Quality Comparison of Photo Books

by Jason Dunn
(Calgary)

I live in Canada and wanted to check out what options were available to me, so I wrote a rather huge review to talk about them. :-)

http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/97676/

Jason Dunn
Digital Home Thoughts
www.digitalhomethoughts.com

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Quality Comparison of Photo Books

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Aug 22, 2011
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Comparison of Photo Books
by: Anonymous

I found your photo book review very interesting and helpful. I thought I would add my comments regarding my recent experiences.

I have tried three photo book companies:
Kodak Gallery
Snapfish
VioVio

In all three cases, I had the books shipped to US addresses to avoid the problems with brokerage fees. Kodak Gallery does have a Canadian facility but the prices are higher and there do not seem to be as good discounts.

Kodak Gallery: I really like the 12X14 format, which is not available from many photo book publishers. I produced two hard-cover books: one which contained 64 pages and and another with 34 pages. The print quality was superb. Without a special coupon, it is quite expensive. The help service is excellent. Negative comments: I found the uploading and layout capabilities to be a bit limited. Nevertheless, I was very pleased with the results.

SnapFish: The maximum size is 12X12. With coupons, Snapfish can be relatively inexpensive. I have had a couple of hard cover photo books printed by SnapFish. The interior quality is very good. The covers I have tried do not look as professional as the other choices. Support is excellent. Negative: The cover options are too limited, and I do not think they are nearly as attractive as the others. I really like the Kodak large format (12X14) for "coffee table display".

VioVio: My largest project, which took over a year to produce, was printed by VioVio. It contained 74 pages and was hard cover printed wrap around. The quality was excellent and any deficiencies were the result of limitations in my own design abilities. The final product looked like I had thought it would. The most important positive point to make is that I had COMPLETE control over all aspects of the layout of the cover and interior. Thus, I got full wrap-around cover with spine printing. VioVio is one of the most economical (standard pricing) of the photo book producers, so I would rate the value of their products as Excellent. Negatives: There is no telephone or live chat support, and the E-mail support often fails to answer your question -- often they just point to a FAQ on their website which I had already read! The largest size is 8.5X11 (either portrait or landscape). When I started my project, they offered something which sounded like a better quality binding, but only for the Portrait format, and I would have preferred Landscape. By the time I finished the project, they had discontinued that special binding but it was too late for me to switch to Landscape.

Conclusion: For quality and availability of large format (12X14), I would have to rate Kodak Gallery best of the three. However, for flexibility and value, if 8.5X11 is adequate, and if you can live with their E-Mail help, VioVio gives the best "standard pricing" value, and excellent quality.

Now, I want to try a Canadian publisher.

Jul 22, 2011
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Great, helpful review
by: Anonymous

Great review with excellent comparisons of different products. For me, it would be even better if there was a review of PhotoInPress which is another Canadian photobook company.

Also, one aspect that I am looking for is the ability to format my own pages (place the pictures how I wish to, tilt the picture, or to add a text box wherever). I haven't tried the new version of MyPublisher, but I have made one book with them and I was able to resize the picture boxes on their layouts by dragging the markings on the box outlines. However, I never figured out how to add text on top of a picture if there was no text box there.

Good work Jason.

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