For Keeps
Originally published at Sparkle Thots. Please leave any comments there.
Still around. In fact the shop has been updated pretty regularly. We are currently working on some bridal orders (blessed bridesmaids!) and busy convo-ing behind the scenes. Life has been crazy busy ever since August rolled on by. We took a couple of short trips in the last few months, had a wedding celebration in the family (of course not my kids!) and are preparing for Christmas already.
Yes, Christmas.
But still in the midst of all that jazz, I actually found the time to finish up the photobook. I realised that a number of people were asking and getting pretty darn confused with the wide selection of sites available right now and well, here’s the lowdown on the book.
I went with Photobook Singapore. A gamble of sorts because I am one of the fussiest persons alive with regards to photos, photo quality and print quality. I took a gamble because I hated how the others (like that by HP and Kodak) tended to be really thick paper. They almost felt like the pictures were printed on photo paper and then bound together. HATE. I was looking for the coffeetable book sort of feel. Like what you purchase in stores, heavyweight, about 190gsm papers that last.
all images in this spread taken with iphone 3GS hipstamatic app
Photobook Singapore was ‘selected’ because Groupon had a sale. Hah. And probably the only reason the book is done is because, the coupon was expiring. I sat aside time to select the images and went with the flow. The focus was on the kids, essentially the first 2 years of their lives. I took other gambles and was prepared for a couple of really ugly spreads but thankfully, everything worked out nicely. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my iphone 3GS hipstamatic shots turned out great. Because really, with 2 kids, you don’t always have the hands to lug the DSLR around. (Iphone 4S anyone?)
Here are a couple of spreads I took. The stats on my book are :-
1 x 11×8.5 Medium Landscape Debossed
Paper: 190gsm Photo Lustre Paper
Cover: Japanese Silk Slate 220/361
I ended up with 74 pages. If I went for basic paper, I’d have ‘excess’ value in the voucher that would be forfeited. I could lay additional pages but I didn’t want to disrupt the flow of the book. I decided to splurge on the paper instead, upgrading it to the photo lustre paper. Best decision ever. The result was perfection in my books. (Ok, minus a couple of spreads I didn’t lay too well).
I went for basics. I deleted the backgrounds, resized my photo boxes to whichever size I wanted. And laid them however I wished. Of course there was the ‘auto lay’ format or ready book formats but I liked the freedom to do whatever I pleased. Plus, I wanted something ‘classic’, that in time to come, I won’t go “what the heck was I thinking with this colour scheme / layout / accents / design?”
And so… that’s the story of my photobook.
** I have since learnt that Shutterfly also does books with this sort of thin pages. I do think Apple in house software also has this sort. A slightly thicker paper though and they have a logo if I am not wrong. This comes completely erhmm, ‘plain’. You can add the details if you’d like as an image or text.