than ink jet, I would have thought, though.
11/17/2005 12:05:17 PM · #17
I rather like the results I got from Cornerstone Albums. I did not buy their software, I just did the layout using Adobe InDesign and Photos on PS CS. Worked out quite nicely.
11/17/2005 03:57:50 PM · #18
Originally posted by legalbeagle:

Originally posted by Prof_Fate:

180 DPI to 200DPI


Their printer runs on 175 lines per inch, which is presumably the reason for this restriction. Solid printing will probably provide better quality than ink jet, I would have thought, though.


I will know more after my next book, as i missed the guidelines the first time and got (to everyone but me) good results. I found some of the pics soft and some blockiness, but then some pics were at ISO 800 and those seem the worst and the worst of them in the blackest areas (like a tux). It did warn me that some pics were too low DPI, but it didn;t tell me which ones, 1 or 20 of them....so i went ahead anyway. I do expect better results this next time though.
09/26/2006 05:27:32 AM · #19
Can anyone tell me how thick the pages are in any of these photo books? I'm looking for one which has really tick (3-4mm) pages. Basically its like stiff card rather than paper. I have seen a number of Photographer using this type of book for wedding books but I didn't like to ask where they got them printed.

Any help, really appreciated.
10/24/2006 05:22:15 AM · #20
I'm struggling to work out which is the best photobook vendor for my requirements. I want to compile my wedding photos in a leather-bound photobook (without a hole in the cover). Seem to me that the companies with good software do not do this (i.e. picaboo) and the companies that do it have poor software (i.e. yophoto).

Any suggestions?
10/24/2006 05:41:36 AM · #21
Originally posted by PaulE:

I'm struggling to work out which is the best photobook vendor for my requirements. I want to compile my wedding photos in a leather-bound photobook (without a hole in the cover). Seem to me that the companies with good software do not do this (i.e. picaboo) and the companies that do it have poor software (i.e. yophoto).

Any suggestions?


You could try www.photobox.co.uk

They do a leatherette cover with hole in the front. I have had one done and Quality was OK, but not great. I would not be happy to offer it as product to wedding clients.
I'm going to try MyPublisher next...
10/24/2006 06:41:15 AM · #22
Has any one used Blurb.com. It looks like great value and you can have a vast number of pages

161-200 for $47.95
301-440 for $79.95

Even with shipping to the UK this still appears to be an attractive offer.


10/24/2006 07:24:41 AM · #23
I have an account with Asuka Book.. They are cheap, but compared to a lot of the other ones out there they look cheap (in my opinion). The pages are very flimsy, i.e, very easy to rip. But they are a cost effective solution to what you are looking for. However if you want something that is built like a tank, look at Graphistudios books, they do a large range and the quality is great. BUT, if you want something that both looks & feels awesome, is built like an aircraft carrier then take a look at Queensbury Albums. They supply both the classic style album and the more contempory `digital magazine` albums in a variety of styles, they supply the software to design the album (if you so wish). They also do what is known is a `Duo` album, which is a mixture of classic matted prints and also the `magazine` style printed directly on the page, Queensbury also have `fly out` pages which is great for those group shots as it expands to 4 pages wide. Granted they cost a fair bit but the customers absolutely love them..
10/24/2006 09:27:39 AM · #24
i would say that graphi studio takes the cake for fancy high class albums. Their prices aren't listed as they market to professional photographers only. The same goes for asukabooks.

I thought asuka was supposed to be not too bad quality, marksimms?? i haven't seen any of their books mind you, just read different things in forums.

anyone know how queensberry pricing compares to graphistudio? I have a graphistudio price list, but don't know much about queensberry.

Message edited by author 2006-10-24 09:30:25.
10/24/2006 10:02:01 AM · #25
There are two ways of doing this - the 'magazine style' is a thin printed on paper book, either hard or soft bound. mypublisher is a low end version. Illuma and Asuka are better, but only accessible by pros - asuka checks, illuma (apollo photo imagizing) may or may not.

the other option is to make up the pages and have them printed as photographs and get a 'flush mount' type of album (as opposed to the matted type) - these have pages with self adhesive that you stick the print to. ArtLeather iMount books are of this type, but again, you have to be a pro to get acecss. TAP (taprell loomis) can be found on the web and they have similar products anyone can buy.
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