Photo book as wedding album?

matthew_o50 · 2 Jul 2012 at 11:50

Hey guys,

After getting married last September I still haven't got round to getting our album made. My cousin and her husband took all our wedding photographs for us as a wedding gift but they are charging £300-£600 for an album in their business. They gave me all the photos on disc so I can do whatever I want with them.

I was thinking of getting a good photo book made where I would be able to get all of the photos into it rather than just 30 or so in a professional album.

What online companies would you recommend to do this that are of a high quality and not too expensive? What size is best for this sort of Album considering that some of the pictures are cropped into unusual sizes and what quality of paper is best to use that will last?

Thanks for any help you can give me!

Matt

ishamy · 2 Jul 2012 at 11:56

We had our album done through Photobox, its great! The quality is pretty good and for the price not to bad, as they have offers all the time. We went for the 'A4 Crystal Deluxe Photobook', which hold only the professional shots, we have been working on an A3 book for some time (2 years haha) ourselves which will comprize of friends/family's shots from all thier cameras mixed in, basically our favorite photos of the day.

Russinating · 2 Jul 2012 at 11:59

Haven't used them but I've been recommend to and will be using www.blurb.co.uk for my girlfriend's sister's album.

matthew_o50 · 2 Jul 2012 at 12:16

Taking a look at both. Thanks!

An Exception · 2 Jul 2012 at 12:21

I'v used blurb, but was going to try out these guy's as they look to have more options...

http://www.albelli.co.uk/promotions/photobooks_sea_25?utm_campaign=GA_photobook_specific_search_25_off_photobook-AG_Create_photo_book-KW_create%20photo%20book_b&gclid=CKatjeb73q8CFUsMtAodOyv8_g

Russinating · 2 Jul 2012 at 12:37

I've used Albelli in the past when they had a free book offer on around Christmas. Was ok.

Schizophonic · 2 Jul 2012 at 12:54

Hi Matt, the companies are fine for consumer photo albums but if you want more of the top end you really need to be registered as a 'photographer' to get access to their online printing. How much would you be willing to spend on good and lasting wedding album?

Raymond Lin · 2 Jul 2012 at 13:02

High Quality and inexpensive doesn't really go together in the same sentence in my experience foir wedding albums.

It depends how you define quality, and you got to remember that you are printing a 1 off book. I look at Jamie Oliver's cookbook, look at the binding, look at the paper quality, the colour reproduction, paper weight, ink and think....£14.99 ?!!? To get THAT quality book for about 60 pages as a 1 off product will cost about 20 times that amount.

Blurb books works, for £50 you can get a book that is satisfactory, however it still won't be as nice as a £14.99 cookbook due to the mass produce nature of said product.

The reason that "30 photos" in a book is because the more pages you have, the more expensive it gets, these books (good quality ones) are printed and then cut and binded by hand. Depending on the book makers, £300 to £600 would even be cost price! For fun, one time I specced up a Jorgesen book and it came in north of 4 figures, its crazy.

Side point though, you don't want to put "all the photos" in the book (obviously depends on how many is "all"), if you have like 500 or something, it can actually get boring. Less is more and as long as you get the day across in the album with a good flow in it, you don't neccessarily need to put them all in it.

a1ex2001 · 2 Jul 2012 at 13:51

Raymond Lin said:
-snip-

Just to say I agree with all of the above!

Blurbs products that I have purchased have been very nice but not really cheap a photobook of good quality is going to cost you about £50 any less than that and you really are in the dregs of the market. The top end of Jessops photobooks are pretty decent too.

Proper wedding albums are in a different league which is why they are not cheap and also don't forget your money also buys the time it takes the photographer to design the layouts for each page in the book based on your choice of photos. Anyone who has tried to make a decent photo book will I'm sure agree that doing one is easy but doing one well is a challenge.

Don't like the sound of being limited to 30 photos that sounds to me like someone miss understood and it actually meant 30 pages which will do you more like 70 photos as you are unlikely to want every photo to cover an entire page particularly the detail shots.

While on the subject of numbers as Raymond said less is certainly more! Your togs may have given you 600 pics on a disc but don't put them all in the album you will simply never look at them as it will be massive and boring!

Finally consider a video slideshow as well again worth asking someone who knows what they are doing as they wil do a better job than you.

Demon · 2 Jul 2012 at 13:52

I did a Jessops premium photobook for the Sister in law's wedding I shot.

Lay-flat pages, printed cover, and took advantage of the 40% off offer, so ended up just over £30 delivered, I was very sceptical at first, but the software was fairly flexible and the book quality was very impressive..

An Exception · 2 Jul 2012 at 14:01

Raymond Lin said:
High Quality and inexpensive doesn't really go together in the same sentence in my experience foir wedding albums.

It depends how you define quality, and you got to remember that you are printing a 1 off book. I look at Jamie Oliver's cookbook, look at the binding, look at the paper quality, the colour reproduction, paper weight, ink and think....£14.99 ?!!? To get THAT quality book for about 60 pages as a 1 off product will cost about 20 times that amount.

Blurb books works, for £50 you can get a book that is satisfactory, however it still won't be as nice as a £14.99 cookbook due to the mass produce nature of said product.

The reason that "30 photos" in a book is because the more pages you have, the more expensive it gets, these books (good quality ones) are printed and then cut and binded by hand. Depending on the book makers, £300 to £600 would even be cost price! For fun, one time I specced up a Jorgesen book and it came in north of 4 figures, its crazy.

Side point though, you don't want to put "all the photos" in the book (obviously depends on how many is "all"), if you have like 500 or something, it can actually get boring. Less is more and as long as you get the day across in the album with a good flow in it, you don't neccessarily need to put them all in it.

Still, 20-30 pages really isn't enough to tell the whole story imo, although it probably was in the film days when photographers didn't take a fraction of the pictures the do now.
This is why I'm not really interested in the Queensbury and the like despite how beautiful and well made they are. For me I value content over the absolute quality of the album, which is why I'd personally opt for a high end photobook. I doubt the actual print quality itself is any different...

Nexus · 2 Jul 2012 at 14:24

Did you pay your cousin to take the photos?
Thats a pretty big ask for family on a day that really they should just be able to enjoy.

If you didn't pay them, then I would certainly be buying a book from them out of principal.
I'm sure as family they aren't going to charge you full whack for a photo book made up.

Raymond Lin · 2 Jul 2012 at 14:28

An Exception said:
Still, 20-30 pages really isn't enough to tell the whole story imo, although it probably was in the film days when photographers didn't take a fraction of the pictures the do now.
This is why I'm not really interested in the Queensbury and the like despite how beautiful and well made they are. For me I value content over the absolute quality of the album, which is why I'd personally opt for a high end photobook. I doubt the actual print quality itself is any different...

I never said 30 pages. Mine are minimum 40 pages (20 spreads).

I've seen a 10 spread design (20 pages) that was done so well it captured the day beautifully.

Bind that in a nice book from someone like Visonart and it'll be much much nicer than 100 spreads of everything, 5 photos of auntie Marie, 4 variation of the same shot in same location etc.

Quality, not quantity.

And when you say "I doubt the print quality is any different"

Have you actually seen one in person?

a1ex2001 · 2 Jul 2012 at 14:29

An Exception said:
Still, 20-30 pages really isn't enough to tell the whole story imo, although it probably was in the film days when photographers didn't take a fraction of the pictures the do now.
This is why I'm not really interested in the Queensbury and the like despite how beautiful and well made they are. For me I value content over the absolute quality of the album, which is why I'd personally opt for a high end photobook. I doubt the actual print quality itself is any different...

I'd say 70-80 pictures should be enough which will fit quite happily into a 30 page album, how many do you go for?

An Exception · 2 Jul 2012 at 14:55

a1ex2001 said:
I'd say 70-80 pictures should be enough which will fit quite happily into a 30 page album, how many do you go for?

Yeh it should be enough, but it depends on the wedding and the photographer imo. Also, for me I'd say averaging close to 3 images per page is getting a little cramped.

I'd probably go for around 60-70 pages personally.

I don't see the point in going to such effort to tell a story in great detail, and then only show a fraction of it in a uber high end album.

For instance, the photographer below has taken around 190 odd images, 20-40% or so could be culled and wouldn't be missed, that leaves 115 images or more album worthy images. These would again need further culling to fit in a Queensbury like album. Personally I would opt to save the content over a fancy binding album...
http://www.guycollierphotography.com/?p=16334

If you watched the Zach and Jody Gray course over at creative live, you'l see they don't use uber fancy albums, and instead use Kiss albums.
Unfortunately from what I can tell, they don't deal internationally yet.
http://gokiss.co/books

What I'm probably going to do, is see how the below book looks when you max out all the the options and get it bound in leather...
http://www.albelli.co.uk/products/photo-books/landscape-large

Raymond Lin · 2 Jul 2012 at 15:55

Obviously, one has to take context into account. There are many variables to consider when deciding what albums one offers to clients, from profit margin (to offer Queensbury one would need to immediately charges more) to the target audience of the market you are aiming for.

I have been to trade shows where all these book makers has samples on display. I have seen and felt a 4 figure Jorgesen book in person. (They also make a very nice iPad case!) Theire books are very nice, it has little things that your cheaper alternative will never have, i.e. matt and digital combined, protective sheets between pages, amazing hand crafted leather cover, gold plated corners protectors etc. Those books though, are obviously target at a very high end market and one's packages would be north of £5,000 if one was offering one of those books, otherwise you might as well work for free !

Kiss albums are very nice, very much like Visionart but leather covers in funky colours, it is quite contempory and is in what I call the "middle/higher" sector of the market. However, after doing some research I do not find they are much different to say, what Loxley can offer, who are "local" - book makers in the states has a longer turn around time, higher shipping cost. Also, ordering from the states will be affected constantly by the exchange rate, it is fine currently as the exchange rate has good for us but this time last year it would cost 20% more to make the same book.

That said, I still plan to get a sample book from Visionart to see for myself, as they didn't attend the tradeshows I was at.

RussD · 13 Jul 2012 at 15:30

You can't go wrong with Blurb. I have had 4 7x7 softcovers done with 140 pages and 4 12x12 at 140 pages. All were GREAT with their normal paper. If you want top paper then you pay top prices. Not one of the Bride & Groom complained. They all loved them.
In UK the normal paper is printed in Holland, the Top paper in USA. Lots of complaints with USA printed books.
Pop into Blurb and have a read.

matthew_o50 · 17 Jul 2012 at 12:00

Thanks for all the replies guys, not been able to get on here in a while!

There are around 200 pictures I want to include. I've started to have a go making a photo book myself and estimate it's going to cost about £80 in the end. If it's not good enough I guess I can save up for a bit and get it done properly. Would just be nice to have some sort of album to show friends and family that weren't there nearly a year down the line.

Raymond Lin I understand what you mean about including too many pictures could become boring but my photographer did a really good job and there are no 2 photos the same so I feel the day was captured perfectly and want to include most of them.

Nexus I did not pay my cousin to take the pictures as we had agreed I would perform all the music at their wedding as a gift and they would take our pictures as a gift and so that they could have another wedding under their belt.