Digital photo books? Where do you get yours printed?

[jacinda]

Updated in post #7 - with another question too

I've got a ton of digital LOs sitting on my computer (all 8x8 size), and now I think it's about time I get them printed and into an album. I've been looking at getting a photo book done instead of printing each page individually. I think the photo book ends up cheaper in the long run anyway, and I like the idea of it being a book.

We have limited options here in New Zealand, so I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction to some Australian printers? Has anyone had a photo book printed already? Is the quality worth it? Is the price worth it? Is there an 8x8 option, or are they all rectangular format?

I would really appreciate your help on this. Thanks so much :p


Jacinda

[kirstiegai]

I use www.myreflections.com.au and have had 5 books done. They deliver to NZ.

[fazzbech]

I recommend My Reflections too! Heaps of places are starting to do photobooks now, have you tried Officeworks (not sure if they are in NZ?) or Snapfish?

One word of warning is to watch for trimming, as a lot of places seem to do it. It means you might lose stuff that is close to the edges. Might be worth asking for a sample page first. Good luck! I actually like printing out my 12x12's individually because I find I don't scrap in any order whatsoever!

[kirstiegai]

Since getting these books/albums printed I keep my stuff away from the edges or at least stick to one sode only that way it can get bound on the other.

[Chris]

Yep Jacinda I recommend My Reflections as well. I have to say that I have not had any books done yet although I am working on that for this year but they now do single LO's and just before Christmas I had about 40 single 12x12 LO's printed and the quality is absolutely awesome girl and I simply asked that my pages were not trimmed so I could do that myself....there is always that option so check them out and I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Oh and as Annette already said.....if in doubt ask for a sample and take it from there.

[carollee]

I have used Shutterfly and was really impressed with the quality and timeframes. The Aus $ made it quite favourable too.

However I will be trying My Reflections next.

Having said all that, I was disappointed with Snapfish. Quality of the printing was brilliant, but there was so much trimming done and not uniformed (eg. more from top than bottom on some layouts, and more from bottom than top on others). I lost a lot of detail on layouts.

[jacinda]

Wow, it's been a while since I started this thread huh! Well I got my books printed at My Reflections, and they did a superb job. I got the 8x8 lay flat option, and love it.

I am now about to finish a baby's First Year album for my nephew, and I'm scoping the printing market again to see if there is anything new since Jan 2008. I'd prefer a hardcover 8x8 or 10x10 option, but My Reflections doesn't do hardcovers for those sizes, only layflat.

Anyone know of an Australian printer than offers 8x8 or 10x10 hardcover book printing?? If I can't find anything else I'll have to go with the layflat option after all. Thanks.

[fazzbech]

Great to hear good feedback Jacinda!

I haven't really done much photo book printing myself yet, so I can't help I'm afraid! But I hope you find what you are after!

Love your smilie too, very cute!

[Ann-Marie]

I can't help either but I would love to see a pic of your layflat album open to see how the pages look in it. I am curious as to how it looks and how much the binding interferes with the pages.

I had a book just about complete but lost everything when my EHD and then hard drive crashed in sympathy with it! So I a starting over !

[jacinda]

Originally Posted by Ann-Marie

I can't help either but I would love to see a pic of your layflat album open to see how the pages look in it. I am curious as to how it looks and how much the binding interferes with the pages.

OK, I'll take some pics of it tomorrow. The binding holes are only 0.7cm from the edge of the page, so as long as you don't have journalling that goes super close to the page edge you're fine. If that occurred on my page during upload, I just changed the order of that page so it would be on the other side of the binding, KWIM?

I also found their 'no cropping' to be exactly that. If I had a 2mm border around one of my layouts, or a small element tucked in the corner of a page, then that's exactly what I could see once it was printed. I didn't lose anything from what I'd designed which was great.

Their customer service is excellent too. I found a couple of my photos were pixelated or funny coloured, and My Reflections went above and beyond in determining the cause. They even went down the road to another commercial print place to see if it printed differently there (which it didn't). What it ended up being was I had resized some of my photos so many times during the creation of my layout, that it had lost all quality. Of course I couldn't tell that just from looking at my computer screen. I've since learnt not to fiddle so much with my photos, but I was still fairly new to digital scrapbooking in those early pages.

The layflat book is nice and compact, and sturdier than I would have thought. The pages are strong and the quality of the binding is excellent. I would have preferred a hardcover option in the 8x8, but I'm still happy overall with what I got.