Capturing the Moments into Pictures

Ever come back from a major holiday trip with loads of photographs in hand and wished you could show them off in a more professional manner?

Well, on a recent trip to Nepal, I took so many nice photos that I really wanted a way to show them to my family and friends in a more impressive way.

A bunch of 4R or 5R prints? Too small!

A number of A4 printouts from an inkjet printer? Too easily damaged and too much of a hassle to carry around a folder.

Well, then how about making a coffee table book? In many ways this is the perfect solution – you can show off your prints in a larger size with no loose pages or prints to lose, all protected in a bound hardcover.

Just a few years ago, doing such a thing would have been unheard of – not only would you have to employ somebody to do the layout of your book but also you’d have to shop around for a printing company that will do it for you.

Even then, nobody would print you just one book – you’d have to order in bulk and therefore have to look around for buyers of the extras to cover the phenomenal cost of such an undertaking.

WORKING WELL: It’s best to have some kind of theme tying your images together.

Well, it’s now the digital age and believe it or not, you can actually do what was once impossible – print a single hardbound or paperback book just for yourself or as a gift to your family and friends.

Such a book, if properly made, would also be great for professional photographers as a portfolio of their work.

A number of companies have popped up recently that produce so-called photo books.

These photo books come in a variety of sizes, from small, pocketable 5R-size books to A4 size and even a truly impressive A3 size.

First things first

Before you even get started with creating a photo book, you’re going to have to gather a bunch of photos.

This isn’t as simple as it sounds – unless you only plan to have a single photo on each page of a 40-page A3 photo book for example, you’re probably looking at close to 80 photographs that you have to collate just for this purpose.

In fact, even if you’re going for a simple 12-page double-sided book, you need to prepare at least 30 or so shots to make it really interesting.

Once you have the photos, you want to plan how you want the photo book to look, which means deciding which photos will look good together.

Getting an idea for the layout of your photo book is important as it determines the flow of images from page to page and thus how attractive the finished product will look when other people look at it.

Once you’ve decided on the shots, all you need to do next is to go online to one of the companies which offer the photo book service for the next step in the process.

Photo book companies

The photo book industry is still pretty new in the Malaysian market, and my research only turned up three companies which offer the service – Photobook (www.photobook.com.my), Pixart (www.pixart.com.my) and Ecaztudios (www.ecazstudios.com).

These companies offer varying levels of service and size of books so you should take a look at our guide and decide which one is right for you.

Once you’ve decided on the one you want, you need to go to the company’s website and download their free proprietary software to help you create the book.

The one exception is Ecazstudios, which does not have any software for you to download – instead the site requires that you use a program like iPhoto (if you’re using a Mac) or Adobe InDesign to do the layout.

Once the layout is done, you just send in the file (either online or via snail mail) and make a payment for the book, and voila about a week later you get your book!

However, which photo book company is best? Well, it all depends on what you want.

Here’s a quick look at the three companies we looked at.

Photobook.com.my

As far as variety goes, photobook.com.my has the most choices when it comes to book sizes – the company offers the small 5R (20 x 15cm) size, a 21 x 21cm book, A4 landscape, A4 portrait, 30 x 30cm large photo book and the impressive A3 (40 x 30cm) book for serious photo enthusiasts.

The company’s Templatexpert Photostudio software is also the most advanced of the pre-packaged proprietary applications we’ve tried, allowing you to move pictures around, resize them and even spread a single picture out across two pages (if the resolution is high enough).

There are also a number of pre-made and downloadable templates to choose from and the software even allows you to add different types of borders to your photos.

PANAROMIC VIEW: Photobook’s Templatexpert Photostudiohas an option for spreading your large panorama images across two facing pages.

The only hiccup we found was that by default, your images will be cropped to fit into the frames in the template.

However, this is easily remedied by going into the Options then the Settings screen and unchecking the “Cut pictures to size of image box automatic.”

Once the layout is done, you can then click on the “Order” button to pay for the book and upload it to the manufacturer.

We were generally pretty satisfied with photobook.com.my – although priced slightly higher than some of the competition (RM59 for the smallest one and all the way to RM240 for the A3), you get more control of the layout and size of the finished product.

Books come in either paperback for the smaller photobooks or side-stitched hardcover for the larger ones.

Print quality is very good, with smaller photo books having a glossy finish and the large A3 one a matte finish.

Verdict: If you’re a serious photographer who wants to create a nice product but don’t want to muck about with complicated layout programs, then this is the one to go for.

Pixart.com.my

Pixart.com.my has the distinction of being one of the first companies (if not the first) to offer photo books in Malaysia at pretty reasonable prices too.

Pixart offers only two sizes of photo books – either a Pocket Photo Book (6 x 8in) or an A4-size Coffee Table Photo Book.

The one advantage of the larger Coffee Table Photo Book is that it has a little cut-out on the front which shows the photo you have on your first page.

The books come in 10 or 12 sheets, which work out to 20 or 24 pages when printed on both sides.

Pixart offers two types of prints – either the more regular offset printing similar to magazine-type printing, or the slightly more expensive “photo imaging” prints which are supposed to be the same print quality as photos produced from photo labs.

EASY: Pixart’s PhotoStylist is very easy to use, but is consequently a little lacking in more advanced features.

Like photobook.com.my, Pixart requires you to download and use its proprietary software, called Pixart Photostylist, to create your photo book.

Photostylist is actually a lot easier for the novice to use, but is also consequently less flexible when it comes to layout – for example, you have very limited control over your image layout and size, and you can’t spread a photo across two pages.

Prices are very reasonable, however, ranging from RM50 for the Pocket Photo Book to RM89 for the most expensive Coffee Table Photo Book.

Verdict: If you’re a more casual photographer with some holiday snaps to show, then Pixart’s solution is the most cost-effective option.

Ecazstudios.com.my

You’ve probably seen examples of photo books from ecazstudios.com.my at some Apple stores in the Klang Valley and with good reason – this photo book company is probably the most hands-off when it comes to making your photo book.

For one thing, Ecazstudios requires you to be familiar with applications like Apple’s iPhoto application or Adobe’s InDesign.

Furthermore, the company currently does not accept uploading of your photo book, and you will instead have to rely on plain old snail mail.

Ecazstudios also offers two sizes of photo books – 6 x 8in version as well as the A4-size but the company is more flexible when it comes to creating your photo book you can opt to create a more unique photo book in whatever size and options that you want.

Verdict: Definitely for professionals and those familiar with desktop publishing applications only. If you’re a professional and familiar with these programs like these, then you might want to take a look at what Ecazstudios has to offer.

Before starting on the easels, there are certain prerequisites to every kind of photography. In case of stock photography for example, the light fixtures need to be checked first. This is important and therefore thermometers should be available at all times
-From The Star Online -

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Arts, Photography Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.