Photobooks and Coffee Table Books/Albums. Clearing the mystery for you.

Just finished meeting another couple and the question of albums came up, with the same confused coffeetable book/photobook query coming up.

First a little of my back ground. Many years ago I was an offset printer, and when the world "computerized" was involved in the fledgling DTP industry. This required me to be on both sides of the offset print industry, both in NZ and in Hong Kong. AFAIK I was one of the first photographers in KL to offer them to couples back when they were relatively unknown, and have followed the industry with some interest.

Hopefully this blog entry will help me de-myth this whole thing for you.

What are they?
These books are similar to any store bought book you may have sitting on your book shelf. They may have either a hard or soft cover, but inside the pages are normal flexible print pages. Photos are printed on them using "dry ink" technology, and are said to be "near offset printing" quality. They sometimes referred to as print on demand books. Printing is done using a high end, commercial "photo print" quality LASER printer. Kodak, HP, Fuji and Konica Minolta all offer them.

Advantages:

• Cost per page is low.
• You can print all sorts of ideas eg. Placemats, coasters, books, playing cards, business cards
• No need to make expensive plates like you do with off set printing.
  
• Ability to print "one off" editions of books

Availability:

• MANY places do them. e.g. Apple stores, photocopy shops, online shops like Photobooks or Pixart etc.
• For photographers there are high end suppliers like Asuka

Quality:

Good, provided you do not place the same image, printed from a real photo printer next to it. To be really brutally honest: Off set printing is NOT the best method of printing photos. I have viewed some of the best locally and internationally printed "photobook" style albums and have yet to see one that "rocks my world".

Issues:

• Laser printers are notoriously difficult to calibrate to give accurate colours.
  
• Most operators do not use colour profiles eg sRGB, AdobeRGB, therefore you play russian roulette as to whether your colours will match your expectations.
  
• Quality control of paper and toner spillage can yield problem pages.
• Paper, even when "high end" is usually no where near the quality of Fuji or Kodaks photo papers.

When I meet couples I show them the same album printed on both media. The difference in contrast, saturation, and clarity is apparent immediately. For that reason, most of my couples opt for real photo paper prints, whether colour or black and white.

Let me know if you found this helpful.