Designing a photo book isn’t just a case of uploading your images and waiting for your book to arrive. It involves making several decisions, all of which will impact the quality of the photo album you come away with, its durability and overall aesthetic.
In this article, we’ll discuss four of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to photo book printing and designing an album that will exceed your expectations.
Also read: Here’s What to Look For When Selecting an Online Photo Book Service in 2023.
1. Paper Choice
When it comes to photo book paper, you really do get what you pay for. With some photo book printing companies, you will have a range of different papers to choose from, including acid-free, archival and silver halide. Additionally, you may also be able to choose between finishes, with Matte and Gloss among the most popular options.
At PikPerfect, the papers of our layflat albums and photo books are FSC certified eco-friendly and developed to withstand the test of time. We print these hardcover photo books on high-end inkjet printers on 200g matte paper. Photo books handle like a book, with flexible pages that turn with ease. Layflat albums, on the other hand, have a glossy or matte protective coating, which makes them thicker, and lie completely flat. While these papers offer an exceptional color range, they don’t have the detail and depth of FUJICOLOR silver halide paper, which is what we use for our premium flushmount albums.
Silver halide paper offers the widest range of colors, highly accurate skin tones and outstanding density, making it the perfect choice if you’re after the best that money can buy. Lustre is the most popular option as it offers some level of shine and impressive contrast while our Silk finish has a light raster structure with a more reduced sheen. Lastly, our FUJICOLOR Crystal Archive Art Velvet paper has a zero-reflective top layer. The velvet surface appeals to the sense of touch and offers the ultimate, deep-matte experience. Our premium flushmount albums all feature these beautifully thick pages that are mounted onto a rigid board for a high-end finish.
2. Cover Choice
A beautifully designed and crafted photo book cover not only complements your living space decor but also draws you in with a textural experience when held in your hands. Leather, linen, velvet and microsuede are all popular cover choices for high-end wedding albums as they look and feel luxurious. If you love the look of leather but prefer an animal-friendly option, look for a photo book printing company that offers leatherette covers.
Alternatively, you may want to feature one of your favorite photos on the cover, back and spine with an image wrap design. Printed on a single sheet of photo paper, your image is then laminated with a matte finish and wrapped around the photo book.
For a combination of the two, you could opt for a square or rectangular cameo window in your leather, leatherette or linen cover, which enables you to personalize it with a photo of your choice. Also increasing in popularity are glass cover photo albums, which feature a glass front displaying your favorite image while leather or linen is wrapped around the back.
3. Text Options
Whether it’s your names and the date of your wedding or the travel destination you visited, a title is an essential ingredient when designing an album cover. Some photo book printing services offer a variety of choices when it comes to text, from printed to embossed and laser etched titles.
If you’ve selected a leather or fabric cover, you’ll probably have to choose between an embossed or laser etched title, which offer varying degrees of customization. Some are limited to particular fonts and sizes while others can incorporate a design or logo that you have conceived from scratch.
With embossed titles, the text will be stamped down into the cover in your choice of color. With laser etching, a thin layer of the fabric or leather is removed, resulting in a slight indentation.
4. Binding Choice
The choice of binding not only affects the feel of your photo album and its handling but also its durability. At the cheapest end of the spectrum are spiral bound photo books, with the pages punched and bound using a metal wire. More common is PUR binding, in which the inner pages are glued together at the spine, much like a cofffee-table book.
But if you’re after a photo album with pages that lie completely flat, then you need to consider a lay-flat binding technique. In this case, the pages are printed in seamless spreads which are then glued back to back, meaning that the pages lie flat, without any of the image getting “lost” in the fold. This is ideal if you have panoramic or showcase images that you want to present across two-page spreads and is the preferred choice for those wanting a high-end or luxurious wedding album.
Ready to take the plunge and design a customized photo album? Upload your photos today and start making an album that will WOW your family and friends!
